Thrift Store Makeover #4

Hey, it's me. Today is a thrift store makeover, but technically it's a little different. Little less. Little more. Little. Because this, I actually found at a yard sale, not a thrift store. Why are you petting it? It's basically the same thing. I'm gonna give it a makeover, so it doesn't really matter at all. So, so, it is a wooden carousel wall hanging with lots of different, um, flourishes added to it. Flourishes, is that the right word? I don't think so. Honestly, it's slightly hideous. Just a little. I think it's just that it's very outdated. Even the lady I bought it from, she was like, Oh, you want that? Okay, um, sure. She probably had this laying around in her attic for like 20 years. Just look at the nice layer of dust and grime. Ew. It has this very nice lace lining the edges. Some very dull looking colors. Where's all the contrast? Where's the pop? Where's the vibrancy? It's very dull. I think the lace is responsible for the very strong musty smell. It's lovely. Down here, we find the three horses. They each have a crusty little nest of ribbon and pearls. It's a little wild. This one has a darling little rose, but I guess the other two fell off. And look at that, more lace down here. What do we got under here? Excuse me. There's a couple little tiny pegs for hanging things. I guess very small things. Barbie's purse or a hat for a mouse. I don't know. Oh, maybe jewelry actually. Yeah, that would work. And a lot more dust and grime. So my first step is going to remove all the trimmings. I'm just gonna pop these off. This one was a little more stubborn. Send in backup. Got the rose. All right, there they go. And the last one. Bye. So there's the ribbon spiders off to a wonderful land called Trash Can. Now to take care of this lace. I'm gonna flip it over. Oh, there's a price sticker on it. Apparently, at one point, this was sold for $3.99. Nobody cares. So let's cross our fingers that this lace is gonna come off. Um, yeah, it's on there pretty well. Oh, there we go. Once I found a weak point, it peeled off a little easier. Out with that musty lace. And I have to strip it off on the bottom as well. Honestly, I'm impressed at how well this glue has held up. It is strong. I had to use a knife in some spots. Don't cut toward yourself. There you go. Cutting through the glue. And here's the final stretch. Kind of satisfying to see that go. But there's still all these glue boogers. So I use my knife. This knife is definitely gonna win MVP today. I'm just trying to get those big hunks of glue off as carefully as possible without chewing up the wood or injuring myself. Owie. And, well, you can't see anything that's going on here. That's all right. Nothing to see here. Move along. I also took care of some of the glue on the back, which isn't going to be visible at all because this thing is going to be hung on the wall. So that doesn't really matter. But yeah, sure, go on. Waste your time. I don't care. Now going into Darth Vader mode. What is happening? I'm gonna sand this a little bit to try to remove and smooth the rest of the glue residue. Yeah, I'm a poet. So I started with a very coarse sandpaper at first to kind of take care of all the dirty work. And then I went in with a finer sandpaper to smooth it out a little bit better. And now there's even more dust covering everything than before. So let me just clean all of that up. I just can't work in these conditions. Oh, someone's panties got caught in the vacuum. Those are mine. Get that out of there. All right. So now, who liked that magic trick? Nope, that wasn't good. I'm taking a damp paper towel and just wiping everything down, cleaning off the years of grime and skin cells of other people that I don't know. We just need a fresh start here. And as you can see, there was plenty of dirt that came off of this. So that's a good feeling. And now I'm getting a little bit obsessive. Are we surprised? No. I'm using an air duster to clean between the legs. That's always very important. I'm an adult. I promise. Now's the time where I really start looking at these legs. What are these legs? Like, what is that shape? Those are some crazy legs, are they not? Finally, this thing has been stripped naked, scrubbed, and bathed. I think it already looks a hundred times better. I like it. So that completes my thrift store makeover. Hope you enjoyed. K, bye. No. I'm just getting started. So here comes my gesso. That wasn't me. That was the gesso. And my workout for the day. Gotta stay fit, you know? So here's gesso. Really not sure why I'm making a point to show this on camera. But yeah, I'll keep it in there, I guess. There's the gesso. Now, applying gesso is a step that you take before actually painting. It's just a primer. And this is acrylic gesso. So it's acrylic paint primer. Because it will actually help the paint to apply nicely and evenly. And it also just makes it easier to paint over a solid white background versus a darker color. If you don't use gesso, you may just see a little more streaks when you paint. The paint may not stick as well, depending on what you're painting on. And you may have to do a couple more coats of paint. But you can still make it work. Gesso is not absolutely critical. But I have it, so I use it. Back. I'm making sure to get in all the crevices. Gessoing those crazy legs. So I bought this piece. So I bought this hunk of junk for my art room. I actually don't have any wall hangings in there as of now. So I've been looking around for some. And I thought that this would be just perfect. You know, once I rip everything off and completely change everything about it. It does have a really nice bone structure. The shape is really good. The crazy legs are a little questionable. But we can deal. The only problem with it was really that it just had a little too much nonsense stuck to it, in my opinion. And it's just not fun and colorful enough for me. It's a carousel. Carnival. Color. Come on. So here it is, all fresh and ready to paint. Oh, I love that pure white of blank canvas, ready to be decorated. What a beautiful sight. So I'm going to be using these acrylic paints from the brand... Mont Marti? Mont Marti. This is actually the first time I read the brand name on these. So here I go. I'm going to mix my colors. And I'm going for a lighter and darker version of each. Pink, yellow, and a greenish blue or teal. Aqua. Tiffany. Take your pick. And this is going to be my color scheme. Now, before anyone utters the word rainbow... No. This is not rainbow. As a fan of rainbow, I do have a small pet peeve when people call things rainbow that are just simply not rainbow. I know it's really petty and I shouldn't care at all. I know. I just can't. Just because something is colorful, it doesn't make it rainbow. I think it has to have at least almost all of the colors of the rainbow in it. And they have to be in the correct order. Okay. And now I've talked about this for way too long and probably annoyed everyone. So I'll stop now. Thank you. For the horses, I did paint them in slightly lighter versions of each of the colors, which you can't really tell. It's not that noticeable of a difference. Maybe I should have made that difference a little more severe. I don't know. But I don't mind it too much. And the bottom is going to get really wild. I'm sketching it out here. I'm just going to get like real psychedelic out here and do swirls of color that just travel over the whole bottom like liquid. That was creepy. So here we go painting that in. Now I know there's going to be someone who comments, Oh, I liked it better when it was just plain wood. You ruined it when you added all the color. Which is totally okay. You can absolutely feel that way. I happen to like to decorate things and I enjoy going for a very colorful look and it's fun for me. It's a fun time. Could I have left it bare wood? Sure. Would it have looked good like that? Sure. But then, you know, this video probably wouldn't exist because that would have been really boring. I think I'm being too ranty today. Let's not complain anymore today. Let's only say positive things for the rest of the video. Um, well, this footage is kind of out of focus. Whoops, that wasn't positive. I'm just continuing to paint along. This part reminds me of candy or something. I don't know why, but it just looks like I could just eat it. And here are some aesthetic close-ups. You know what we have to do. Somebody on my last video commented that they've missed that song. And you know what? I agree. It was time to hear it again. So that was for you. Now I'm not going to bother painting the back of the horses because this is going to stay on the wall. And you know, you would really have to like shove your face against the wall and really strain your eyeballs to see the backs of the horses. Actually, I don't even know if you could. So I'm not painting the backs. But I do want to make sure that the sides are nice and covered, which is a little tricky. You gotta really get in there. There's a lot of crevices for the paintbrush to reach. Now I'm going in with a second coat over the bottom to try to neaten up that chaos. I am really happy with how the color scheme came out. I will say I don't think it's completely accurate carnival colors. In fact, my nails are probably more like actual carnival colors. But still, it has that bright and bold carnival feel. Also, side note, I know that carnivals aren't the only place to find carousels. You can find them at the freaking shopping mall sometimes. I'm just saying I went for a carnival feel. That's why I keep on talking about carnivals. Okay, anyway, back to the video. At the same time, it fits with my kind of pastel-ish aesthetic. I went back and forth about the color scheme a million times. I was gonna do pink, orange, and green. And then pink, yellow, and green. Pink, yellow, and blue. Pink, green, and blue. And then I finally settled on pink, yellow, and teal. Aqua, Tiffany, take your pick. And fun fact, I actually, for the first time ever, perfectly planned how much paint I needed to cover this thing. I used every drop of paint that I mixed. And I needed not a drop more. It was amazing. That never happens. I almost always have tons of paint left over. Washed. But then like six months later, it's all crusty. And I have to throw it away anyway. Um, a mess. But yeah, wasn't that a fun fact? I feel like every time I say fun fact, it's actually just the most pointless piece of information. And believe it or not, the painting is done. Can you believe it? Yeah, I believe it. Unbelievable. So is it finished? Is it done? Are we done yet? Nope. I'm gonna add a few things to this. I actually got this from a super nice person who felt it in her heart to send me some craft supplies for no reason other than to be nice. It's basically just like a glittery string. And I'm gonna use it to trim the edges of the carousel roof thing. So I'm taking my hot glue gun. This is a weapon of mass decoration. And I'm gonna slowly and carefully work my way around. I am trying to be very careful because I don't want to make big globs of hot glue that are visible and ugly. Which maybe did happen once or twice. Shoot. There's possibly a better way to do this or a better glue to use. Something that would be completely invisible. But I didn't know what to do. Where were you to help me? You weren't there. I was all alone. I had to work with what I had. It's not that big of a deal. You can barely see the glue at all. And it's just in like one or two places. So this worked totally fine. I'm just being dramatic for no good reason. I really like how this added to it. I think it made it really come alive. It was totally a last minute add-on. I just felt like it needed something. So I opened my drawer of Little Shinies and found this. And oh, it was just the thing it needed. Lesson. This is why it's good to hoard craft supplies. You never know what you're gonna need. Nope, that's not a good lesson. I also decided to add the string wrapping around the horse poles. I don't know what they're called. So I'm forced to give them stupid names. I definitely should have applied the glue on the back side so that there was no chance of it being visible. But you know, of course, I realize these things after the fact when it's, you know, too late. You silly dummy. Here I am securing it on the back. Yes, the back is real ugly. But we are okay with that. Wait, what the heck? Why are the backs of the horses painted? I thought I didn't paint the backs of the horses. Now I'm not gonna bother painting the back of the horses. Well, okay then. And just trimming off the excess string. The spacing is a little off. The wrapping switches directions halfway down, which looks a little whack. Let's only say positive things for the rest of the video. That's okay. And you know what? This needs more little shinies. So yes, I'm using a dotting tool to apply a small dot of Mod Podge at a time to glue these tiny little shinies. Can I stop saying little shinies, please? Because the horses looked a little too plain and flat in my opinion. So I wanted to glam them up a little bit. Finally, I'm applying a coat of Mod Podge. Please don't spill that. Over the entire thing to seal everything on and protect the paint from chipping. So we started with this musty, dusty, crusty carousel. And now it's fun, fresh, and completely unique. I think it's such an improvement. So colorful and happy looking. I'm super happy with it. And here I go hanging it on this very naked wall in my art room. Yeah, I really love pretty much everything about it. I think this is my favorite thrift store makeover that I've done so far, actually. I looked around everywhere for something small enough to hang on those small pegs. But all I could find was a couple mini squishies from way back in the day. I have this blue cake roll with candy on top or sprinkles on top. So sure, I guess that makes sense to hang them there. I hope you guys have enjoyed this makeover. Thank you so much for watching. And I will see you next Friday. Bye!