Happy Pink Nightstand

So my mom gifted this little nightstand to me.

It needed a bath and a good sanding when I got it home, so naturally I stuck it in the building with like 80 other pieces of furniture that need love. I’d show you what it looked like then, but I forgot to take pictures.

You’ll have that.

Some unremembered number of days later, I got it out, washed it, dried it, sanded a few spots, and used a heck of a lot of wood filler to fix some scratches and other not-so-great spots.

The layers of wood on top were chipped in a few places so I decided that I’ll Mod Podge some kind of collage and not worry about making it perfectly smoothtastic. Then sad little nightstand got to hang out in the building for a few more days.

Lots and lots of days later, I sanded what I’d used wood filler on and wiped it down with a microfiber cloth..or a towel.. it was something made of fabric. I gave it a good once over for the 8th time and decided to paint. I thinned some Kilz, filled the paint cup, and got to work with my HomeRight CommandMax HVLP paint sprayer *name drop*. I gave the nightstand a few coats of primer and let it dry for a few more days.

During the extended drying time, I went in search of a drawer pull since it didn’t come with one. I found a neat little butterfly at Hobby Lobby.

My, what a heavy butterfly.

That inspired me to finish the project in a timely manner (lol) and gave me an idea for the collage I want to do on the top. I mixed a lovely shade of pale happy pink and gave it a few coats and now it looks super cute!

I went back and painted the sides of the drawer, too.

After it baked in the sun for hours, I brought it inside and tried different papers on the top of the nightstand.

I ❤ paper!

Once I’d picked out the main pieces, two that will have to overlap, I used my thumbnail to crease the paper along the top’s curved edge and then cut along the line I’d made. It matched up well after I cut, so I’m glad I tried that way first instead of endless measurements that probably would have resulted in me wasting paper. I started to cut around part of the design on one sheet with a pair of scissors but finished up with my X-ACTO knife (and I’ll tell you about how much I love craft knives later.)

Then I cut some ridiculously tiny butterflies with ridiculously tiny feet and antennae out of another piece of scrapbook paper and couldn’t avoid cutting off their tiny ridiculousness.

No worries. I’ll draw their feet and antennae back on.

I found some leaves, too.

Also featured: Lily & Mommy feets

Cute! (But that red carpet isn’t.)

And now here we are. I have a lot of paper to glue down. I think the drawer pull needs some colour, though. Maybe dark pink? But then I found this one when I dug through my box of random drawer pulls and I don’t even want to use the butterfly anymore! Now to find some screws….