Thrifted Clock Swedish Chalk Paint Re-Do, Upcycled Cake Heart = Ivy Topiary

Thrifted Clock Swedish Chalk Paint Re-Do-
A week or two ago I blogged about the nice wooden clock that I found at Goodwill for $5.00-

When I saw the shape it reminded me of Mora clocks from Sweden with the curvy lines-

The clock was made out of nice heavy wood so it was pretty well made. I did a little research and decided to do a light gray chalk paint. I used the same brand that I used for painting the inside of my china cabinet. The color of the paint is called Yesteryear-
     
                                                       

The inside part of the clock that holds the battery and has the face with the hands on the other side was duct taped in. It had four tiny screws, three of which had already snapped off. There was only one screw in place, so I basically gently twisted and the whole piece of plastic was able to come out. First thing I had to do was take it apart and remove the insides since the previous owner had gotten some spray paint on the edges of the glass-

I was able to scrape the glass paint off the glass using a razor and then when cleaned the glass. I put a battery in to make sure that it actually worked, which it did! I thought about replacing the clock face with a different color or style. After seeing the way that the battery pack was attached to the front it wouldn't have really been worth the time and effort to try and retrofit it that.

I would have liked a white clock face with numbers or Roman numerals, rather than the gold, but I decided to live with it. Sometimes when you're retrofitting something you wind up doing more damage than good if you work on it too much!

I used a medium sized craft paint brush and a wide foam brush. The foam brush worked really well for the wide sides since I wanted to minimize brush marks-

I gave the clock two coats of chalk paint with letting it dry really well in between coats-

After everything dried really well I put a really I put the glass in. I put a really small bead of clear liquid nails on the plastic piece and put it into place. I let all of that dry overnight. I put the back on today and set it up. I think it came out great!  The clock was $5 and the paint was $8.00 at Hobby Lobby, total investment was about $6 since I have lots of paint left over. And I LOVE the gray!

Upcycled Cake Heart = Ivy Topiary-
When we did our remodeling on our master bathroom I decided to put a plant there. I found a nice terracotta pot that was slightly whitewashed at Goodwill for a couple dollars and planted an ivy in it-

I looked around for another plant stake like this one but couldn't find one-

Bird stake from a few years ago

The plant has done really well but I wanted to put a heart-shaped topiary frame into the pot. I looked around town but couldn't really find what I was looking for and then I stumbled onto a farm-style rustic cake topper. I found this at Hobby Lobby and suddenly realized I could use it instead-

The first thing I did was rub some cooking oil on the bare wood that was going to be going into the soil to protect it. Next I sat down with the ivy and started very carefully untangling the vines. I lost a few leaves during this process but they will grow back as the plant is healthy-

After I started winding the ivy around the base and up both sides I realized that there were some loose pieces of the vines. I didn't have any thin wire so I used sewing thread in a dark green. I wound it loosely around the heart and the base. It helps see the heart shape and the base isn't quite so bulky. It came out nice, but I will still keep my eye out for a metal one that would be a little bit bigger. Total cost was $6 for the heart shape.