Dress Up Wardrobe

Ever since I saw Jenna’s dress up closet she made for her daughter, I’ve been wanting to do one too.

So stinking cute and the perfect idea for the Varathane #LoveYourWood Challenge.

What does that mean?

Well I was contacted recently by Varathane to see if I’d like to participate in a challenge along with some other amazing Canadian bloggers to see what we come up from mailed mystery supplies.

Challenge accepted.

Isn’t the dress up wardrobe I created cute?  My daughter loves it.

And honestly I’ve been so crazy busy with life these days I didn’t think I’d be able to do it but DIY projects are always a great distraction for me.

Okay, so let’s back it up.

Here is the mystery box that Varathane sent me.

Inside the middle box were five items.  Luckily I only had to pick three of the five items because I wouldn’t know what to do with a bag of blue marbles or picture hanger wire.

I picked the rope, lion drawer pull and black hook.

The Ultimate Wood Stain came in Kona and you can see there was also the Triple Thick One Coat Clear Finish.

I hadn’t used these products before but was super happy with them.  I love the One Coat Clear Finish and the stain really did only need one coat.

I would definitely use them again, it was a HUGE time saver.

I had a few wood ideas but it required time I didn’t have so I choose an unfinished Ikea dresser for the challenge.

Supplies:

• Varathane/Rustoleum Ultimate Wood Stain in Kona
• Varathane Triple Thick Clear Coat
• Tarva Ikea dresser
• stencil of flower
• thick rope
• hooks

Tutorial:

1. I put together the dresser according to the instruction manual EXCEPT the drawers.  Instead I used the sides of the drawers for the bottom of the wardrobe.  I needed to cut one piece to make them all fit and just used a jigsaw.  Then make sure to sand all the wood at least lightly.

2 & 3. I made my own stencil using my Silhouette Cameo machine as I wanted it to look like inlayed wood.   Click HERE for my newbie Silhouette Cameo tutorial and HERE for a similar project.

4. Stain with a rag or brush.  I used a foam brush.

5. I screwed the drawer pieces to the bottom of the wardrobe and spray painted the pull and hook with a cream coloured spray paint.

6. I made sure that the pull and hook went in through the centre of the flowers.

7. The backing of the dresser was just a piece of particle board.  I painted it pink to make it more girly for my daughter (her favourite colour).

8. For the final step, I drilled two holes on either side of the wardrobe, thread the rope through and knotted each end.

Side note: before you paint over Silhouette vinyl pieces, you have to seal it with Mod Podge or the paint will leak through.  I did that here as well and tried to wipe the glue off around the flowers before applying the stain but you can see where the stain didn’t take around the flowers because of the glue.  I’m wondering if I could just avoid that step altogether?

Okay, I’m really in love with it and so is my daughter.

I accepted the challenge but really didn’t know if it was going to work out.

And it did have it’s challenges.

Can we say challenges one more time?