Non-permanently painting a KitchenAid

So, I think everyone has seen the custom cut vinyl for KitchenAids. I've seen some crazy intricate ones. Just google "custom kitchenaid vinyl" if you haven't. Wow.

So even though I have a Silhouette and could easily make one for my own, I still haven't, because...reasons. Or not really any reason at all. As it would happen, though, I had some friends come over last night to work on a craft project and we ended up cutting vinyl for their KitchenAids (which was not the project we got together to work on, of course).

I had the vinyl negative left of one of the decals that I held on to because I thought it would make a good stencil for... something. And then it hit me. Why not use it to stencil my KitchenAid? I want to do light blue or yellow vinyl, which I don't have yet, so in the meantime...

I used acrylic paints and tested a little patch first. I just dabbed some on with my finger, let it dry, then made sure it scratched off as easily as I thought it would.

Then...

So that'll hold until I get vinyl in the color I want. There are some parts where it seeped under the stencil, but I'll just wait until it dries and then scratch it off. So easy. I wish I was a talented painter- I'd do an all-over floral design. Sigh. I suppose it wouldn't be worth it, since this probably won't take thorough wipe downs very well.
 

Basket light!

I was hooked when I saw this.  I went that same day to DI and found a basket that would work.  But of course, there wasn't a bottom on it.  So I bought another basket and cut a circle out of it.

After I wired them together, I spray painted it brushed nickel.  I considered using black, like my inspiration, but I just didn't think it would look right in my kitchen. 
So I took my silver basket, added one of these:

And two of these:

And some paint.
Here's what I got:

Don't mind the top bit looking kind of gross- I'm doing some touch up.
I love how it looks.  The old fixture wasn't awful- it did have a brass bits, which I always meant to paint but never got around to- but it was just kind of blah.
Here's a wider shot:

Pardon the flash, but it was really back lit and I didn't want to wait until tomorrow to get a picture.

So, overall, I'm loving it.  I just started to wish I had used a smaller flower pot saucer for on top of the basket, but I'm ok with it.  In fact, I love it.

Check out these bad boys.

I couldn't just leave those flower pots empty, right?
Enter styrofoam balls, dollar store flowers, cheap grapevine wreaths, and sheet moss.  Mike actually thinks these are pretty neat (not that he dislikes my other stuff, he's just mostly indifferent).  The original plan was to cover all the spheres in moss, but after doing three I was pretty sick of working with the stuff and its mess, and I had the leftover leaves from the pulled apart dollar store flowers, so that's where the guy on the left comes from.  I'm loving it.

Yep, still loving it.
Tonight I embark on an electrical journey.

Nothing much

I needed something more on my kitchen table:

That little red tray just wasn't enough, and my only table runner is also red and is a heavy fabric and feels more fall/winterish to me (it's funny, even a few months ago I would not have thought about fall/winter vs. spring/summer fabric types, but now I do- and I care, which is weird to me).

So I made this little runner/mat.  I had all the fabric already (I'm also making a top for Mim out of the white stuff- stay tuned), so I just cut some strips and ruffled them.  The ruffle took more than twice as long as it should have, because for the first three strips I had the tension on my machine turned way up, instead of down.  If you don't count the time it took to unpick all that business and do it again, this definitely took less than an hour.  I didn't hem any of the white edges; I wanted them to fray.  I love the look of all that ruffly white next to the rough burlap. 

I think I'll make a bunch of table runners now, and change them for seasons and holidays.