Weekend Wrap-Up! DIY'ed out!

Am linking up once again with Patty's Weekend Wrap Up # 7!!!!

OK, so let's rewind to Saturday morning...I woke up feeling absolutely lousy and icky! Throat was scratchy, eyes were watery, nose was sniffly...yes, the darn pollen had given me allergies again! I was upset cos I had so many things I had planned to do, including going to the theater for 2 movies! But then I figured this was my body's way of saying I needed a break, so I resigned myself to a chilled out weekend, just sipping tea and laying on the couch and reading! Well...obviously I was not thinking too clearly, because in all of my years, I have never been able to successfully "chill out"!

So there I was, book in hand, getting ready to read when my eyes chanced upon my bottles of paint left over from my wooden box DIY project!

Hmmmmmm I thought....what could I do with those paints???? Of course the green paint I had intended for my table runner project(explained below), but the red paint and the black paint and the brown paint....surely I could do something with them? And that precise moment was when my crazed DIY weekend began.....not only did I paint everything unadorned and naked in the house, I decoupaged, I leaf stencilled, I cut, I paste, I ModPodged.....yes! In other words, in one fell swoop, from being Mistress of Misery and Allergies, I became the Duchess and Fiend of DIY's!!!! Nothing was spared.....and it was way more therapeutic than resting in bed!

So here then, are all the poor innocent victims of my rampage. A word of warning - this is a rather long, prose heavy, picture heavy post, so go get a cup of tea or coffee or whatever it is you need to sustain you!

First this poor woman got a paint makeover. She had been laying broken and flesh colored all these years (an gift from my brother-in-law years ago). Last week my husband glued her back together and this week she got some bright clothes painted on! Plus she had no choice. It had to be green, red and black.

Then came this rather plain looking box...

Inspired by Vineeta's decoupaged trays, I cut out a whole lot of artwork pictures from an old ART magazine....

......and turned the box into this

Next came my leaf imprint table runner project....! For those who have not been following, this is what I was aspiring to make. A $86 leaf imprinted table runner from Poppytalkhandmade

I started by collecting a few assorted leaves, and then picked the one with the sawtooth edges.....I also felt it had the strongest veined pattern on the back for a better impression

Then I took some red paint and brushed on some on the back of it

Then I experimented on an old piece of cloth. I laid it down, pressed on it with my palm gently, then removed the leaf....

Not bad huh? Emboldened by this, I then did the same thing on a plain cream colored muslin runner. 

Then after I was done, I washed it, starched it, ironed it and voila! Here it is......

OK, so I'll be the first to admit it is nowhere close to the real thing, but for an hour of afternoon fun, and about 20 rupees/50 cents in paint (I had the runner to begin with)...its not too shabby! I had intended to buy some really expensive beige linen if this came out satisfactory, but I think for the meantime I will stick with this. 

So there you have it.....my crazy DIY weekend! That pretty much took up all my time. Then of course last evening, was the festival of Karthika Deepam for us, the festival we celebrate on the full moon day of the month of Karthigai. So I lit some lamps in and outside the house. 

So needless to say I didn't rest too much, and am dearly paying the price for it today. Still have the insane allergies, but they seem to be leaving me. I really must stop all this DIY'ing and get back to some good designy posts. Am hoping to do that this week!