Wednesday

Upcycled Birthday Calendar

Welcome to Thrift Store Decor for February, where every month a group of talented bloggers turn a cast off item into a treasure.

Thrift Store Decor Wood Birthday Calendar, Bliss-Ranch.com

This month's project is one of my favorites, I tend to like personalized ones.
Last summer my thrifting pal (hi Dii!) and I stopped in at a local shop.  The place is out of business now - they had lots of junk, but not the kind of junk I usually get excited about.


On this particular day they had this........

Thrift Store Decor Wood Birthday Calendar, Bliss-Ranch.com

A homemade calendar in all of it's highly varnished oak glory.

And it came with all of these little slide in tiles....

Thrift Store Decor Wood Birthday Calendar, Bliss-Ranch.com

That had numbers and months on them like this........

Thrift Store Decor Wood Birthday Calendar, Bliss-Ranch.com

For whatever reason when I first bought it, maybe because I'm blind in one eye and can't see out of the other, I thought the letters and numbers were painted on - and all I would have to do was paint over the whole lot.

Na uh uh, nope, they were stickers.

Stickers that had been glued on and varnished over.

Very well glued stickers that all had to come off, which took me longer than painting. 

Thrift Store Decor Wood Birthday Calendar, Bliss-Ranch.com

So sometime in December I sat down, according to the above photo I ate a chocolate foiled Santa, and I shaved off all the stickers.

The little blocks of wood also had to be sanded down to rid them of their glue/varnish combo, so I painted it white and set it aside because first of all I was sick of peeling off the stickers, and secondly I didn't know what the heck I was going to do with it.

The only thing I knew was that I didn't want a highly varnished oak something, hence the coat of white paint.

Thrift Store Decor Wood Birthday Calendar, Bliss-Ranch.com

I've been seeing some repurposed church hymnal boards and thought something like that would be fun, but then I got another idea that would put this old calendar back into use, as it was before but with a twist.

Then I decided I also didn't want it white.

Thrift Store Decor Wood Birthday Calendar, Bliss-Ranch.com

I gave all the oak lats a couple coats of Fusion Coal.

Fusion Mineral Paints and I were going to attempt to give the calendar an old world patina of aged copper.

At this green point, I had my doubts I was going to achieve that.  That's a pretty bright green and if you follow along here at the ranch you know I don't do many bright colors.

As I was painting brown, green, white, black, I didn't know what I was doing, but I kept doing it.

Thrift Store Decor Wood Birthday Calendar, Bliss-Ranch.com

You know what copper looks like after it turns green?  I mean real copper with a real copper patina.  Picture that in your minds eye.

Then picture someone painting over the aged copper parts with bits of the aged copper showing through the paint along with the new copper.  Like old copper church roofs.

Well that was the look I was after.

The secret weapon to getting that look was Fusion Metallic paint in copper.

I just kept layering and layering until I got the look I was after, just enough shiny copper and just enough green patina.

Thrift Store Decor Wood Birthday Calendar, Bliss-Ranch.com

I wanted a well worn old metal look, and I think that's what I got.

Thrift Store Decor Wood Birthday Calendar, Bliss-Ranch.com

I'm pleased with how it turned out with just that bit of the green showing through, and the orange-y copper in various spots but not all over.

Thrift Store Decor Wood Birthday Calendar, Bliss-Ranch.com

They say it's your B.irth D.ay, well it's our birthday too yeah.... so I'm gonna let them eat cake.

Thrift Store Decor Wood Birthday Calendar, Bliss-Ranch.com

All the kids, got their name on a slide in lat, along with Brawn and I, the son in law and the daughter in law.  Just my family which amounts to 12 name tags and birth dates.

Thrift Store Decor Wood Birthday Calendar, Bliss-Ranch.com

I added four big head tacks to the corner and customized a couple of the lats with chalkboard paint so I could chalk on how many candles go on their cake and the dessert the birthday person might request.

It can hold three names at a time for busy birthday months, like August and October.  It must have been a cold winter a few times.

Thrift Store Decor Wood Birthday Calendar, Bliss-Ranch.com
Stencils were made out of overhead projection film because my writing isn't so great as you can see where I wrote the word chocolate.

I wanted the calendar to have some color so I simply printed off old bakery advertisements and Mod Podged them onto the medium sized lats then antiqued them around the edges.

Notice the Morningside Bakery one... that's a picture of an actual sign made by my friend Angie at Knick of Time.

Thrift Store Decor Wood Birthday Calendar, Bliss-Ranch.com

The project was hung on a small sliver of wall next to our breakfast nook.  No excuse for passersby to ever forget to wish their siblings a happy birthday.

Thrift Store Decor Wood Birthday Calendar, Bliss-Ranch.com

The photo above was before I decided to add the metal tack heads in the corners. 

February's cake was made this weekend, and there is no birthday in March.  But I let them eat cake 8 out of 12 months of the year.  

August and October are packed with birthdays.  Mmmmmmm.  That explains a few things, mainly the things associated with fitting into my jeans, but the upcycled calendar is a perfect way to have a visual reminder for celebrating the best in my life........ the people and the cake! 


Get your own Fusion Mineral Paint in any color including metallics, and experiment!





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22 comments :

  1. Wow this is so much fun!! I love how you can change it up every month!

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  2. Such a cute and clever idea, Bliss. I need one in my kitchen to remind me who's birthday I forgot. The foil Santa is hilarious. They are really good in the morning!

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  3. Super cute! I love the lettering, too.

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  4. this is so unique and cool and i love the finish!

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  5. Beautiful job Bliss-especially nailing that color (patina). With a large family, I'm sure this will come in very helpful.
    Thanks for your kinds words about this "new kid on the block". :) I'm very happy to join the gang of fellow thrifters and junkers!

    gail
    ps MY birthday is in March. :)

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  6. Dang Bliss, that's just the cutest! The paint companies should say a big thank you for oak, especially golden oak. I can see you go through a lot of trial and error processes too. Sometimes that's the best part.

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  7. This is so creative and fun, Bliss...you did such a great job with it! I've never looked twice at those wood calendars...I will now! Your writing always makes me laugh...we have a lot of July and August birthdays in our family lol.

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  8. I love how you redid this Bliss--great little piece!

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  9. You always have the best projects, I really love this!

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  10. It's adorable. I'm getting ready to make a homemade birthday sign.

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  11. Love the "let them eat cake" sign for it! Looks great!

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  12. Genius at work! Could I live in your head for just one day? I don't feel like it's fair, B.
    You have the greatest ideas. I love it.

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  13. How fun! You know what happens when you talk about letting people eat cake, though....

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  14. Bliss, over the top cool in every way!

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  15. What a gorgeous paint job & a score at the thrift store!

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  16. What a unique wall hanging! I never would've thought to make that. i can't believe you actually took all of those little stickers off. That would've driven me crazy, since I'm not a patient person. Ha! I love it in your kitchen.

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  17. Love it! The paint is awesome!! Make me one :)

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  18. I'm with Kelly ... those stickers would've been a pain. Cute end results here, as always!

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  19. I absolutely adore this project. This is such a fun idea. The finish is so pretty!

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  20. This is so cute, the peeps will be remember birthdays a lot more now. Love the faux copper patina technique you came up with and how it pops against the black and white.

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  21. Love it...especially that "Let Them Eat Cake"!

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  22. I couldn't love this more! The patina and the the old time look of this calendar is just perfect! Happy Birthday my friend xo

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