Box shelves make over.

 I remember seeing these in stores a few years ago and thinking that I'd like some, but I wasn't sure where I wanted to hang them so I didn't buy them. I wasn't even thinking about changing the look of them at the time. I just liked them the way they were. Well last year when we were moving the studio I found these at Value Village and for $5 I figured I could find a spot for them in the studio and I knew they were going to get altered. I really don't like the darkness of the wood any more. Funny how your taste changes. I wanted them to be lighter so I decided to use some old book pages on them.

To get started I cut the book pages to the same width of the shelves. Them I used gel medium to adhere them. I like to put the gel medium on the object I'm gluing to and the back of the pages sparingly so it doesn't ooze out when I burnish it with a bones folder. I let this dry and them I put a coat of gel medium on top also. I've sometimes done the top layer before drying and it works too but I usually have to deal with more bubbling of the paper that way. Although the bubbles bother me when I'm working they seem to more or less all disappear once it's dry no matter how I do it. The odd one that doesn't usually just adds to that lovely grungy look that I want anyway.

Once the paper was on, the edges were looking really dark so I put a few coats of Gesso on to eliminate that.

Then it was time to distress. So I sanded all the edges and left them for a day to see how they looked and then I sanded them some more. You can hardly have too much distressing right!? They were still looking pretty white at this point so I decided to antique them with some Vintage Distress ink and a few days later decided they needed some more antiquing. And that is where they are at now. I'm still debating if they need a little more antiquing with some paint instead of just ink.
What do you think, more antiquing or leave well enough alone?

Happy Creating!

Wendy