Suitcase Renovation: Part 3 (Finally!)

Well, here it is! Finally finished! This little project took me slightly longer than I thought. Whenever somebody asks me how long something takes, I usually give my pattented answer...."about 20 minutes" but I'm not going to lie to you, this baby took a lot longer than 20 minutes to renovate! But I think it was worth all the time because it's going to make a PDA (pretty darn awesome) jewelry display case for an upcoming show. I painted the flowers and Honey Girl Studio label with acrylic paint. I'll seal it with clear spray but I can't today because it's super windy here today.

Here is the inside with the collaged wooden hangers secured on the sides with screws.

There are 12 pegs on each crossbar so I can get 48 pieces of jewelry in the case.

I glued these cork squares on the top so that I can just write the prices of items and push pin them to the cork. It will be easy to change.
All in all, I really like the way it turned out. When I get the jewelry made and displayed inside I'll post a picture.

Remember this........................


Was turned into this............... whew-whooooo.......let's here it for upcycling! Hey, checkout the previous post to enter into a jewelry giveaway!

Suitcase Renovation Part 2 & Give Away!

First things first, I know, I'm a day late as I promised a summer solstice jewelry giveaway but I missed posting it yesterday so I'm posting it now. Summer is in full bloom and to celebrate the burst of blooming color I created this leather heart pendant. It measures 22 inches long on a cord created from fabric and embellished with tiny orange seedbeads. The heart is about 2 inches long, hand painted and sealed with a clear varnish, however do not jump into the pool with it on! To be in the drawing, just leave a comment and I'll randomly pick a winner on Friday, June 25th!

Now back to the Suitcase Renovation: Part 2.......

I added another layer to the faux finish then began collaging different decorative papers on both sides of the inside of the case.

Here I'm measuring the crossbars for length. I cut 1/4 inch dowel rods into 2 inch pieces which I'll drill holes into the cross bars and insert them to hang the jewelry on.

Here they are all together and ready for paint. I guess there will be a Part 3 to show you all the finished project! I should get it together by later today so check back for tomorrow. :-)

Suitcase Jewelry Display......

Welcome to part one of "Suitcase Renovation" also known as "pimp my suitcase"! So I'm looking for a cool jewelry display that has to be relatively light, sturdy, portable and cute. Kind of a tall order, eh? One time of Flickr I saw where somebody turned an old suitcase into a jewelry display although not to the degree that I have cooking up in my noggin'.

Part 1: The stripping and painting of LulaMay

Enter.....the "PDU" suitcase, (that's sort for "pretty darn ugly). It's one of those hard-sided old suitcases that were typical in the 1950s-1970s. Well I suppose I should name the suitcase at this point, so I'm going to call her LulaMay. LulaMay has good hardware that works, very little wear on the trim and the sides are in good shape.

The inside of LulaMay was pristine, too bad I'm going to tear it all out! Kind of reminds me of the inside of a coffin....creepy!

The anatomomy of a suitcase......padding, wood, pleather trim and canvas. As you can see here I tore out the lining and the thin cotton batting that was underneath it. The glue that was left over on the top of the lid flaked right off with a puddy knife. I'm not worrying about any bumps because I'm going to faux finish and collage the inside of it.

I painted a coat of Gesso the the entire outside of the LulaMay being careful to go around the trim.Next I painted the inside with a base of Gesso. I worked on both the outside and inside at the same time.

Here I'm applying a coat of sandy beige to the inside of the suitcase over the Gesso.

I applied a coat of "spa blue" in the Delta acrylics line to the outside of the suitcase over the Gesso. It covered remarkably well with just one coat.

I decided to do a vintage faux finish in the inside so here it is with just a few layers applied. I have yet to put on the darker brown because I was losing light last night as I finished up around 8:45 PM.

Oh yah! Now LulaMay is starting to look "PDG"......pretty darn goooooooooood!

So hop back over tomorrow to see the inside of the suitcase. I started on it this morning and it's looking "PDA".....pretty darn awesome! Until you visit again...... SMILES!