Pretty Kitchen Counter Organization

I submit to you, the most annoying project ever. Okay, maybe not quite as annoying as my earring hanger/organizer project. But a close second. Annoying enough to drive me to eat chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream out of the carton. Hey, it’s a small carton!

Remember when my dip-dye fetish resulted in this cute little glass container? Well, it’s been sitting on my kitchen counter, looking all gorgeously domestic and cute. But the utensil holders next to it…

Kinda “meh.”

I was rinsing out a salsa jar when I had the brilliant (at the time) idea to dip-dye paint a few jars and make matching utensil holders. This was supposed to be a quick little project that I’d work on in between coats of paint on the end table. But nooooo.

Humidity. Is. The. Devil.

I’m blaming all my problems on the humidity. Every time I peeled the painters tape off, the paint came with. Or it just left weird, bubbly warped edges. So my quick little project turned into constant attempts to repaint/fill in bare spots. I have no idea if the humidity really is to blame, but I do know that paint takes longer to cure in humid environments (hence why the end table is getting two nights in between coats of white now).

Eventually I just decided it was “good enough.”

Honestly, I’m not loving them as much as I love the square guy. I have a few more pasta sauce and salsa jars, so there may be an update in the future. I also kind of feel compelled to throw my “van gogh-esque” container in the middle to mix it up visually a bit. That container was a pre-blog project, painted with acrylic paint and actually sprayed with acrylic sealer.

Has anyone else had problems with humidity and painters tape? Maybe painters tape is not meant for acrylic paint?

From clear glass to glam

Dip dye time!

Here’s what I started with. Square glass container/vase. It came with a flower arrangement. I’ve been using it to hold miscellaneous stuff on my kitchen counter (soy sauce packets from Chinese takeout, beer caps waiting to become magnets, hot chocolate packets, etc).

First coat of acrylic paint. Clearly, it’s going to take a few more.

I taped it off with masking tape (I didn’t have any painter’s tape) and started on the blue “dip dye.”

And the final product….

Dip Dyed Stuff

Lately, I’ve been really liking the dip dyed trend. I know it’s not new, but up until now, I hadn’t found a way to incorporate it into my decor.

I really like these dip dyed mason jars (because everything crafty involves mason jars, right?) by the Beauty Department:

But I don’t have any mason jars (should have accepted my old roommate’s offer – we had a ton we used as glasses) and I don’t really need to organize my bathroom countertop. I keep as much of my stuff as possible hidden in drawers, partly because I like a bare countertop and party to keep it away from the SassCat. Many decorating decisions are influenced by the SassCat.

I also love the idea of dip dying table legs, like this DesignSponge post. Here’s an “after” shot, for the full makeover, click through to DesignSponge.

Sadly, I don’t have any end tables to makeover. And nowhere to spray paint things. 😦

So how is a girl to get her dip dye fix?

Well, that’s for the next post!