Printing on Con-Tact paper + Utensil holder makeover

I'd been on the hunt for a colorful utensil holder. You know, the canister by the stove where you put all your spatulas and slotted spoons.

There was nothing wrong with the one I had, but it was stainless steel. And next to a stainless steel toaster, in between a stainless stove and a stainless fridge under a stainless hood... well, things were looking a bit too samey. I wasn't finding anything I loved, which signaled it was time to change up the one I had with some paint.

I decided to make a sticker/stencil of sorts with Con-Tact paper. This is one of my favorite techniques for creating custom designs. The poor man's version of a crafter's die cut machine, if you will.

First, I found a shield shape via Google images and re-sized it in Photoshop. 

Then I printed it out on the paper backing side of a piece of clear Con-Tact paper with my normal home ink jet printer. Warning: Don't print on the shiny sticker side! And you probably don't want to send Con-Tact paper through a laser printer because they can get very hot and who knows what kind of mess that might make.

I cut the shape out with a scissors...

And stuck it like a sticker onto my surface, making sure to burnish down all the edges really well. I also masked off the top/inside and bottom of the can with some painters tape and paper so they would be protected.

Next, I spray painted the utensil holder for a smooth, glossy finish with aqua Valspar spray paint (Tropical Oasis). Valspar must have changed the formula recently because this dried a lot "harder" than when I worked with the same paint in the past. Much better! Plus it has a built-in primer and you can spray upside down and it dries super fast and it's cheap (only $3.98!). Winning x5.

After the paint had dried, I carefully peeled up the Con-Tact paper sticker. There was a little bit of gummy residue leftover, but I was able to remove it with some vegetable oil.

Sharp lines! The paint seriously looks like a factory finish. And the shield, my own personal superhero insignia. But if I ever get tired of the shield, I can just spin the can around to reveal the plain backside. Two in one!

Update: Con-Tact paper as privacy film

It's been almost a year since I used clear Con-Tact paper as privacy film on our basement windows and I thought I'd give an update. I get a fair amount of hits about this project and just wanted to encourage anyone who has been thinking about doing it. It's held up extremely well and looks as good as the day I put it up. Try it! It's a great, cheap alternative to pricey window film!

The "Heidi" chair: a dumpster find makeover

These 70's dinette chairs are pretty common. In the two days since I painted mine, I saw one on a porch and some more in the back of a pickup.

Before

Mine was a dumpster find from years ago. I have never particularly liked this chair, but I kept it around because a chair's a chair. And you can always use an extra chair.

And it just so happened that we needed another chair in our office. The room is kind of dim and there's a lot of dark brown going on, so I thought I would give it a snappy paint job in a bright color. If a quick makeover couldn't sway my affections, then nothing could.

I wanted to give the chair just a little detailing, so I made some stickers from contact paper to mask off parts of the original finish. I had been brainstorming about printing on contact paper and broke my own rule about not sending things with adhesive through my newish printer. (It's OK; the contact paper is pretty well stuck to the paper backing, unlike adhesive labels.) If you have a die-cut machine, this technique will be of little use to you. But for those of us without one, this is an easy way to create custom stickers from contact paper.

I found a shape from a dingbat font called Fell Flowers 2 and enlarged it to fit a space on my chair.

I did a test print on regular paper and did a rough cut around the shape and sized it up on my chair.

Then I printed the design on the contact paper backing. I didn't print on the contact paper itself because I imagine that would have been a smeary mess. It is important to note that you probably should NOT do this with a laser printer as they get very hot and would probably melt the contact paper.

I carefully cut out the shapes.

After cleaning the chair, I removed the paper backing and placed the stickers. I used clear contact paper, so it is kind of hard to see in the photo. I had originally planned to mask off the feet of the chair as well because I love the "socks" look on furniture, but they were a bit dinged up and needed to be painted.

This was my first time using a spray primer. Are they all that spattery? Yikes!

It's OK, though. The red spray paint pretty much covered the spatter dots. After the chair was dry to the touch, I carefully peeled off the stickers.

Doesn't it look cute? I'm really happy with the way it turned out. It doesn't feel as frumpy anymore.

I'm going to give the seat and the back a coat or two of clear polyurethane to seal them, but not the spindles or the legs because I fear it would be a nightmare of drippiness.

So why the "Heidi" chair? I haven't read Heidi since grade school and I honestly don't remember much about it. But something about those flowery shapes, the spindles and the red strikes me as very folk arty. The name "Heidi" popped into my head and wouldn't let go. So I went with it.

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Father's day "photobooth" bookmark

I totally stole this idea from my friend Jodi, who made them for her husband and dad last year. While I'm content to use anything as a bookmark (magazine subscription card, piece of junk mail, scrap of paper, another book), Dan feels he needs to use a "proper" bookmark. And because he reads about 20 times as much as I do, I thought I would oblige.

Since Elise is rather uncooperative in front of the camera, I didn't think we would have much of a chance taking any good photos in an actual photobooth. So I took a bunch of shots at home while she was behaving. Yes, we both need haircuts.

I picked out the ones I liked best, cropped them, changed them to grayscale and resized them in Photoshop. Then I arranged them in a photobooth-like strip. I know photo strip photos are typically vertical, but all of my photos were horizontal and I didn't think this had to be 100 percent authentic or anything.

I actually came away with too many "good" photos, so I made two strips, one for the front and one for the back of the bookmark. I printed the strips together on one piece of white cardstock.

And then trimmed them to look like real photo strips.

I picked out a piece of patterned scrapbook paper I had and cut a piece twice the width of my final bookmark dimensions.

I folded it lengthwise so that the pattern side of the paper would appear on both sides.

Then I assembled the whole thing with a glue stick and let it dry.

I cut a piece of clear laminating film (a.k.a. Con-Tact paper) slightly larger than twice the width of the bookmark.

Then I covered the bookmark with the contact paper and rubbed my fingernail all over to make sure it was good and stuck. They make a burnishing tool for occasions like this, but I will continue to use my fingernail because it works.

Last, I trimmed the off the excess contact paper and I was all done! Happy Father's Day, Dan!

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Clear Con-Tact paper doubles as frosted glass privacy film

This project isn't as much about aesthetics as it is about... um... cleanliness? Good housekeeping?

An unfinished basement is no place for curtains, if you ask me. Case in point, check out the fabulously awful specimens from two windows in our basement. These photos can't quite capture how disgusting these curtains were. They were coated in dust, dead bugs and nasty water stains. Gross gross gross.

I took them down and straight out to the garbage, tension rods, spider carcasses and all.

Ah, better already. I wanted to put up some privacy film for security reasons, but have you ever priced that stuff? Outrageous! It's like $20 or $30 for enough to do like two regular-size windows. I didn't need anything fancy for the basement, so I settled on using clear Con-Tact paper after seeing the idea on Design Sponge.

Brilliant idea! (That is, as long as one of your dimensions is 18" or less.) Clear Con-Tact paper isn't truly transparent; you can see through it, but it's kind of cloudy. And when applied to glass, the light sort of diffuses through it and makes it look like frosted glass. And for $5.74 for an entire roll, it was too tempting not to at least give it a try.

I cleaned the windows really well and cut pieces to fit each of the panes. I cut a little peephole with a craft circle cutter out of one of the pieces, because I wanted a way to peek out if needed.

I peeled the film from the paper backing and applied it to the window a little at a time, using an old insurance card to smooth out any bubbles that appeared.

This turned out way better than I though it would. From the outside, you can't tell it's not frosted glass. And you can't see through at all.

I have no idea how this will fare over time (especially if the windows form condensation in the wintertime) or how difficult it would be to remove it. But I really don't care. It's so much cleaner than the yucky curtains.

04/15/2011 Update: It's been almost a year and it's doing fine!

Note: I used Con-Tact brand paper. I also have Duck brand paper, but it is crystal clear and won't work for this project.