Hello hello, happy Monday to you! Hope your weekend was swell, we didn’t do much other than little things around the house, but I did finish up an end table project I started a week ago.

I was able to complete this makeover with a product I heard about last year called Overlays. This fretwork product is so smart and I was dying to try it out – it allows you to take an ordinary piece of furniture and personalize it with a patterned design to turn it into a one of a kind.  Hello, speaking my language now.

So I found a little black pedestal end table at Marshalls last year for $49 – a solid wood piece and a classic accent table, but I wanted to jazz it up.  I sent a request to the innovative ladies behind Overlays to customize a Lola pattern for me and within a week I had my custom sized overlay shipped to my door.  With it I was able to take this basic black end table and add that extra detail to make it my own personalized pedestal table.

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For the longest time I’ve been wanting to paint a piece of furniture bright Kelly green.  It started when I found this Reed & Barton color glazed silver bowl from the 1960’s in a thrift shop for a dollar.  A dollar for this beauty!

So I wanted to bring this fun color into our home and once I found the perfect piece, this small campaign desk, off to the paint store I went to color match it!  Here’s the  desk I found at (of course) a thrift store for $40 – the hardware alone is worth that to me, but the added benefit was this desk with faux bamboo legs that would tuck nicely into the kids study/art/craft playroom.

Before:

After:

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One thing is undeniable in the DIY and design world, brass hardware is back and lately I’m totally loving it on furniture. As a child of the 80’s I admit shiny lacquered brass fixtures still don’t appeal to me, but I am drawn to the golden glow of real or antiqued brass with its warmer patina.

In the past two weeks, I’ve fixed up two pieces, one dresser and one campaign desk, and both had brass hardware I wanted to reuse.  One set of hardware was real brass, the other brass plate, and both needed a good polish.

Over the last year, I’ve also narrowed down two great substitutes for faking the patina with other hardware that you want to give a golden glow.  If you’re curious how to tell the difference between real brass and brass plate, how to polish unlacquered brass, or how to fake the look of antique brass hardware, here’s how I do it.

Real brass is an alloy of copper and zinc and if it’s not lacquered, will tarnish with exposure to air over time.  There are two methods I use to bring back the mellow antiqued patina, one is Brasso if I have it on hand and the other is natural lemon juice and salt paste mixture.

But first, before you polish, you should know whether your hardware is real brass or brass plate.  Here’s the simple way to tell the difference.  Take a household magnet and see if it will stick to the piece, if it won’t that means the hardware is real brass, like these campaign pulls.

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It has been said to me by my mate on more than one occasion that when it comes to decor I have champagne taste on a beer budget. You’ll get no denial from me. I’ve long been in love with lacquer nesting boxes like these and these ~ they are such glamorous little vessels for storing everything small from jewelry to keepsakes. I happen to find them completely irresistible, but the problem is they’re pricey, up to $80 a box (or more!) for the designer versions.

So last weekend I decided to do my thang  and mimic the look of these beauties with a few supplies from the craft store.

To make these yourself, here’s what you’ll need: wood jewelry boxes from craft store, small Phillips head screwdriver, paint colors of choice, wood filler, painter’s tape,  medium and small paintbrushes, fine sanding wedge, high gloss coating.

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