Craft and a Half: Dresser and Pantry Makeover + printable pantry labels

I have a tiny, tiny kitchen.

My dad put in these great new shelves so I'd have a bit more room. I decided that it was finally time to add handles and some decoration to the very plain dresser that holds linens and tupperware. For two years we've just been using it like this, with twine for handles! Shows how lazy I am.

But now, see how beautiful it is!!

I didn't take photos of the process (bad blogger, Ricki, tsk tsk) but I'll tell you how it's done! I found a graphic of a rose online (searching for "rose tattoo" worked best to find the shape I wanted) and had my engineer dad print it out at his work really big (30 inches squared or so). Then I taped a couple big sheets of cheap contact paper over the print-out. Using a light table and a craft exacto knife, I sliced out the design while re-watching X-men. (Good movie series.) Then I taped the newly cut-out stencil on the dresser and verrrry carefully pulled the clear adhesive part from the paper backing, doing small sections at a time.

Once I got it on there, it was very wrinkled and imperfect, so I used tape to fix spots. I would NOT recommend this method with a symmetrical design where you would notice imperfections. But with an organic shape like a rose, no one's going to know that the final design is different than what I started with.

Next I used some too-cheap paint from Dollarama and a paint-roller. The paint was really gross and clumpy and took several coats. I've bought paint from Dollarama before and didn't have this problem, so I don't know what went wrong this time! Once dry, the paint on the dresser felt rough to the touch, so I brushed on a couple coats of clear polyurethane to protect it.

That's that!

For once, my pantry looks respectable! (Let's pretend that counter-top is empty all the time!) Yup, looks all nice and organized... especially with my new chalkboard labels.

Now, previous to this, I had created some labels in photoshop and printed them out by hand. I liked them, but I kept changing the contents of the pantry!! That's why I needed chalkboard labels.

Here are my old ones, in the event someone wants to print 'em! Click for printable PDF.

So I bought some chalkboard paper off ebay for $7 for a big roll. But how was I going to cut out labels? I thought about buying a punch, but then I could only cut out one size. Then I had my revelation: duh! My mom bought a Slice shape-cutting machine off Kijiji awhile back. The Slice cut out my labels perfectly.