From Trash to Treasure: My Decoupage Bookshelf

Why have I not posted this?  I've been going through pictures to add to the blog and came across this beauty, one of my first trash finds.

Somebody didn't love this treasure very much.  But when I saw it, sitting there on the side of the road amidst a heap of other trash, I made my husband back up and put it in the truck.  I think the color sold me on it, coastal blue.  Very sturdy, real wood.  

It took me days to clean it up.  It had definitely been used in a garage and all that black stuff you see on the top?  That is grease, like motor oil grease.  Same with the middle shelves.  It was a pain to get off, long dirty, scrubbing work.  Not all of it came off without ruining it.  

I liked the shabby look of it, and since the color is what sold me, I didn't want to repaint it but I needed something to do on the top since I couldn't rid of all the mess up there.

I had bought some scrapbooking paper to decoupage and tore it up into little pieces and hated how it looked.  That's when an idea spawned!  I took all our old photographs, the ones of my grandparents at their wedding, my mom and her sisters when they were kids, my dad and his family, my grandpa's army photos, my husband's family photos and I copied every single one of them.  Then I decoupaged a collage of them on the top.

Oh. My. Gosh!

How cool did it turn out?  Now I use it in my bedroom to collect some of my favorite things!

Funky Junk Interiors