Winter Pinterest Challenge Reveal

It's Pinterest Challenge time again! Some of you may recall the upholstered headboard I made for the Fall Pinterest Challenge, hosted by John & Sherry of Young House Love and Katie of Bower Power Blog. The challenge is simple - actually DO something that you've pinned on Pinterest.

For this season's challenge, I decided to keep with my desk prettifying theme and make some cute pen and pencil cups! After scrolling through my "do" pinboard, I found these images to use for inspiration:

Original source unknown. 

Photo by The Beauty Department

Rope-Wrapped Tin Can

Supplies:
Mini glue gun, glue sticks, rope, and a can of soup.

Difficulty level: Pretty dang simple.
Time commitment: ~15 minutes
I removed the label (and had the soup for lunch) and washed the can, so it looked like this:

Then, once my glue gun had time to heat up, I put a dot of glue along the bottom and held the end of the rope to the glue for approximately 10 seconds.

Then I continued around the can, putting a dot of glue every few centimetres and pressing the rope to the glue.

End result!

Glass-Painted Jar

Supplies:
Glass jar, Martha Stewart metallic glass paint in Champagne, small paint brush. (I didn't end up using the foam brush.)

Difficulty level: Easy-peasy. But if you're a perfectionist, you need a steady hand.
Time commitment: ~30 minutes
This jar was new, so I didn't bother washing it. I just removed the lid, squeezed some paint onto a piece of scrap cardboard, and used the little brush to paint every other line of diamonds in a pseudo-harlequin pattern.

One coat was DEFINITELY not enough.

Neither was two.

I ended up doing three coats of paint (letting them dry about 30 minutes between coats), which made the coverage nice and opaque.

End Result!

And here they are in my space:

I love the way they turned out! It was a simple and quick project and really shows that something can be both functional and attractive. Of course, it does mean that I have to have matching pens and pencils now, haha.

What do you think?

P.S. Here are the links to the super creative projects completed by Pinterest Challenge hosts, Sherry & John, Katie, Megan, and Michelle.