Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Vintage Typewriter Keys

Vintage Keys 012

A few months ago when I first started blogging I came across a post at one of my favorite blogs BIENVENUE. Susie posted a how to on a Pottery Barn look alike of Vintage Typewriter Keys. I loved it when I saw it and she showed us all how she make it. She has an ETSY Shop site where she sells a lot of the great pieces that she makes and you can see her things by clicking on BIENVENUE and visiting her site. So the other day I was flipping through the Pottery Barn Catalog and there on page 103 was the piece that Susie had shown us how to make. I wanted to make one for myself especially since the Pottery Barn’s price tag was $349.00!!!

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With my 40% off coupon from Michael’s I purchased a 20 x 20 blank canvas. Your canvas needs to be a square but you can do make yours larger or smaller but a square with equal sides makes your job a lot easier. Paint your canvas front and sides with a neutral background color. You will be staining it later for that older vintage look. I used some leftover wall paint but craft paint is fine too. This would be a good time to paint your sides with black paint. It makes your finished piece look “framed”. I didn’t do this step until later but when I make another one of these I think this would be a better time to do it. When that dries, you will need a pencil and a long ruler or a yard stick.

Since my canvas was 20 x 20, I measured off on all 4 sides at 10 inches and make a tick with my pencil. Then I drew a dividing line between the top and bottom down the exact center and did the same on the side. Your goal is to dived your canvas evenly into 36 cubes. There are 6 keys that run horizontally and 6 vertically for a total of 36. Use your pencil to mark this. Then I took a drinking glass that had a round base that would fit into each of my squares and I traced around it. After you have 36 circles outlined you are ready to paint.

Vintage Keys 003

Vintage Keys 005

Using black acrylic craft paint I painted 36 circles. Using a slanted brush makes painting the curves much easier and neater.

After your black circles dry the fun part starts! Take your alphabet stencil and with a cream colored craft paint stencil the letters and numbers on to your black circles. If some of your white paint smears anywhere on your black keys you can just touch up all those marks with black paint when you are finished. I did not include the punctuation marks over the number keys in this piece because I didn’t think I had enough room but plan to next time. If you include the punctuation, you might want to stencil on your numbers a little bit lower in the key so that you have room to add the punctuation marks above the numbers.

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The next step was also a lot of fun. You will need another drinking glass with a smaller diameter so that you can “frame” you keys. I used a juice glass for this step. Dip the round edge of the juice glass in craft paint. You do not want it to be drippy. Carefully lower the the paint inside your key but not completely on all four sides….you want it to only “catch” in bits or on one side only to give it the right look. Look at my photo. See how this step is not “perfect” or “uniform”.

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When your outlining paint has dried you are ready to stain it to give it that Vintage look. (If you do not want your pencil lines to show in your final piece, now is a good time to erase them. I did not and you can see the lines in my final piece. But I like it that way, it is faint and adds to the background I think.) Any leftover stain would be fine. I used a bottle of craft liquid stain and the color of it was “fruitwood”. Using a mini foam craft brush I gave the piece a coat of the stain working it in. It definitely need a second coat and after that it was perfect!

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And here she is!!!! Adding the stain really brings it to life!

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I am going to hang it in our office. Below is a photo of it on my dining room wall. The burgundy walls looked best for the photograph but it will be hanging in our more neutral colored office. This project was so fun! Thanks to Susie at Bienvenu and Pottery Barn for the inspiration!!

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Stop by and visit Tales From Bloggeritaville for "Thrifty Thursday" and The Shabby Chic Cottage for "Transformation Thursday" to which I am linking this $$$ saving Pottery Barn Look Alike Art Project. :)

Thank You to Gina at The Shabby Chic Cottage for the DIY DIVA of the Week Award for this project!!!!


39 comments:

Kathy @ Creative Home Expressions said...

This looks great, Lisa! And you make it look easy.

Parisbreakfasts said...

WOW
This is wonderful!
And you make it look so easy!
Thanks too for the link to Susan Harris.

Phyllis @Around the House said...

wow, I love that, and I love the way you did the plastic cup for the rings around, how wonderful that looks, what a great wall item that will be. I wanted to thank you for the nice note on my blog about the photos, I was just beating my self up for the photos, thinking I should have remembered the template cuts the end off and they always look off center, then your nice note came and I thought, I will just remember next time and adjust the shot to the left a little, thanks for the little reality check to have fun and people will love it...thank you my friend...

Tee said...

I saw that post on Bienvenue and loved it too. Yours is just as fab!

The Fajdich Times said...

You did a great job! I love it:) Great post!!

Jane said...

I love that piece every time I see it in the Pottery Barn catalog. Great idea using the canvas. I would love to try this (don't know if I have the patience!!)
Jane

Melanie said...

I saw this on her website and loved it. I love that you made it and it looks great. I might have to do this in my new house.

Diann @ The Thrifty Groove said...

Awesome job! It looks great!

Have a wonderful day!

j said...

Seriously WOW. You did an awesome job with that!!

Karen said...

AMAZING, Lisa--you're going to run out of Wall Space! LOL!

Designs on 47th Street said...

I am SO impressed! You took the time to do this right and it shows. Very, very well done. Thank you for showing us the "how to". Hummm, I wonder if I could make myself do this project? :)

Donna

Anonymous said...

Looks better than Pottery Barn's! :-) I loved this when I saw it in PB's catalog too. Great job!

pk @ Room Remix

Unknown said...

Bravo! I love what you did... and yeah as everyone says..you made it look easy :) was it really??

lol

Nice and Easy Antiques said...

This is one of our fave projects of today! Great vintage look!!! Congrats!!

Pat@Back Porch Musings said...

Looks wonderful!!

Maryann @ Domestically-Speaking said...

Love it! I might have to make one too. What a brilliant idea of using the glass rim to make your circle - LOVE IT!

KimMalk said...

@cheapchichome. This is so cute! This is one craft I am definitely going to try on my own. Thanks for sharing.

Norma Lee @ Norma Lee Good said...

Bless you! I did a google search for this tutorial because I rememberd seeing it on one of the blogs I stalk, I mean follow. That's how I found you! I had seen it at Susie's but your blog was the first one on Google Search. I love your blog. I am going to send you a blog award. I got it yesterday and haven't gotten around to passing it out!

Unknown said...

I saw that Pottery Barn art & loved it!

This clever trick, my friend, makes you a DIY Diva this week!

Janean said...

Shut UP that looks GREAT. I thought I was alone in adoring old typewriters. So much fun to find others...Yay!

Tamera said...

You make it look so easy! Such a great idea and so spending savvy!

Tamera@doubledelight

Kathy @ Creative Home Expressions said...

Hi Lisa~ I received the Kreativ Blogger Award and I'm passing it onto you! You so deserve it!

Kammy said...

That is ART ! Great job !
Kammy

The Daily Connoisseur said...

What a marvelous blog you have here Lisa! And you are so talented too! Looking forward to following your adventures xo

Leanne said...

It looks amazing. I think I'm going to have to try this. Thanks for sharing.

Karen said...

I like your new page set up. How do you do that?

Anonymous said...

Great job on this project!! I will have to go over to her blog to see what other great ideas she has!

Room to Inspire said...

Wow, this looks fabulous! I just love it and all of the photos to go along with the project.

Chelsea

Danielle and Clint said...

Holy Pickles and Cheese! That is awesome! Great job!

the Schmidts said...

this is so funny! I am in the middle of doing this very project ... i've been working on it here and there for about a week. Except I am using some scrap wood that we have... yours looks great! Hope mine turns out as well. :)
Courtney

Vivienne @ the V Spot said...

Holy cats!!!! That is FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm sooooo going to try this.

Barbara Matson said...

Love it! I may have to make one for my family room!

susan said...

I am bookmarking this! This would be just perfect in my office area and I actually have a vintage Smith-Corona. Thanks so much. Great lamp from Good will!

Crafty Sisters said...

Great job..I like the cup dipped in paint!

Susan Pigott said...

Thank you so much for this! I'm finishing up a "writing nook" and I saw the art piece on Pottery Barn. There's no way I can spend $350 for that thing, but I love the typewriter theme. Now I'm going to try to make it myself, thanks to your instructions.

Melanie said...

I am so doing this project. When I finish with the house, this is the first thing that I am going to work on.

Miss Mustard Seed said...

Great project! Using the paper cups was brilliant. Yours looks every bit as good as the PB one. Well done and congrats on the feature.

Anonymous said...
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Holly Lefevre said...

IN LOVE...awesome...I am trying this.