Space Saver Shelf

During the summer I expressed a desire to my husband that I have had for years and finally got to make it!  Forever ago I saw some cool space saving ideas and one was a narrow shelf that fit behind a bathroom door. Just the right size to hold make up and knick-knacks and tools for getting ready in the morning.  Our tiny bathroom has no room to hold my curling iron or blow dryer or make-up so I have been storing them in my closet...that's right...my Bedroom Closet.  Imagine wanting to blow dry and curl your hair and put on make-up and then having to walk from the bathroom around your bed and open your closet door to get out your stuff and carry it all back to the bathroom with no counter space.  Bleh...  I usually only did that on Sunday when I had time for such foolishness.  

I did have my handy makeup travel bag from Mary Kay hanging on the towel rack, but sometimes it would get knocked down from  someone grabbing the towel and ruin my blush, or eye shadow, or foundation powder... :'( *sniff.

So I saw a post on facebook years ago--one of those links that say "20 storage ideas to save space" or some thing like that and one of them was a shelf behind the bathroom door and then I dreamed of a day when I could store my makeup and hairdryer and curling iron on a shelf... behind the bathroom door.  

*Cue singing*  

"I've been dreaming of a shelf right there, where I can easily curl my hair..."

Huh?  You don't hear the Disney orchestra playing in my head?  Oh, ok...

Anyway, I got some leftover pallet wood from a craft night and told my husband I wanted to build a shelf to go behind the bathroom door.  He was a little skeptical at first but I explained that it didn't have to be ultra fancy.  I could sand it and paint it and I just wanted him to help me put it together.  I got a couple more pallets too but we learned that he didn't really have the right tools for taking them apart without splintering a lot of wood.  He got a couple decent long pieces though and we got to work.

Here is a picture the sanded wood before we put it all together.  We laid it on the table and I put items on it to give us an idea of how to space the shelves:

He decided to drill guide holes before putting the screws in to prevent cracking and it worked great.  I also made sure we used a leveler for each shelf as we assembled it.  I started painting with plain old acrylic paint we had on hand.  I love creating :D  To make the clouds I used a white and dabbed the brush on board like I was stippling with a pencil.  Once it a while I would dip in the blue and then the white and stipple and then I dip in the white and then the blue.  I love how it created layers to look like fluffy clouds:

We decided to add a back to it for aesthetic appeal.  We had some masonite board that my husband had kept.  (He likes to save random things like that and it comes in handy sometimes)  So I painted that too.  So much fun!
I used a fine tipped paint brush for the stars and just varied outlines and dots to make it look like they were glowing and sparkling.  Finished masterpiece before we put it in place.  Ignore the pile of clothes on the floor I was excited to get it installed and filled up with my stuff:

I found some polyurethane to give it protective finish since we have no window in the bathroom.  It gets pretty moist in there.

Wah-Lah!!  Here it is in all its glory!  Loaded and ready to use.  I LOVE having it.  And when the bathroom door is open you can't even tell it is there.

Oh it may be hard to see but the shine is because my husband had some plastic (Yay for random useful things again!) he cut and sanded to make it spill proof.  All the shelves have a transparent guardrail thanks to his handywork.

Have a great day and feel free to comment or share your space saving ideas that you use.  Maybe I can find something new to dream about!

Ahem...Ahem...I have an announcement

It's HERE!  I started my own Etsy Shop to sell my creations.  For the last 3 months I have been studying and learning about how Etsy works and preparing my first 10 items for sell.  I was pushing to get things up and running quickly so I am beginning with digital downloads first but I hope to expand to selling printed items and mailing them out.  Here is a link to my shop:
Creative Cache Shop

I also hope to get requests for more designs.  And I have an email just for my business:  michellecreativecache@gmail.com

My husband helped me get some things to streamline my work.  Check out my fancy work station with a glass tabletop desk.  When I get a pencil sketch close to the way I like it, I find it much more efficient to trace with the ink.

The chair was an amazing find at the local thrift shop.  Totally a blessing from the Lord.  I just felt like going on a particular afternoon and was led to check the furniture section and there it was for $15.  It curves well to support my back and it is a major bonus that it matches the wood tones in my bedroom so well!

My husband I had just painted the kids rooms and built new bunk beds for our growing boys.  The old beds were both toddlers and on their last legs.  Rather than throw them away he made a quick shelf to go above my desk so I could have my art supplies easily accessible.  He offered to trim it down more but I decided to go with it for now and decide later if we want to make any changes.  For now it fills my needs just fine.

Also I wanted to get better scans and be able to scan full sizes for the larger work.  So we shopped around and found a brand new laser printer/scanner/copier that can scan up to 1200 dpi and size 11X17.  It can even print size 11X17.  So I am now looking for quality ledger paper so I can print the Believe in God and Trust in the Lord pieces in all their beautiful glory at full size.

I found that 1200 DPI is a huge file size for the artwork I am doing so it makes more sense to follow the standard of most Etsy shop sellers and use 600 DPI.  I saw a big difference in the quality of the scans compared to my old printer.  So I started with making COLOR versions of some of the pieces from my free printables page.  These are all posted in my CreativeCacheShop on Etsy.  And I would love to take requests for new work so please email me with your desires for new designs.  I have some ideas that I have been working on so I will be updating frequently with new work.  And I also will be making a black and white bundle of some of the new art work and the old artwork with my better quality scanner in case people want to print and color it themselves.  Thank you for reading and please share my post!

PS.  Here is the link again since my friend suggested I add it to the end of the post:  Creative Cache Shop