Sometimes I daydream about living in a tiny houses. Not that I could ever get rid of enough stuff to live in one. And can you just picture me the hubby two cats and two dogs sharing a 300 square foot living space. Just imagine the Cats vs Dog stories that would come out of that arrangement.  Here are a couple of potential headlines. “Woman’s miraculous duct tape repair after dogs eat her entire home” or “Tiny house tipped over by four legged tenants, how to live in your house when everything literally goes sideways.”  

Still I romanticize about what it would be like. I fancy that in such a small space I would finally be able to keep my home clean, that I would know where everything was kept and that my life would be blissfully simple.

In reality I would finally be able to answer the age old question, how long does it take to completely fill 300 square feet with pet hair. Most of my belongings would be crammed into a storage unit so technically I would know where everything was I just wouldn’t be able to get to any of it. And finally, my life probably would be fairly simple as I would most likely find myself in a straight jacket.

The moral of that story, is of course, keep the tiny house fantasy in your head where it belongs.

Onward to today’s project.

Last spring I made this bunny from an old book. But in my tiny house fantasy I have a whole set of books. One for every season. A tree for Christmas. A turkey for Thanksgiving. You get the picture . Right? But of course in a tiny house there is not a lot of extra storage space. The decorations not only have to be small they have to be easy to put away and not take up too much space. So I figured that they should just go right back into there old book covers and up onto the book shelf, because the tiny house in my heads has a book shelf of course.

Anyway, the cover needed some updating. I think it was actually a scary vampire story and not very suitable for my dear little Easter Bunny.

I used some Elmer’s Glue to add some dimension.

Then I brushed on a coat of gray house paint. This color was leftover from when we remolded our bathroom but I have found a lot of craft uses for it. It is such a wonderfully neutral color. If you follow this blog you my recognize this color from the dog bed covers and gift bag updates. I also used it on the backing for the TP tube family tree. The moral of that story is don’t throw away your left over house paint.

Then I used black paint with some water to add the antique finish.  In this technique you brush on the watered down paint and then dab it off with a paper towel.

I love this technique and I have used it on several projects like the lampshade project from a few weeks ago, some TP tube cuff bracelets and a faux metal Christmas decoration made from a cereal box. The moral of that story is keep doing things you love or in my case find something less pathetic to love and do more of that. 🙂

I found a bunny silhouette on line and used it to decorate the cover. The moral of that story is don’t get caught pilfering images from the internet.

There is also a question in there of, why with all the art classes that I took as a child and young adult did I never learn to draw something as simple as a bunny silhouette?

The last step was to glue the ribbon to the cover. Sorry I don’t have a picture of that. The moral of that story is no matter how many pictures you take of a project you will (if you are me) still be missing something.

And that concludes story time for today.

Cautious bunny doesn’t trust me.

Sad bunny knows what is coming.

S–Q–U–I–S–H   !  !  !  !

Ready to go back to the bookshelf until next year. 🙂

Happy  Upcycling,