Cameo Inspired Garbage Can UpCycle

I can't believe I did it.  I went into a thrift store for the first time in years!  Among the things that drive me nuts about thrift stores are the smell of old musty clothes, and WAY too much junk.  I am not patient and have no desire to sift through a bunch of potential junk to find one gem.  But on this occasion I found three gems!  I will show two of them today, and I will leave the other one for a different post.

In my thrift store shopping I was looking for something that resembled a garbage can that I could spruce up for 2 reasons-1). I desperately needed a garbage can for my craft room, and 2). hey!  I could make it and post it on my blog! 
I really love being efficient!

At the store I found this

A gorgeous cameo pin.  Now, don't swoon all at once, it's definitely plastic and it was definitely $1.50-but I don't care.  I loved it and bought it.  I also bought a big metal container, about 1 foot high/deep and maybe a foot wide, not quite.  It was perfect for my garbage can.  I brought my goodies home and started thinking about how I wanted to design my garbage can.  So many options....twigs hot glued around it for a natural look, decoupage high fashion magazine cutouts...I wanted something old, but new.  It was staring me in the face-my new cameo pin!  I would spray paint my can with a silhouette to give it a Victorian feel!!! 

So here goes-my first spray paint project.

I read up a little bit and got to work.  Here is what I started with....

Lovely isn't it?  I believe at one time it was filled with popcorn-ew!  Anywho....I bit the bullet and sanded it, poorly, but sanded it nonetheless..... Then I started my first coat.  I have NEVER worked with spray paint before and kinda assumed that thick gorgeous paint would come streaming out and cover all these teddy bears in Christmas sweaters...... apparently not...

I can see this is gonna take a while....good thing I have the day off!

While it's drying I got crackin on my cameo silhouette!  Here's how it turned out!

I used my handy dandy Fiskars finger scissor thingy because of the curves and the detail.  It was the perfect little scrap tool doing double duty!

OK, time for the second coat.

There is hope!  It's looking better already!

I did a good three coasts to ensure that the Christmas teddies were obliterated.

Then I taped on my stencil-I realized that I was not going to get a perfect outline-spray paint is not suited for detail, especially with a stencil.  Trying my best to get as much detail as possible I ended up with spray painted finger nails.  Oh well?!?!

I'm getting giddy.  I'm not sure if it's from the spray paint fumes or that one of my ideas is actually turning into (beautiful) reality!  After taking the stencil off I saw a bit of a disfigured girl.  No sweat-I would touch it up with acrylic paint.  I was planning to paint a filigree frame around the silhouette anyways!  This could have been a meltdown moment, but I was prepared for a not-perfect stencil design!

A little black acrylic paint will take care of those boo boos!

So I fixed up the boo boos and added a little gold filigree framing in acrylic paint on the right and left sides of the silhouette.  Drum roll please......

Needless to say I am hooked on spray paint.  I've also learned, drop an extra couple bucks for the higher quality paint.  I bought crummy black paint and Krylon ivory paint.  The Krylon was gorgeous, thick and covered really great!  My next project (also from the thrift store) will definitely be a spray paint project!

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