A Thrifted Shabby Chic Gallery Wall and Lamp Makeover #12MonthsofDIY

Doesn't it feel good to make someone else's trash into your own treasure? I love upcycling projects. There's something so rewarding about reusing items and breathing new life into them. Not only are you being kind to our earth by saving things from the dumpster, but you're able to get really creative by imagining a new use and look for something! This month, I was able to find a collection of items at our local Value Village that were begging for a makeover and turned them into a pretty shabby chic gallery wall for Little C's room! I also gave a lovely lamp I found a bit of a feminine makeover, and it also looks really gorgeous in Little C's room. Let me show you how, and make sure you visit all of the other bloggers at the end of this post to see what they made from their Value Village finds!

Did you know: North Americans alone throw away more than 81 pounds of clothing and textiles per person, per year? That is an astonishingly HUGE amount of waste! Earth Day is coming up this Friday, so now's a great time to start thinking about ways that we can do our part to reduce this waste. Since buying second-hand items is one of the easiest ways to go green, we were thrilled to make this month’s #12MonthsofDIY challenge consist of thrifted finds from Value Village. There are always a ton of treasures there ready to be upcycled!

When searching Value Village for treasures, you need to put on your creative thinking cap. Look for beautiful shapes and details. Colours of home decor items don't matter so much, because those are easily changed with a little paint and creativity!

Here's what I found at our local Value Village:

Can you believe all of these things cost me only $24.50 CDN?! I loved the shape of this brass and white lamp, and I even liked the colour of the base for Little C's gold, white and blush pink room makeover. I also found a variety of frames, a gorgeous little round mirror with a ton of detail, and this large key wall sculpture. The dark brassy, black and bronze colours of the wall art doesn't work for Little C's shabby chic room, but I knew a quick application of paint and some distressing would get just the look I wanted for these items.

The first thing I did was clean the items, and then I applied some petroleum jelly to the parts of the wall art and frames that I wanted to look distressed. I think this distressed, aged look is such a big part of shabby chic decor, and I wanted these items to have that appeal.

Next, I painted all of the wall items with chalk style paint in a nice, warm white. I made mine myself with this recipe, but any sort of chalk style paint will work! The fabulous thing about chalk style paint is that it's thick, sticks well, and distresses like a dream - perfect for my project!

I also painted the lamp shade with white chalk style paint! That way, the original floral pattern didn't show through the treatment I gave to the shade later.

After my picture frames, my key and my mirror were painted and dried, I sanded them with a sanding sponge. The parts where I put the petroleum jelly flaked right off to give me that old and distressed look I wanted for Little C's gallery wall.

To beautify the lamp shade, I used the shade to trace out a "U" shape on some ruffle fabric I had in my stash.

I simply rolled the shade along the fabric, marked where the top and bottom of the shade fell and added about ½" on each side for folding over.

I wrapped the fabric around the shade, and glued it over the top and bottom of the lamp shade with my trusty ol' glue gun.

I think the final result is just so sweet and pretty! I kept the lamp base as-is because it was in such great condition and matched so well with Little C's new room colour scheme.

To finish off the shabby chic gallery wall, I made a little canvas art with a small canvas, some ribbon and my glue gun. I wrapped and glued some ribbon on the canvas into a rose shape. I also painted a wooden letter "C" with some gold acrylic paint to fill in the last spot of the gallery wall (and then I decided to paint one of my Value Village picture frames gold as well to tie in the gold colour).

I arranged the gallery wall on my coffee table first, fiddle around with it a little, and then attached it to Little C's wall with some picture hanging strips. To finish off the wall, I made a fabric and lace banner using this method. I always love to add a variety of textures and shapes to a gallery wall!

(You can also see a sneak peek of how Little C's new wall colour looks here for our One Room Challenge - we LOVE it!)

The artwork inside the frames was simply printed on my home printer - score! You can find the top left vintage Paris art right here, and I made the floral monogram artwork with Photoshop.

The "have courage and be kind" artwork can be found right here. I loved that it was gold and that it's from the movie Cinderella - one of Little C's favourites!

All-in-all, I'm incredibly happy with how this gallery wall and lamp upcycle turned out, and Little C loves them too! It also feels SO good to know that these were thrifted items that have been given new life.

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Now it's time to see the rest of the DIY thrifted project ideas from my Canadian blogging friends!

From the top left, they are:

Upcycling Wood Bowls from Fresh Crush

Paint Dipped Brass Candle Holders from Life is a Party

Upcycling a thrift store leather coat into a DIY handbag from Sustain My Craft Habit

Pottery Barn Inspired Burlap Lamp Shade & Owl Bookends from Woman in Real Life

Thrifted DIY Jewelry Holder from Brooklyn Berry Designs

Upcycled Thrifted Mirror from New House New Home

Gold Wooden Treasure Box from Mommyzoid

DIY Roll-N-Go Travel Bag from Vin'yet Etc.

Scarf Throw Pillows from PMQ for Two

DIY Industrial Pendant Light from Love Create Celebrate

A Thrifted Shabby Chic Gallery Wall and Lamp Makeover from The DIY Mommy

Thrift Store Patio Table Tray Makeover from Time With Thea

Disclaimer: This post is sponsored by Value Village. As always, all of the opinions here are my own. I only recommend companies that I use and love myself.