My Creative Blog:
Round 2

One of the most fun parts of the CWTS contest is getting to see the fun projects linked up in our weekly link party! The girls in this contest are seriously talented, but guess what?! So are YOU! If you want to get a burst of inspiration, check out the fab upcycle projects that were linked up right here.

We were immediately drawn to this end table when we saw it in the party since we're both HUGE fans of rustic industrial style furniture. Allison from The Golden Sycamore put some serious effort and time into this piece and it tells! It's absolutely gorgeous! Well done, girl.; )

As I mentioned a few weeks ago on my blog, I'm really into the industrial look right now. I seriously can't get enough of it! While I was playing around online one day, showing my husband all these cool industrial tables, he got an idea in his head: Why not build one ourselves? One thing led to another and now we have our own custom industrial end table for our living room! (You can see the reveal post {here}). This was our inspiration for the table …

My husband and I are really happy with how our table turned out and I'm excited to share this project with you, but I want to warn you, this particular DIY project is not for the faint of heart. This project is a bit of a process and can be dangerous if you don't know what you're doing and aren't careful. PLEASE do not attempt this unless you feel very confident in your abilities. Please be sure you take all safety precautions when using a power tool or dangerous chemicals or objects and read the instruction manuals before using them. I am not a trained professional. If you are uncertain, please consult an expert before attempting this or any projects on this blog. I will not be responsible for any injuries or damages caused by any attempts to recreate this or any projects posted on this blog.

Alright, now that that's out of the way, onto the tutorial. Aging Galvanized Metal

SUPPLIES: 8 — 3/4" x 10" galvanized pipe ($29.60) 16 — galvanized floor flanges ($116.16) 48 — 1/4" x 1" galvanized lag screws ($22.08) HCl / toilet bowl cleaner Plastic container Small map gas torch ($41.97) Heat safe gloves ($4.46) Vegetable oil Beeswax Metal pan Metal pliers PROCEDURE: Start by putting your galvanized metal plumbing supplies in a plastic container. Add enough HCl / toilet bowl cleaner to cover all the metal and let sit for 2-3 hours. This process will remove the zinc coating off the galvanized metal. **DO THIS PART OUTSIDE OR IN A VERY WELL VENTILATED AREA — YOU DON'T WANT TO BE BREATHING THESE CHEMICALS IN!! (This is a picture of the screws in toilet bowl cleaner. We did them separately, but you can just put everything together.)

After a few hours, rinse all your metal pieces off. Pour some vegetable oil in a metal container. Wearing heat safe gloves and holding your piece of metal with a pliers, heat metal with torch until it is hot enough that it turns orange. Once it is thoroughly heated, dip in vegetable oil. Then reheat the piece of metal to orange hot. Once it is hot enough, set in oil to cool for about 30 seconds. **AGAIN — USE CAUTION. DO THIS PART IN A SAFE AREA AND HAVE A FIRE EXTINGUISHER NEAR BY IN CASE OF FIRE!!

The metal will still be very hot, so take the piece of metal out of the oil with a pliers.

Cool the metal with water.

Once it's cool to the touch, scrub off burned oil residue with water and a wire brush.

Lightly heat metal again with torch (about 30 seconds) and coat with beeswax. Once coated, rub with cotton rag while still warm.

Let cool before handling. Metal will still be hot for a while.

And that's it! Haha! I know the process is intense, but if you really want the aged look, it's worth it! Here is what your finished product should look like. Repeat process for all your pieces of metal.

Now onto the wood shelves.

SUPPLIES: 1 — IKEA Numerar oak butcher block countertop ($129.00) — we used a little over half the length, so the cost of what was used was roughly $70 Tape measure and pencil Circular saw Straight edge clamp Router Orbital sander and sand paper Stain Silhouette Cameo and stencil Paint and paint brush Mineral oil PROCEDURE: Start by measuring your Numerar butcher block to the size you want your shelves and mark where to cut. Our shelves measure 19.5" wide x 24" deep.

Set up your straight edge clamp so that your saw will cut on your measured line. You'll probably have to set it to about a half inch over to allow for the width of the saw.

Cut butcher block with circular saw. Repeat this process for second shelf.

Run orbital sander along the edges to ensure a smooth finish. Then router the edges of each shelf — remember to do the top and bottom sides to keep the look cohesive.

With your orbital sander, sand the finish off the top and bottom of both shelves.

Using Minwax Dark Walnut stain, wipe on stain and immediately wipe off to get a slightly darker color, but not too much penetration. If you desire a darker stain color, either leave the stain on longer before wiping off or apply more layers of stain to darken it.

I don't have pictures of this part, but if you wish to add numbers to your top shelf, here's how to do it. Choose the style and size of numbers you want and cut them out using your Silhouette Cameo. If you don't have a Cameo, you can always print numbers out on your printer and then cut them out by hand. Once you have your numbers, arrange them on the shelf the way you want them and then trace around them using a white or black colored pencil. Once your numbers are traced, use craft paint and a small paint brush to paint inside the lines. Let paint dry and sand lightly with sand paper to desired distressed look.

Once you are done with your numbers (or if you skipped that step) wipe both shelves with mineral oil (or some other sealant like wax or polyurethane) to seal the shelves.

Now to put it all together. SUPPLIES: Drill Wrench or impact driver All your metal pieces Both shelves Level PROCEDURE: Drill pilot holes in each shelf. You'll drill four holes per flange. Drill holes in the bottom of the top shelf. The bottom shelf will get holes drilled in both sides — top and bottom. Make sure to stagger your holes on the bottom shelf so that they don't meet up with each other through the wood. Using your wrench or impact driver, on the bottom shelf, attach 4 flanges with your lag screws on the top side of the shelf. Screw pipe into the four flanges. Attach flanges to the bottom of the top shelf with lag screws. Screw those flanges to the pipe that is already attached to the bottom shelf. Attach flanges to the bottom side of the bottom shelf. Screw pipe into flanges and screw final flanges to the bottom of the pipe — these are the table's"feet". Check to make sure the table is level. If it isn't, screw or unscrew pipes until the table is level.

Alright, if you've made it to the end of this post, I applaud you! I told you it was intense! I definitely can see why our inspiration piece was almost $700! Not only are the materials relatively expensive, but it is also quite labor intensive! In the reveal post, I said that the table cost us about $300 to make. We had a lot of the tools on hand, but we had to purchase most of the supplies. In this post I've added up the supplies we bought and calculated our total cost (using about half the countertop cost since we can use the remainder of the countertop for another project). The total came to $284.27. If you add MI tax, it comes to $301 and some change. That's a pretty good estimate on our part, if you ask me!: ) If I didn't explain something well enough or you have any questions, PLEASE feel free to ask! I'll do my best to help you out! Thanks so much for reading my loooong tutorial!: ) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Isn't that incredible?! Seriously, so good. Thanks for linking up, Allison! Don't forget to check back at midnight tonight to see the Contestants Round 3 projects!

We're pulling a Young House Love and are double-posting today. It's kind of fitting since Melissa is Sherry's partner!. If you missed the Round 2 projects, you can see all of them right here. To see the bloggers you chose to move on to Round 3, . We're sure these girls are already working hard on their Paint challenge this week- ack! We're loving the suspense.: )

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If any knockoff was a bear to tackle, this one is it! All that detail-oriented stenciling makes us tired just looking at it. We love that Melissa took the design and changed it up so that it is unique and matches her home. Take it away, Melissa!

Anthropologie is my very favorite store. I love all the colors, the design, the textures, the ambience and inspiration that I always find there. When I saw this gorgeous ikat hand painted console, I knew it was the perfect piece of inspiration for CWTS Project #2: Knock Off. (and at $1698--it's a great piece to knock off; )

1. I bought a similar looking cabinet base from IKEA. In looking for the right piece of furniture to use for this project, the most important thing was to have flat doors with plenty of space for the ikat stencil design.

2. In order to achieve a wood-like look similar to the anthro console, I did some research on painting IKEA furniture. Leaving the cabinet in pieces, I spray-painted them with three coats of Zinsser BIN shellac-based primer. In between each coat of primer, I sanded very lightly. This stuff is amazing and allowed me to paint right over it with no problems. After letting the primer dry, I painted the cabinet pieces with two coats of paint which I had left over from other projects. I painted all pieces with BM Wheeling Neutral, with the exception of the cabinet doors, which I painted BM Linen White.

3. The next step included a bit of experimenting, but ended up turning out great. On top of the painted cabinet pieces, I used a soft dry cloth and applied a light layer of Annie Sloan Dark Wax. I wasn't sure how this wax would take to the paint, but it worked wonderfully and gave the piece a great look. In the second picture below, you can see the difference between the boards (before wax on the left and waxed on the right). After all the pieces of the cabinet were waxed and dry, I put the cabinet together, minus the front doors.

4. I ordered the ikat stencil ("ikat pattern #1 repeating stencil") online from Olive Leaf Stencils. Next up was choosing paint colors. I went to the paint store and pulled paint chips to match the anthropologie console. I knew their color palette worked well but I wanted to create a similar palette that would work better in my own home. I played around with paint chips in my hand to create my palette. Then I took the paint chips to the craft store and matched them to acrylic craft paint. (While at the craft store, I also purchased Elmer's Spray Adhesive to help keep the stencil in place while I painted.)

5. I put the cabinet doors on top of the kitchen counter and put the six different paint colors onto paper plates. I measured and marked the various spots where I would need to line up the stencil. Next, I sprayed the back of the stencil with the Elmer's Spray Adhesive and let it sit for about 2 minutes before placing it on the cabinet door. (Waiting the 1-2 minutes helps the spray to be more temporary, and easier to remove. I did not have any problems removing the stencil-and the paint on the doors did not peel off at all.)

6. After I had my stencil in place, I began painting. You really only need to use a small amount of paint for stenciling, this helps to prevent bleeding of the paint. I used a soft jabbing motion to get the effect I was wanting and found that a small firm paint brush worked well. I had sketched the stencil out on cardboard and planned which colors were going where…this was especially helpful. It took me about three hours to stencil the cabinet doors.

7. I let the doors dry overnight and in the morning I used a very small brush and linen white paint to touch up the few spots where little bits of paint had bled.

8. Last, I applied a layer of Annie Sloan Clear Wax over the top of each door, which darkened the colors very slightly and gave it a nice smooth finish.

9. After the wax was dry, I put the doors onto the cabinet base. I styled the console using some of my"real" anthropologie treasures: ) in addition to two old flea market wooden spools with candles, some favorite books and beautiful orange tulips.

It's such an amazing piece and it's going to be a conversation starter, for sure! We snooped around Melissa's blog and found this adorable Secretary makeover. Love that color blue!

You know we love us some reclaimed wood and this barnwood jewelry display is super cute!

Check back tomorrow for our favorite knockoff from the link party this week! There were some great entries, and you all are NOT making our jobs easy.: ) And don't forget that you can begin voting for Round 3 midnight on Monday!

If you missed the Round 2 projects, you can see all of them right here. To see the bloggers you chose to move on to Round 3, click here. We're sure these girls are already working hard on their Paint challenge this week- ack! We're loving the suspense.: )

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is Sarah's second week in the Top 3. She has shown incredible talent and this plate wall is no exception. Isn't it amazing that she recreated this Anthropologie favorite with just a sharpie and plates from the Dollar Store? Genius!

Week 2! Time to get our knockoff on. After the crazy, hectic, eating-cereal-for-dinner kind of week last week was I was hoping for a"knockoff" project I could knockout quickly. Apparently, I don't know how to do that. I chose to knockoff Lost Arcadia By Molly Hatch sold by Anthropologie for $7,500! Since that's about $7,450 over my budget, I decided to see if it could be done on the cheap. Yup. Here's what you do.

Supplies

• 30 plates — I got mine at Dollar Tree for a buck! (you might want to buy a couple extras just in case… trust me)
• Something to hang the plates with — I used 30 medium Command Strips. You could use actual plate hangers but they were too expensive for me (around $3 each). I've also seen some people hot glue some sort of loop on the back to hang plates. Any method will do!
• A Sharpie — I only used one
• A projector — My husband was lucky enough to borrow one from work that hooked up to the computer, but I think you can rent/borrow them from libraries too. Also, there are lots of tutorials around the net on how to make a projector if you don't have access to one.

Step 2 Stick Command Strips to all of your plates just inside the rim on the back and label your plates. A1, A2, A3… B1, B2, B3… etc. This way, when they come down, you'll know how to put them back up
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Step 3 Make a level line on your wall to align the first row of plates. I taped a scrap board to my wall to act as a ledge. I stuck the center plate up first and then stuck the next ones right beside almost touching.

Step 4 Continue sticking your plates. I put the center plate up first for each row and then worked my way out from there. Push hard. I just eyeballed to get it in the center of the plate below. Keep going until all of your plates are up.

Step 5 Take the plates down! I repeat. Take the plates down! (this is why you need to label them). The Command Strips clearly say to stick your item, then rip it off the wall leaving only the Command Strip on the wall to cure before hanging your piece permanently. I failed to do this, (my bad) and had a plate crash down like a giant game of Plinko… taking the plates below with it. I might also add that this happened at 2am. My husband thought we were being invaded. It was not a fun evening… not at all. Let's have a moment of silence for the 2 plates lost in the chaos. Step 6 After your strips cure and you stick the plates back up (this time it worked… they've been up over a week… no casualties), you're ready to trace. I chose to do a botanical print I found via Sarah's blog, Thrifty Decor Chick. It's from the NYC Digital Gallery and you can read Sarah's post about it here. Set up the projector so the image is fairly centered and go to town. The tracing part only took maybe an hour.

After I had it all traced, I went back over some parts to make them darker.

That's it, you're done! I think these would look really nice in color too but for the knockoff week, I wanted to stay as close to the inspiration as possible.

(PS… that dresser is from Goodwill! Who gives stuff like that away!?)

And did you notice how my wall is beige in some pics and blue in others? Yep, midway through I decided white plates on beige walls wasn't looking that great. So I hit up Home Depot and got a gallon of"oops paint" for $5! And then proceeded to paint a square around the Command Strips that were already on the wall. Yeahhh… landlord, if you're seeing this… don't worry! It will be beige again in no time!: |

Ha! Sarah is always keepin' it real and we love that! Plus, it's a serious competitor who will paint the wall just so the project looks good on it! You can check out the project that got Sarah in the top 3 in Round 1, right here. Check back later today to learn how Melissa made that fabulous Ikat console!
Happy Saturday!

How many times can we say we were floored by the Round 2 projects? Not enough, apparently, because, people, those projects were incredible. If you missed the Round 2 projects, you can see all of them right here. To see the bloggers you chose to move on to Round 3, click here. We're sure these girls are already working hard on their Paint challenge this week- ack! We're loving the suspense.: )

We have been anxiously awaiting the tutorial for this wood-tiled dresser since we first laid eyes on it. I'm not sure you guys realize this, but the contestants get about 3-4 days to complete their projects, photograph them and submit them to us. That is a crazy turnaround, but you would never know it with this one! It was so well-executed and came out beautifully. Love it!
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Is it awkward for me to admit that I knew I would be knocking off this dresser before I even got into this competition? I've been in love with it for a while now, and I remember a week or so before I even found out I was in the competition I stumbled on it again and my husband Corey and I decided right then and there that if we got in and if there was a knockoff round, we'd be doing this guy.

(The inspiration — via West Elm) Luckily, we did, and there was, so here we are! Like I said, this dresser has been on my mind for a while because it's just so beautiful, but if you know me at all you know I'm not the type to spend $900 on a piece of furniture. It's just not gonna happen. So, Corey and I set out to re-create this dresser as affordably as possible, all while putting our own little spin on it. What we used:

• An antique dresser
• Scrap 1x4 wood — we used maybe one board total
• White paint and Gray paint
• Gorilla glue (or any wood glue you like)
• 3/4" dowel rods (for drawer pulls)
• 1/2" dowel rod (for drawer pulls)

The first step for us was figuring out a way to inset the drawers a bit so that when we added the wood tiles they wouldn't stick out. We wanted the entire front of the dresser to be flush (the West Elm one has the drawers slightly inset, but we thought a flush look would be a bit more fitting for our dresser). Our original plan was to just move the drawer slides back a few inches in the dresser, which would hopefully make the drawers sit the way we wanted them, but thankfully it was an even easier fix than that with this particular dresser — there were little metal pieces on the inside of the drawers that stopped them from going all the way in. All we had to do was pull those out and make some new stoppers with some little dowel rods and we were good to go.

Next up was cutting all of our wood tiles. Let me warn you — this project isn't for the faint of heart…it took forever! But, I think the end result is totally worth it, so I won't complain. For the tiles we took a few 1x4 boards that we had already laying around and cut them down to 1/4" thick tiles. It was the quickest way we could think of to do it, and it also meant that the end-grain of the wood would be showing, which added some fun texture. It was a pretty quick job to cut the tiles — we just used a chop saw with a piece of wood clamped to it to make sure all of the tiles were the same size. Our stack quickly grew, and soon enough we had a giant pile of wood tiles.

One they were all cut, we gave them a quick whitewash. I wanted a bit of variety within the tiles, so we did a whitewash on some of them and a gray wash on others. It was a subtle difference, but it makes the end product look a bit more random and varied, which I like.

Once our tiles were all dried and ready to go, it was time to attach them to the drawers. We didn't want to nail them in because then we'd have a billion different nail holes to fill, so we just used some wood glue. We glued 'em on in a subway pattern and then clamped a board to the drawer while it dried to ensure they all stuck. As the tiles got wet with the glue, some of them started to bow, so clamping it down also kept that to a minimum. We let it all dry together for about 12 hours (just to be sure!) then removed the clamps, sanded down the edges, and that was all there was to it!

The last step was creating the drawer pulls — we knew we wanted ones similar to the inspiration piece, but we also knew that actually finding and buying those pulls would be challenging (not to mention expensive!) so, we decided to make our own! Corey bought a 3/4" dowel, drilled two holes in the back, and inserted a small, 1/2" dowel piece. We then spray painted the whole thing with some oil-rubbed bronze spray paint, and screwed 'em in!

Once we put it all together, it looked a little something like this:

And that, my friends, is how we created our own version of West Elm's wood-tiled dresser — and under $200, to boot!
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Isn't that fabulous?! An amazing knock off that even West Elm would be impressed by.: ) We were peeking around at Amanda's blog and found these adorable DIY Animal Magnets. Another knockoff, and we are obsessed.

This Dresser turned Media Console isn't too shabby either, is it?

Check back tomorrow because we're pulling a Young House Love on ya, and posting TWICE!! We'll be sharing the tutorials for the super fun Anthro-inspired plate wall and the Anthro Ikat Console!!
Also, do you want to be a part of Creating with the Stars yourself? You can link up your favorite knock off project right here until tonight at 10 PM EST for a chance to win a great prize package and be featured on EC2!

Ok, time for Round 2, and let's just say we're back and better than ever. Well, not us, but the contestants. Their knockoff projects are killer this week!

We can tell that they really want to win the awesome prizes from our fabulous sponsors this week! Let's just recap what they are, shall we?

1. $100 Gift Card to Royal Design Studio .
RDS is our go-to source for all of our stencil projects and our run on CWTS last year was where we were first introduced to them!

2. A pair of $120 Robert Allen pillows from Chic Decor Pillows
These pillows are hand-made and absolutely gorgeous. We're sorta jealous that we don't get them.

3. Project featured by HomeTalk , which, come on, is kind of a big deal.

These are pretty fabulous prizes, but let's not forget that one contestant and their star partner will win the Grand Prize at the end of these four weeks! Woohoo!

$500 from Homes.Com
$500 Gift Card to HomeGoods
Project featured by HomeTalk

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We are so impressed with how these ladies took these famous, really pricey items and put their own spin on them to make them unique and fabulous. Let's get this party started!

1. Anthro-inspired Wall Lamp

When I heard this week was knock-off week I knew immediately what I wanted to do. See, I've been seeing this lamp I wanted in the Anthropologie catalog. It makes my heart happy but…my budget doesn't allow for it. Well, could you afford $2800.00 for a lamp? I know, right?!? Ridiculous! So, I took it upon myself to figure out how to make this lamp accessible to mere peons. Or simply those that have a budget.

Granted, I had to change things up a bit. I used pipes more than wooden spindles. And Rub n Buff to achieve some of the finishes. I also wasn't about to do the whole thing in copper piping (have you seen the cost of copper pipes?) so I sprayed pvc pipe with copper paint and Rub n Buffed it to get a nice shiny look. All in all, I have to say that this ridiculously expensive lamp just got beat. Oh yeah Anthro…you hear me??…you are charging too much!

I'll agree that mine isn't exactly the same as Anthro's. True. But, let's see mine is…about 3% of the cost of their's. Okay, I'll make do with not exactly! Truthfully, I love this lamp. It's so quirky, fun, stylish, and feels like an art piece! I'm so glad this contest pushed me to create it, I'm in love with it!

2. Restoration Hardware-inspired Lighted Sign

When I think of knock off, I think copy cat (in a good way). I think of anything duplicated to the T, but is much less expensive. For this round, I chose not to duplicate, but rather I was inspired by this Restoration Hardware arrow and created something a little different. I'll tell ya… with the basic process, you can create just about anything you can imagine. A state, a letter, a number, a symbol, a phrase. It's totally up to you.

Perfect for outdoors.

Perfect for indoors.

3. Schumacher Zimba-inspired Drapes, Anthro-inspired bench and Cornice

I love designer fabric and furniture, but the high prices make it hard to justify (especially when I change my mind frequently!) I like to get a high end look at a fraction of the price by putting a little, time, effort, and creative thinking to work!

I've been obsessing over Schumacher Zimba fabric forever, it is absolute perfection for draperies! But, at about $100 a yard (that means about $300 just for ONE panel), it is definitely not in the budget. By creating my own stencil and buying pre-made white draperies from Ikea, I was able to get two panels for about $25!!

Ever since seeing one doubling as a window seat, I have been dying to build an upholstered bench ottoman. Inspired by Anthropologie's bench ottoman that costs $1,700, I built this ottoman for under $100. I cut costs by using an inexpensive comforter in lieu of foam, upholstry webbing as a top support, and a drapery panel for fabric. It's perfect for extra seating or a place to rest your feet.

Custom cornices can be very pricey especially when topping a large window. For this window, I wanted a 95" length which can cost over $850. I built this cornice using 1x12 and 1x6 to create the frame and a long tablecloth for fabric for under $25.

These three diy projects transformed this window area and cost me only $150. The time and effort was definitely worth it over paying over $3,000 for all of the originals! 4. Faux Chair Slipcover

It looks like a chair, but kinda like a slipcover too…
Well, that's because it's a chair covered by a slipcover! Who knew this chair had such high ambitions? I did, that's who!

I saw this faux chair cover on this Danish website and I knew these covers would be perfect for my house. I drew a template and took it to a copy center to have it enlarged. Then I cut it out and appliqued each individual piece to a plain chair cover to create a faux chair on a slipcover.

It's a fun easy project that takes an afternoon. And now all my other chairs are a little jealous!
I had fun making that plate wall, too. Just plates and a few vinyl birds. I think they're perfect with my"fancy, new" chairs!

5. Anthro-inspired Ikat Console

ANTHROPOLOGIE. I LOVE this store. I love the colors, the design, the textures, the ambiance, and inspiration that I always find there. When I saw this gorgeous ikat hand painted console, I knew it was the perfect piece of inspiration for my CWTS Knock off. (and at $1698--it's a great piece to knock off; )

Using a cabinet base from IKEA and an ikat stencil from Olive Leaf Stencils, I recreated the console, choosing a similar color palette, with some color adjustments to fit my own house and decor scheme.

They say"imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." Well, Anthro, you most certainly have mine. In honor of my love for this store, I styled the console using some Anthropologie treasures, in addition to some old wooden spools & candles, books and beautiful orange tulips. 6. Anthro-Inspired Sharpie Plate Art

Woo… week 2! After the crazy, hectic, eating-cereal-for-dinner kind of week last week was I was hoping for a"knockoff" project I could knockout quickly. Apparently, I don't know how to do that. I chose to knockoff Lost Arcadia By Molly Hatch sold by Anthropologie for $7,500! Since that's about $7,450 over my budget, I decided to see if it could be done on the cheap.

It's basically 30 plates hung together with a painted scene going across all the plates. At $7,500, that's $250 per plate. Luckily Dollar Tree sells white plates for a buck. And, since I was pretty sure painting freehand on the plates wasn't going to look all that great, I used a Sharpie and a projector. All you have to do is trace… easy.

I chose to trace a botanical print on my plates since I felt it looked a little more modern, but tried to keep the style and overall feel the same–very loose and all black and white. The plates are hung using Command Strips. At 5 feet wide and 6 feet tall, it makes quite the impact on the wall, not the bank account.

7. Horchow-inspired Mirrors

So, here we are at round 2 (Did you see all of the awesome projects in round 1?). This week's theme is Knock-Off, which I love. I'm cheap frugal, and just can't spend the money that some of the big name websites want for their stuff. Plus, I'm sure my husband would think I'm certifiably insane if I bought a $300 vase or $100 throw pillow. But just because I'm designing on a budget doesn't mean that I can't have nice things, right?

I saw these mirrors over at Horchow, and loved them. I'm one of those ladies that thinks that you can never have enough mirrors in your house. Mirrors to make your room look bigger. Mirrors to reflect light and brighten up your space. Mirrors to make sure you don't have food in your teeth. The more, the merrier. But $1095 shipped? Yikes. No thank you. But looking at them, I figured I could make them.
A quick stop at Hobby Lobby for the wooden plates and big mirror, a not so quick stop by Home Depot for the rope and other supplies, and a call and stop by the local mirror place for the smaller mirror size that I couldn't find pre-cut anywhere. Then it was time to go home to paint, sand and assemble.

I did have to get creative with the black caps that Horchow has on the ends of their ropes. My solution? PVC end caps, simply spray painted black. Some black BBQ & Stove spray paint on the metal (which is holding nicely as long as you don't bang around the metal) and voila! Drill a hole in the PVC, hot glue the hooks and rope, and BOOM.

Slightly smaller, slightly lighter in color, but perfectly me.
8. West Elm-inspired Wood Tile Dresser
It didn't take long for me to figure out what I wanted to do for this week's challenge. I've been lusting after this wood-tiled dresser from West Elm for months and months, but at a whopping $900, it just wasn't going to happen. So, this challenge gave me the perfect excuse to try and re-create it on my own! And I think it turned out pretty awesome.

I found this gorgeous antique dresser at a local flea market and knew it would be the perfect piece for this project. It's not quite as modern as the original, but it has some nice clean lines and wooden casters, which make me a little weak in the knees. With a fresh coat of paint, some DIY-ed hardware, and a whole bunch of whitewashed, hand-cut wood tiles it looks pretty dang close to the original.

Really, if I'm being honest, I like my version just a little bit better.; -) 9. Anthro-inspired Duvet When I first saw the Corin Duvet from Anthropologie, I fell in love with its details. Hand stitching, gathered fabric, pure gorgeousness. But it also came with a price tag that was way out of my league.

I wanted this look for our room but didn't want to spend $400 (and I didn't want to sew anything) so I bought a white duvet cover and a bottle of puffy paint. PUFFY PAINT?! Yes, I said puffy paint.

I used a picture of the original and a steady hand to paint the details onto my duvet.

But don't worry, the look is nothing like those cheesy tee shirts you used to make!; )

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's time to vote! You guys have a ridiculously hard job- we don't envy you a bit! You can only vote one time, but you can vote for your favorite 3 projects. In order to vote, please LIKE EC2 on Facebook. Thanks!


Thanks for voting! Check back tomorrow to see Monica's Knockoff that saved her over $1500! Did you miss the Round 1 projects? You can see them all here. Want to know the results of Round 1? Click here!