I am going to do a series of shelf DIY posts. They will not be posted all in a row because I have a Christmas in July post planned for next week. My hope is to give you some inspiration if you come across old shelves or see some but they might not be the right color or do not match your style. Just to let you know up front, I lost some of the pictures of the shelves but there is enough to get the idea of what I did to DIY them.

Over the last few months I have been collecting several different kinds of shelves. I wanted a new shelf to hang our car keys on. The other place I need shelves is going down our steps to our basement. We have a ton of shot glasses that my husband and I have collected over the years since we got married. The shot glasses have been in a container for the last 4 years so it is time to start getting them out and on display. My goal is to have several different kinds and styles of shelves to put the shot glasses on. I am accomplishing just that.

Lets Get Started

Supplies

SHELVES!!! That is the first thing you will need. I got some shelves from Dollar General, Target, and a thrift store. If you want to change the color of the shelves you will need paint of some kind. I used spray paint, chalk paint, and acrylic paint. To give a few of these shelves some personality I added some wood planks with saying on them that I used my Cricut to do. I used a few basic supplies like twine and hot glue too.

We are going to start with the shelf I found to hang our keys on. I got this one at Dollar General on clearance. It was white and I did not want it to blend in with my walls so I spray painted it with this rust color. I took the wood piece off of the shelf first. Please do spray paint in a well ventilated area. I did 3 light coats of spray paint on each side of the wire part to the shelf. After that I did 2 coats of polyacrylic over it. Then I added the wood piece back on.

I was watching a YouTube video the other day and I saw where they added the saying “Come Home Safely” on a key holder and I loved the saying on it. It is something that we will read every time we walk out the door of our home. To add this to the shelf, I took a wood plank I got from Hobby Lobby and painted it with a little blue paint and water mixture. I cut the words out with my Cricut and some metallic vinyl and added the words to the plank. Then I used some ribbon to help me hot glue the plank to the shelf. Finally, I hung the shelf on my wall and that was it. You can do this project very quick and can accomplish it in a day. Spray paint makes things go a lot faster.

This next shelf started as a table top shelf. I made a mistake from the get go and I should have known better. The surface of the shelf is slick and I should have primed it with chalk paint first. That is not what I did first and man did I pay the price. I used Dark Navy Apple Barrel paint to start painting this shelf. After two coats of paint, I could still see a lot of white through it. So I went over the whole shelf with Ocean Chalk Paint from Waverly and then did two more coats of the Dark Navy over it.

My next issue was that I needed to figure out how to hang a shelf that was not meant to be hung. My husband had a few ideas but I did not want to see all the metal hardware that it would take to hang it. After some thought I decided to drill some holes in what would be the top and bottom of the shelf and then looped twin through the holes. I tied knots where they were needed and then hung it up. It is a shelf that looks very different and I love it!!

These shelves are from Target. I was able to find 2 of each kind of shelf. I did not want them all the same color on the inside so I painted the inside of one grey and the inside and outside edge of another with Dark Navy Apple Barrel paint. I hung the shelves one on top of the other with space in between each one for more shot glassed on the tops of each shelf. They work great with the tall shot glasses we have.

I found this old shelf at a thrift store. I did not like the heart on it but I knew I could make it work. To start I painted one coat of outdoor grey chalk paint on it. After that was dry, I used some heavy grit sandpaper on the shelf to take some of the paint off all the edges and also off the sides.

Now lets cover that heart!! I took a wooden plank from Hobby Lobby and painted it with a water and white chalk paint to give it a white wash. I wanted the words ” I would rather be someone’s shot of whiskey, Than everyone’s cup of tea!” on the plank. I thought about using my Cricut but the words would be really small and hard to work with if I cut them out. So I typed it out in Cricut Design Space and did a print and cut. It printed out on my printer and then the Cricut cut the paper in a rectangle that will fit on the plank. I used a glue stick to put it on the plank. The paper on the plank was bright white and did not go with the rustic vibe of the shelf. So I took a bit of Antique Wax and VERY lightly brushed over the edges of the plank and over the top of the words. I attached the plank to the shelf with hot glue. It was perfect!!

I do not have the before pictures of these two shelves. I used the same method of painting the grey paint on them and then sanding all the edges of the shelves So simple and easy!!

It was a lot of fun doing all the shelves. Each one was done a bit differently. I am excited to display all the shot glasses and cups that have been in a bin for years. They show the journey my husband and I have taken with all the places we have been. It was really neat to relive a few of the places we have been and show our boys all the places we have visited over the last 20 years. Let me know if you try some of these techniques in making over shelves or any other pieces. Thrift stores are great places to look!!

Thank you for joining me today. Please join me next week for Christmas in July!! I will be flipping some thrift store finds.

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Have a wonderful weekend.

Melissa McGuire

Yellow Butterfly Craft Designs

Supplies

Shelves- Dollar General, Target, Thrift Store

Waverly Chalk Paint in White and Ocean- Walmart

Dark Navy Apple Barrel Paint- Walmart

Wooden Planks- Hobby Lobby

Twine- Dollar Tree

Surebonder Hot Glue Gun and Hot Glue Sticks- Hobby Lobby