The Tip Shop Project #2 - vote for your chance to win $500!

(To read the original #1 post and actually understand what the heck this is about, click here.)

The project is done and over and it looks fantastic!!! I think the most impressive thing to show you, first of all, is the classic before-and-after shots. So...

This is what the cupboard looked like when we first bought it:

So yeah, as you can see, it was just an average piece of furniture. Some kind of television cabinet or something else entirely unremarkable.

 And then we made it awesome!:

I think my favourite thing about our work is the irony. The outside of the cabinet is white and clean and covered in illustrations from vintage kids' books that we sourced from the tip shop and then chopped into bits. BUT THEN - you open the doors and it's like SHAZAM, and you get hit in the face with all the lush reds and golds and the velvet and shine. Now it's a drinks cabinet, with a pull-out tray for mixing, shelves for glasses and draws for bottles. Subtle lighting reflects off the red paint to coax you inside as well... the whole thing is really quite shifty. I like to think of it as an adults' tardis. Some kind of naughty optical illusion. You could have this baby sitting in your bedroom and even a nun wouldn't suspect a thing - three little pigs on the outside, Bombay Sapphire and Captain Morgan and Bicardi on the inside. 

Doing it up was truly a team effort. Actually, it was a lovely family project made by a mumma and a pappa and girl. First we sanded and washed the whole thing, then we painted the outside white and the inside red, then came the chopping: piles and piles of books to cover a total of six panels showing on the sides of the cabinet. Then we put in new shelving inside and covered the inside walls with velvet-and-pins panels. Next was the goldleaf cover on the inside and a few coats of varnish on the outside. My mum blogged about the process too.
 

 

So now the important thing is to vote for your favourite piece in the competition! When you place your vote you have the chance to win $500 cash! And the winner of the competition recieves $500 cash too, so PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE vote for our piece!! We decided to go to Stradbroke Island for a few nights if we win - wanna join us? Kidding. Although I guess you could if you wanted to.

 

 

 

 

On a serious note, there are eight other wonderful entries. I don't mind if you don't vote for us - as long as you vote at all! Nancy Brown is an artist we're friends with who does wonderful workshops with Multicap centres for the disabled and she gave an old table a new life with carrot-bodied print-made dragonflies! That sentence made no sense, better read her blog.

The winner will also have their work shown at the state library, so hopefully I'll show you a nice snap of the family in front of the winning peice. Lol. Alternatively, drinks at my place?