File Cabinet Redo

I'm being overcome by paper...patterns, magazines, articles from the internet and there are piles everywhere in my studio!  When a good friend was having a garage sale and said that at the end of the day everything goes to Goodwill, I did my best to support her and relieve her of having to haul so much to Goodwill. Hey, that's what friends are for, right?  LOL  One of the things I took off her hands was a legal size file cabinet, in pretty good condition, but quite frankly...ho hum, boring, bland. Never mind that I had a matching one, but I paid full price for it and hate to ruin it by painting it. But this free one....I felt fully comfortable letting my imagination run wild! Enter my favorite color...at the moment...

I didn't take a before picture, but I am fairly confident you can imagine what a plain, beige 4 drawer file cabinet looks like, right?  I then taped off all the metal...dumb!  I had to later remove it to get the paper on the drawer fronts and then decided to paint the hardware anyway. 

But oh well.  It took 2 cans (after priming it) to fully cover it.  I thought it was a lot, but since this is a fairly new thing for me, it could be right. 

After it was all dry, I then removed all the hardware.  A lot of the access to the handles, etc. was hidden behind a plastic insert on the inside drawer front, which I removed. 

Picking out the wildest scrapbook paper I could find, I soon realized this was a LEGAL size file cabinet and one 12" x 12" scrapbook paper wasn't going to fit! 

 The outside drawer dimension was 

11 1/4" x 16 1/2". So I cut a second sheet of paper and cut it about 2" less wide than I needed, and then filled it with a contrasting band of color. 

In order to play around with my design, without committing to it, I used this Spray Adhesive, which allows you to reposition your paper, without ruining it.

After I was satisfied with my paper placement...

I used Mod Podge to glue the papers on the drawers and then put a thin coating on top of it, making sure I sealed the edges well so they wouldn't peel.  I don't have ONE picture of this step..do you know how hard it is to do Mod Podge AND take a photo at the same time?  When you are by yourself, it's hard to do!  But you can read more about it at Mod Podge Rocks blog. (great fun blog, btw!)

I decided that my hardware kind of blended in with this wild paper, so decided to spray paint the hardware black. 

and here she is...in all her wild glory!

Wow--now that I look at this picture, it looks like a wedge!  Obviously the angle that I had to take it!  

Now I'm off to gather the patterns, papers, etc. that are stashed ALL over the place and get them into ONE place.  

My husband thinks I'm crazy...but it makes me smile.  And that, my friends, is what it's about. Bringing some JOY in my life.