Years ago, the Violent Femmes blazed this fact into my brain: Pink flamingos stand on one leg.
something old, something new, nothing borrowed, something blue...
Well, I'm here to tell you, meine Damen und Herren, that pink flamingos stand on two legs too, as proven by the picture above of my former "pink flamingo table," which I created from:
I created this "flamingo table" while living at my last apartment (before purchasing my teeny-tiny townhome that features a little patio where my lawn flamingos now peek out from the bushes). I was low on cash, but determined to make one tiny corner of the apartment scream "ME!!!" without doing unalterable damage.
And, dear reader, as I'm sure you yourself have discovered, low on cash leads to some seriously creative re-uses of things you have lying around the house or can pick up for little-to-nothing at your local thrift store. The secondhand glass table and lamp had been gifted by old friends who were redecorating. The only items I specifically purchased for this project were the brick-shaped floral bases in which my flamingos stood--on two legs thank you very much!- a secondhand glass side table
- a secondhand lamp with a cream-colored conical lamp shade
- two plastic flamingo lawn figurines I had lying around
- a random mini-plastic flamingo statuette an old friend gave me at some point in my life
- blue cellophane paper I'd gotten to gift wrap a basket
- two floral foam cores in the shape of bricks
- my ever-growing stash of acrylic paint that I stock up on every time a craft store has it for sale
- a small wooden mirror painted with a pink flamingo and flamingo-like decor that I picked up in St. Augustine, Fla., for $7 from a store that was closing
I created this "flamingo table" while living at my last apartment (before purchasing my teeny-tiny townhome that features a little patio where my lawn flamingos now peek out from the bushes). I was low on cash, but determined to make one tiny corner of the apartment scream "ME!!!" without doing unalterable damage.
Here's my process, which can be easily used to transform a simple glass side table and pieces of whatever it is you collect into a wonderfully kitsch display:
- Painted the glass top of my secondhand table "flamingo pink" using the aforementioned acrylic paint collection. NOTE: It took a few coats to get the precise color and look I was going for. Spray paint would've been faster, but I'm hopeless with that stuff.
- Coated the now-pink glass top in glow-in-the-dark veneer (that came in same bottle as my acrylic craft paints) because I was tired of running into the table in the dark. NOTE: Due to my alterations to the lampshade, the table rarely got enough light to glow like I wanted it to. My bad.
- Painted the cream-colored conical lampshade from my secondhand lamp a luscious, fertile green, the stem of the lamp bronzish brown, and the base of the lamp a lagoon/baby blue. Yup, used that old handy paint collection.
- Using E600 craft glue (yea, the noxious fumes and all), I mounted my gifted miniature pink flamingo on the lamp base (since the base of the mini statue was also a lagoon/baby blue).
- Covered my two *purchased for this purpose* rectangular blocks of floral foam an iridescent blue using Modge Podge(R), which is one of my all-time fave crafting supplies. The effect was a sort of eery underwater quality to the blue.
- Mounted one lawn-ornament pink flamingo on each block, and placed these on each side of the lamp. NOTE: I had to do a lot of reconfiguring to keep them standing upright because they were so top heavy.
- Hung my clearance-sale pink flamingo mirror above the table with care, and VOILA! The pink flamingo table was born!
