DIYs: Revamping Rebekah's Room (a.k.a the only place I'll be at until 2021...)

Hello hello hello and welcome back to another DIY post!

     It's shocking that I will have uploaded two posts within the same month...Surprisingly, these past couple of weeks have been kind of busy. To recap, our church had our annual east coast summer bible conference online, I developed a passion for baking in order to prepare myself for the Great British Baking Show (please bring to America), and currently I'm in the process of baptism preparation! I sense the bustling of energy, that comes with being busy, in moments of time where "normal" life seems to return. Normal, as in the fact that responsibilities still find us here in phase two of the pandemic. Jokes on us - they never left. I see it as my sister works endlessly on her medical school applications and as my parents communicate to figure out my mom's online class. Strangely, the weeks whiz by but when I look back, a couple of weeks can feel like another lifetime. 

    Inspired by room decorations videos that I've watched during my high school days from Studio 86 and Bestdressed, I took it upon myself to revamp my room. I know that I'll find myself on August 31, thinking, "man, this slow summer flew by too fast!" (paradox anyone?) as I look ahead and face a semester of freshman online classes. Or to be exact, I will look ahead and face my Lenovo laptop screen. And I can't lie. That sentence packs a lot of worry, fear, and disappointment. Here's a brief writing moment for me to debrief:

    Acceptance stretches out her hand and squints to locate the baton that's in my sweaty hand as I wearily run the last couple meters. I've used up all my energy and now the aftermath burns, but Acceptance and Hope carry on the race. Anxiety and Grief have finished their time. 

    Each day, God calls me to not worry about tomorrow even though that's all I do sometimes. Today has enough troubles of its own (Matthew 6). I can't carry God-weight, because it's God's job to take care of my tomorrow. The seasons of anxiety and grief have dwindled away during these beautifully simple and slow summer days, and now there's a giddy nervousness that glimmers in the bend of the road, into the unknown. (I should watch Frozen 2). 

    Personal thoughts aside, here are the small DIYs and upcycles that I've done today. Be prepared for more drastic changes as I get a new IKEA desk (yay!) and try to transform my room into my college-studying-everything nook. Materials used:

POSCA White Acrylic Marker 

White Acrylic Paint 

Paint Brushes + Water 

Empty & Peeled Kombucha Bottles

    Using the acrylic marker (on sale for $3 from Joann), I lettered the word "paint" on the mason jar water cup (seen above) that I use. It looks really messy and dirty most of the time, but I guess it holds an artistic charm. If you try to letter the center of the cup where the word "Ball Mason" is engraved, the lettering ends up unrefined and...not pretty....because it is on a bumpy surface. (I learned the hard way). 

    I felt empowered by my POSCA marker, as if I held a magical wand that had the power to transform anything. I grabbed my bullet journal and lettered "twenty twenty" on the back since I wanted to retain the sleek back look for the front. I'm halfway done with this Moleskin bullet journal, and I've been using it since January! 

    Next, inspired by Bestdressed, I left these old Kombucha bottles in hot water and soap. Then, I scrubbed and peeled the label off and cut the plastic rim. By the way, the knock-off LIDL Kombucha label was so much easier to peel off than the real brand. The original tastes a lot better, but now I face the dilemma of which one will take me less time to peel haha! I may or may have not successfully propagated the plant so we'll see...I usually forget to even water the succulents so they are also half dead. The pictures look nice at least?

    My main project today was transforming the picture frame below. It just laid hopelessly in our spare room, waiting to be displayed. I realized that I like the white furniture and walls of my room much better than its wooden compliments. So, without a spray can in sight, I hand painted the frame with two-three layers of white acrylic. 

Hello Korean newspaper! Make sure to keep surfaces covered as acrylic paint dries quickly and can be hard to remove. 

I realized the head of a random Korean man in the paper kept showing up awkwardly in the shots so these are pictures I retook, haha. 

Get all the corners and insides! It was at this point where I wished I had just bought spray paint...

but I had a bottle of white acrylic paint that was getting old and I finally finished all of it! 

In order to get a distressed and textured look, I grabbed a paper towel and dabbed another coat of paint onto the previously dried layer. The same effect works with dabbing the paint brush. Here on the sides, I created loose blotches with the paint brush to emulate a distressed look, but also because your girl was getting tired. 

This frame originally was used in the direction where it had a longer height than width, but I turned it so that it would stand horizontally with vertical photos! 

Perfect!

Here's a peek at the frame that's next to the DIY project - a corkboard of senior pics of my high school friends to commemorate our class *teary eyes* 

    If you have read this post until the end, please comment what room DIY was your favorite and if you have tried/want to try/and recommend any! I hope this post inspired you to GO CREATE! I have a lot more DIY content and posts to create and upload, but I just haven't captured them all with the camera. Outside my window a storm rages with bursts of lightning right now, so I'm ready to go to sleep and continue creating tomorrow! 

    - thecreatingwarrior