But since i do not have $600 laying around to spend on a brass figurine for my coffee table, I had to leave the store with sadness and empty handed. So I went to a bookstore and bought the newest issue of my favorite magazine HGTV to cheer me up and found out Target was selling a brass figurine that was much more within my budget!
So what's a girl to do? I got into my super speedy deluxe Japanese soccer mom looking car that hasn't been washed/cleaned in over a year and headed straight to Tar-jay! Unfortunately, the $10 brass rhino figurine I saw in the magazine was nowhere to be found. Not at Target or online! Once again, i was bummed.
So I came up with a brilliant idea thanks to some Pinterest inspiration! I was going to make my own, for less than $10. That's right, less than $10. Bring on the challenge!
I went to Michael's and found a $1 plastic elephant that was the perfect size for this project.
I then took some white primer wall paint I had lying around and painted this baby up. Once it was dried, I took some gold spray paint and sprayed it. Rotating it to make sure I got every inch, and letting it dry outside. I already had the rest of the materials from other projects, so it made this project well under budget. As in $9 under budget.
I highly recommend using a primer before the spray paint (unless you buy spray paint with a built in primer, which they sell at Home Depot for around $7). If you don't use a primer, you will have a hard time having the spray paint adhere to the figurine as well as provide a good cover.
Once I finished painting my elephant, I got some pieces of wood I got for free at Home Depot. I just asked one of their employees for their scraps and found blocks that were the perfect size! Unfortunately, these had a lot of imperfections, and although i tried to cover all the imperfections with some wall putty and sanding it still wasn't a perfect fix. After i tried to smooth it out as much as I could, I painted it with white primer paint and then spray painted it with a white lacquer.
Once the elephant and the wood were dry, I took some crazy glue and glued the elephant to the piece of wood. I let it dry, and then sprayed it with a sealer to make sure it wouldn't get scuffed up.
And voila! It looks pretty nice! And the best part is that it cost me $1! He is going to look very pretty on my bookshelf or coffee table once I redo those. I think the next one I will make will be a giraffe. But I might try to find a smoother block of wood to glue it on so it looks a little bit more smooth and sleek.
Now if only I could hack every single thing from the Jonathan Adler store... hahaha.
xoxo
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