Shabby Chic Craft Ideas

If you love shabby chic and you’re continuously on the lookout for little additions for your home, why not give some of these 25 shabby chic projects a go? All are easy to do and make use of inexpensive materials and scraps that you can pick up on digital designs, eBay, at car boot sales or even on the beach! Complete these projects and you’ll have 25 gorgeous shabby chic items to be proud of.

Easy Shabby Chic DIY Projects that Cost Next to Nothing

LACE LAMPSHADE

For a nice-looking lampshade, take a timeworn plain lampshade (or if you don’t have one, these start at just £1.99 at Dunhelm Mill) and coat it with lace, a printed design on fabric, gluing the layers on piece by piece with craft glue. Or, as an alternative of lace, you can use crochet trims. This lovely knowledge came from Isabel Feist Lang.

BUTTON POT

Buttons are flawless for decorating everything from picture frames, scrapbooks to cushions. Make a sweet button lid box or tin by merely casing the box or tin with coloured paper or fabric, and gluing on the buttons in your selected design.

BOXES WALL HANGING

For a classic shabby chic wall hanging, save your small boxes (matchboxes, jewellery boxes, cosmetic packaging etc.) and cover them with printed designed paper. Secure them to a board or drop them into another bigger shallow box, and then line the inside of the back of each smaller box with pretty coloured paper or fabric. Place little tattered chic trinkets on each shelf – these can be beads, flowers, buttons, butterflies or any pretty embellishment.

SEASIDE PICTURE FRAME

To make a charming shabby chic seaside picture frame, take a hoary wooden unadorned picture frame and give it a stunning shell design: first give the frame a coat of paint in your selected colour and then wait for it to dry. Once it’s done, take some sandpaper and rough it down, giving it a weathered appearance. You can also get a constituent that weathers paint which looks gorgeous, giving it a crackle appearance. To make this job easier you can cover it in printed designed vintage paper. Then take your shells and other seaside objects, and assign them in your preferred design with superglue.

FABRIC COVERED JAM JARS

Save your old jam jars and rinse them out clean. Cut a circle somewhat wider than the jar from pretty fabric or printed paper designs printed onto fabric using pinking shears and tie the circle on using ribbon, lace or natural string. These appealing jars make a good-looking shabby chic decoration, particularly in a collection with mix and match prints – and you can use them to store bits and bobs like beads, cotton reals, pins and other sewing items.

EMPTY PERFUME BOTTLE DISPLAY

Empty perfume bottles make a sweet ornamentation for any window sill – the more ornamental the better. The gorgeous tinted glass allows the light to torrent through, making an eye-catching display. As well as gathering your own empty bottles, you can find fine-looking empty bottles for sale for a few pounds on eBay, and of course car boot sales are always a great place to find these pretty items for a rock-bottom price too! Place them on shabby chic designed placemats for extra ‘wow’ factor.

JEWELLERY ORGANISER

For another classical shabby chic jewellery organizer, take a decent sized over-elaborate vintage looking frame (Dunhelm Mill is a great place to pick these up very inexpensively) and take out the glass. Line the back with pretty fabric or paper designs and then rivet in small picture hooks to the back on which to drape your jewellery. This tremendous idea came from Caroline Burke‘s blog (she found it on Pinterest). She recommends that if you don’t have any pretty fabric, you could use wallpaper or patterned paper instead or even print off unique designs from digitalpaper.shop.

JAM JAR LID FRAMES

Up-cycle your jam jar lids and turn them into attractive photo frames to fasten to the fridge or anything metal – merely glue a magnet to the back and insert your selected photo. Otherwise paint the inside with black chalkboard paint and add quotes or messages, then assign either as a magnet or to a board to generate an exciting beautification. You could also just insert interesting designs. This cunning idea was posted on HubPages by Bernadyn Nettles.

BEADED HANGINGS

Take old shabby necklaces, bracelets and jewellery and eliminate the beads for turning into something original. Using robust wire (garden wire is ideal) form a shape of your picking such as a heart, and thread on the beads. It is occasionally helpful to dot a little superglue on the wire, thread on the bead and leave that to dry for a few minutes before tallying the next one – it means you don’t need so many beads. Accompaniments of lace and ribbon can also look very pretty.