Spring Fever...plus a Mod Podged bookcase

So, I've caught Spring Fever, have you? I am sitting right now on my porch swing, enjoying some beautiful weather and sunshine and watching my kids ride their bikes. And that's after spending the day at the zoo with my four-year-old and some friends. It feel soooo nice outside! Bring on the sunshine!

Since I have spring fever, you would think I would be posting about a spring craft I have done, but no. I haven't gotten to any of those since I have been enjoying our beautiful weather. This bookshelf is something I did several weeks ago and was debating about posting it since it didn't turn out quite like I had hoped. But then I thought, why should that stop me! Just because it didn't turnout perfectly doesn't mean that I should feel bad about showing it to others! I still spent time on it, and it does look better than it did before! So, here it is, my Mod Podged bookshelf.

Here is the before...it really was gross looking.

It is just one of those cheap laminate bookshelves that I've had since my college days. Several years ago, I tried to paint it. This was before I discovered the whole blogging world and all the great tutorials out there showing you how do do things like this. So I didn't sand. Or prime. Or do any of the things I know I should have done now. So it had all these places where the painted had been rubbed off.

Like this. Yuck. But instead of painting it again, I decided to cover it with scrapbook paper. I got a bunch of cute pink and brown paisley paper when it was on sale at Hobby Lobby. I was very technical about how I measured the paper.

See. That's how I measured the pretty much all of it. I covered the shelves, the sides and the top of the bookshelf, first putting a thin layer of Mod Podge down, lining up the paper and smoothing it with a credit card, then putting another thin layer of Mod Podge on the top. Pretty simple, but time consuming. I didn't do as good as a job in the smoothing as I thought I had so there are a few bubbles. And there is one shelf in it that is pretty much just jimmy rigged in, so I had a hard time covering that area as you will see in the picture. But here is the finished project.

I didn't do the edges or the back because I got lazy, I mean I liked it better that way. But that part of the paint job was holding up pretty good and I like the contrast it gives.

Here is a closer look.
As you can see it is not perfect. But still an improvement I think! And once you get it loaded up with all my stuff, you hardly notice the imperfections.

And isn't that how we should look at everything, as a whole, and not dwell on the imperfections, but instead realize that they add character?

Happy Spring everyone! I think I am going to fire up the grill tonight for dinner, because I can! :)

And thanks to Michelle at Someday Crafts for featuring my St. Patty's Topiary! Check out all the other cute St. Patty's stuff that she has found.