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Upcycled & Painted Thrift Store Globe

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Since we are doing a travel themed nursery, when I came across an old globe at my local thrift store I knew that it would be a fun addition into the room. I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to do with it at first, but a couple weekends ago Brad was at the Husky game so I finally pulled it out of the garage and got to work.

Upcycled Teal & Black Painted Globe for Gender Neutral Travel Themed NurseryOur nursery colors are grey and white with a few teal accents thrown in so I knew that I wanted the globe to be somewhat neutral to fit in with that. The fist thing I did was outline the continents in black sharpie so that I could easily see the shapes that I needed to paint.  Some of the smaller island countries got submerged into the ocean as I was going for a more general shape of the continents.

Next, I pulled out the some black paint and started painting in the oceans. It took 2-3 coats to really cover the globe well. I had to do this per hemisphere to avoid getting wet paint everywhere, as I was putting the globe back together I realized that I should have put it back on its axis before painting so that I could have used it as the rotation point throughout the painting process.

Once the black had dried, I filled in the continents with teal. This also took 2-3 coats to cover all the words on the globe. Once everything had dried, I put it back onto the stand (which had been spray painted gold) and then did final touch ups on the paint.

Upcycled Teal & Black Painted Globe for Gender Neutral Travel Themed Nursery

Originally, I wanted to cut out vinyl for each of the continents; however, after looking at some inspiration pictures on Pinterest I noticed that all the ones I really liked had been hand painted and would be hard to replicate with vinyl. I then moved onto some sort of saying to put across the Pacific Ocean (since it is a huge black space on the globe). Since this globe’s final location will be in the nursery I felt that “Let the Journey Begin” was fitting. It went along with our adoption announcement photo which said “We’re On An Adventure To Find Our Baby” across a map.

Upcycled Teal & Black Painted Globe for Gender Neutral Travel Themed NurseryThe globe turned out absolutely amazing! It is probably a good thing that I didn’t know that it was going to take me over 5 hours to paint when I started or this globe might still be sitting in my garage.

Upcycled Teal & Black Painted Globe for Gender Neutral Travel Themed Nursery

Upcycled Teal & Black Painted Globe for Gender Neutral Travel Themed NurseryI think that this globe will be amazing in the nursery. Even though it took a lot longer than I anticipated I had a great time painting the globe and it will be a piece that we keep for a long time.

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Comments

  10. This does look like a lot of work, but it turned out lovely! I did a globe in white with gold vinyl on it recently and I love it. Globe projects can be a little tricky, but so worth it in the end!

    Carrie
    curlycraftymom.com

  12. Oh I love this! What a wonderful way to celebrate your journey. It looks like it was totally worth your 5 hours! Did you hand-paint the letters? It seems like vinyl might be hard to apply on a curved surface. Pinning!

  15. Oh, it looks GORGEOUS! What a fantastic color combination, and you did a stellar job. I have an old globe to makeover, but I’m terrified it’ll look like one of those “Nailed it!” Pinterest fail pictures. ;) Thank you so, so much for partying with us at Snickerdoodle Sunday- can’t wait to see what you’ve got next this weekend!

  16. What a creative idea…I never would have thought of this! Thanks for sharing at Share The Wealth Sunday!
    xoxo
    Lisa

  18. This is perfect! Pinned and tweeted. We appreciate you taking the time to party with us! I hope to see you on Monday at 7 pm, so we get to see your fabulous new creations. The party goes until Friday at 7 pm. Happy Sunday! Lou Lou Girls

  19. Such a cute project and perfect for that travel-themed nursery! I would love it if you could share this over at Celebrate it Sunday. I have Tweeted this and shared it over at FB!

  20. Love how your diy turned out. I’ve been on the hunt for a globe. Pricing is off the hook as people know they are a hot item. But, I’ll keep looking. Pinned & shared. Thanks for joining the Inspiration Spotlight party.

  28. This is such an amazing idea to recreate a globe like this. It looks stunning! I love the color palette you choose too.

    Thank you for sharing this with us on the #HomeMattersParty. We hope to see you again when we open our doors at 12 AM EST on Friday.

  30. This turned out fantastic! I love that you added the quote in a gold accent. It brings the whole project together. Thanks for sharing your project with us at Merry Monday this week!

  31. Thank you so much for linking at #overthemoon! I look forward to seeing what you share every week. Please come back for #WonderfulWednesday or #ThursdayFavoriteThings. Enjoy your week ahead.

  33. I like it.
    I love that you added the quote in a gold accent. It brings the whole project together.
    Thanks for sharing.