upcycled magazine rack

I've been inspired by some of the diy projects that I've pinning to my "restyled projects" board on pinterest and thought that I'd share one of my recent restyled projects with you.

This upcycled magazine rack was a metal rack that my Mother-in-law "rescued" from the garbage at an electronics store ... I thought that I had some "before" pictures of this to show but I must have deleted them from my camera. The metal rack was in good shape and I my Mother-in-law thought that she and Grandma would like to be able to use it in the kitchen to hold cooking magazines ... they just didn't like the advertising that was on the rack and thought that I could do something with it.

Here's the front and side views of the rack. I covered everything that was originally painted black on the rack with pages from an old dictonary using gel medium. I didn't cover the silver/chrome parts because I thought that they looked fine. I antiqued the dictonary paper with distress inks (vintage photo) to give the piece an aged look.

Here's a close up of the bottom front of the rack.

I printed an art poster print at Costco and used gel medium to attach the poster to the front panels of the rack. I distressed the poster using Tim Holtz distress inks so that it would blend into the dictonary papers on the sides. The collage art  was created on my computer using my own digital elements and some digital scrapbooking papers that I purchased. 

I wanted the birds to stand out a little bit so I covered them with "glossy accents" by Inkessentials.

Because the rack was metal I thought that it would be cute to include some paper flower magnets. The magnets are decorative and functional. They display recipe cards and shopping lists.

There are lots of great tutorials on how to make paper flowers online ... there are some on my pinterest boards if you want to try to make them yourself.  I used gel medium to attach the paper flowers, paper leaves and some ribbon & lace scraps to wooden game pieces. FYI - my magnets of choice are rare earth magnets ... just keep them away from your computer and credit cards.

Here's one more shot showing the top of the rack with three of the magnets and the gift tag I attached.

I have a couple of other restyled projects that I am just about finished that I will share with you next time! Are you working on any restyling projects for your home? If so, I'd love to know about them ... I'm always looking for new ideas to add to my pinterest boards. Happy crafting!