Love Is Blue [For This Mrs Moppe]

Back in the 90’s, this family acquired lots of inexpensive “Moppe” boxes from IKEA. Like this set of drawers

They proved very useful for storing little bits and pieces. It was also great fun personalising them. Steph had a six-drawer set which she covered with magazine pictures [at least, I think this belonged to Steph, not Liz…] It’s beginning to look a little tatty now.

And I had a set which I kept on my desk at school [I taught a Year 6 SATS class full-time for 2 terms back in 2001 – it nearly killed me!] to hold sharpeners, stapler, tape etc. I covered this with pictures of angels from ‘fine art’ type Christmas cards.

My set needs a bit of restoration- it has been on a window sill in the sun and the top pictures are fading and lifting.

I decided on Monday that I would first recover Steph’s drawers and also paste something on the ‘bare’ set of drawers, so that I can use them for craft materials. First I stripped off the old pictures – to discover the box had once been painted blue, and then Steph had painted the edges in gold. I decided to go for a blue and white theme for both sets, and so dug out a magazine for inspiration.

The photos in MCI are so good, and I happened, for bizarre reasons, to have two copies of this issue so didn’t mind sacrificing one of them. I cut out lots of blue and white pictures, and set to work.

I thought that adding some French words would look particularly chic! I stuck the paper down with a mixture of 50/50 PVA glue and warm water, stirred well with a cocktail stick. I used my fingers to apply and smooth it all down. Messy but effective – and I gave everything a top coat of the solution as a sealant. [Untidy edges were trimmed with a craft knife]

Then I left everything to dry on the kitchen table and went to bed early [do not insert drawers whilst glue is still drying!!]

When re-assembled next day, I ended up with these…

I am very pleased with the finished results. There are a couple of places where the paper has wrinkled a bit, but you have to look hard to see them [that’s one advantage of such a ‘busy’ collage]

It was a quick and easy project, with little effort for great effect.

The gilded edging is good. On the other set, I wrapped blue and white paper right round the edges rather than leaving bare wood.

Now to decide what to put in them!

There’s another ‘uncovered’ set in the spare room. Should I do them in blue and white too, or go for another colour scheme?