Naomi – Author at Plaster & Disaster

There is definitely pressure to have nice photography when writing a blog. You want to put out pretty pictures that readers will enjoy, and you also want to show your ~~mediocre~~ amazing projects in ~~the best light possible~~ their true glory.

Both Sage and I have DSLR cameras that we use for most blog photos – and this makes a huge difference. We take the time to clean up, arrange good shots, and edit our photos so this place can look nice. I’m not saying we’re stellar photographers, but we do try to put our best foot forward.

If our theme, set-up, and logo are like the decorations of our online home, then our photos are like good staging and accessories – changing, but ideally coordinated and stylish.

However, half of our name is “Disaster,” and, trust us, we’re not actually coordinated and stylish. We’ve been tricking you this whole time! Hah!

Just kidding. We’ve been trying all along to show off our disaster sides. Sage shared her tale about trying to install a toilet, I pointed out everything that went wrong with my big doors project, and we’ve shared a lot of what is wrong with our homes along the way, like holes in the walls and doors, gaps in the ceilings, and the truth about “our garden sheds.”

In keeping with that grand tradition, today I am going to share a little about what was going on behind the scenes of three of my recent photos.

Of course you remember the side table that we made out of a thrift store plastic cactus as part of the Mystery Thrift Off by Lindsay at Better After. I mean, it IS award-winning, after all. To show off that project, I arranged this nice shot of it sitting next to my favorite red armchair, in a sunny room filled with light and plants.

I feel great about this photo – it was even featured on Apartment Therapy! But the reality is that it was not a nice sunny day: it was horrible, cloudy, and muggy. (Cloudy is much, much better when shooting into the window.) And that nice row of plants?

Yeah, totally faked by stacking pots at various heights onto my dinky metal shelf. I love they way it looked, but unfortunately don’t have anything that is the right height and size!

Turning a thrift store plastic cactus into a chic side table - Plaster & Disaster

“Tra la la, I wonder what I should make for dinner – certainly nothing that needs a pot!”

I somehow needed to disassemble the entire living room and kitchen to get to that simple arrangement. Brad laid on the couch looking at me like I was crazy (I was) and asking if I was going to “take that cactus thing out of the living room when I was done” (I wasn’t).

Speaking of the living room – in my post to show off my new throw pillows, I shared some shots of them looking all bright and happy in a tidy living room.

But, really, I took those shots in a rush before going to work one morning, and my “cleaning” in the living room actually created this disaster in the dining room.

Brad was not pleased when he got up and couldn’t find any of his stuff. (You might be noticing that he gets the short end of a lot of these blog-related photo shoots.)

Finally, when I talked about the fun Pacman magnets that Brad and I made last week, I shared some nice shots of them in use, holding up photos and quotes against a crisp white fridge.

… Or, rather, them sitting on a piece of painted plywood that is mascarading as a fridge while lying in the middle of the kitchen floor.

Hey, at least it was the right room!

My fridge is unfortunately beige. It is useful for keeping food cold, but not really for glamorous photoshoots. Here is how the magnets would look in their natural habitat: fine, but not quite “pin-worthy.”

Hopefully you’ve enjoyed going a bit behind the scenes into the making of some of these posts! As we keep improving our photography, we’ll keep coming up with increasingly clever ways to fool you into thinking we live in bright, happy, pristine wonderlands. Don’t believe us.

(Sharing at Think and Make Thursday, Weekend Retreat Link Party, Remodelaholic, Two Uses Tuesday, Totally Terrific Tuesday, Tip Me Tuesday, Thrifty Decor Chick’s Before and Afters, Create It Thursday, Pin Junkie Pin Party, Link Party Palooza, Idea Box, and Your Turn to Shine Link Party)

“Is she ever going to stop posting about casting cement in silicone molds from Amazon?” (That’s you asking.)

Yes. Someday. But today is not that day!

I had so much fun with my cement diamond push pins, my modern bud vases made from a shot-glass mold, and even my vase-disaster-turned-cute-planter, that I just had to do one more similar project. DIY is supposed to be about joy, right?

Pacman Magnets out of Cement DIY - Plaster & Disaster

That’s what joy looks like.

I picked up a pacman ice cube tray (affiliate link – read our policies) but wasn’t sure what I would use it for until I came across packs of strong magnets at the craft store. Pacman magnets! Super fun, because you can arrange them so that they’re chasing each other all around.

This project was pretty special, because I ~~tricked~~ graciously invited Brad to help, so it was something that we did together.

To fill the molds, we mixed and spooned the cement following the same steps as my past projects (check out this post for more details).

As always, it looks totally gross, but that’s part of the fun.

We waited for them to harden a bit and then pushed the magnets into place. I didn’t want to do it too soon, for fear that the magnets would sink down into the mixture.

Once they were fully hard, we popped them out of the molds and let them dry completely in the basement. With all the nooks and crannies in this mold, they didn’t come out perfectly, but they are definitely recognizable.

We painted them with basic craft paints in their iconic colors. (Except that my cheap self thought she could just mix her own orange from yellow and red. Apparently I need to go back to elementary school because I just couldn’t get the tone quite right. It totally would have been worth the $1.49 for the real thing.)

We wanted to paint just the tops, so the natural cement would show on the sides. We decided not to tape them off and to free hand it, which required very slow and delicate painting.

We dabbed just a bit on and carefully dragged it to the edge, careful to only stroke “outward” with the brush.

It took a little while, but the edges turned out pretty crisp!

For good, solid colors (to match the graphic nature of the game) we had to do multiple coats on each, letting them dry for a few minutes in between. Some colors, like the teal and yellow, only took two, but the pink took like five! We also filled in the eyes with two coats of white.

To get a clean dot for the pupil, I cut a cheap brush down to nearly nothing, essentially making it into a tiny round stamp.

It was very easy to use – I just dabbed it into the paint, patted off the excess, stamped it down, and then finished off with a slight circular motion to get a clean, round shape.

After they dried completely, we finished them off with a coat of polycrylic in high gloss. I wanted to seal the craft paint so the magnets would stand up to frequent use, and I like just the look of polycrylic over cement.

Within an hour, they were ready to use!

I love how funny they are, with the little ghost eyes staring about.

The edges certainly didn’t come out perfectly – I still have a lot to learn about cement! – but they are bright and happy nonetheless. And I love the contrast between the saturated colors and the dark, slightly textured cement.

In arranging these photos, I learned a lot about the ghosts from Brad. Did you know that pinky (the pink one, obviously) is the smartest? Blinky (the red one) is next smartest.

All of this is news to me.

Here, they are arranged in order of intelligence.

The orange one is called either Sue or Clyde. I think its pretty sad that she/he doesn’t get to be part of the same rhyming scheme as all the others. I guess they’re the villains so I shouldn’t feel too bad for them, but we did grow pretty close during the long painting process.

I love having these colorful little creatures on our fridge door! And it’s even better because we got to make them together. <3

(Sharing at Link Party Palooza, Remodelaholic, Two Uses Tuesday, Totally Terrific Tuesday, Tip Me Tuesday, One Project at a Time, Think and Make Thursday, Your Turn to Shine Link Party, Weekend Retreat Link Party, Remodelaholics Anonymous, Thrifty Decor Chick’s Before and Afters, Create It Thursday, Pin Junkie Pin Party, Link Party Palooza, Idea Box, and Inspiration Monday)