Dog Shelf

I made this shelf for my studio out of culled wall shelf units that a former neighbor threw out, a couple of cheapo L brackets, and some paint.

It had to fit well below the windowsill and be high enough that the heater running along the floor wouldn't catch anything on fire. It also had to use almost exclusively things that I already had on hand.

One of the wood pieces had a dark veneer on it. I used this piece for the top shelf. To make the silhouettes, I layered some extra-wide masking tape onto a cutting board, sketched the images onto the tape, then X-acto'd the little buggers out. (I used various images on the web for reference... didn't save the links, though.) The masking-tape dogs got stuck onto the wood, then I painted over the whole thing with glossy, sunshine yellow Rustoleum paint.

The paint has a rubbery texture when dry, and the edges left behind when I peeled up the stencils were fragile. I coated the whole top shelf with matte Mod Podge, which so far has held the dogs' shapes nicely.

The only thing I had to buy for the project were some small metal L brackets that I picked up from the Big Box for about $2. The structure isn't quite as stable as I'd like, but I can always add on later. It's strong enough for my current purposes, anyway.