on the many uses of card cabinet handles

I love the look of old card cabinets converted into new pieces of furniture. And just imagine all the organizery going on inside!! So when I discovered that one can buy card cabinet handles online, I couldn't stop imagining where I could put them. I came up with this:

Yup - tornado wood again!! See the lovely knots in the wood?

You see, it was my sister in law Mika's birthday last week, and the present we ordered her awhile ago stilll has not come so I wanted to make a stand-in present. I'd been thinking that the tornado wood could make a fun accent piece, and the card catalog pull gave it just the right extra shiny-ness!

I actually made the feet out of 99cent cabinet pulls that I bought at Lowes and ORB'd. (It should be some sort of rule that each project has to have some ORB in it somewhere...) To make the card inside the pull, I cut up an index card, rubbed it with a wet used tea bag and waited for it to dry.

You can see that the first holes I made on the side for my cool screws didn't quite work out - it was a bit of a trick putting the screws in just the right spot - so I distressed the old holes a little and gave them a little minwax dark walnut stain so they add character. The whole piece is stained with minwax early american stain, covered with one seal coat of polycrylic.

The mason jar is just a little guy that I did some mercury glass action on.

What do you think - am I addicted to tornado wood projects?! How sweet is the card catalog pull.