Boring Hallway Table Gets Personality With Paint

Thirty years ago, before I knew what furniture style I really liked, I bought traditional dark wood and felt safe with my choices. When the decorating bug bit me years later I knew I didn't want the traditional furniture I had, and I also knew that I couldn't afford to start over! This is the first furniture painting project I tackled now and 15 years later, I still like it. It makes me smile....Take a look, and let me know what you think. :)

This was a big project for a first try. I don't think I'd want to tackle it now! But with the enthusiasm of the young and naive, I marblized the tops and made stripes using tape to separate the colors. The feet are purple, the bands are gold, the legs are green with burgundy and the table edges are a honey brown. Once all the paint had dried I applied gold metallic paint here and there with a stiff dry brush. After a week, I painted the whole with a protectant made for faux painting. It gave the piece a lovely matte finish and blended the different sections so they didn't appear as separately painted sections. Maybe that's why it's called finish? It may sound crazy, but the overall effect is pleasantly subtle. I was under the influence of Mackenzie-Childs at the time and I still love their designs. Check it out. http://www.mackenzie-childs.com/

Hankies on High

I couldn't decide what to do with this transom window above our sliding glass doors. A curtain seemed redundant and I wanted to keep the light in this sunny yellow room. Then, as I was cleaning up my stash I ran across a stack of hankies (I was going to make ruffled diaper covers with them) and the thought hit me....a hanky valance.  After sewing down a folded corner of each handkerchief, I strung them along a pressure rod and added some vintage crocheted doilies here and there for a little color and texture. It's a little pink- heavy toward the right, but I figure I can add other colors as I find them but, the bunnies don't seem to mind all the pink....

Vintage Paper Wreath

My first post to this blog was of a Bride's Pillow I made for my friend Ashley's shower. And as this is the morning after her wedding day, I thought I'd show another item I made for her Mad Hatter Tea Party. Using an old copy of Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll (of course), I rolled pages starting from the short side and them glued them to a straw wreath form. After the straw was covered with paper rolls I dabbed a walnut stain ink stamp across the edges to give more age and some depth to the preponderance of paper. I saved the illustrations from the pages used for the rolling part and added paper frames to them, cut with my Silhouette SD. The spoons, tea pots, and a letter A for Ashley were also cut with the Silhouette (it's really an amazing cutter). When the wreath was all glued and the decorations all in place, the whole thing was sprinkled with silvery Martha Stewart glitter.  It's magic!

Fugly Chair Metamorphosis

 

This chair was really horrible. It was sturdy, but dirty and abused. It reminded me of something that survived a college dining hall for twenty years -- really sticky! But I bought two of them at a thrift store and was determined to have beautiful chairs in my living room. It took a lot of work but I think the chair is really happy now. And I am too. Scroll down and see the chair almost done and then the finished product. I still haven't begun to think about the second chair.....yet.



All but the back





The finished chair!
No more Fugly.



Before and After Buffet

BEFORE

This old buffet/server came from my local Good Will but it seemed too depressing to me so I made some changes with paint and my trusty sandpaper. (If you love old and dark furniture, avert your eyes!)

AFTER

Now that the buffet is a cream color, the carvings in the wood and the details on the piece stand out. I sanded the spots that would have been worn over time and rubbed a little mocha glaze into the crevices. I love it now!



Ashley's Bridal Shower Pillow

I made this pillow to sit on the bride's chair for a recent bridal shower. The bride crown motif is from The Graphics Fairy (so fabulous) at graphicsfairy.blogspot.com.
I downloaded the design, printed it onto a piece of cotton muslin using freezer paper and my deskjet copier. Because the printer takes only 8.5 x 11 or smaller paper, I added strips of the same muslin fabric to make a square pillow top. After sewing the pillow together and adding torn fabric strips for bows, I topped it off with a vintage rhinestone pin found at a thrift store. Ashley loved her pillow (yeah!), and I loved making it for her Mad Hatter Bridal Tea Party.