What a Year!

Well my one year blog anniversary came & went without being noticed. I knew it was fast approaching but didn't realize I had let it slip by without mention. I thought I had started my blog in Jan. 2012, but I actually wrote my first post in the middle of Dec. 2011. So without further ado....

It has been one year (actually 1 yr. + 3 weeks) since I started this little blog. As I am looking back at the years projects I am amazed at the number of pieces we were able to do. Prepare to look at a lot of pictures! I'll begin with your favorites

MOST VIEWED:

# 1 Most viewed was Butter Yellow with a Hint of Chocolate.
What's so funny is that this post was the most viewed yet, I had to finally repaint the base of this piece (in cocoa) before it finally sold two months ago.

#2 Most viewed was Little French Vanity . This also happens to be one of my favorite graphics, I can't tell you how many times I've had to duplicate this look. 

#3 Most viewed was Re purposed Window.  This post was also the Most Featured.

 

#4 Most viewed was So Much Potential .  This table took me back to my artists painting days. Hard to believe this table still hasn't sold.

Most Featured:

 

#1 Most Featured was Re purposed Window.

 I had a lot of fun creating these windows & wrote a tutorial so you could create your own. Fun stuff!

#2 Most Featured was Color of the Week Duck Egg Blue.
The cabinet with the chicken wire was by far the most challenging of the year. When we bought it, it looked like a puzzle.

 
 #3 Most Featured was Corner Table Roadside Treasure.
This table was one of my favorites to paint. 

My Favorites:

  # 1 All time Favorite of mine is the Charming Chiffarobe.
I loved this piece even before I painted it. This one was so hard to part with but in the end I had to let her go before she was damaged beyond repair. 

#2 All time Favorite of mine is My Clock Face Obsession.
If you follow my blog you know about this little obsession of mine. I seem to repeatedly paint clock faces on table tops. 

  
 #3 All time Favorite of mine is Queen Anne Nesting Tables.
I love how these came out. These are also still available.

#4 All time Favorite of mine is Americana Bench
I purchased seven of these benches. Two were painted Americana style & five of them were painted French Country:

  

Best of all though was when I happened to catch a glimpse of my bench on TV during the "Sunday Morning" program.
 

 

Yep! That's my bench you see over Kid Rock's shoulder. 

You can read about that here.

I thought it would be fun to show you some "Never before seen" pieces that I never had a chance to post about thru the year. So here we go:

Never Before Seen:

Wow, as I'm scrolling down thru these pictures I realize just how busy we really were this past year. I would like to thank my Mom & my family for all their help, love & support. I truly would not be able to accomplish all this without them. I would also like to thank all the wonderful people who follow me & the people who leave such encouraging comments. It really helps to keep me focused & motivated.

I hope you have enjoyed a look at my year. I hope to keep up the pace & be able to share with you more posts of our work. As always, thanks for visiting & have a great week!  Dee

So Much Potential

Hello everyone, I hope you are all happily exhausted from painting/crafting like I am right now. I am trying to get some autumn smalls done for my booth. I think they take as much time as a full size piece of furniture. Plus I am flying solo for a little while. Although the hubby did take pity on me  help me out & painted a chair for me & waxed a few pieces ,as I was getting to grumpy to "Keep Calm & Carry On!".

A couple of weeks ago we were returning home from our weekly delivery & stumbled upon a roadside treasure. I don't know about you, but when my Mom & I travel we never take the same route there as we do home.  You never know what kind of treasures are waiting to be saved on the ride home. This particular day we found a few treasures.  Here is one of them:

It is big & solid wood which mean it's heavy. I loved the big top on it. It just had so much potential. I knew once I had it painted, I would have a nice large space for a very cool graphic. We painted it Old White, now I had a blank canvas.

I went to my favorite site for graphics, The Graphics Fairy. I have used this  graphic a few times on cushion covers for chairs. I love vintage wine graphics (maybe because I love wine) & this time I wanted to give it a punch of color.   Here is the graphic:



Before wax. 

 

Close up of the grapes.



 Using my overhead projector, I painted in the words & the outline of the grapes first with a black paint pen. I wanted the grapes to look like a watercolor painting so I took my time painting them in. I have painted grapes several times before, so this was like riding a bike. It felt good to do some actual artistic work again.



I used Paris Grey for the "Specialite" & craft paint for the grapes. After getting the graphic painted on, I applied a coat of ASCP clear wax, then I did a generous coat of dark wax. I just love the way the dark wax added so much depth.  It just adds the vintage look I was going for.

 

After wax.



Here is a picture of the whole table. 

    

 

I just love the way this one came out.  It has that cottage shabby chic look with a french twist.  



Available at Sassy Fabrics in Grand Blanc, MI



So functional with the large drawer & the storage underneath.  Perfect for a large family room or a Great Room.  Can you believe what people throw out?  I'm amazed every week. 

Have you had any roadside treasures lately, I'd love to hear about it. Thanks for visiting & have a great weekend!  Dee



Shabby French Hutch

I hope everyone is back to school & settling into the routine.  I for one am ready for the nice long morning/afternoon of freedom......

Sorry, just savoring the moment.  Here's what we've been up to:

About the middle of the summer, my Mom came across the best garage sale. I know you all can relate. The one where you see nothing but furniture with great potential at great prices. This was her score that day:

It had the worst paint job. This dark brown paint was a shiny drippy mess. I took my sander to it & showed no mercy!  After sanding off all the drips, it was time to talk about color.  This little hutch reminded me so much of the very first one I painted back in March, you can read about it here. This is what it looked like:

Sold

This one was Old White & Paris Grey. I love this combination, so crisp & clean looking. So this was my inspiration. This color combo is a great seller in my booth.  At the last minute we decided to go with Pure White instead. I know it's not a huge difference, but it is brighter looking & that's what I wanted. Here is what it looks like now:



Available at Sassy Fabrics (V Trading) in Grand Blanc, MI.



There are two drawers & one of them it slotted & lined in green felt for flatware. Behind the sliding doors is great storage with a shelf. I just love this Shabby Mid Century Modern Style. The new paint really gives this piece a whole new fresh look don't you think?

Here are a few more things we finished this past week:

Available at Sassy Fabrics.

The sweetest little High chair.  I wasn't very excited when I first seen this, but after it was painted I was thrilled!



Also at Sassy Fabrics (V Trading) in Grand Blanc, MI



And a pair of Oak pressed back chairs. These look so pretty in Shabby White.....

Well, that's it for now. If you live in my area & are thinking about having some furniture painted, email me a picture & I'll get back to you. We love doing custom work.

Hope you all have a fantastic weekend. Thanks for stopping by, Dee

Americana Bench

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY EVERYONE!

I've been off on vacation for the last couple of weeks & now it's time to get back to work.

If you follow my blog you know I have these benches:

I have painted six of these in the last year. Five of them have all been French. You can see one here & here.  This is the only one I painted Americana:

I start out with two coats of Annie Sloan's Old White:

Now I have a blank canvas. Then I decide on the graphic & fabric.  The flag was easy to paint in. I started with the blue square. First, I cut star shapes out of contact paper, then I stuck them in place.  I used craft paint for the red & blue. Painted in the square right over the stars, then painted in the red stripes.  Once it was dry, I peeled the stars & there you have it!  An Americana Bench!  I distressed, clear & dark waxed it, & buffed to perfection.  The fabric I choose was a navy blue & white Ticking material.  

Here it is in my booth:

I have since moved it to Sassy Fabrics (V Trading) in Grand Blanc, Mi.

Sold to Kid Rock

I have one of these beautiful benches left. How would you paint it? I would love to hear your ideas. I wish everyone a Happy & safe holiday. Thanks for visiting.  Dee



Custom Chairs

A couple of weeks ago, Emily from Pigeon in the Parlor, asked us to look at some chairs she wanted us to paint. She had six chairs with the needle point seat covers, two captains & four side chairs. I told her to bring one in & we would take a look at it. Of course the only before picture I have is after we striped the chair down to the springs right before painting.

This is one of the Captains chairs.  We started with one of the side chairs that had the most salvageable seat cover. Emily wanted them painted Annie Sloan's Old White with the dark wax on the details. When we delivered the first chair we came home with the other five. Emily really hoped we could salvage a few of the needle point seats, but after we got them all home & looked them over really good, we were only able to save one out of the five.  So we painted out the one just like the previous needle point chair, now Emily had a matching pair.

Now we had our work cut out for us. The remaining four were in sad shape. The cushions were completely dry rotted inside. We had to strip them down to the springs & start over. Here they are all painted, waxed & ready for upholstery:

This was the easy part.

I just love how that dark wax enhances the detail.

Beautiful distressing....

Graceful curvy arms.... & just look at those industrial strength springs!  These are very well made chairs. They just don't make them like this anymore.

Now we were ready to upholster. Emily wanted drop cloth seat covers with different graphics on them. I found four different graphics from the Graphics Fairy. My Mom & I really learned a lot on this project. We thought we could use the old seat cover as a template for the new covers. NOT!!  They were so stretched out & we put on 2" foam, so needless to say the first covers were to small!

So we made new ones, big & square.  We cut where it needed it & stapled away.  This is defiantly a two person job.  Here is how they looked when we were finished:

We added nail head around the legs & arms....

I really need to make time to take better pictures. My Mom took these with her phone, which is fine, but I had a problem editing them. You get the idea..



Emily was very happy with these chairs. She now had a pair with the original needle point seats & four matching with the new drop cloth seat covers.

We grouped them with my Medallion table.  I wasn't sure how they would look together, but it looked pretty good.  Naturally I forgot to get a picture of them together. I really need to do better......

If you would like to see these chairs, they are for sale at Pigeon in the Parlor in Holly, Mi.  If you live in my area, & have a need for some custom furniture painting, feel free to contact us.  I love to read your comments.  Thanks for visiting & have a great day!  Dee