What I've Been Working on Recently....And for sale now.

I thought I'd combine a little of what's been keeping me busy along with what I have for sale right now.  If anyone locally is interested in anything, just let me know.  Otherwise, I hope some of these pieces will inspire you to up-cycle something into a great,beautiful piece for your home.

BIRD CHAIRS- (sold)
     These cute chairs got a fun makeover to become these light, shapely pieces.  I love the bird fabric, neutral but fun.

LINEN SLIPCOVER CHAIR:

     This chair's cute shape just jumped out at me.  It need some real tlc but I knew it could be charming.  I ripped off the old materials, scrubbed it down, gave it a great Annie Sloan distressed finish.  I upholstered it and made a charming, ruffled slipcover for it.  It really softened the look and will look so cute at a desk or as an accent chair.

PEACOCK-BLUE MIRROR:

     I found this great faux bamboo mirror that just needed some freshening up to make it pop.  This peacock-blue color is really fun.  I'm seeing it all over and it looks great with so many different colors.

RETRO DRESSER: (sold)

     This shape was just too fun to pass up.  It was solid and well-made but had really seen better days.  The new color softens it's boxiness a bit and highlights the fun details (like those awesome legs!)

FRENCH SCRIPT CHAIRS:

     Once again, the cute shape of these chairs drew me in.  I found three of these and knew they could be fun and unique. The "x-shape" or "curule style" chairs are unique and shapely.  I gave them a nice white finish and upholstered them in a great gray, french script fabric.  

HUGE ART:

     I found this GIGANTIC frame that was just begging to be turned into a large sign.  But what to paint on it?  I'm seeing a lot of people using this song lyric from the Beatles so I figured, "why no?!"  This really is huge (it's as wide as my couch!!) It's got a great distressed finish and fun arrangement of lettering. Hopefully someone out there has a nice big wall they need filling!

FAUX PEDIMENTS:

     I found two of these home pediments meant to be used on the exterior of a home.  They are huge, but needed a little dressing up to look like some piece of architectural salvage.  I painted them with about 4 or 5 colors to give some shading and distressing.  I wanted them to feel like something out of the Restoration Hardware or Pottery Barn catalogs.  I just found a wall to display one on, but I'm not keeping them (even though they are so fun and huge.)

TWO-TONED BUFFET CABINET: (sold)

     This gorgeous buffet cabinet had a really rough frame, but gorgeous wood drawers.  It seemed the perfect candidate for the two-toned look.  I painted the frame in ASCP's Coco color.  

TRUMEAU MIRRORS: (sold)

     I've always seen those dresser sets from the 60's and 70's that had the two vertical mirrors over them.  People have kept the dressers and ditched the mirrors.  I found a solid wood pair that I could see painted to look like those expensive, antique turmeau mirrors.  Many colors later, they looked awesome and sold so fast!  I was sorely tempted to keept these for myself, but alas, our dishwasher broke and we HAD to have one!!

BLACK AND WHITE: (sold)

     This pair of chairs said "fun" to me.  That darling curve on the arm needed to stand out and the black and white striped fabric was the perfect fabric to accentuate it.  They're neutral, but fun.

BAMBOO CHAIRS: (sold)

     This pair of chairs were a fun find.  The bamboo frame was great, but the finish was really worn.  I gave them a fresh finish of black and new upholstered cushions.  

CURVY BOOKCASE: (sold)

     I fell in love with this curvy bookcase.  It had such a fun design and I knew it could be a geat piece.  It's dark finish was refinished with a great white finish.

BLUE BUFFET: (sold)

     The simple lines of the buffet cabinet along with a bland wood color made this piece just blahh.  When painted a great duck-egg blue and the handles given a fun, distressed white finish, it just woke up the whole piece to say "hello! Here I am!"

WHITE END TABLES: (sold)

     This pair of end tables were so solid, a great shape and had fun handles.  I gave them a nice neutral finish and pow- lovely!

I'm really anxious for the summer and garage sale season to see what other treasures I can find and create.

Internet Inspirations

It's been a little while since I rounded up some of the great ideas and images I've come across on the internet. So here goes:

The blog, Gorgeous Shiny Things, gives a great tutorial of how to do your own mercury glass-look for furniture. She wanted to have that mirrored look on the cabinet fronts, but didn't have the space for thick glass. She did this with contact paper film! And if you've never seen what overlays can do for furniture, read about it there also.

This isn't the greatest picture, but can you see this designer's double mantel?  Love that look.

Here's a great tutorial of how to make a huge map like those in the high-end catalogs:

I love this picture not only for the fun style, but that dresser is so cute.  Take a plain front dresser (especially those IKEA ones) and glue on letters like this for a darling look:

How about this idea for a ground slide:

I'm a big reader so I'm kind of a sucker for bookcases, especially in unexpected places like the kitchen. I like the shape of the shelves and how the desk is curved to fit in better.  That air return is disguised well by it.

bhg

I just discovered this new website called Free Vintage Posters.  All these images are copyright free so you can download them and have them printed out in any size you want at your copy shop or photo developers. You can't get stylish art much cheaper! 

I found a couple of really fun family history charts from etsy that make a meaningful piece of art for your home or as a gift:

And while on the subject of family trees, how cute is this four generation picture:

You know I love Annie Sloan Chalk paint, so I love seeing finished pieces with one of the new colors, "Antoinette" pink.  Such a cute combination for a little girl's room or nursery:

This image caught my attention since I have tall windows like this.  I did the two story curtains, but I just might do the lower version like this one did.  I especially like the moulding they added to the windows and the space between them.

I think I might have to make a sign with this quote on it:

On the subject of signs, the use of Longitude and Latitude is all over.  Here are some I like:

MrCityPrinting at etsy

via etsy

It's even on stamped jewelry too:

Well, that's it for this time.  Keep having fun decorating and creating!

Faux Antique Clock Face

Sometimes we need big impact for little dollars.  Here's an example of creating something big for very little money.  This clock is HUGE!  It's 36" in diameter and has a fun vintage or flea market feel.

I started with a raw wood table round from Home Depot.  I already had it laying around from a failed attempt at a large lazy susan (the wood warped after time with weight, so we had to make one out of MDF.)  

I used a 36" one to be nice and big.  I was first painted all black. Then I painted the whole thing with antique white ASCP (Annie Sloan Chalk Paint.)  I then layered on French Linen and Cocoa (both muted a bit by anitque white.)  I just lightly blotted it with an old, bunched up t-shirt.  After it dried, I used 2 colors of stains to "dirty it up" a bit.

I found these numbers at our Goodwill for 99cents per 0-9 set (so I needed 5 sets to get enough numerals for the clock.)  I painted them with leftover black matte paint, sanded them a bit and then crazy glued them on.

Next, I used good ole "graphics fairy" and downloaded a couple free French labels and used parts of each to add some lettering to it's face.  I used carbon paper to transfer the script onto the clock and then painted it in with a black paint pen. After it was dry, I once again scuffed it up with some sandpaper.

I've seen people make their own hands, but I wanted something easy and  quick.  I found these large hands at Hobby Lobby for $9.99 and used a 40% off coupon.  I found center and just loosely put in a screw to hold the hands on.  My wood was too thick, but they do sell the clock kits for about $15 if you want this to be a real working clock.  You would be limited by how thick your wood can be to fit the clock gear in. I just added some strong D-rings to the back and wire to hang it with and Voila!

Because I had the wood round already, this project cost me a whopping $12 to make!!!  Sure beats the price of this Pottery Barn $300 one:

Or this one from Restoration Hardware:

And I don't even want to know how much these real ones cost:

via Brooke Giannetti

So when you're needing something large-scale and looks like you paid a fortune, Do It Yourself!!  Now I just need to decide if I'm keeping it or selling it!!