Little Vase Makeover

The weather here has been rainy and cold, preventing me from getting my paint projects done.  So I decided to focus on getting things a little organized.  With all the new items I've recently brought home my back porch looks a little crowded and the dog is disgruntled because his spot (aka the whole room) is gone. 

Do you remember the little mustard vase I picked up while thrifting?  Well, I was itching to do something other than what I should have been doing (cleaning).  I gave her two coats of primer to cover that lovely shade of yellow, then a coat of a light khaki color.   After she was dry I applied the mystery glaze I'd picked up at the thrift store.  I forgot to take pictures of my progress,  I really was attempting to get something else done while I was playing!  Any who,  This being the first time I've really used glaze I wasn't so thrilled with the overall look.  It was just OK, so my next thought was to see if I could rush the drying process of the glaze.  I know I'm really impatient some times.  It dried quickly with a little heat. 

Now what to do???  Wax of course, I'd found a new and rather large stenciling brush I had bought a while back and thought it would work perfect for all the fine detailing.  So I started applying natural wax in a stippling motion all over the areas the glaze had settled.  It was coming along great, the wax had added that extra bit of depth I was looking for on the piece.  However, something else happened as well.  More of a goof on my part.  Probably from heating my glaze to dry it.  The top coat of khaki paint was brushing off in places to allow the white primer to show through.  Oops!  But I liked how it looked, a bit distressed and it softed the hard edges of the glaze....so I continued.

  I love it!! What do you think?

My hubby even said,"That's not to bad, Honey!  It was really ugly before."  I guess that means he likes it because he usually doesn't comment on the "cute stuff".

 

Auction Time!!!

There was an auction this past weekend.  But I didn't get to go!  I had already committed myself to an outing at the Franklin Park Conservatory with my mother, sister-in-law, and the kids.  I have to say I was very torn after going to the auction preview with my hubby the night before.  So I talked him and my father into keeping an eye on a few items for me since they both were going for equipment items.  I made a small I wish list, which I narrowed down to my three most wanted items.  There was a lot more I had eyes on, but I had to be realistic with my list as the men would be doing the "shopping" for me.  I have to admit though I verbally dropped a few hints as to other items that popped out at me.  Just in case.  You never know!  I waited all day for the auction to end and hear back on the goods.  Here is what they managed to snag for me, and only for $72 bucks!

Four original porch columns from a house build in 1887

Porch and Railing Parts

A lot of stuff huh!!  Now I have to find a place to put it. 

3 old chairs, there is another hiding in the corner that matches the smaller one.

2 large metal/brass (I'm not sure but they are very heavy) Chandeliers

And last but not least a freebie my mother took from her neighbors trash!!!  I was so proud of her.

DIY Chalk Paint

As you know I've been wanting to try chalk paint.  I don't have a local dealer to purchase from and with the price of ASCP I cannot justify the purchase with the shipping costs.  Therefore I googled DIY chalk paint and here are a few options that I found that are simply added to latex paint:

Baking Soda Video Tutorial by Alchemy Fine Living

Unsanded Tile Grout Liz Marie Blog

Plaster of Paris and/or Calcium Carbonate Savvy City Farmer

All of these seem to work well for those that have tried them.  However, Some of these items are not easily located.  I decided to try the easiest one to find and what I already had, baking soda!  I'm hoping to try a few of the others as well and compare the finish.  There are a few other things I wanted to try with this paint as well that I've not yet found answers for.  I wanted to see how this paint crackled if at all when heat was applied.  ASCP claims their paint crackles by simply heating before dry, this excited me and I was hoping that one of these alternatives would have those same qualities.  I also wanted to see how this paint performed with wax distressing.

I snagged a few wood scraps from the garage office project for my paint victims.  I also used my thrifted paint!  So the samples are not exactly my favorite color choices but they worked.  

Not sure if you can tell very well, but the paint left very little brush strokes as it dried and has a somewhat gritty texture.

So I sanded with a 100 grit first which was relatively smooth and distressed easily, then I followed with a 220 grit and got a much smoother surface.  I've noticed regular latex tends to show a lot of the sanding lines from distressing, some unwanted.  This version of chalk paint has a very minimal amount which I like alot!  I then waxed the left side with dark minwax and the right with natural. 

On this board I clearly painted a dark base color.  To the right side of the board I applied a moderately thick coat of paint and heated with my hair dryer.  As you can tell it did not crackle.  I was so disappointed but not really surprised.  It did speed up the dry time to a few minutes and allowed me to distress it quickly, but some of the brush strokes where still visible drying with heat. 

To the far left side I applied clear paraffin wax to my base coat, painted a moderate top coat, and again heated with my hair dry.  Again no crackle, but it had a more chipped look when I sanded it.  I decided to sand the middle section so you could see the difference the wax makes.

And last but not least, I made a small batch of white because I wanted to see if the white I had would turn colors when I applied extreme heat!  Some whites will change pink or other colors when heated.  So this was the best time to test both the color and the chalk paint.  The left side of this board is the chalk paint while the right side is the regular latex.  Again I painted a base color and waited for it to dry.  Then I rubbed on clear paraffin wax.  Now time for the fun part!  I applied a thick coat of paint and immediately burnt it.  This melts the wax and causes the paint to bubble and burn anywhere you've put your wax.   The paint will dry quickly this way and you can immediately apply furniture wax, which will remove the ugly black, burnt bubbles and leave you with your base coat peaking through.

The chalk paint burned a tad bit more leaving larger bubbles than the latex.  It also has a bit of a textured and almost slightly cracked look that the latex does not.

Hopefully this is helpful to some and may answer a few questions.  I hope to try the other options soon and see how they perform under the same circumstances. 

Tuesday's Thrifting Adventure with Gavin

I've not been thrifting in quite a long time.  I ususally like to yard sale or hit the flea market mainly because it's easier for me to get a stroller around these places!  However, yard sale season has not started here in Ohio and the flea market has been a little bare and overpriced for my liking.  I love to thrift and thought I would give it a go, taking my two year old with me.  For someone watching me it must have been amusing because most thrift stores are so packed you cannot get a stroller in them.  So I chose to carry him in and hold him so he would not get into things.  Your laughing now I know you are!  Because even though I was holding him he was still grabbing at everything.  Anything I was looking at or even things behind me.  I had my work cut out for me.  Despite having an extra set of little fingers,  I managed to hit three local stores and grab a few fun finds and some strange one's too!  I also lucked out that two of the stores were having 50% off everything that day.  Whoo hoo!!!  So here is what the little man and I picked up:

Not sure why I bought this ugly little thing, but I thought it might be cute painted with a bunch of my pink peonies in it.  We will see!

This little table was my favorite find and yes I carried this out all by myself in one arm while holding Gavin in the other! I've not decided what I want to do with this piece yet.  It has one water spot on the top, but other than that it is in great shape.

And here are the rest of the smalls that I picked up;  Three wooden candle sticks, matching wooden frames, and a very strange wine rack that for some reason was just to interesting not to bring home. 

One thrift store even had a little hardware section where I was able to pick up some quart size miss matched paints, stains, and glazes.  At a half off $1.79 I think I bought most of what they had (minwax and valspar). I even found three sets of lacey curtains that may be used for a new sewing project. 

Now the question is what to do with it all and where to start.  Well today I started playing around with the paint and tried making my own chalk paint.  This way if I was not thrill with it I didn't waste a lot of money if I would have used my regular paint.  I'm still in the process of testing out different distressing techniques to see how it performs.  Then I'll be posting pictures later today hopefully of how everything turned out.

Shabby Sewing Drawers and Turntable

Well I was only able to work on two items this past weekend/week.  I had another project partially started which I finished, and I also got around to painting that large turntable I found in Florida for .50 cents.  Several weeks ago I had picked up a set of old sewing drawers that had been removed from the table and still had the frame work.  The frame was a little shaky and needed a brace on one side replaced to make the piece look a little more uniform.  I also added boards, on both the top and bottom, since all the frame work was open.  I plan on using these drawers for craft storage in the craft room, so thought I would try the two tone look to see if I like it.  I painted both the drawers and turntable two tone.  But after finishing the first piece, I decided that I was not so fond of the look and painted over the turntable so it was entirely white.  I distressed these by the same process as the previous pieces (bowl and small turntable) in an earlier post.  Here are a few pictures of the finished pieces. 

You can see where I painted the aqua underneath the distressed spots on the center of the turn table.  I think I like this much better than the obvious two-tone colors on the sewing drawers. 

So with my crafting table almost finished, I will be rethinking how I want to finish the table. 

My father has been helping me with the reconstruction of this table.  I've decided to modify it slightly to better fit the small room I plan to put it in.   In the process we discovered that the top of the table is not hard wood underneath the veneer, but a pressed wood.  So, I'm thinking of trying chalk paint instead.  I will keep you posted on this project as I hope to have it finished in the next week or so. 

My Recent Finds

Well let me just tell you, after spending a week on the Gulf Coast of Florida I came home to some very cool weather.  Brr!  However after hitting the yard sales with my mother-in-law at some of her favorite spots, I decided I was itching to start looking for some items to refinish or re purpose.  I also decided my next trip to Florida will require an empty trailer for me to fill and bring home.  There was just oodles of "junk" that I would have brought home if I had the space.  But, I had to settle for just a few items.  Lucky for me, My father was waiting with news of a farm auction the day after we returned home and the flea market across the street from my home starts booming around the beginning of April.  Ok, so time for pictures of the few items I picked up.

My flea market finds.....

I know this dresser needs a bit of work but I drove by three times to peek at it and see if it had sold yet.  Of course, I was running other errands and it was by no means out of my way to check on it! So today I brought it home. 

 Oops sorry hubby, yet another item that needs some love.  I saw this cute fan back chair tucked back in some older man's booth and new immediately I wanted it.  But, when he drug it out I almost cried when I saw the method at which he decided to fix the split seat.  It did, however, give me the leverage to bargain him down more than half what he was asking for it.  So it came home as well.

My auction items.....

Not my usual choice, but picked this up merely due to price. I like the curvy details and lion head knockers on the sides.  I also picked up four boxes of new hard wood flooring.  My husband just looked at me and asked, "What on earth are you going to do with that!".  I just shrugged and told him I would figure out something to use it on.  He later told me that it might look good in his office down at the garage.  I think he's wanting to steal it away from me.

And last but not least, I drug home a rather large turn table and wooden picture frame from Florida.  For two dollars total, I just couldn't help myself.

I was quite amused when my husband asked if that picture was actually going to be hung up in the house.  He should know me better than that, he he he.

I'm not completely sure what do with each item yet, but I do have a plan for a few.  Any thoughts???  I'm undecided on how to finish the end table, paint or re stain? And, not sure if I like the distressing done on the teal chair.    I hope to start on these after Easter and have some pictures posted of the end product.