Ipad Mini Giveaway via Mod Podge Rocks!

The amazing and generous Amy of Mod Podge Rocks is giving away an ipad mini! If you haven’t been there already head on over and check it out!

Things As Lovely As My Sisters 2

My stalwart sisters have been at it again.  Cruising around the web finding the coolest of the cool ideas to share.

Things as Beautiful as My Sisters (FKA – Get Inspired)

It’s time for another installment of the series formerly known as Get Inspired and now known as Things As Beautiful As My Sisters.

Honey I Shrunk the Dresser

My mom, among her other amazing hobbies and skills is waaay into miniatures.

She has a large, very cool, and elaborate dollhouse complete with electrical wiring, tiny wallpaper, real wood floors etc.

Unfortunately, a few years ago the doll family experienced nature’s wrath when a pipe leaked and flooded it (an actual pipe not a dollhouse pipe…the dollhouse isn’t plumbed although I’m sure that’s on the to-do list).  Since then she and my dad have been putting it all back together.

When I was at home recently my sister Phebe spotted a miniature dresser and had the terrific idea that I could do one of my furniture make-overs on it and give it to my mom for Christmas.

Genius, right?!

So I bought it and immediately…..didn’t do it.

But now I’ve done it!  Merry Christmas mom!

Here is how it started out.I decided to do a mini-version of my postcard dresser.  So here is the grown up versionAnd here is the shrunken take:I think she’ll like it!

As soon as I mail it!

And for those of you who are worried – she doesn’t read the blog unless my dad shows it to her (mom is not a computer gal) so AS LONG AS DAD DOESN’T SHOW THIS POST TO HER I’m fine.

Speaking of Christmas gifts…….

My sister Paula is a sweet, kind, patient and very funny person.  She is not particularly snarky however.

Each year she gives calendars with a carefully thought out theme – tailored to the gift receiver.

Previously, I’ve gotten funny ones, furniture repair related ones, acting/theatre related ones.

This year she gave me this:

It took me a minute to get it but then I did. …..

She’s being snarky isn’t she? This is a snarky gift, correct?

OK….

Sad.  My older sister is becoming snarky in her dotage.

Happy Holidays!

OK, lets not do that again

I’ve been itching to work on some furniture for months now but lacked:

• A-the furniture
• B- a venue in which to sell it.

Both of my problems were solved when

• A  my very good friend Aimee brought me this

• B – Thanks to my friend Nicki I was accepted into the Little French Market where I can sell both furniture and my coasters but I don’t have to rent a truck to get it there.

Aimee’s table was in good shape structurally but the finish was pretty well shot.

And I had a vision!

Text!

OK, I agree – as unique visions go me using text is not up there with sliced bread, the wheel and fire on the new idea front.…..but I like it!

So first up – a good cleaning, sanding and priming.

For the text I wanted to use my Cameo rather than the blender pen of the past (see!  Radically new!).  So I painted the apron of the table black and then distressed it a bit and taped off a straight line to keep my text even.

And then the trouble began.

Me and the Cameo just don’t get along.  For some reason it won’t actually connect with my computer so I have to do all these work-arounds.  And –when I do get it going it never quite does what I thought I’d told it to do.

I realize you could blame me for that but I prefer to blame the inanimate, non-sentient piece of equipment.   Thanks for your input though.

So, after numerous tries, fails and tries agains I got it to print out my quote:

Except that font wasn’t a great choice.  All those tiny, thin connecting lines don’t quite connect and I had to….. Pick. Out. Each.   Delicate.  Letter.  One.  At. A. Time.

But, once they were on I gave the whole thing a quick top coat of Antique White, peeled away the vinyl letters, did a little distressing and waxing and BOOM!

Another texty table from Cheltenham Road

Aaand I just noticed two things.

I forgot to put the little metal feet back on it – easy fix.

And I missed the period at the end of the quote so now, rather than looking like a quote from Emerson it looks like I’m informing someone named Emerson of the news about friends and houses.

Sigh…..

I see a sharpie in my future.

If any of you are local please come visit me and my chatty furniture at the Little French Market

Saturday & Sunday November 17th and 18th

19130 Ventura Blvd, Tarzana, CA

8AM -3PM

It Runs in the Family – Desk Makeover Tutorial From My Niece!

Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!

I’m on a brief vacation to Ohio visiting the family.

In the meantime I thought I’d share a great letter I got from my niece which also serves as a terrific step by step furniture makeover tutorial!

You may recall Maggie is the one who, with no previous experience in upholstery took this chair and made this chairThereby proving that she is a show-off just like my dad wonderfully gifted, generous and talented!

So I’m not sure why she thought she needed advice from me but…….

Dearest Uncle,

I am extremely happy to report on the completion of a project I asked you about almost a year ago.

As you may recall, I had taken it into my head last September to paint my desk.  I swiftly contacted you and, after receiving excellent advice, delighted in the endorphin rush that comes from deciding to do a project… and promptly filed it at the back of my to-do list.

Well, procrastination can only take you so far, especially when the item you are procrastinating about is the one piece of furniture you use on a daily basis – stupid utility value.  So I embarked on the adventure!

Step One: convince husband to help move heavy piece of furniture to the garage (grudging success) – and bang it on every available door jam you encounter (epic fail.)

Step Two: discover that Mom (Phebe) had a piece of furniture she’d like to paint and pencil in several dates to have a “painting party.”

Step Two Point Five: Actually settle on the date and have it arrive.  Set up the garage.

Step Three: settle on color – I went with an Antique White since my newly reupholstered chair has an off-white background and I wanted them to somewhat match.  Mom chose with a Bright White for a charming little sewing machine table which she’s not going to use for sewing at all.  Ever.

Step Four: sanding.  I had a couple of thoughts at this stage… primarily: “Thanks for bringing your electric sander over, Mom!”   and “Why didn’t I buy face masks until I was three quarters finished with this stage? Step Five:  cleaning using TSP

Step Six:  prime everything -followed nearly immediately by realizing that we didn’t have enough primer.  

Step Seven: fine-grit sanding of first layer of primer and re-application of primer.

Step Eight: watch an episode of “The Tudors” so we don’t go out and try to put the first layer of paint on before the primer coats dry.

Step Nine: put first layer of actual paint on.  Curse occasionally due to drips.

Step Ten: More “Tudors” – same purpose.

Step Eleven: put second layer of paint on.  Acknowledge that it’ll be at least a week before I can do anything else.  Ugh!  This waiting thing sucks.

Now I’ll take a mini break from the steps because what happens next was not at all in the plan… but it was pretty inevitable.  I realized that I’d chosen “Antique White” for the purposes of matching my chair… but that my dang office was painted Bright White and my “new” desk wasn’t gonna look great against that wall color. So I decided to find a color I could use for an accent wall, settled on “mis-mixed” leftover at the paint store and ended up with lovely salmon-y color  that was definitely within the realm of matching my chair

Step Twelve: convince husband to help carry desk back inside… AND BASH IT AGAINST EVERY %$*&@ DOOR FRAME WE ENCOUNTERED!!!! (there were a few painting touch-ups needed)

Step Thirteen: hand-paint accent design on the front.  This was a Pinterest idea I saw and loved so I chose a bright green and practiced some tree branches on a large sheet of paper Step Fourteen: realize that I’m really happy with the way my desk came out… but that I have absolutely no way of sitting at it (the piece never had a chair and I’ve been improvising with leftover/extra furniture for years – not my best interior design moment, that’s for sure.)

Dash to the awesome Habitat for Humanity ReStore, find a sturdy little chair of the appropriate dimensions with just a bit of carpentry flare (is that a thing?  it is now…) to match my desk pop  out its seat and painted it and reupholstered it in a nice bright green.  Put them all together and whaddya got?  A sewing desk I’m not ashamed to show off!   The only remaining problem: how to get the primer out of my dog’s tail fur… (she was a little overzealous in her attempts to help me out in the garage…)

Thanks for the great advice Uncle David!  Everything worked out wonderfully!

Love,

-Mags

PS: Mom reminded me to tell you a bit about my 2-drawer index file cabinets that were a minor part of this painting initiative – they just happened to be the exact width of the bags Mom and I store our DMC Embroidery Floss in so I grabbed three from the pile of stuff they were getting rid of at work, painted the drawers and frames in alternating colors (green & white) and stacked them on top of my filing cabinet with a small swatches of the upholstery fabric slid into the label slot – they came out pretty cute, too! 

Displaying my Wares – Easy Table Makeover

I’ve been eager to get to work on some new furniture projects but have been a little stuck.  Since I lost my spot at the Rose Bowl I don’t really have an outlet for my furniture.

However, my coasters, trays, signs etc are sold locally in a fantastic store called CoOP 28 run by the terrific Marci.

Recently Marci and I were talking about display and she offered me a prime spot for my trays and suggested I could come up with a little table for them.  Perfect!  I got right to work.

I’d inherited a sofa table quite a while ago…well, I had inherited thelegs the top had decamped at some point (how does that happen?).  In a burst of creativity I’d cut a new top for it mimicking the curve of the apron…..

…….and then stuck it in the back of the garage and forgot about it.

I dragged it out and cleaned it up and gave it a quick top coat with some leftover ceiling paint (I needed flat paint for what I had in mind).

I knew I wanted a graphic on top but I didn’t want anything too busy or distracting.

Blender Pen to the Rescue!

I’ve used a blender pen many times before (check out the link for more detailed instructions) but here is quick recap of blender pen technique using images from another table:

After applying my text I sanded the legs for a light distressing and went over it all with a coat of paste wax

The paste wax adds some depth and a nice shine.

I, once again used my favorite Shakespeare Sonnet and here we go

And I think it will look OK with some trays on it.  It’s not too distracting but it’s not just a boring white table either

Now I’m off to bring to the store.

Hope everyone had a happy and safe 4th of July!

Anniversary Tutorial

I had mentioned a little while ago that June marked my one year anniversary of blogging.  I didn’t make a big deal about it at the time but it’s been bouncing around in my head.

To be honest, I hesitated to start a blog because I was convinced I had nothing to add the already crowded field of furniture/craft blogs.  I also was pretty doubtful that I would enjoy the process.

But I was wrong! (that’s twice that I’ve been wrong for those of you keeping track).

I thoroughly enjoy this whole experience and the main reason I enjoy it is because of you folks.  Your words of encouragement and support mean a lot to me and truly keep me going when I’m feeling a bit over (and under) whelmed by all this Cheltenham Road craziness.

And I LOVE that you get my sense of humor!  And I really LOVE that you join in with your comments and cracks – it’s so much fun to read!

Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks.

It also seemed appropriate to revisit my very first post.  Partly, of course, because it was my first post and it’s an anniversary but also because, for some reason, that post has become quite popular of late.

I had linked it up back in December with Becky at her terrific Beyond the Picket Fence blog party for projects under $100.  And I’m not quite sure what’s going on over there but, all of a sudden, low these many months later, it has shot up the charts and is earning lots of views.

So, for those of you who weren’t around then, if you’d like to revisit my Tragic to Fixed to Shabby transformation of this dresser

into this dresser

you can visit my very first post here:

And for the rest of you let me say Thanks Again!

David

Restore A Finish

You may recall that a while ago I posted about a coffee table I didn’t know what to do with.  It wasn’t in bad enough shape to justify painting and stripping it would be unpleasantly daunting but it needed something.

To quote Clueless - it was kind of a Monet.

Looked OK from a distanceBut was kind of a mess when you got up close

The very, very smart and talented Susan at Maple and Magnolia suggested I use Restore – A – Finish and boy was she right.

I knew about Restore-A-Finish but had never used it.  If you don’t know about it (and I’m sure almost all of you are waaaaay ahead of me on this one), Restore-A-Finish is a light stain that that blends out scratches and water rings and other small blemishes while re-hydrating the old wood.

So I picked up a can and stain marker and got to work

Wow!  I’m not sure if the pictures do it justice but it looks 100% better and it took almost no time at all.

Remember that corner detail?

Is it perfect and pristine?

No, not quite.

But stripping it would have been a messy nightmare and painting it would have felt like a bit of a crime.  This is the perfect solution.  Quick, easy and the results more than satisfactory.

Paris Metro Coffee Table Makeover

I woke up yesterday to find my Vintage Postcard Dresser made the Before and After section of Apartment Therapy.com.  Wow!  I felt totally honored and equally amazed by the bump in my blog views!

The commenters were really kind and my sister Phebe received a lot of praise for steering me away from my original idea of using chalkboard paint on the drawers.  I think this is a great new path for Phebe – consultant – I’ve taken the liberty of printing up business cards for her:And I finally (FINALLY!!) finished up my long ago started, long ago sidetracked Paris Subway Art Coffee Table.

There is a bit of history here that you may have forgotten so let’s do it TV style

 Previously on “French Coffee Table……”

David found a cast off coffee table with broken legs.

David reglued the legs and patched the ugly cracks using Bondo!Frenchy curves led David to make some questionable decisions……David impulsively purchased a Cameo Silhouette machine.  Women in store were excited!  A little too excited.  David was nervous. David had lots of trouble getting machine to work (“read the instructions?!  I don’t read instructions!  I’m a guy!  I just instinctively know how things work…..and how to get somewhere without a map….STOP QUESTIONING ME!”) and the project got delayed.

The table was painted and the top distressed in anticipation of design.

The Silhouette problem was solved (apparently it was in a turf war with other printers) and the letters applied!

And after a top coat, some letter peeling, some serious sanding and a bit of distressing with antiquing glaze:Tune in next week when you’ll hear David say:

“Ow!!!!!!  Why do I keep doing that?!!!!!!”

Linking up here: