French Chocolat Graphic Table

Today I'm sharing an Ethan Allen occasional table I picked up for $10 at a resale shop.

The top was scratched and dinged up but overall it was in really good shape.  I stripped the top and lightly sanded the rest of the table then cleaned it with an all purpose cleaner.

I wanted to combine putting a French chocolat label from The Graphics Fairy and a lacy edging on the top so after stripping the top I spray painted the bottom with a textured, black paint so when I distressed it the texture would help age it.

I tried a couple of different transfer methods that did not work for me but I had good luck on the second try of the Elmer's glue & Mod Podge transfer method. It worked better the second time for me because I cut each line of the label out and laid them out one at a time.  Unfortunately, the last two lines I got a little crooked as it was hard to tell if they were even with the print facing down on the table. 

To do this method you take a piece of card stock and paint a thin coat of Elmer's glue over the entire paper.  Let this dry overnight.  Then you take the dry paper & after choosing your graphic print it onto the side with the dry glue on it.  Measure where you want your graphic to be on the table then apply  a thin coat of Mod Podge to the table and lay the graphic on it really burnishing & rubbing it without tearing the paper. The second time worked better for me because I really burnished it a lot then set a heavy object on top of it to keep it from curling up around the edges and bubbling up as it dried. Let it completely dry! No peeking!

After it is completely dry take a spray bottle of water and saturate the paper then gently peel or rub the paper off.  Some of it just lifted right off but other areas I had to rub gently. Viola! Your graphic is transferred.

I think it looked pretty good for my first time trying this technique just a little crooked. Another tip is to use just your black ink cartridge to print your graphic as you can see some of my print had red and pink in it. Carefully clean up the excess glue with a damp rag. Let dry.


I wanted the print to be a little clearer so I went over it with a fine point Sharpie.  After doing this the print wanted to smear because the Sharpie ink was not drying so I sprayed it with a matte, clear sealer which stopped the smearing. 

I then found a pretty piece of lace with a scalloped edge and cut out two strips to lay along the sides.   I then took a black satin spray paint and sprayed the lace being careful and not covering up the print in the center so that the black would kind of fade from dark at the edge to lighter in center.

I then moved the lace to the other two sides not worrying that the edges did not match as I would be distressing it later.

By the way you may save the pieces of lace and use them again on another project.  I really liked this look so pretty and crisp, black and white, but this wasn't the look I wanted so I applied a coat of clear soft wax and then started distressing with a 60 grit then medium grit sandpaper. I then went back and gave it another coat of wax mixing some dark & some clear wax.  I left the wax to dry but did not buff because I wanted an aged look.


And here's the finished product.

My opinion of this transfer method is that it is not as easy as other crafters make out you really have to burnish it and make sure it adheres to the wood.  Even then it was really light in areas and its hard to tell if you have it laying straight on your project. Other than that it was the best transfer method I have tried so far.


I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and are inspired to try a project like this yourself.  Happy painting.


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MY BOOTH @ KING'S ANTIQUE MALL

I'd thought I would share some pictures of my booth at King's Antiques in Shreveport as of yesterday afternoon.

Sorry for the fuzzy pics I've got to get a good camera & take some classes. :-) Hope you're weeks going great.

Birds & Roses Buffet/Dresser

I'm really busy right now but wanted to stop and share pictures of the before and after of a buffet/dresser I just finished.  I'm really torn about selling this one I just love it!


Here's the before:

It is a solid, good quality piece of furniture but so not my style.  Here's the after:

The paint color just won't come through with this camera sorry but it is painted with ASCP "Versailles" and it is just divine! It's a soft lemony green and the birds are stencils I made from images I got at The Graphics Fairy. They are painted with burnt umber acrylic paint.


I'm updating this blog to give you the details on how I painted this piece.  

• First I stripped the top
• I then applied a wood conditioner & waited 30 minutes for it to dry
• Next I took a lace curtain I found at a thrift shop and by laying it on the top of the buffet decided what portion of the curtain I wanted to use. I cut that portion our and tapped it to the top of the buffet with painters tape barely catching the edges of the lace.

• Next I spray painted the top with a Rust-oleum satin paint in a burnt umber shade. I love this color and use it a lot.  Here is how it looked after I sprayed it.  You need to be sure you spray it in an even coat and your lace needs to be a sturdy weight a light weight lace won't work.

• After it had thoroughly dried I applied 2 coats of water-based satin poly to protect it but in doing so found that the Rust-oleum smeared a bit but not enough to hurt anything.  So you may want to chose another paint if you are going to poly afterwards.
• I then painted the entire buffet in "Versailles" as I mentioned above.
• I wanted to carry the bird theme onto the body of the piece so I went to "The Graphics Fairy" and chose a flying bird image and a canary standing on a limb.  After printing them on card stock I used an Exacto knife to cut them out making stencils.
• I applied the flying bird stencil to the door and the canary on one of the drawers.

• When the stencils were dry I applied a coat of ASCP clear soft wax allowing it to dry and then distressed in areas that would normally see wear then added another coat of wax.

Now here is another view of the finished piece. You can see the color better in this one.

My favorite part is the top.

Now I have to give credit to Rosemary @Villabarnes who shared the idea of spraying lace on her blog.  I had thought of using lace before but had tried doing it like a stencil with a brush & when it didn't work just gave up.  Thanks Rosemary. 


Okay get out your paint & give it a go. It's back to work for me.


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9-11 Never Forget

I will never forget where I was and what I was doing on 9-11-2001.

I'll never forget the horror and fear I felt when I realized that wasn't debris falling from the towers but people jumping.

I'll never forget the fear I felt when the plane hit the Pentagon on the Army side where my nephew was stationed.  That fear lasted until he was finally able to call us late that night to say he was okay.  Luckily he had been sent on an errand to the other side of the Pentagon, but he says he will never forget helping the injured and dying men and women he had worked with everyday.

We should never forget that we are not inviolable, but we should never live in fear because doing so will give the enemy the victory they hoped to achieve.

We are Americans! 
Our flag still flies and in God we still trust and this is still the land of the free and the home of the brave! They can not take that away from us!

My thoughts and prayers go out to all of those who lost family members or were in some way affected on that day.  
May God Bless and keep you.

Bulky But Feminine

Remember this chest of drawers in my blog "Chest Trouble"?

Well after that post I still felt it just needed something I wanted it to be more feminine. Yes, that big bulky chest feminine.  So I got a great idea and after digging around in my craft room found a great paper doily with some lovely floral lace cutouts around the edges.  I took that and cut out a portion of it to make a stencil.  I then applied the stencil with "Old White" ASCP onto the outside edge of the drawers on each side and this was the result.

Waves of lace!  With the lace pattern and the "Old White" painted drawer pulls I think I achieved a more delicate look for this very large and bulky piece of furniture.  Let me show you how I achieved this look using pictures I took while painting the matching dresser. 

•  First, I painted the piece with "Old White" chalk paint.  
• I then applied a gray wash with "Paris Gray" using 1 part paint and 5 parts water.
• After the paint had dried I applied my lace stencil taping it down to keep it from moving and using a medium stencil brush pounced the "Old White" paint into the lace pattern.
• I started with the top of the mirror and applied the stencil under the curve across the top of the mirror and then on each outside edge of every drawer.
• I painted all the drawer pulls and metal accents with "Old White" chalk paint, as they were not in great shape with some of the finish having worn off, applying two coats. I was surprised at how much I liked them painted white instead of black it softened the entire piece.

• After all the paint was dry I applied two coats of ASCP clear soft wax
• The top I stripped down to the wood and applied a Dark Walnut stain and two coats of a satin polyurethane.

Here are pictures of the finished dresser.

The dresser is so big I couldn't move it by myself and I had it in a smaller room when I took the pictures so I don't have a full picture of the dresser just parts of it, sorry. Also, my good camera is out of commission so please overlook the bad shots.

LOL yes those are my arms in the right corner.  We live in a 1950's home on a small lake. The home wasn't what I would have chosen but the location was excellent.  Notice the low acoustical ceilings.  Sigh, we work with what we are given.
 :-)   

I also dry brushed some Old White onto the decorative elements of the mirror to bring them out more.

I hope you like how these two pieces turned out.  They were quite a challenge in that they were such large pieces for the shabby chic look I wanted to achieve.  Next a dining room set and a piece that could serve as a dresser or sideboard.


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What A Shame

I'm really dragging this evening as I have been working since early this morning on a couple of projects, but I wanted to stop and take a minute to share the before and afters of a buffet/sideboard I just finished.


Here's the before:

I almost forgot to take the before picture because I was so eager to get started as usual. As you can see there isn't much wrong with this piece.  Its a very solid, quality piece of furniture.  The only problem I could find with it was some scarring on the very thick, mirror-like top and a couple of stains in the drawers. 


Now all of you wood and stain lovers don't have a fit but yes, I painted it.  But wait! As I was looking at the top I could see in places that beneath that about an inch of polyurethane finish was what looked like beautiful inlay work!  


So I sanded and I sanded and I sanded...good thing I love to sand huh? And finally Viola! Behold!

Beautiful huh? I just can't imagine what that carpenter was thinking when he added all that stain and poly to his beautiful work. Geez! I just applied wood conditioner then three coats of clear soft wax and buffed. I also added the black line details around the edges.

I painted the rest of the buffet with ASCP in "Old White".  The brass drawer pulls I spray painted with a textured black matte paint. Since it was so pretty inside (looks almost new) I did not paint the interior nor did I distress it but I did line the drawers.


By the way, these are pics of just some of my new booth at King's Antique Mall. I just moved across the aisle to a little larger booth with a display case as I picked up some really nice glass items to sell. If you live in the Shreveport, LA area stop in and ask for Peggy's booth. Well, I'm hitting the sack for some much needed rest. Have a great long weekend. :-)

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