Watercolor my world

On a recent outing to our favorite spot, our local ReStore, I found an original watercolor painting that was framed and I loved it.  Watercolors is a medium I've never been able to conquer but I'm in love with the inherent softness achieved with them so I bought it!  The $30 price tag was a bit steep but I was in luck because red tags were 75% off that week.  SCORE!  

 

I was in love with the picture but the frame itself had a lot to be desired.  It was just a plain.  As we made out way through the store I found another stack of pictures and found this ugly sailboat picture that used to hang in our Red Lobster.  It was $15 and another red tag 75% discount score.   The picture was alright if you're a sailing kind a person I suppose, but the frame was beautiful!  It had little holes all around it where they nailed it to the wall but they were fixable.  I eyeballed them both and judged them to be the same size so I figured a little paint and this frame would be perfect for this watercolor.  

I used my white chalk paint left over from the bench project for the first two coats, then I made up a green that was the same color as a green in the painting and covered the white with green.  I thought revealing the white beneath the green would look great!

WRONG

I put it aside for a few days and then decided to recover it with white and reveal a little green beneath.  I've been seeing different techniques for distressing and one of them was to use Vaseline where you don't want paint to stick and thought I'd try it.  Discovering we had none, and I wasn't buying any to smear on my furniture.  I remembered something I'd had success with in the past, and that is to use a candle to coat areas in wax that paint won't adhere too, so I waxed my frame kinda willy nilly.  I covered the green with another layer of white and when dried I sanded it lightly and all my green bits began to come through!  I coated it with a few coats of wax and buffed it to a sheen but I still wasn't happy with it.  I then tried a little glaze and did a little more sanding and I think I'm happy with it now.  

Of course my eyeballing judgement was off as they weren't the same size, the watercolor was about 1/2 inch larger then the sailboat so I had to do a little nip and tucking to get it to fit.   I really like the end result!

 Now, where to hang it!

Project Catch-up and the Winter Blues

I confess...I haven't abandoned my blog or my projects, I've just been in a bit of a funk! 

After the hoop-a-la of the holiday season and life settles back into normalcy is about the time my SAD kicks in. I know I'm not alone in my battle of this disorder and I've heard many friends remark this season about how it effects them, and read many bloggers who seem to be suffering from it as well. 

For me, it manifests in anxiety and depression...the depression I can logically deal with because I know it's there, underwriting my emotions and I can fight that inner demon. Anxiety is the much bigger issues for me because it takes me so long to recognize it. My imagination takes over and feeds on that anxiety and pretty soon whatever trigger (something I've heard, read or seen) has been activated eventually takes on a life of their own. My latest spiral was last week, after seeing a student with a car issue in the parking lot (his whole front wheel/tire fell off or broke) I immediately 'heard/felt' something in my truck and I thought it would happen to me next. I shook that thought off and ordered it out of my head and I hoped that the student could have it repaired without too much of a strain on his finances. That thought soon began to spiral in my head and by the end of the day I could hardly breath. I couldn't figure out why I was so worked up...my chest was tight and I felt like I was on the verge of tears all day. It hit me late that afternoon...when I took a moment to catch my breath and collect my spirit and I realized that my inner trouble-seeker already had me jobless/homeless/divorced and alone because something happened to my vehicle that insurance wouldn't cover, so I had no vehicle to get to work...no job means no money to pay bills...which means I'd lose my house and everything else. Irrational much? Once I recognized the anxiety trigger I could deal with it...and I did...and that inner trouble-maker hasn't made a reappearance since then. 

Spring is right around the corner thankfully! 

Today I'm going to share a couple of projects from Christmas that I didn't share earlier.  

Curb Alert is another of the blogs I follow and when I saw this project pop up in my feed it spoke to me for some reason.  I pinned that baby!

Picture frame wreath from Curb Alert

Why?  No clue!  I'm not even one of those decorating chic's...I like cool things, but putting them together in my house to create a 'decorating style' of my own but I thought "I could do that!" so I began my hunt for an oval frame.  I wasn't very lucky in that search so with about 2 weeks to go before Christmas I had to switch tactics.  

I found this among all of my treasures and figured it would do just fine, even though the frame wasn't as substantial as I would have liked. 

 

 I took it all apart and grabbed a can of spray paint and went to town.  It took about 3 coats but it covered well.   

 

 

I found these great ornaments at the Dollar Tree, some ribbon from my stash an next thing I knew I had a great new quirky wreath!  

  

I just wish I had thought to take pictures of it on my actual door!  

Traditionally I don't buy gifts for my circle of friends and co-workers for the holidays.  I don't know why, perhaps it all feels so phony and trivial to me.  I hate feeling obligated to buy something for someone because it's the holiday!  I prefer to gift my friends with things throughout the year...something special because I've thought of them or knew they'd love something!  I have in the past picked one item to mass produce for the holiday gifting season and this year I found my project on Facebook of all places.  One of the pages I stumbled upon belongs to Charlotte and her Roma Land Woodcrafts page.   She has a shop in Tennessee and does the cutest decorative painting on wood and other found objects. 

She painted wineglasses turned upside down to look like snowmen and then used the bottom of the wine glass as a stand for a candle.  They were super cute and I thought I could take that idea and take it one step farther. 

Another of my holiday traditions is making treats to gift, you know...cookies, candies etc...  I figured if I glued a plate or bowl to the upside down stemware it would make a great container for the goodies.  I got all my craft paints out and went to town on my snowmen. 

They all got faces with noses all pointing different directions so they are all different.

They all got a hat next which is where some of their personalities began to emerge.  Most of them were painted willy-nilly but a few were done with particular people in mind. 

 

Next I glued on some plates and bowls I had collected in my thrifting and yard-sale adventures. 

One of the dishes filled with baklava, cheese straws, Christmas crack and a few types of cookies.   

 

I wrapped them all in Saran Wrap and ribbon and they were ready for gifting!  

It's been a particularly hard year at work and thought some of my co-workers could use a little pick-me-up and I do believe they all loved them!  

Thanks for the idea Charlotte!

The Bench Project

One of the first blogs I began to follow in earnest after discovering the blogisphere is  My Repurposed Life.  I fell in love her benches as soon as I saw her first tutorial and just knew I would be making one...never mind that I didn't even have a headboard/foot-board to use for such a project!   I read as many of her tutorials and looked at all of her posts on this kind of project as I could find as well as other bloggers over the past year.  

I was on the lookout for headboards and foot-boards at yards sales and thrift shops and could never find anything I thought would work well, and lets face it...price, cause I'm cheap...thrifty...frugal.  Whenever SF would see me looking he would ask what I was going to do with it, I would mumble 'project' and that look of "what's she up to now" would come over his face.  One day I shared some of my Pins of the benches and my need to make one...he was intrigued, but not sold.  I also shared them with my friend Liz and a few months ago Liz made me a proposition.  She had an antique bed that belonged to her daughters Paternal grandmother, the bed was broken beyond use as a bed anymore and she asked if I'd make it into a bench for her daughter.  It could never be a bed again, but it would still be a piece of heirloom-ish piece of furniture from her Grandmother.  I took the challenge!  

Then I saw the pieces!

 

The top rails were off both ends and all the spindles were out, the bottom rail for the spindles was broken on the headboard, and both curved corners on the foot-board were broken, again...the attempts at repairs evident.  I only had 5 of the longer headboard spindles that I was able to piece together so I could take a picture of it all.    

 

 

It also came with the side rails which were in pretty great shape still.  

 

I decided to use the foot-board but had to use the top rail from the headboard because the two corner pieces weren't broken.  It had the same number of spindles so I figured the holes would still line up.  

SF became my reluctant partner in this endeavor and it was right about this point that I needed his help!  We did some measuring and figuring, trying to use only the original pieces we had we began to formulate a plan.  He cut the headboard off just above the bottom rail, and then cut the end off each of the sideboards.  We had to take it in the house to work on it because suddenly it was winter!  

Totally blurry picture of the brackets

We formed the box for the bench of the base using the sideboards with the original hardware on the frontside just like when used as a bed, and we used the original brackets meant to hold the box spring frame to attach it to the back.  Once the box was fixed we had to figure out how to reattach the top rail and capture all the spindles between the rails.  Every single one of those spindles was a different length and all different in one way or another.  This piece of furniture had already been put back together several times and it was just loaded with this black stuff I had to pry off, some old wood glue and spots of Gorilla glue here and there as well.  I had to clean all this gunk off of each spindle end and out of each of the spindle holes. 

 

 The top rail tapers slightly toward the end so the longest of the spindles went on the outside, but it was trial and error after that.  We finally got an order that seems to work so I numbered each spindle and where it goes on the rail and I glued it all back together.  I clamped it all together and waited for it to dry for a few days.

 

While I loaded the bottom holes up with glue when I glued them back in the tops of the spindles were just barely seated in the top holes so I had to secure them or they would just break off again.  I brought it in and turned it upside down.  

 

 I made a filler using the sawdust I collected from the cuts we made and some wood glue.  I also found some plastic droppers we purchased at some yard sale...somewhere...but they worked great. 

 I squeezed some of that mixture into each of the top holes to fill in whatever gap remained .

I cleaned up all the joints and left it all to dry for a few more days.  

 

The two remaining pieces were enough length wise but the two of them were about 6 inches short of making the bench top, so we had to add in a non-original piece of wood.  We had to do a little adjustment to compensate for the different thickness and we had to make it a little wider so we could create a small lip under the top.

 I filled in all the holes the screws created with that wood-glue/sawdust concoction and let it dry...it took two applications to get them filled and level.  The whole piece was then given a good sanding and I had to really sand the edges pretty heavily because they were so sharp, which of course took off all of the existing color. 

I was a bit worried about how this would effect the final color and distressing but I pressed on.  It was ready for a coat of paint now.  I mixed up a batch of the DIY chalk paint w/plaster of paris in a flat latex primer/paint combo in antique white.  I was so hesitant to paint it because the color was so gorgeous but I knew I'd never match that back piece of wood...ever...even-though-I'd-kill-myself-trying...so I did it.  

I painted it!

 

I painted two coats of my chalk paint which covered it completely.  Once it all dried I distressed it slightly to reveal the original wood color beneath in areas it would get worn with age.  Of course my fear became reality when after distressing the piece, the areas I sanded look out of place with their lack of color...so how to fix this?  Stain?  Paint? 

 I happened to have to craft acrylics in my art stuff so I mixed up a brownish-red and re-sanded all those edges. I then used that paint as a stain as I painted it on then rubbed it in going over all those areas I had  heavily sanded.

 

It worked!  I then applied a thin layer of wax all over and buffed it out.  I won't even begin to tell ya what a pain-in-the-butt it was to get into all those nooks and crannies!  I did two more layers of wax and buffed them out till the wood felt smooth as glass.

 This technique really accentuated the beautiful lines of the original piece, her legs are gorgeous.

 

The spindles and top rail distressed beautifully and the pictures just don't capture it well.

 

We were able to get it finished in time for our cookie date with Liz and I was so glad that she liked it!  The real test was if her daughter would like it as much, since it was her Grandmothers bed that we hacked all up! 

 

I was overjoyed when I received a text on Christmas morning from her daughter saying she loved it and thanks.  It was the cherry on top of my Christmas...

She liked it! 

Thanks to my hubby and reluctant partner SF, for making my vision happen!

Linking up to

New Color

Last week I got another of those 'wild hairs' and decided to color my hair again.  I've always been blond of some sort but always wanted to be a red-head.  I tried many variations of strawberry blond yet it never satiated that Jessica Rabbit moment I wanted.  Soon after my hair was butchered...chopped...cut I decided to color it and even out my color since I still had some sun-bleached ends and I used Lightest Golden Brown. 

 

It pretty much accomplished what I wanted it to and evened my color out.  This time I decided to go just  bit darker and tried the Medium Golden Brown which I really like as well.  

 

It's frizzy from blow-drying which I never do but I'm kinda diggin' it!

As much as I like it however it's still a bit disappointing since I really want that WOW moment with something totally shocking.  I'm just not so sure I'm willing to suffer through a wild color just to have that moment.  

Zebra Bench-Project 50

I bought this ugly old stained bench at my favorite spot, our local ReStore. It was probably a piano or vanity bench at one point in it's life but it had good lines so I thought it deserved new life!  

 See that price tag?  Yup, $2!  How could I not buy it?

 The color is kinda yellow-creamy-dingy and old so I knew it needed to be painted.  Another project for my DIY chalk paint and I wanted to experiment with some black.  I took the top off the bench and put it to the side to reupholster another day.

 We found some Ooops paint from Menards in 'Licorice' so I whipped up a batch of the black chalk paint and got busy.  It didn't quiet cover as well as I was anticipating with the first coat but the second coat covered it completely. 

Once I got the two coats done I left it to dry while I turned my attention to choosing a fabric for me new bench.  Choosing a material and covering the bench top were next on the agenda.

Once I took the gawd-awful brocade fabric off I found this lovely green naugahyde pleather and in removing it I was gifted with yet another layer of pleather in an even more horrid color! 

Once I had it all stripped I reused the padding and added a few more thin layers of foam aka old foam mattress pads.  Once I picked out what fabric I wanted it was easy peasy to re-cover.

After a little bit of distressing and two coats of wax the chalky greyish-black paint color deepened  to a rich black.  

The animal print trend has been going strong in the fashion world for a few years and it's extended into the home-decor world as well.  Once something becomes 'vogue' I'm pretty much done with it.  Although I covet the big bold zebra, giraffe and leopard print purses I would never buy one, because I don't want to be 'everyone else'.  With all that being said...I chose Zebra!

In the end, it cost me less then $10 to finish this little project and I have a cute little bench for my bedroom!  It has really come in handy there too.  It makes me happy! 

What?  

Where is the final picture showing my new bench in it's new place in my bedroom?

Well...umm...

Ok Ok...I'd have to clean my room first!  

Just keeping it real.