cottage white and toile.

As most of you know, I am on the re.design with prima design team.

A while back Prima asked if any of us would like to collaborate on a project using Amulent Paint from The Chippy Barn.  Since I love trying out new products and sharing them with you guys here on my blog, I jumped at the chance.

Amulent Paint is not a chalk paint or a milk paint, instead it is a ceramic paint.  I have to say, I don’t know much about the science behind ceramic paint so I googled it.  I found an article online about ceramic paint that lists its benefits (you can find the article here):

    • A smoother, more continuous paint film that resists cracking.
    • Superior stain resistance—stains don’t get absorbed, so they can be wiped off.
    • The ceramics produce a less tacky paint surface, which reduces dirt accumulation.
    • Round spheres roll past each other in the paint, greatly enhancing flow and leveling.
  • And microspheres help hide the underlying substrate and reduce the luster of the paint.

It all sounds good to me.

So, I started searching online for just the right piece to use for this collaboration and found this empire style dresser.

I knew I could deal with the mismatched knobs.  This piece also had quite a bit of loose veneer, but that was remedied with some gluing and clamping.  And FYI, this is another faux wood grain piece.  Those stripes are fake, so I didn’t feel one bit of guilt painting over them.

After gluing, clamping, sanding lightly and cleaning thoroughly (this dresser was also disgustingly dirty when I got it) with TSP substitute, I added a coat of Cottage White.

I always prep my pieces with a light scuff sanding followed by vacuuming inside and out.  When you’re working with used vintage furniture I think it’s just good common sense to give them a good clean before you move on to painting.  Generally I use TSP Substitute which is less harsh than TSP but does a good job of removing any greasy residues.

I was quite impressed by the coverage of this paint after just the first coat.  I stopped there and let the paint dry for a good 24 hours mainly because I wanted to be sure I wasn’t getting any bleed-thru from that orange-y looking stain before moving on to a second coat of paint.

I was in luck, no bleed-thru on this one.  So I added a 2nd coat of the Cottage White.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that I didn’t need a 3rd coat, especially since this is a white paint.

I also found that the Amulent Paint distressed beautifully.  I sanded the edges of the dresser using 220 grit paper to add a little ‘age’ to my finish.

Next I pulled out re.design with prima’s Simplicity transfer which is a lovely black toile print.

I considered using it for all of the drawer fronts, but to fully cover them all from side to side would have required three sets of the transfer.  The drawers are around 26.5″ wide by 36″ tall,  the transfer is 22″ wide x 30″ tall, so just a hair short both ways.  So instead I decided to just do the top two drawers.

I’ve always been a huge fan of the graphic punch of black and white, and this transfer was perfect over the Cottage White paint.

For a final finish on this piece I used The Chippy Barn’s Specialty Clear Wax in the Lemongrass scent.  If you’ve followed me for a while, you know that I LOVE using products that smell good.  If you like lemongrass scent, you will love this wax!  If you’re not a fan of lemongrass, it also comes in four other scents; Lavender, Lilac, Peppermint and Spearmint.  Or you can get it unscented, and in white, brown or black.

This dresser was short 3 glass knobs when Mr. Q brought it home.  Not only that, but the knobs were filthy dirty and the metal screws were quite rusted (and not in a good way).  So I found three matching (or mostly matching) knobs in my stash, soaked the originals in soapy water to get them clean and then replaced just the screws with new ones.  Did you know that you can buy these screws in chrome or brass at D Lawless Hardware for just 20 cents each?  Good to know if you ever run into a piece like this.

In the end, all of the knobs look brand new.

As a final touch, I lined just the top two drawers with some scrapbook paper.  The drawer bottoms were a bit stained so I opted to cover that up.

I think this one turned out lovely.  It would be perfect for someone’s cottage style decor, and with six drawers total it would provide great storage.

Thank you to re.design with prima for setting up this collaboration and for providing the Simplicity transfer.  And thank you to The Chippy Barn for providing the Amulent paint and the lemongrass scented wax.

If you’re looking for re.design with prima products you can find local retailers here, or online sources here.

If you’d like to check out The Chippy Barn, you can find them here.

And if you are local and need a sweet, cottage style dresser visit my ‘available for local sale‘ page to find out if this one is still available.

some people never learn.

Some people never learn … and by ‘some people’ I mean me.

Every time I take on an upholstery job that involves anything more than just stapling new fabric over old fabric, I do these four things.  First, I procrastinate for a really long time before even getting started.  Second, I cuss the whole time I’m working on the project.  Third, after lots of time and effort I manage to create an incredibly amateurish end product.  And then finally, I obsess over all of the flaws.

Let’s face it, upholstery is just not for me.  As much as I would love to be good at it, I’m not.  Of course, I could work at it to improve my skills.  I also could buy the right tools, which makes every job easier.  But the bottom line is that I simply don’t enjoy the process.  Let’s hope I remember this the next time I’m tempted to take on a pair of chairs like these.

I found this pair of balloon back chairs at an estate sale for a great price, $10 each.  I debated buying them knowing how much I dislike upholstery work.  But I just couldn’t help myself.

Once I got them home I immediately started questioning the wisdom of my decision.

Just look at all of these upholstery tacks!

Those were all going to have to come out.  Plus, look at that cherry red stain, it was likely going to bleed through paint.

Seriously, what was I thinking?

I honestly debated just loading them back into the van and taking them to the Goodwill.

But instead I decided to use my tried and true strategy for getting something like this done.   Rather than trying to complete this chair makeover in one fell swoop, I broke it down into more easily accomplished tasks.  Step one was to remove those darn tacks.

That took me nearly an hour for each chair.  Ugh.

Next I put a coat of Dixie Belle’s BOSS on each chair.  I didn’t test them for bleed-thru, I just assumed that they would.  I like to let the BOSS cure for at least 24 hours before painting over it, so that was as far as I got the first day … no, who am I kidding … the first week … that I worked on the chairs.

The next time I pulled them out I added two coats of Dixie Belle paint in Sawmill Gravy.  I knew I was going to use drop cloth fabric on the seats, and the last time I worked with Sawmill Gravy I noticed it was the perfect match for the drop cloth that I use for painting.

The chairs sat around for another week or so after being painted, but when I had some more time I pulled them back out, sanded to distress them and then added a coat of clear wax.

A few days later I pulled out a new drop cloth I’d purchased.  I cut some sections large enough for the chair seats with a few inches left over for shrinkage.  Then I washed and dried the fabric.  Next I stenciled it using Dixie Belle paint in French Linen for the stripe and Midnight Sky for the rest.  Both of the stencils are from Maison de Stencils.

But when I held this fabric up to the chairs I realized two things.  First, this new drop cloth fabric was a different color than my older drop cloth and I didn’t like the way it looked with the Sawmill Gravy.  Second, the black paint felt too harsh compared to all of the other more muted colors going on.  I really wanted a more subtle monochromatic look.

So I went back to the drawing board.  I cut two chunks of fabric off my old drop cloth (luckily I had a couple of corners that didn’t have paint all over them).  I washed them up and then stenciled them without the grain sack stripe and using the French Linen for the rest of the design.

Next came the trickiest part, stapling the fabric in place and cutting around those 4 spots where the chair back is attached to the seat.  I managed to get it done, but very inexpertly.  I’m not even going to describe how I managed it because at this point you should not be taking advice from me on how to upholster.

After the fabric was all stapled in place, I trimmed off the excess using a razor blade.  I found that I couldn’t get close enough to the staples using a pair of scissors.

The last step was to glue some trim all the way around to hide the staples.  I used my hot glue gun for that step.

I had to laugh when I finished up and realized all of the different tools I’d needed for this part of the job.

What a mess.

But in the end I have a pair of semi-decent balloon back chairs.

I don’t plan on keeping the chairs, and I know I’ve done a terrible job of ‘selling’ them here.  But if any of you locals are in need of a pair of budget priced chairs that look pretty, be sure to check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page.

As always, thank you to Dixie Belle Paint Co and to Maison de Stencils for providing some of the products I used on today’s project.

If you’re looking for Dixie Belle products you can find them here.

If you’re looking for Maison de Stencils you can find them here.

the birds and the bees.

Once again, my handyman Ken did a fantastic job turning a bed into a bench.

Mr. Q retrieved it from Ken’s house and set it up in our piano room (which is where I paint in the winter) last Friday afternoon.  When I got home from the day job I took this quick ‘before’ photo so that I could get started painting it right away.

Originally I was going to go more neutral and paint it either white or a pale grey.  But then I decided I was bored with playing it safe and I pulled out Dixie Belle’s Savannah Mist.  This is a lovely grey blue color.

But before I applied the Savannah Mist, I decided to paint out the new wood bench seat using Miss Mustard Seed’s Milk Paint in Curio, which is a dark brown.  This way when I distress the edges you won’t see brand new wood underneath.  Milk paint (much like a traditional stain) soaks into bare wood rather than sitting on top, and it dries really quickly so I didn’t have to wait long to start painting over it with the Savannah Mist.

I was able to paint the seat in Curio, then add two coats of Savannah Mist to the bench in the space of a few hours on Friday evening.

I decided to try the bare leg look again on this piece since there were four pretty turned legs to work with.  They were fairly dinged up though, so this was a good opportunity for me to try Dixie Belle’s No Pain Gel Stain in Walnut.  The difference between a gel stain and a traditional stain is that gel stain sits on top of the surface, while traditional stains soak into the wood (like milk paint does).  Because of that, you can use a gel stain without having to completely strip off the old finish.

I sanded the legs just lightly with some 220 grit paper first.  As you can see in the ‘before’ photo, for the most part I did not sand down to bare wood.  I also did not have an even color before moving on.  I then cleaned off the dirt and dust using a damp rag.  Next I applied two coats of gel stain with an old t-shirt.  Looks pretty darn good for not having to strip first, don’t you think?

It’s not perfect, but certainly totally sufficient for these legs.  If you’re a perfectionist, you might prefer stripping to bare wood, using a traditional stain, and then adding a poly finish.  But if, like me, you think some imperfections simply add to the charm of an older piece then the No Pain Gel Stain is for you!

You might be wondering at this point why I didn’t just use the gel stain on the seat before painting it, rather than the Curio milk paint.  That’s because the gel stain is an oil based product.  It takes much longer to dry than milk paint.  I would have had to wait a couple of days to paint over it.

So to recap; gel stain and chalk/latex/acrylic paint sit on the top of a surface, traditional wood stain and milk paint soak into the surface (providing they don’t meet resistance from a pre-existing finish).

In addition to leaving the legs unpainted, I also left that little trim piece at the top of the bench unpainted.

It has the sweetest little original floral decal on it.  I don’t usually try to save those because, to be honest, usually it just looks a bit wonky to paint around one or otherwise try to retain it.  But in this case I thought leaving that part unpainted along with the legs created a nice triangle for your eye to follow.

As a final touch, I added re.design with prima’s The Birds & the Bees transfer to the bench.

I just love what this transfer says, This is the place that I love the best, a little brown house like a ground-bird’s nest hid among grasses, vines & trees.  Summer retreat of the birds and bees.

How sweet is that?  And how perfect for a bench in the foyer of someone’s home.

I used a variety of brands on this piece.

So thank you to Miss Mustard Seed’s Milk Paint (Curio milk paint), re.design with prima (The Birds & The Bees transfer) Fusion Mineral Paint (clear furniture wax), and Dixie Belle Paint Co (No Pain Gel Stain and Savannah Mist paint) for providing all of the products used to finish this bench.

Let me know how you like the end result!

And if any of you locals are in need of a unique bench, check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page for more details.

bed benches.

A week or two ago I purchased another bed frame that I sent directly over to my handyman Ken’s house to have turned into a bench.

I neglected to get a ‘before’ photo of the bed because we literally picked it up and drove it straight to Ken’s garage and unloaded it there.  But, it’s very similar in design to the first bed bench that Ken and I collaborated on in the summer of 2018 …

It has a similar shape to the headboard and also has a curved foot board.

This bench was one of my favorite pieces.  It was painted in Fusion’s Putty and has one of the early Prima Marketing transfers on it.

Do any of you remember the story of me seeing it later in the buyer’s home?  I was purchasing a bedroom set from someone via Craigslist and when I got there to pick up the bedroom set, there sat this bench by her front door.  I did a double take, it was one of those ‘something is out of place here’ moments.  It took me a second to realize that I was looking at a piece I had sold the previous year.  Small world sometimes, right?

Our second bed bench collaboration was completed in October 2018.  This bench was made from an Eastlake style spoon carved bed frame that started out looking like this …

I painted it in Dixie Belle’s Caviar which worked really nicely with the more masculine feel of this piece.

Our third bed bench collaboration took place in January of last year with yet another entirely different style of bed.

Ken had to do a little more finagling with this one to get a bench out of it.  It had an opening in the headboard that need to be filled in with a plank of wood.

This one was painted in Fusion’s Bedford.

I added one of Prima Marketing’s earlier transfers to this one too.  By the way, both of these transfers are no longer available.

That was one of my favorites though and I used it on many pieces.  I still have a couple of these particular transfers stashed away for a rainy day.

I can’t believe it has been over a year since my last bed bench collaboration with Ken.  Time really does fly!  It was certainly time for another one.  As always, Ken whipped the bench up in no time.  I’m just putting the finishing touches on it and I’ll share it later this week.

In the meantime, I’m curious, which of these three was your favorite?

soldier blue.

As you’ll remember, a couple of the prize packages for my 12 days of giveaways included some Homestead House Milk Paint in a color called Soldier Blue.

I had never used this color before, and in fact never even really realized this color was available (see all of the Homestead House Milk Paint colors here).

Two things struck me.  First of all, it’s a gorgeous shade of blue.  Second, it’s pretty close to the 2020 Pantone Color of the Year, Classic Blue.  I knew I had to give it a try myself, so I mixed some up.

It looks a bit lighter as wet paint and I wasn’t sure I would get that gorgeous deep blue in the Homestead House photo.  But, as you know, paint always looks different once dry.  Especially milk paint.  Plus the top coat you use over milk paint can really change up the color.

So I pulled out this adorable little vintage kid-size folding chair that my picker Sue found for me.

I knew painting all of those slats was going to be a pain.  It’s so challenging to avoid drips when you have this many surfaces going on.  But one of the things that I love about milk paint is that it’s super easy to sand off any drips one the paint is dry.  Much easier than with other types of paint.

All I did to prep this chair was wipe it down with a damp cloth.  I was hoping to get some chipping, and the previous finish was fairly worn off so I was willing to gamble on getting just the right amount of paint to stick.

I painted the chair with two coats of the Soldier Blue, then once dry I sanded it lightly to distress.  Sure enough, I got some awesome chipping.

I knew that using hemp oil as my top coat would give me the deepest version of this color, so I pulled out Dixie Belle’s Howdy Do! Hemp Seed Oil.  This is another new-ish product from Dixie Belle that came out around the same time as their Big Mama’s Butta.

I usually apply hemp oil with an inexpensive chip brush, and that definitely would have been the smarter/easier option for this chair.  But, I was too lazy to dig out a chip brush so I just used an old t-shirt.  Clearly this is another situation where I have to say, ‘do as I say, not as I do’.  It’s a little harder to get the oil applied in all of those crevices using a rag.  It would have been much easier to brush the oil on, and then wipe away the excess with a clean rag.

Keep in mind that hemp oil will not add much sheen (if any), and it will also produce the darkest version of the color of your milk paint.  In this case, it was the perfect choice and it really brought out the richness of the Soldier Blue.

I had the perfect little piece of vintage toy china to use for staging this chair.

Isn’t it sweet?  I found it at a garage sale last summer.  It’s only about 2.5″ tall.

Remember when Mr. Q and I cleaned out our attic while getting out the Christmas decorations?  I came across some old stuffed animals in a box and decided to hang onto a couple of them for staging kid’s stuff.

Mr. Bunny still looks pretty good after 20 years in the attic.

I’m loving this shade of blue.  Now I just need to find a bigger piece of furniture to use it on.

I’ve put it in the stash of stuff that I need to bring in to Reclaiming Beautiful (the shop where I sell on consignment).  I probably won’t get it in there until next week though.

  But in the meantime, how do you like the little Soldier Blue chair?

As always, thanks to Homestead House Milk Paint for providing the Soldier Blue Milk Paint and to Dixie Belle Paint Co for providing the Howdy Do! Hemp Oil used for this project.

french folding chairs.

The main reason that I ordered the aqua paint colors from Dixie Belle that I’ve been sharing this week was for this pair of french bistro style folding chairs that I picked up while garage saling last summer.

Here’s a photo that I took when I purchased them … when the grass was green and the ground wasn’t frozen …

I folded them up to store them and I have to tell you, I had a heck of a time opening them back up again!

As I was working on them, I discovered that one of them had an IKEA tag on it.  So, that explains the poor functioning.  They were cheap chairs to begin with, and time had not done them any favors.

Well, hopefully my custom paint job will make them more appealing to a buyer than the basic IKEA originals, and I’ll be pricing these pretty low since they aren’t vintage.

To prep I simply cleaned the chairs with a damp rag.  Then I painted the wood slats with two coats of Dixie Belle’s The Gulf.  I opted to not paint the metal because I felt that it would scratch far too easily, especially if anyone tries to fold the chairs up.  Once dry, I sanded the chairs to distress them.  Next I pulled out the leftover scraps of the new re.design with prima Cosmic Roses transfer that I used on this dresser …

I had a 6″ strip left over at the bottom that didn’t fit on the dresser.  It was just enough to do both chair backs.

Initially I wasn’t sure how I was going to like this design on just two 1.75″ slats with a wide gap in between.  But after I had the first one in place I really liked it.

I also added some Tim Holtz number rub-on’s to the back of each chair.

I used Dixie Belle’s flat clear coat on the chairs just to give them a little bit more protection than my usual wax top coat.

These chairs are perfect for pairing up with a small farmhouse table to turn it into a desk.

I enjoyed staging these photos with all of my aqua pieces from this week.

I had loads of fun playing around with the three different shades from Dixie Belle.  As always, thanks to Dixie Belle for providing the paint and to re.design with prima for providing the transfer.

If you’re looking for the perfect aqua, you can check out Dixie Belle paints here.

And if you’re local and need a pair of pretty french bistro style chairs, check out my available for local sale page to see if these are still available.

hello 2020.

Happy New Year everyone!

Well, here we are not only saying hello to a new year, but also a brand new decade.  At my age (I’m 56 now), it is shocking how fast time seems to fly by.  Who’s with me on that?

I like to take a moment at the end of each year and reflect back on my favorite pieces from the previous 12 months, so here, in no particular order, are my top five from 2019.

The Lovely Ledger dresser.

I painted this dresser in Fusion Mineral Paint’s Limestone.  This is a warm shade of off-white, which is generally what I lean towards when painting something white.  For that reason, I also love Miss Mustard Seed’s Milk Paint in Linen, Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth, and Homestead House Milk Paint in Limestone.

The re.design with prima transfer on this piece is called Lovely Ledger.  I have another of these in my stockpile of transfers and I’m hoping to find another tall dresser to use it on sometime this year.

The Romantic Prairie Style washstand.

The color on this washstand was inspired by a piece in Fifi O’Neill’s book, Romantic Prairie Style.  It’s painted in Sweet Pickins milk paint in one of my favorite shades of green, In a Pickle.

This is one of those pieces where the milk paint did exactly what I wanted it to.  After a little encouragement with some painter’s tape, it chipped in all the right places, not too little and not too much.

I’ve used this gorgeous shade of green on a few pieces now, and as I usually find to be the case, they take longer to sell than more neutral pieces.  Still, I can’t resist this gorgeous green.  This one ended up selling to an artist who wanted it for her warehouse style loft and she absolutely loved it.

My farmhouse table.

It’s not all that often that I work on a piece just for myself, but that was the case with this table.  The base is painted in one of my other favorite shades of white that I mentioned above, Miss Mustard Seed’s Milk Paint in Linen.  The top of the table is waxed with Fusion Mineral Paint’s Liming Wax.

The lines of text on the table base are part of an old Prima Marketing transfer that is no longer available.

This table sits out on my front three season porch (which is really just comfortable for part of one season here in Minnesota) and I mainly use it for staging photos.  I can’t tell you how many hours I spend out there freezing my butt off this time of year while taking photos like this one …

But the light is awesome out there, so I put on fuzzy slippers and a sweater and suffer for my art.

The flower power dresser.

I definitely had to include this piece in my top five from 2019.  I absolutely love this one.  It’s painted in Dixie Belle’s Sawmill Gravy and then finished off with re.design with prima’s Cosmic Roses transfer.

I have been holding off on listing my pieces for sale on Craigslist and FB Marketplace until after the holidays.  I didn’t want to juggle being home to meet up with potential buyers and holiday parties.  So this dresser is still available.

I’m always a little nervous about how long pieces like this will take to sell, but that remains to be seen.  Fingers crossed that someone out there will fall in love with it.

My baby grand.

This list really wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the piano.  I had procrastinated on painting it for years thinking it would be a huge undertaking.  But I really couldn’t have been more wrong.  It didn’t take long at all to paint it using Dixie Belle’s chalk style paint in Midnight Sky.

The stencil I added on the top is from Maison de Stencils and is one of my favorites, mainly just because I love that pretty script font.

I painted the piano itself back in March, but I didn’t get around to painting the chair until September.

What can I say?  My own stuff is always at the bottom of the list.  But now that it’s painted I absolutely love it.

Well, there you have it.  My top five.

  Take a look at my ‘fab furniture‘ page to see all of my furniture ‘before & afters’ and let me know what your favorite was in 2019.

As always, thank you to re.design with prima, Dixie Belle Paint Co, Fusion Mineral Paint, Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint and Maison de Stencils for sponsoring my blog by providing the products used in these projects.

flower power.

Have you guys heard?  The Pantone color of the year for 2020 is Classic Blue.

I think someone at re.design with prima must have had the inside scoop on this because one of their new transfers that is being officially released today is a gorgeous floral design called Cosmic Roses that has lots of Classic Blue.  As soon as it arrived in my preview box I knew I had to find the perfect piece to put it on so I started surfing Craigslist.

I really couldn’t believe my luck when I snagged this piece.  Sure, it needed a bit of cosmetic work.  It also needed some small repairs including replacing some glides inside to help keep the drawers straight.  I also added a bit of glue here and there, in particular the veneer on the bottom of each side was loose and had been chipping off.  But for the most part it was in good shape, and it was exactly what I was looking for to showcase this gorgeous new transfer.

Once the repairs were done I also removed those drawer pulls from the bottom drawer and filled the extra holes with Dixie Belle’s Mud.  I also removed the casters.  They were handy for easily moving the dresser around, but obviously not original to the piece and they looked a bit weird to me.  They sort of make the dresser look like a kid playing dress up in mama’s high heels, right?

Next I cleaned the entire piece with TSP substitute.  I realized as I was cleaning it and my white rag was turning slightly orange-ish that this piece would likely be a bleeder.  So I painted a test spot to see what would happen.  Sure enough, the stain bled through my paint.  So I coated the entire thing with some Dixie Belle BOSS and let that dry overnight.

Then came two coats of Dixie Belle’s Sawmill Gravy.

I’d call this color a pale greige.  It definitely has a warm grey undertone, but also leans a a bit beige … so, greige.  It’s one of those chameleon colors that really changes depending on what color is next to it.  I knew it would work beautifully with the blues and greens in the transfer though.

Overall the transfer was just a few inches wider than the dresser so I decided to wrap the ends around the sides, which worked out perfectly.

When I got to the bottom of the dresser I had about 5″ left over.  In hindsight, I think I would have been happier had I centered the design on my dresser vertically as well as horizontally.  But hindsight is always 20/20, right?  I did decide to bring the design all the way down to the bottom trim though.  I also carried it over onto the legs.

By the way, this transfer comes in 6 pieces.  To read more about how to apply these large transfers, check out my how-to post here.

Once the transfer was in place, I sanded the edges of the piece lightly to distress and then I waxed this piece with a new product coming soon from Fusion.

They are coming out with two versions of their furniture wax that are scented with pure essential oils.  The one I used is called Hills of Tuscany and is described as ‘citrus forward, balanced with beautiful herbal scents and a hint of floral’, and I have to say that description really hits the nail on the head.  It smells absolutely amazing.  I tend to be a bit particular about scents, and I have to say that I love this one.  This wax is a total pleasure to use.

The final touch for this dresser was to replace all of the knobs with these beautiful glass knobs from D Lawless Hardware.  These are their reproduction depression glass knobs that come in three sizes.

I used the largest size (1.5″) on this dresser.  I think this piece tends to look a little smaller in photos than it really is.  It is 45″ wide and 36″ tall (without its high heels), so it needed a larger knob.

I brought in my blue chippy chair for staging because it worked perfectly with the blues in the transfer.

But I also wanted to draw out the green, so I also used this old green garden tote that I usually keep in my pantry.

I think the Cosmic Roses transfer has a bit of a 70’s flower power vibe.  At least it takes me back to my days of daisy patches.  Make love, not war. Don’t trust anyone over 30.  Can you dig it?

It’s pretty groovy, don’t you think?

Now, not to worry, I haven’t forgotten that today is day 9 of my 12 days of giveaways.  I wish I could give away the Cosmic Roses transfers, but since it’s only just coming out today I don’t have a spare on hand.  Same with the Hills of Tuscany Fusion wax, which is also just being unveiled this week.  So instead today’s prize includes the Beauty of Life transfer, some unscented Fusion furniture wax, a Homestead House antiquing wax (which is the same formula as Miss Mustard Seed antiquing wax, just different branding) and a Staalmeester brush.  This is actually my favorite brush to use with the Fusion wax.

Thank you to Fusion/Homestead House for sponsoring this giveaway by providing the waxes and the brush, and to re.design with prima for providing the transfer.

The rules:  to be eligible to win today’s prize leave a comment on this blog post.  If you can’t think of anything to say, just tell me if you remember the 70’s!  Your comment must be left on the blog, not on Facebook or Instagram.  You are not required to follow my blog, although it would be awesome if you did!

I will randomly draw the name of a winner for today’s prize from all of the comments left on this post by Wednesday, December 18, 2019 at the stroke of midnight (U.S. Central time).

The fine print: no purchase necessary, you must be 18 years of age or older to win, void where prohibited by law, the number of eligible entries received determines the odds of winning, approximate retail value of prize is $90, if the prize is not claimed by Friday, December 20, another name will be drawn at random to win, blah, blah, blah.

Good luck!

And one last thing, if you’re local and in need of a dresser with flower power, be sure to check my available for local sale page to see if this one is still available.

a trio of holiday chairs.

If you’ve followed my blog for very long, you know that I love painting small kid sized wooden chairs.  I’ve done about a bazillion of them.

But it never occurred me to to paint any with a Christmas theme … that is, until now.

I picked up three of these chairs last summer at a garage sale.  Apparently I forgot to take a separate ‘before’ picture of them, but here they are with the rest of the haul from that day.

I did each chair in a different design.

The first chair started out getting a paint job using Dixie Belle’s Honky Tonk Red.  I sanded it to distress the edges and smooth out  the finish, then I added a stenciled design using Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth.

I think this one has a sort of Scandinavian look, don’t you?

The red in that first photo looks just a little bit brighter than it does in person, this next picture is a little more true to color.

The Honky Tonk Red is the perfect cherry red, just right for Christmas.  I’ve always loved pairing red and turquoise so I staged it next to a wooden crate painted in Fusion’s Laurentien.

The second chair received two coats of Honky Tonk Red on everything except for the seat.  The seat got two coats of Drop Cloth. I have to say, I’m very impressed with the coverage I got with both of these colors.  Reds and whites can both be really tricky and often require 3 or even 4 coats to get good coverage, but two coats were plenty with these.

Once the paint was dry, I sanded to distress the edges and then added Prima Marketing’s Gingham Red transfer to the seat.  For those of you who may be wondering, the transfer is the black and red lines, the white that you see is the Drop Cloth paint on the chair.  So if you want this look you do need to paint your item white first.

The Gingham Red transfer set comes with two different red plaid designs.

There are two sheets of each plaid in the package, and each sheet measures 8.5″ x 22.5″ for a total of 17″ x 22.5″ of each plaid.

And the second plaid is positively adorable on this chair.

I used the other version of the plaid on a sled that I’ll be sharing next week, so be sure to stay tuned for that.

Last, but definitely not least, I painted the third chair using Drop Cloth and then added another Christmas stencil.  By the way, I purchased both of the stencils I used at Maison de Stencils.

Seriously.  How adorable is that?  Had I done that one first I think I might have been tempted to do all three chairs the same.  I predict that this chair will get snapped up quickly at Reclaiming Beautiful.

It did take a bit more time to do the stenciling on this one.  I had to mask off the sections of the stencil for each different color using painter’s tape.  I used black, red and two shades of green craft paint for the stenciling.

I used Dixie Belle’s Big Mama’s Butta for the final finish on all three of the chairs.

At first glance you might wonder why I’d paint furniture with a seasonal theme like this, but these chairs are small and would work great as holiday decor.  Any one of them would be absolutely adorable sitting beneath your Christmas tree.

Or possibly placed in the foyer to welcome your Christmas guests.  Maybe with a small boxwood wreath hung from the chair back.

They’d be super cute hung from a nail or two up on the wall.  Even if you don’t have any small kiddos at your house I bet you could find a way to decorate with one of these chairs!

Normally I try to post my furniture items here on the blog to see if any of my local readers want to purchase them before I take them to Reclaiming Beautiful.  However, this time I had a bunch of holiday stuff ready to go and I took it all in on Wednesday evening.  Reclaiming is gearing up for a holiday open house that is coming up on Nov. 16 so I wanted to get the bulk of my holiday merch down there.  If you’re local, be sure to pop in this weekend and see the rest of the stuff I brought in!

As always, thank you to Dixie Belle Paint Co and Prima Marketing for providing the supplies used for these chairs.

If you’re looking for Dixie Belle products you can find them here.

If you’re looking for Prima Marketing products you can find local retailers here, or online sources here.

So tell me, how would you use one of these adorable chairs?

laden with a supply of toys.

This time of year always gets a little tricky for me.  Up here in the north we really see a swing in the hours of daylight throughout the year.  In the summer we enjoy those June days that last until almost 10 p.m.  But by the time daylight savings time ends (as it did yesterday) the sky is dark when I leave for work in the morning and dark when I get home in the evening.  Plus our weather grows cold and we have lots of overcast, gloomy days in November.

As a result, I just want to put on some comfy fleece pajama pants and curl up on the sofa most evenings.

But last week I made an effort to fight that urge and I got some painting done every night after work.  So now I have a few fun smaller painting projects to share with you guys over the next couple of weeks.

Starting with this sweet little piece.  You may remember that I purchased this little cupboard at the Tangletown garage sales this fall.

Step one was to replace the existing back.  I’m pretty sure it was not original to the piece, especially since it wasn’t actually quite big enough to cover the entire back (notice how you can see through the bottom shelf?).

Naturally my handyman Ken made quick work of cutting me a new back out of hardboard.

Then I painted the whole thing pink.  I thought it would be pretty in pink.  But in the end, the pink just wasn’t working for me.  So I decided to repaint it using Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth and then seal it using their flat clear coat.

I sanded the surface to make it smooth and to distress the edges somewhat.  Then I pulled out the Christmas Greetings transfer from Prima Marketing.

I didn’t use very much of it, just that section in the center that says ‘laden with a supply of toys, novelties and fancy goods’ which seemed perfect for this piece.

What kiddo wouldn’t want this adorable cupboard laden with a supply of toys?

I added some molds from the Prima Marketing Sorrento Laurels set to jazz it up a bit (to learn more about using the molds, check out this post).

I worked a little bit of Dixie Belle’s Grunge Wax into the molds to give them a little more definition.  Keep in mind that I had already sealed the paint using the Dixie Belle flat clear coat, so that meant I could more easily work the grey Grunge Wax into the crevices and wipe away most of the excess without staining my creamy white paint.

Before re-attaching the back, I lined it with some old October Afternoon scrapbook paper.

I staged my photos with this adorable tiny folding chair that my picker Sue found for me while I was off in Disney World a couple of weeks ago.

It’s pretty adorable ‘as is’, but I think I’ll eventually paint it before I sell it.  It will likely sell faster painted.

Speaking of selling, for those of you who are local, here’s a head up.  I’ll be taking this piece plus a bunch of other holiday merch to Reclaiming Beautiful on Wednesday.  So if you’re local and you want the best selection, be sure to head in to the shop this weekend.  They are open Thursday thru Sunday each week.

The supplies used for this project were graciously supplied by Prima Marketing and Dixie Belle Paint Co.

If you’re looking for Dixie Belle products you can find them here.

If you’re looking for Prima Marketing products you can find local retailers here, or online sources here.

In the meantime, let me know what you think of this tiny cupboard laden with toys!