Ooh la la!

Well this one didn't take long at all and I think it turned out too cute! This sweet little bench has been hanging around with me for more than 10 years. I never knew what to do with it but kept taking it with me when I moved. I finally found it's calling!

I want to apologize for the millionth time about forgetting to take before pictures. I'm just terrible at remembering but here's an "Oops, I already started painting it but you kind of get the idea" shot.

And here she is all finished!

What I did was make my own chalk paint with some unsanded grout and white latex paint I had lying around. I then printed out the French Typography on freezer paper (I'm thinking it would work find with wax paper but I haven't tried that yet, although, they are the same?). I printed it backwards because I was going to be pressing the ink into the wood. I tried a mod podge technique before and apparently you have to have a laser printer. I only have an inkjet. And Voila! At first I was thinking it was a little too white but it's starting to grow on me. Now I just need to wax her up to protect the typography and off she'll go to a new home!

I have one more project I'm going to try to finish by Friday but we'll see because I'm having a hard time deciding what to do. So, maybe I'll see you Friday! Fingers crossed. ;)

And here it is!

Well, one of them anyway. I'm super happy with how this turned out. I may have mentioned before that I was inspired by a table I had pinned on Pinterest. I wanted to do a gender neutral dresser because the first one was soooo girly and the next one will be feminine but more grown up. I didn't want to pigeonhole myself into a girls only corner. This is where I got my inspiration from. And now, here it is!

This is obviously the before and so sorry about missing drawers. I had already started sanding the top when I realized I hadn't taken a before picture.

And a few in betweens. The wood is so beautiful! I was so glad I'd already decided to stain it!

 And finally the after! I stained it in Ebony and then alternated the drawer with Sunbleached. The hardware is all in Oil Rubbed Bronze.

And there it is. It feels modern but also a bit nautical. I love it and my husband does, too. He actually said, "This one is going to be a bit hard to part with, huh?" :)

Oh, and check out my Facebook page I set up for selling my furniture. I don't know how to do those linky link things yet but here's the web address. https://www.facebook.com/ThePaintedCottageSC

Projects

I have gone into a DIY frenzy! If you remember from my last post I spent an entire day on Pinterest pinning JUST to my Do It Myself board and got soooo many great ideas! I finally got around to trying out the faux milk glass and I'm torn. First of all, it's relatively easy but none of the tutorials I found had a lot of information so I was trying to do better than that for you. I don't know how much better I'm going to do but I'm certainly going to try. First of all here are the instructions that I used.

I went to Goodwill and picked up 7 glass vases for $1 a piece (the little one was only $0.50). Then I ran to Hobby Lobby and picked up the Enamel acrylic paint that she suggested in just about every color. I got excited. I planned on making some for myself and giving them as gifts for Christmas as well so I was picking out all the ladies' in my life favorite colors (does that sentence make sense?). Anyway, so that was a lot of colors. I also decided doing some seasonal ones would be fun, too, so black and orange were thrown into that as well. Yes, a lot of colors.

Ok, so I began with the white. I thought I'd try to measure it out because I have a digital scale so I would know how much to use each time to cut down on waste but I guess my scale isn't that sensitive. Then I tried using a measuring shot glass but this stuff sticks to whatever it's in and that seemed wasteful so I decided on the next one to just mix it in the vase but then it was hard to mix SO my suggestions is to, yes, mix it in a different container. There is going to be some waste. There doesn't seem to be a way around it. The white one I let sit correct side up for about an hour and swirled it as suggested then poured out any excess. I wiped the rim off and voila, beautiful! However, mixing the other colors wasn't so easy as I described about because it seems to take A LOT of paint to coat and there is a lot left over. I'm wondering if it can be stored mixed to save on waste. I'll get back to you on that. Instead of letting the next several sit right side up like the white one I turned them over to let the paint drip down the sides. I'm not sure if I didn't make the mixture sloppy enough or what but the rims didn't turn out quite as pretty as the white one. I was going to give the blue one as a gift but I think I'll keep it and try to make the next one prettier. If they're my vases you can't really see the issue from the outside so as long as I'm the only one that knows I can live with it. Here are a few pictures to help explain.

Before :)

This was just after I'd fully coated the vase. There were bubbles all over it which concerned me but I held out hope that they'd pop as the paint settled.

I turned it upside down briefly to get rid of the excess paint after pouring out what I could.

And lovely! The bubbles DID pop and the vase is coated uniformally.

Even the rim is nice and smooth looking.

These vases didn't turn out as well as the first. I had to mix several batches of paint because I wasn't getting enough paint but I think I just wasn't thinning it enough. I figured half way through that I can always go back and recoat so I'm not stressing too much. They look pretty good from the outside but as gifts...

 
They don't look as good on the inside. This one was going to be for my mom. I'm going to try to recoat it with a thinner coat and see if that helps. If not then I now have a green vase and I'll do another one for her. Once I recoat I'll let you know how that goes.

So sloppy looking. I think I just made the paint too thick with these. :(

However, from the outside they look quite nice. I'm excited to see how they stand up to holding water. I still need to stick them in the oven and then go buy some flowers to try it out. Again, I'll post on how they hold up!

Within the next few weeks I'm going to try one of the reupholstering projects. I have an ottoman I got off of Craigslist about a year ago that I've been wanting to reupholster but never considered doing myself until now. Once I get to that I've got a lovely wingback channel chair that I'm going to attempt and then...well, there's A LOT I'm wanting to get my hands into so stay tuned!!