Paint Shop in West Michigan
It was my first time hosting a link up party and let me tell you, I sure don’t envy those of you who do this every week. It’s hard to narrow the selection down to just a few because there is some serious talent out there, but here goes…
One piece that really caught my attention was this Whimsical Christmas Chair by Deb by Lake Girl Paints.
After spending several years myself creating garden chairs, I have a true appreciation for the uniqueness of Deb’s style. Check them out this chair along with another whimsical piece here.
I’ve seen it re-created numerous times but Heather’s laid out a great tutorial that’s easy enough even for a beginner DIYer.
I love spending time in the yard all summer long.
My brain constantly processes how things are growing and seems to store everything that NEEDS to be changed.
Every year I dig up shrubs and small trees then re-arrange them as if they were the living room furniture. I can’t help it, that’s how I roll. I moved this Weeping Cherry Tree ONE too many times. It didn’t make it through this summer.
As much as I like tinkering with the landscape, I have NO desire to take care of indoor house plants, so when Winter rolls into town…
I go around the yard and clip evergreens and dogwood branches then fill various planters with them. I love the simple mix of whatever we can find.
It also gives me another excuse to go around giving hair cuts to all our pine trees ~ did I mention I LOVE to prune things?
I cemented a 14″ pot into our old tree ten years ago and is still going strong! Looks fab in the summer all decked out in flowers so I said to myself, “self” why not keep it filled all winter too? So I did.
The arrangements continue to look as fresh as the day I cut them simply by keeping the soil moist. That’s one of the cool things about living in Michigan; you just plop them in place and the snow throughout winter keeps the soil moist. Moist soil means fresh evergreens. How cool is that!
The other neat thing about living here is being able to chill drinks out on the deck. Ha! I know, doesn’t take much to humor me but I still get a kick out of chillin’ things in a pile of snow. These chairs look pretty at night with white lights draped through them.
Speaking of snow, we still don’t have any but before we know it, it will look like this!
Several years ago I picked up a pair of lamps from J.C. Penney’s. Here’s what they looked like when I bought them, minus the dust. Oh… and this is Izzy. She never misses a photo op.
I loved their lines but I didn’t think about how heavy they’d make the room feel. We live in a 100 year old home surrounded by towering Maple trees so we don’t get a whole lot of sun to begin with so to combine that with dark furniture and walls just makes it all seem that much more dreary.
I’m in the process of brightening the place up. Or should I say… I have lots of ideas for things I want to do ~ I haven’t had any time to do the things I want, but am hoping in the next couple of weeks, to knock out a few small projects that have patiently been waiting.
To be totally honest, I had no idea what I was going to do with them, but I wanted them lighter. I slapped on a watered down coat of CeCe Caldwell’s Dover White applying it in a VERY sloppy manner. I started this process at a CeCe Caldwell’s 101 Paint Class but quickly got sidetracked helping everyone with what they were painting so it stayed in it’s sloppy coat for a while.
At our next Paint Your Own Furniture Workshop, I shared the paint layering technique using Alaskan Tundra. I slopped this on in the same messy, thin coat manner.
Once the paint was completely dry, I did some wet distressing to expose the original finish and Viola!
It’s so weird ~ Dover White can be used in so many different ways. It’s more typically used to create a whitewash affect because of it’s translucency. I used Dover White to dry-brush over the base coat of Pittsburgh Gray on this antique buffet. Click HERE to see this transformation.
I also layered Dover White more heavily and in a random method on the top here.
Even though I used Dover White in an entirely different manner, I love the subtle affect it has and will definitely be doing this on many more pieces.
I’m not finished with it yet; to truly make it mine, it needs to have some kind of shabby, fringe-y, bead-y bling added to it. Got any ideas? I’d love to hear them!!
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Words cannot express the heart felt grief I’m feeling for the tragedy in Connecticut this morning. It is beyond comprehension. When things like this happen, I just freeze. I become entrapped in the moment and cannot pull myself away from the TV.
This morning my daughter woke up with a temperature of 104. Needless to say, she stayed home. I set up camp for her on the couch so I could monitor her while I worked on finishing up some last minute Shizzle projects that must be completed before Christmas.
She woke up to the beeping sound of BREAKING NEWS… We both watched in disbelief. I had to turn off the television after a few minutes because it was too upsetting for her to see. How do you explain what happened to a ten year old, when you don’t understand why yourself?
Tonight I was supposed to post about our Christmas Tree for our Home for the Holiday’s 2012 Christmas Tree Link Up Party but all I can think about are all those children who won’t be with their families on Christmas Day.
I’ve attached the pictures of our tree tonight because my daughter so carefully hung each ornament, but I don’t have it in my heart to write about it. Instead I’ll be on my knees to praying for all the families affected by this horrible tragedy.
In loving memory of all those lost at Sandy Hook Elementary School…
Holy cow is Christmas sneaking up on us or WHAT? You’d think it wasn’t on the very same day every year the way I’m scrambling around here. Let’s just say in a nutshell that this year has been CRAZY!!
So many things have flashed before my eyes that I can’t even keep things straight any more. One thing I just realized is that I forgot to post about an adorable buffet that I dropped off to the store recently.
I actually picked it up in Traverse City when I was on our marriage retreat. What can I say… there’s ALWAYS time to do a little pickin’ ~ lol!
Decked it all out with a nice coat of clear wax and then dark wax to really give it a custom, vintage finish.
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Through this wonderful world of blogging, it appears that everyone else has it going on ~ flawlessly. I highly doubt that’s true and as a matter of fact, most bloggers I know are working their butts off from one obligation to the next just to meet the deadlines.
Enter Christmas, the one time of the year when we’re all supposed to slow down and celebrate the true meaning of the year. Sad part is, it seems like every other thing that could possibly be scheduled falls at the same time of year ~ sigh
We all think our houses have to be decked out, presents wrapped, cards out in the mail and cookies in the oven ~ YEah, right!
Not me, I can barely find time to shower, let alone deck the halls. My house as of this morning looked like this.
The Christmas tree has officially been plopped in the corner. It’s made it’s annual journey back from mom’s where it lives all year long because our 7′ Michigan basement ceiling is too short to house the tree. The ribbons which I so carefully pin into place each year seem so be destroyed on the five mile ride in the truck.
We’ll get the tree decorated later this week after we figure out why all the lights aren’t going on, but today… the goal is just to throw together our mantel.
I had 15 minutes to spare while my Sihlouette Machine cut the vinyl for one of my custom subway signs so I took odds and ends of what we have and threw them together for this year’s mantel.
This is not a Pottery Barn or Pier 1 Mantel, this is not a look coming out of any high end design magazine, but it is OUR mantel. Everything in here is special to us for one reason or another. Most capture memories from days gone past.
Some are dear gifts of family members who are no longer with us like this shell teddy bear given to me by my grandma.
And some things just rock, at least they do to us.
and with that… I’ve gotta fly. Paint orders to pack and ship and signs to finish up for clients…
Thanks for everyone who linked up to my very first link up party, Hand Painted Christmas, which I hosted right here at Shizzle Design last week. I’ll be featuring my favorites right here tomorrow night!
Thanks for everyone who linked up to my very first link up party, Hand Painted Christmas, which I hosted right here at Shizzle Design a few days ago. If you missed it, no worries, I added a little more time so you can still link up, click here to enter.
I’m choosing my favorites from the Hand Painted Christmas Link Up and will be featuring them later this week!
A good friend of ours gave us this dresser over the summer. He had received it after cleaning out an old abandoned house and was just about to make kindling for his bon fire out of it when our neighbor mentioned he should check with us first.
I usually pay a hefty amount for my dressers so I have to admit, I was quite tickled to be getting one for free but what the heck was I supposed to do with this?
I don’t like this style. The rounded edges just throw me on design when I start painting them.
I started playing with pastel CeCe Color, I think I had Alaskan Tundra on it, which is one of my favorite colors btw, but didn’t like it on this ugly piece. Yuck! Now I’m acting like a two year old – ha! Being the grown up that I am, I shoved it back in a corner of our garage and covered it up with a blanket so I could deal with it some other time.
Fast forward a few months and I wanted another medium size dresser to paint in the same color Kissimmee Orange / Traverse City Combo like the other one I did that sold right away.
Hmm… Would a bold color really make that much difference? After all, it wouldn’t magically change the shape of the round edges that I so disliked but what did I have to lose?
CeCe Caldwell’s Paints to the rescue! I mixed up a blend of Traverse City Cherry and Kissimmee Orange and started layering it on in a linen type weave to create texture. Another pet pieve I have is when the drawer fronts are seamed front and center across the drawer. I wanted to camoflauge the funky veneer pattern on them so I applied three different layers, each time creating a little different texture.
Creating texture can do wonders for things like this. We teach this in some of our Shizzle Style Paint Workshops featuring CeCe Caldwell’s Paints.
I also share how to paint hardware in our classes, it’s one of life’s simple joys that gives me great pleasure, I know, I’m a dork!
More on painted hardware here
I jazzed up a wood embellishment (this is during the process…)
She’s sitting pretty along side all the other whimsical colors we’ve dropped off recently to our Shizzle Design space within Not So Shabby in Holland, Michigan.
Stop in and check it out. We have doubled our size with many new incredible vendors including one of my favorites, a gal who creates the most amazing things from pottery!
It’s my very first time hosting a linky party and I’d love for all of my blogging buddies to stop on by and give me a Like!
The Shabby Creek Cottage – Transformation Thursday
Miss Mustardseed – Furniture Feature Friday
A hui hou ~ Shelly