SunflowerHugs: August 2014

Can you believe I was the only one who bid on this dresser at an auction? I got it for one whole dollar! I guess people just can't see past the ugly.

But guess what? Underneath all that ugly, It is made of solid wood with dovetail drawers and everything. It started out as that awful yellow color from the 60's and then someone gave it this paint job--woof!

The top had a huge piece of veneer missing and I was able to pull another piece off easily so I figured I would take it all off. Easier said than done. I removed as much as I could with just a scraper and then had to use a wet towel and iron to get off the rest. It took longer to remove the veneer than paint the entire dresser.

I painted with two coats of SW Seaworthy blue in homemade chalk paint and stained the top with a vinegar/steel wool/tea mixture.

Ahoy matey! I used larger knobs on the top drawer and covered them with jute string. I used Aleene's Tacky Glue to attach the string to the knobs and once it dried, I covered it with a layer of Mod Podge to make it permanent.

The knobs I used had a white center, so I painted them with some brown in case you could see through the spaces of the string. I then just added the string in circles until I got to the center of the knob. This picture was taken while the glue was still drying. Aleene's Tacky Glue holds great, but takes forever to dry (it does dry clear).

I just knew this dresser had beauty in it!

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Once again I am back with a table with a large image transfer to the top. The table started out boring and scratched.

I painted the whole thing with two coats of white in homemade chalk paint. Then painted just the legs with one coat of SW Essentials Grey. I distressed to let some of the white come through and waxed with Minwax Finishing Paste.

I follow The Graphics Fairy on Bloglovin and whenever she posts new graphics that I think one day I may use, I am sure to save them. This chandelier image was tucked away in a folder that I refer to when I want to use graphics and inspiration hit.

The Graphics Fairy

I wanted the image to fill the table top, so it needed to be 18" wide by 27" tall. To get this big image, I planned to have it printed at Staples on their engineer prints. They can only print black ink, but that is perfect since that is what the image is.

Staples offers three different size engineer prints and I needed to use the 24"x36" size, which is $3.59.

I opened a new document in PowerPoint and sized my paper to 24"x36". I then inserted the image on the page and sized it to 18"x27" and fit it in the middle of the page.

*What I should have done was move the image down to the bottom of the page and added another image at the top to utilize the large print, but I didn't remember to do this. So I ended up with a lot of wasted paper that I could have put another large image on for a future project.

I went by Creative Carmella's tutorial to add the graphic with Mod Podge. I left it to dry overnight and the next day started to rub off the top layer of the paper.

I did it while my daughter was watching Sofia the First and it took longer than one episode. That show is a half hour long, so I think it took about 45 minutes total. It is mindless work, but obviously time consuming.

And here it is! The paper is pretty wet after you remove the top layer, so I let it dry for a day and then came back and sanded it to get off all the little bits of paper pulp and distress.

The top layer of paper never comes off perfectly, so the image will not be dark black and there will be some hazing and even spots that rub completely off. But it has a distressed look to match the paint on the rest of the piece.

On one side of the table, there was a shell applique. I was able to remove it and I was going to leave it blank, but I came across this laser cut chandelier wood applique, I just had to add it. I painted it black and glued it on with Aleene's Tacky Glue.

It's so fancy.

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Pages

Sunday, August 17, 2014

Nautical Dresser

Sunday, August 3, 2014

Chandelier Table