Shabby Chic Inspiration and Possibilities

Last month we made the 5.5 hour drive to visit my parents for Thanksgiving.  My mom and I managed to sneak away for a few hours and shop a handful of thrift stores she had been telling me about.  One of these stores had recently received a large donation of fabrics leftover from an older upholstery shop that had closed.  My mom and I pulled out the prettiest pastel bolts of fabric, studied each of them in the dim light and made our selections.

My husband was a bit flustered when I came back to the house and asked if we had enough room in the car to bring home a few extra purchases.  With 3 kids and a dog on our journey, the vehicle was already quite packed.  

"What did you buy?" he grumbled.  

"Just some fabric," I responded.

"Oh, well...we probably have room for some fabric."

And then he saw the 7 large bolts of decorator fabric I had just bought.  

No way were they going to fit, at least not without making the already cramped quarters even more uncomfortable for everyone.

And so, all of my beautiful fabric purchases had to stay with mom and dad until this last week when they came to visit us for Christmas!  Unloading all of my pretty fabric from my parent's car was like getting a big bonus Christmas gift!

Now, you ask...what will I do with all of this fabric?  

I honestly don't know.  I haven't gotten that far yet.

But...

My mom and dad brought me another Christmas gift.  This one was wrapped up with a bow and everything.  I shared on Facebook and Instagram today that I was embarrassed to admit that my Rachel Ashwell library was incomplete, up until this week.  These titles have been on my wish list for a very long time.  I fell in love with Shabby Chic 14 years ago when my husband and I were just married and bought our first house.  Rachel Ashwell's style drew me in right away and it was like I had found my own personal style while studying the beautiful photographs in her books.  

I have spent every free moment of the past few days reading my new books and staring at each and every photo.

After having been so consumed and wrapped up in Christmas, I don't have the usual feeling of sadness now that it's over.  I think it might have something to do with the inspiration I have gained from my new books, and the anticipation of future projects as I glance over my stockpile of fabrics!  In that same light, a brand new year begins in just a few short days.  A new year sure to be filled with so many new ideas, inspiration and possibilities!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Best Wishes and Blessings,

Amanda

Sharing With:

Home Sweet Home at The Charm of Home

Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Home

Show and Tell Friday at My Romantic Home

Treasure Hunt Thursday at From My Front Porch To Yours

What's it Wednesday at Ivy and Elephants

A Cozy Christmas at Home...

I love how cozy our home feels at Christmastime!  Twinkly lights and flickering candles certainly set the mood.  My father in law has a Christmas tree farm, so we are lucky enough to have first pick of the trees each year!

I love a tree with a layered look, spindly branches and plenty of space to drape my "crystal" garland!  I made most of our "white" ornaments when my husband and I were first married, 14 years ago!  Our Christmas trees were decorated in purple and white, and then pink and white.  I have been loving a more neutral look in mostly white and gold this year and can't believe my homemade paper flower ornaments from so long ago still look good and that I haven't grown tired of them!

I think my favorite Christmas decor is this vintage white nativity.  It was a wonderful church sale find!  I am sure I've shared it before, but this is the first year I have displayed it here on this sideboard in our front room.  I think it works well here.  

I am still so happy with my fireplace mantle makeover!  If you missed that post and would like to see the before/after and read about the project, you can do so here. 

I ended up decorating the mantle mostly with things I already had, lots of candles, a few greens, pinecones and ornaments.  I am enjoying the look but am still on the hunt for some extra special Christmas decor to put up here...maybe on clearance after Christmas for next year!

You might recognize these cuties?  I featured them here on the blog three years ago!  I had painted them in Paris Grey and Old White Chalk Paint.  I remember debating on whether or not to sell them.  I am pretty happy I decided to hold onto them!

After most of her bling had sold at the shop, I brought my dress form home for the Holidays and bought her an early Christmas gift...this vintage beaded fur collar!  So fun!

I am certain that my family thinks I am cheap and boring with my Christmas gift wrap but I really do love the simplicity of packages wrapped in brown shipping paper.  I bought a huge roll of vintage cream and gold trim at a thrift store not long ago that I have been using to tie up each gift.  The bow is made from glittery tulle ribbon.  

I so rarely show this room where we do most of our "living."  I love this room.  It's cozy and inviting and so very relaxed.  What I don't love about photos of the room is the big glaring black box and the speakers everywhere.  But...I love that I live with a wonderful, patient man who puts up with a lot of pink and feminine decor.  So, when he wants to put speakers in the wall and hang a flat screen over the fireplace, what can I say?

While I was busy making our home festive and ready for the season, my booth at Camas Antiques was being emptied out (yay!) and ended up looking rather pathetic (boo)!  Last week I was able to get a few things around to spruce it up including this vintage dining table and pretty painted stool.  

Now, back to the gift wrapping, card writing, baking and such!

What a wonderful time of year!

Thank you for blessing me with your visit today!  I hope this season finds you filled with hope and peace, in a warm and cozy home, sharing in the joy of Christmastime with people you love!

Best Wishes and Blessings,

Amanda

Sharing With:

Home Sweet Home at The Charm of Home

Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Home

Show and Tell Friday at My Romantic Home

Treasure Hunt Thursday at From My Front Porch To Yours

What's it Wednesday at Ivy and Elephants

Christmas at The Shop

Once again I am playing catch up here after a very busy month at the store!  Thankfully I took lots of photos of my booth display.  It sure has undergone a lot of changes this month!

This was photo was taken just before the annual Holiday Open House at Camas Antiques.  It was a very busy weekend at the shop!

I really tried to focus on having plenty of smalls to offer in my booth.  I often get so caught up in painting furniture that I run out of time to spend on those little creative touches.  These ornaments turned out prettier than I had imagined and they were so much fun to make.  I need to order more supplies so that I can craft up some more for my own tree!

I was so happy to have a back up dresser waiting in the garage when my first dresser sold!  I added the applique to this one, changed out the knobs and painted it in Old Ochre.  After a little distressing, I sealed it with Annie Sloan's Clear Wax.  I wish I would have gotten a few more photos but there was just no time!

Bringing the new dresser in meant shifting things around a bit.  I actually like this look a little better than the first!

I had no idea what I would do with these cute rusty chairs when I bought them.  It was when I realized that I was short on surface space to display my smalls that I thought to attach a shelf and hang them on the wall!  

I added loads of vintage flatware to my display and so much of it has sold.  I am always on the hunt for more!

I really love how this display board turned out!  It started as a discarded cabinet door.  After layering a few colors of Chalk Paint® along with Artisan Enhancements Leaf & Foil Size, Gold Leaf and Crackle Tex, I did a little stenciling in Graphite and added the cast iron hand.

This formerly oak sofa table worked so perfectly in my booth!  I wish I could have held onto it a bit longer.  It too has gone to a new home!

Here is my sweet Gretta kitty showing off the details of the paint finish on this piece.  I layered Graphite, Old Ochre and a little French Linen to achieve this look and sealed it with Clear Wax.

The bed, the little cream table and the pink wardrobe are the only furniture pieces left in my booth at the moment!  I am working on some new pieces and plan to restock mid-week!  Stay tuned!

Thank you for your sweet visit!

Best Wishes and Blessings,

Amanda

Sharing With:

Home Sweet Home at The Charm of Home

Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Home

Show and Tell Friday at My Romantic Home

Treasure Hunt Thursday at From My Front Porch To Yours

What's it Wednesday at Ivy and Elephants

Art Finishing Products for a Safe and Pretty Mantle Makeover

Our front room fireplace surround has been shiny white and boring, builder-grade style since we moved into our home several years ago. Recently, I came across an antique buffet top for the mantle that inspired a complete makeover of the entire fireplace surround.

This before shot shows the original finishes that I was planning to pull together. As you can see, the fireplace surround was too shiny and white to work well with the vintage look I was going for. At the same time though, I wanted to stay neutral and white seemed a natural choice against my creamy walls and with all of the grey painted furniture in the room. After much deliberation, I decided to stick with white but do away with the shine and add a grey glaze for a more weathered, vintage aesthetic. I started by painting everything in Pure White, including the fireplace surround.

When I mentioned my idea to “age” the fireplace surround to my husband, his mind immediately went to “dark wax.” Obviously wax would not be a safe option for a fireplace surround due to the heat exposure. I had contemplated it long ago and then felt how hot my mantle actually gets when the fireplace is on and immediately concluded that wax would not be a good idea.

Artisan Enhancements Scumble is a clear glaze-like medium that can easily be tinted with paint! I mixed 5 parts Scumble to 1 part Paris Grey to achieve a lovely grey glaze that would give my fireplace surround and mantle pieces the aged, vintage look I was after.

I applied the tinted Scumble mixture with a brush and then wiped it back with a damp sponge. Unlike most traditional glazes, Scumble has no odor or harmful VOCs, so I was able to do all of this inside, on a cold, stormy day surrounded by kids without worrying about any of us breathing in harmful chemicals!  In addition, Scumble has an extended open time meaning that you can come back to it even 20 minutes after application and continue to adjust your finish. This was especially important to me as I had lots of interruptions in the midst of this project, what with of all of those kids running rampant, needing snacks, homework help and so forth!

Artisan Enhancements Clear Topcoat Sealer is exterior grade which means it provides protection that will withstand heat! It dries to a matte finish which was exactly what I wanted...no more shine! It also has no odor or harmful VOCs, so once again a safe product to use in the home! This sealer should be applied in two thin coats, waiting 24 hours before applying the second. In order to get an even, thin coat it is essential to use an appropriate brush, such as this “Top Coat” brush from Artisan Enhancements. I love this brush so much that I find myself using it for paint as well as

sealers. There is sealer on my brush in this photo. Notice that my brush isn’t dripping with product. The key is to apply thin layers.

When I asked the experts at Artisan Enhancements how long I needed to give my “new” aged finish time to cure before actually using my fireplace, they said it should be good to go in just one week!

I am really looking forward to some cozy evenings here this winter! And, I can’t wait to decorate the mantle for Christmas!

If you have plans to change the finish on your mantle or fireplace surround, be sure to choose products that will hold up well to the heat. If you’re like me and worry about exposure to harmful chemicals and odors, you will also appreciate the nolow VOC qualities of the Artisan Enhancements line! Visit their website to find a retailer near you! www.artisanenancements.com.

Thank you for your visit today!

Best Wishes and Blessings,

Amanda

Disclosure: This is an Artisan Enhancements sponsored post, however the opinions and ideas expressed here are mine and I will only ever promote products that I enjoy using and feel may benefit my readers.

Sharing With:

Home Sweet Home at The Charm of Home

Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Home

Show and Tell Friday at My Romantic Home

Treasure Hunt Thursday at From My Front Porch To Yours

What's it Wednesday at Ivy and Elephants

One Quart of Chalk Paint® Decorative Paint by Annie Sloan Covered it All!!

If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you have likely seen some of these images posted throughout the month of October.  Bare with me as I pull them all together in one big post and give you the back story, the how's, the why's and all of those fun makeover details!

Last month I teamed up with my local Annie Sloan stockists to put together a booth at the amazing Junk Bonanza show brought to the Pacific Northwest for the first time ever by Ki Nassauer!  We had a big booth to fill and decided we needed to set up a display that would show shoppers just how many pieces of furniture you can paint with one quart of Chalk Paint® Decorative Paint by Annie Sloan.  I volunteered to seek out a bedroom set and see how many pieces of it I could complete with a single quart for our display.

This vintage bedroom suite was a fabulous Craig's List find and I was excited to get started!  I knew I could accomplish a lot with that one quart, after all I had taken this challenge once before (Ten Projects, One Can...) but to be honest, I didn't expect to complete all of these pieces.  The bed actually has decorative side rails not pictured here that needed to be painted along with the head board and foot board and that dresser was really kind of a beast!  I also didn't want to "skimp" on the paint finish!  This set was much too glamorous for a rough one-coat, distressed paint job. 

I opened my can of French Linen and started with this little nightstand.  Each piece received two full coats of French Linen and I often added a little water to the second coat.  This did help stretch the paint, but it also aided in achieving a smoother finish.

  

I used a sample pot of Old Ochre to accent the trim detail on each piece.  The hardware was removed, cleaned with dish soap and a scrub brush, then glammed up with King's Gold Gilding Wax.

Each piece was given a coat of Annie's clear wax and then dark wax was added around edges for an aged, shadowed effect.

For some reason my first thought when I spotted this bench was "white fur."  From that moment on I couldn't get it out of my head, and nothing else seemed suitable. 

 I found a small white fur rug at Ross, upholstered the little vanity bench and fulfilled my vision!  I love it!

After having painted the bed and side rails, dresser, nightstand, vanity, mirror and bench, I still had enough paint left in my can for another project!  I pulled a chair out of the garage and painted it as well.  Believe it or not, I there is still a tiny bit of paint left in that quart of French Linen Chalk Paint®...enough that I felt compelled to save it for another small project!

I estimate that I used one can of Annie's Clear Wax and a small pot of Dark Wax to complete and seal everything I painted.

Not that I ever doubted Annie Sloan and her amazing Chalk Paint®, but I have to say that I was pretty impressed by how many pieces I was able to complete with such a small amount of product!

It was a pleasure to work on this beautiful set and so much fun to be a part of Junk Bonanza!

Every piece you see here has sold with the exception of the bed and bench which will be in my booth at Camas Antiques later this month!

Thank you for your sweet visit!

Best Wishes and Blessings,

Amanda

Sharing With:

Home Sweet Home at The Charm of Home

Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Home

Show and Tell Friday at My Romantic Home

Treasure Hunt Thursday at From My Front Porch To Yours

What's it Wednesday at Ivy and Elephants

Five Years of Blogging...

This month marks the five year anniversary of my first blog post!  Blogging has truly been a wonderful experience for me.  I have made friends in this blogging world that I will cherish forever.  The encouragement I have received from readers and followers has motivated and pushed me forward at times when I doubted myself.  Thank you!

I have learned a lot and come a long ways in my photography and writing skills and yet there still seems to be so much more to learn.  I am so grateful for the wonderful support I have received from other bloggers who have been willing to share their experience and insight with me.  

You have blessed me!

I look forward to continuing this wonderful journey.

Best Wishes and Blessings,

Amanda

Dresser Face Lift & Thinking Outside of The Stencil

It's been a while since I've shared a furniture makeover here!  But that doesn't mean I haven't been painting!  I am always painting...always!  In fact, I have a backlog of projects waiting to be photographed!  So, be sure to stop back by soon!

This little vanity has been shuffled around quite a bit and finally sold last week!  I painted her sometime ago and had decided to save her for the Street Faire.  When the weather forecast showed wind and rain for the faire, I decided against bringing her to the outdoor sale.  So, into my booth she went late last month and now she's off to a new home.  This left me with some empty space to fill in my booth, so I put all other projects aside this week for a quick dresser redo!

This simple, wood dresser just needed a little face lift!  The color is truly a bit more blue than it appears in the photos.  Please don't ask me how I arrived at this color.  Honestly, it was a matter of mixing up the little bits of blues and greys I had left at the bottom of my Chalk Paint® cans!  I do believe I had 6 cans of Chalk Paint® open at one time only to arrive at something that is probably very comparable to 1 part Paris Grey, 1 part Louis Blue!  Nevertheless, it is a very pretty grey blue!

Here she is all set up in my booth at Camas Antiques.  This photo shows off the actual color much better!

For the drawer embellishments, I manipulated the Floral Scroll stencil from Artisan Enhancements into a slightly different design.  This is easy to do.  Just turn the stencil, flip it over, use it in part, etc...  There is no rule that says you must lay your stencil down and use it straight on!  Be creative with your stencils...take them beyond the original design.

I painted the knobs in Graphite.  I typically don't choose a contrasting color for knobs but I had seen a photo on Pinterest of a vintage dresser similar to this one painted a grey/blue with black knobs and I liked it, so I decided to give it a try!  I used a sanding sponge to distress the corners and edges before apply Annie Sloan's clear and dark waxes, and then she was complete!

If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you've likely seen this beautiful bloom!  It's called a Cafe au Lait Dahlia and although I wish I could say I had rows of them blooming in my own garden, I don't, I discovered these beauties and many more gorgeous varieties at a flower farm just up the road from me!  Check out Petala Flowers on Instagram and tell Sharika I sent you!  Her flowers are amazing and I am so lucky to have her close by!

Thank you so much for your sweet visit today!

Best Wishes and Blessings,

Amanda

Sharing With:

Home Sweet Home at The Charm of Home

Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Home

Show and Tell Friday at My Romantic Home

Treasure Hunt Thursday at From My Front Porch To Yours

 Furniture Feature Friday at Miss Mustard Seed