I love painting furniture with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. You probably noticed! 😉 So when an opportunity came around to place some of my ASCP painted pieces in a consignment shop I jumped at the chance to be a part of it. For the last few months I have been hording furniture in my home and garage (to my families frustration) and painting whenever I get the chance. The store I will be selling some of my upcycled furniture from is called Drab 2 Fab Paint, Furniture & Decor and is opening in January in a brand new location in Lehi, Utah! This is the store I buy all my paint from so I am really excited to be a part of the new Warehouse location.

And today was MOVING DAY!! Yay!

There it is – my horde (okay that’s only a small part of it :P) . And today I finally got to move it to the warehouse. Woohoo! It was an exciting day and I am looking forward to opening day next week. I will tell you more about it over the next 2 weeks. This is a new experience for me so I am learning as I go. I am still coming up with idea’s on staging my area of the warehouse. Any advice is encouraged and welcome so leave me comments and I will be very grateful! 🙂 And wish me luck on my new adventure!

Thanks so much for stopping by,

Cindy 🙂

It’s Christmas time and there is red and green everywhere! Annie Sloan has a green paint that is perfect for the season. Really for any season. It’s called Antibes Green and it is lovely. I recently painted 2 tables in Antibes Green and they both turned out beautiful. In today’s post I wanted to show you how you can use the same color paint but by using different techniques with dark wax, get a different look.

I found this lovely little table at a local thrift shop for $10.

It’s been beat up a little over the years. I think it was a telephone table back in it’s glory days. And although small, it has a ton of character and I knew a little paint would bring this table back to life. So after a little sanding and wood putty i decided on Antibes Green and Old white. I painted the legs and side panels white. I had to do a little shellacking to keep the stain from coming through and then I taped off so I could paint the green.

Not gonna lie, I hate taping. It always takes forever and with all the grooves on these legs it took even longer. I started taking the tape off before I took the picture or you would have seen all the tiny pieces of tape I had to put around the lets. But once it was done I was happy I did. Then I distressed it and put a coat of clear wax on. You can see the difference the clear wax makes here.

I love how smooth the paint is once the clear wax it on. Yet another reason I LOVE ASCP!! With this piece I wanted to add a little bit of an aging effect with the dark wax but not enough to change the colors. Here is the end result!

I love the white and green together. Wish I had an old rotary phone to put on it! 🙂

So now to the sofa table. Again this table has a ton of character. I love pieces like this because it give so many options when painting. The top of the table had a few holes that needed to be filled. (Not sure what was there before.) And there where also places that had been glued. You can see the glue in between the wood slats. So another table that has seen better days, but nothing a little ASCP won’t fix right! 😉

I started by painting the whole table in AS Graphite. Then I painted the table Antibes Green being careful to leave the Graphite showing in all the many cracks and crevices. I wet distressed this in some areas instead of using sand paper so just the black would show through. In other places I sanded it down to the wood. I added a coat of clear wax and then I went to town on this piece with the dark wax. It darkens up the green and adds lots of dimension to this table. This piece is going to be sold but I may cry a little on that day because I absolutely love the way this turned out.

So as you can see AS dark wax gives you loads of options when you are finishing you furniture projects. I will keep trying out different techniques and will continue to share them with you. Let me know what you think of my green tables. Hope you love them as much as I do!!

And thanks again for stopping by,

Cindy

I found this cute little table with fun curves and accents. It’s very small and when I got it it was very white.

Cute but needed a little color. I decided to go with blue. I love Annie Sloan Napoleonic Blue but I wanted it to be a shade or 2 lighter so I added a little Pure White until I got the shade I wanted. I painted the body and legs blue and then painted the top, the cut out of the bottom shelf and the flower accents Pure White.

Once it was all painted I distressed it to give it a shabby chic look and then waxed it with a coat of Annie Sloan clear wax. Then added just a touch of dark wax to give it that slightly aged look. Love the accents on this table.

I love the original colors that Annie Sloan offers but it is really easy to mix paint and come up with the color you want. One of may favorite things about painting furniture is seeing the end result. Chalk paint offers so many possibilities!

Thanks for taking a look!

Cindy

After seeing all the cute pieces of furniture on Pinterest with fun images and wording added to them I decided to do a little research and see if I could figure this out. I had this white table that needed a paint job and decided to try it out.

First I painted the legs Annie Sloan Napoleonic Blue and the top Old White. I waited to wax it until the image was on. When I got this table it had been painted white and the paint was thick and uneven in places, so it did require a little sanding to even it out. Once it was painted with ASCP and lightly distressed I went looking for an image to put on it.  Thegraphicsfairy.com has tons of really cute images so it was just a matter of deciding which one would look best. Then it was time to try the different methods of transferring.

There are several transfer methods listed on the Graphics Fairy website but I read a few things on line as well as on Pinterest and decided the one that sounded easiest was the wax paper method. I needed the image to be bigger than 8.5 x 11 so I found a website called blockposters.com that will break the image up depending on the size you want and print it onto regular size paper. I found that reversing the image on my computer before importing it into Block Posters worked best. I cut wax paper the size of copy paper and tried sending it through my HP Officejet Pro. My printer ate the paper and got stuck. So I cut another piece and taped it to a piece of card stock. That went through my printer without getting stuck but I guess because wax paper is slippery the image had spaces where there shouldn’t have been. I think as the printer was feeding the wax paper through it would slip a little so the image wasn’t perfect. Wax paper did not work for me.

Next I tried the freezer paper method. Freezer paper also does not go through my printer. 🙁 So once again I taped it to card stock and this time it came through and the image was perfect. Once I had the image printed out on several different pieces of freezer paper I cut it and fit it together. You will print the image on the shiny side of the freezer paper so be careful as you do this as to not smudge the image. I lightly wet the top of the table where I would be putting the image. Too much water will make the image run so it should be just damp. Then I laid the image where I wanted it and carefully rubbed it with a straight edge, something like a credit card. Be careful not to move the paper because getting it back just right is probably impossible. 😉 I rubbed for a while but when I removed the freezer paper I was not happy with the image. It was there but very light. If you wanted to trace over an image with an ink pen or marker or paint over the image with a thin brush this would be a good method. Wish I had, but I didn’t take a picture of this. I just painted over it and tried something else.

My first thought was to go with the mod podge method but I was hoping the wax paper and freezer paper would work better. So this time I went with the mod podge. I found a post on Pinterest that was a little different then the one on Graphics Fairy. I printed the reverse image on regular printer paper and once again cut it out and taped it together. Then I put a thin layer of mod podge over the entire image using a sponge brush. Try not to go over the image to many times because again it will smear. Then I put the image where I wanted it on the top of the table. Measure before so you know where you want it. Then I lightly smoothed the paper down on the table removing any air bubbles that where under the paper. Let this dry for several hours. I left mine over night.

Once it is completely dry use a spray bottle to wet the paper. You don’t want it soaking wet but the paper should be wet through.

Then starting in the middle of the image use your finger to rub the paper. It will start to roll up and come off but the image will stay.

You can see the the paper just breaks up but the ink remains. Pretty cool huh!

As you can see in a few places the ink came up with the paper but I think it adds to the vintage look so I was ok with it. Then it was time to put a coat of clear wax on it and just a little dark wax. I put the hardware back on. BTW I painted the original hardware from this table with ASCP and then waxed it –  it turned out great. Here is the finished piece!

Now that I have figured out how to add fun images to my furniture I will definitely be doing more of this! Hope this post was helpful and thanks for stopping by!

Cindy

I found this fantastic vintage Mersman corner table to paint. Vintage pieces are so much fun to transform with ASCP.

When I got it I could see that someone had started to sand it down in some spots so I had a feeling this was going to cause some bleed through because the stain wasn’t sealed anymore. Because I Pinterest waayyy more than I should, I had seen others post about this problem. I already had a can of Shellac on hand and had used it a few times with other projects. I started by shellacking a few spots I could tell where going to be problem area’s, but it turned out that much more of this table would need it.

My can of Shellac was mostly full when I started this project but was almost empty when I ended. Any place where the protective coat has been sanded away, worn away or scratched can cause the wood stain to bleed through ASCP. Especially if you are using a light color paint. Chalk paint works much better on wood that hasn’t been stained or that is sealed. Here are a few pictures of what came through after a coat of paint.

Can you see the pink area’s? You can also see the shiny are’s where I used the Shellac to seal it. In more than one place I had to paint it several times and Shellac it several times to finally get the stain to stop seeping through. Usually when I have had this problem a quick, light spray works but because there where so many places on this table where the stain was not sealed it took me a few tries to get everything. This piece took me a little longer to paint than I was expecting but eventually the Old White stayed white! I distressed it using a sandpaper block and then waxed it. Then added just a little bit of dark wax to bring out the accents on the arms and edges.

I love the new look of this vintage piece.

Thanks for taking a look 🙂

Cindy

Annie Sloan Chalk paint has become a bit of an obsession for me so now I’m calling it my hobby! 😉 And my new obsession hobby is now becoming a business venture of sorts. Rather than paint everything in my house with chalk paint I have decided to find fun pieces to paint and sell them. This is one of those fun pieces. Problem is I don’t really want to sell this one. I absolutely love the way it turned out. I went looking for another chair to paint because I loved how the other one turned out and still had some of this amazing fabric. I found this on line and knew it would be perfect. I love the rose and really wanted it to stand out. The chair was in great condition as far as structure but the seat was a bit torn up and the finish was wearing in some area’s. Here she is before:

First thing to do was remove the seat and the torn up cover. The padding inside was still in good shape despite the wear on the fabric. You can see what it looked like after I took it apart.

I used the old fabric as a template to cut out the new piece that would go on the chair. I also added a layer of batting to make the seat smooth and even.

And then I stapled it on making sure to create the same fold on each corner. Then it was time to paint it. I wanted this chair to look a bit different the other one so I went with Old White. I wanted to flower to stand out so I first painted the entire chair with Emperor’s Silk. Then I painted the Old White over that. When I painted the rose I carefully painted over the flower making sure I didn’t get any of the Old White in the details. That way the red was left to accent the white.

After I painted 2 coats of Old White I went back and wet distressed the Old White so that hints of the red would show through. I didn’t go through the red to show any of the wood.

I love how it turned out and will be sad to see it go. I am looking forward to finding more fun pieces that I can use this technique on.

Thanks for taking a look 🙂

Cindy

Chairs may be my new favorite thing to paint. I came across a listing on line for an old chair selling for $10. It was listed with another item that I was interested in buying but when I inquired about both of them the seller said she had already sold the other item but the chair was still available. I wasn’t sure I wanted it and told her I would contact her the next day. Well the next afternoon she contacted me and asked if I was still interested and I figured why not. For $10 I may as well pick it up and try it out. It was probably a beauty in it’s day but it wasn’t looking so good now.

The chair has great lines but looks like someone left it out in the weather.

I called it the “hairy” chair because it looks like whiskers are coming out of the wood. I could also rub some of what was left of the stain of with my finger. I didn’t want to sit on it because who knows how much of the chair was going to walk away with me on my clothes. 🙂

Normally with chalk paint there is no sanding needed but this chair needed sanding. There was a bit of dust on the floor after that but once I sanded the “hair” and old stain off it was a nice sturdy chair. I did have to do some gluing because a few places were warped (i’m sure from being outside in the elements).

You can see the wood pulling apart.

A little wood glue and clamps did the trick.

Next it was time to take the seat off. Under the seat the original tag was still stapled to the bottom. This was nice because I was able to look on line and do a little research on the chair. From what I can tell this chair is from the early 1960’s.

You can see the tag and the company name along with the registry #. It’s nice to have this info and fun to find out a little about this old chair. It was even more fun when I took the vinyl cover off to find the original fabric on the seat. Sixties green velvet! Unfortunately along with the green velvet was some green mold! eek!! Someone definitely left this outside to get wet. And the vinyl covering didn’t give much protection.

I’m sure in it’s day this green velvet was gorgeous! But the mold sent this to the garbage can immediately. Then I cleaned the wood to get rid of the mold. I also had to glue the wood because it was also warped and splitting.  I didn’t keep any of he original padding because it was looking pretty worn out and a little of it was touching the moldy material. Better to just start fresh. I bought new padding (foam padding I found at walmart for $6 that is made for chairs) and cut it to size. This was a bit of a chore because for some reason I thought a 2 inch foam piece was the way to go. Wrong! It was huge so I cut it in half to make it about 1 inch thick (maybe a little more) and then cut the top so that it was curved and not square on the edges. Then to make it a little more smooth and even I added a little batting. Once all the repair work was done I could staple the fabric to the seat and start painting. I pictured this chair red and ASCP Emperor’s silk is AMAZING! Now I needed fabric to go with it. I found the cutest fabric at Hobby Lobby (LOVE Hobby Lobby)!! So with my discount I got a yard of it for around $25. I only used 1/2 of the material so later I will show you the 2nd chair I painted!! (spoiler alert: it is even more fun than this chair)

2 coats of Emperor’s silk paint and a coat of clear wax and this chair was done!

Hello beautiful!! Such a fun accent piece!

So this is my “almost didn’t happen” chair project! So glad the cute lady who sold this to me was persistent! Seriously… chairs maybe my all time favorite things to paint! In my next post I will show you the second chair I painted.

Thanks for stopping by

Cindy

I can’t remember where I first heard about Annie Sloan Chalk paint but I can tell you that I LOVE LOVE LOVE Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. I do remember looking on Pinterest, seeing all the amazing pieces of furniture that had been transformed with this paint and deciding that I needed to find out what this was all about. After reading a few blogs and checking out the official Annie Sloan web site I made a list of things I would need. Then I did a search to see who sold it locally and found a cute little shop here in Utah called Drab 2 Fab that sells ASCP. I headed on over and went in to see what they had. I had already seen a list of the colors Annie Sloan had to offer, but in the store they had samples up on the wall. It was nice to be able to see, in person, what each color looked like once it was painted and waxed. I wasn’t 100% sure until I got there that Arles was the color I wanted to start with. I know – yellow! But have you seen this yellow? Amazing. So I purchased a can along with samples of Old White and Pure White. I also bought a can of clear wax and a waxing brush. All the blogs I had read about ASCP suggested buying the wax brush. They were right. It is a must have. I was excited to try out my new paint but I didn’t want to paint something in my house, hate it and then be stuck looking at it. Fortunately we had 2 end tables that were set to go to charity so they became my first project. If I hated them they would still go to charity and if not then yay for me – new end tables! 🙂

These are the end tables. Kinda sad looking. They actually looked worse before I cleaned them. And as you can see I wasn’t able to remove the pen marks my kids left on them. :p

It was time to try out my new paint – I was a little nervous to tell the truth. I had painted fun holiday projects before, but not furniture so this was all new to me. I opened the can, stirred the paint and dug in. I used a paint brush I bought at Home Depot for the chalk paint.  It worked great. You can see the black large nail heads on the top. Those don’t come off so I painted around them. (kinda hard to tape those) I did get a little paint on them but ASCP is easy to wipe off, even after it dries, (before the wax) so that didn’t pose a problem.

Here they are, all painted in their glorious yellowness! See…amazing!

Already I’m falling in love with ASCP!

One of the things I discovered is that you can generally see through the first coat of paint, which can be a fun look if that is what you want. I didn’t with these so I painted a second coat. Once it was painted and waxed I decided to add chevron stripes. Kind of daring of me don’t you thing. 😉 I painted these about a year and a half ago and chevron stripes were just starting to really show up on everything so I thought it would be fun. Thanks to Pinterest (I also LOVE LOVE LOVE Pinterest) I found a few posts that demonstrated how to tape a chevron pattern. These end tables are a bit rustic so I felt like it would be good to make the pattern a little less than perfect to keep with the style. Here is what that looked like.

I used the sample of Old White that I had purchased with the Arles and I just did one coat. Once it dried I used sandpaper to distress it and then I waxed over the design. I was really happy with the results.

I guess because I always knew I may not be keeping these (if I ended up hating them) I didn’t work too hard to make the pattern on each one identical. But I actually really like that they are unique. And in fact I ended up liking them enough to keep them. And now they are the end tables we use in our family room in our basement.  A year and a half later they still look great. Once the wax cures (this takes a few weeks) the paint is protected – even from my teenagers! 🙂

So these were my first project but not my last. I will be posting more project on this blog so come back and see what else I have painted.

Thanks for stopping by 🙂

Cindy