My Olive Love

Good Tuesday everyone! While slowly getting ready for the next trunk show in Schaffhausen (Switzerland) my back is sloooowly getting better. But really slow.
I still need a lot of rest but that gives me the chance to do another post.
Last week while my neighbors where on vacation and left me a part of the garage to work on furniture I  was able to paint another beauty.
The one underneath all that good stuff...

At first sight I saw it all in Annie Sloan Henrietta or Emile, anyways in a pinkish color. I was dreaming of a sweet girly looking table standing in a field full of blooming springflowers, a laptop or a book on it and a white shabby chic-ish chair in front.... can you see it??

I started off with old ochre to give it a light base. But the thing was...it looked so good in that old ochre that I decided to leave it that way. It would have been cool to keep the top in a dark brown but since it had a huge crack I had to fix that was not possible.
So I painted the top in old ochre too and covered that with Olive.
I've never used Olive before but I fell in love with it!
To add a little extra details I painted some leaves onto the tabletop and around the edges and drawer, changed the knob and done.
I could look at it all day and I'm sure it also will fit the blooming field! ;)

Much love, Dina

   

jenniferrizzo

Buckets full of Frogs

Good Monday to all of you! Don't you just love Mondays? I do!
This morning when I was driving up to the woods to go out with the dogs, I drove by various people. Some of them where taking their dogs out, some of them where out for a walk, a run or on the way to work. Usually I have a smile on my face in the morning especially when I see other people and so I did this morning. You know what? Not a single one of them smiled back at me. They all had a stone sour look on their face. Why? I don't know! I love Mondays, I love mornings, I like other people...because I love my life. How about you?

These buckets I've found a wile ago where calling me last week. I love the rust on them and the worn look they have. I used some fun frog and flower graphics of The Graphics Fairy's Blog and a french label for the small milk bucket, Mod Podge, added some lace, rusty keys and some tags, done.
I posted a tutorial here.

Actually I wanted to decorate them with spring flowers or twigs but last week snow came back, so it was too early for them to bloom. I hope you still like them.

Much love, Dina

Playing with birds and a stinky dog

Good Sunday! First of all thank you for 20'000 page views!! I feel so flattered! :)

This morning Abby came back inside all stinky. She perfumed herself with fox dung and felt oh so good. Yuck! Hello spring... :)

I still can't do much today but in a pain-free minute I managed it to take some pictures of the tags I did last week. They are very easy to make.
Look for pictures ( you can find royalty free pictures on The Graphics Fairy's blog) but make sure they are royalty free in your country too especially if you'd like to sell the tags.
Arrange them as you wish, print, cut, pierce and use hemp or burlap twine or a ribbon that matches the colors of the graphic. Done.
I keep using mat photo paper or marbled paper, mostly in brown. If you wish you can add age with a wet teabag or coffee ground. Just press it onto the paper and add stains. It's a lot of fun to play with it.
Tags are great to decorate all kind of things, not only gifts.

Have a great rest of the weekend!
Much love, Dina

Have a seat

Days have been great! A very successful trunk show, an invitation for another market in June, the o.k. to participate at another trunk show, an almost car free garage giving me enough space to finally paint my tables and some more small dressers and sideboards, enough of free time to do this all because I was able to get off on my job and yesterday I was able to visit a store that would like to host my stuff.... yeah! Time flies by, days are short, and this week is almost over.
The next market is coming up next Saturday and I'm almost sold out, so I will have to hurry up on getting off of my furniture (oh noooo!) and getting back to sewing purses and bags and knotting jewelry.

No question, I pushed myself a little over the top this week.
Lumbago!
And since my first thought was to warm the muscles instead of cooling the sore nerve it got worse. So I'm sitting...well, I'm trying to...in my bed reading through posts.

But luckily I prepared a little show off of a small stool I painted a while ago. Unfortunately I didn't take a before picture. It was painted in a reddish brown and the seat had the original color of hemp twine or straw.

I painted the legs in Annie Sloan "old violet" and used an almost dry brush with a little "old white" on the seat, sanded the edges...here you go.
Much love, Dina

 

But it's a Philippe!

You know, over here in Switzerland and Liechtenstein antique stuff is expensive. Waaay more expensive than in the US and if you have an original Louis Philippe furniture you better leave it untouched because you have an ORIGINAL Louis Philippe furniture...
I got one. It's a table with gorgeous carving and everything a Louis Philippe should have. I immediately
fell in love with it and just had to have it. Mösi gave me a more than great price on it and I had it for quite a while now wondering where I should paint it, because I don't have that much of space to work.

Last Monday my neighbors went on vacation and lucky me got half of the garage for myself. the quest was clear: paint the Louis.

Here is the before:

With Annie Sloan "Louis Blue" (how cool is that?!) I was on the right way. I used "Old White" for the carvings and a little bit of dark wax for an antique finish.
Mösi came over when I was done with it and I told him: "you will faint if you see what I did to the table!"
Brave as ever he followed me into the garage. I went: "Tadaaa"
Mösi:"I've seen furniture painted like this before and I know a girl that has painted furniture in her whole apartment.....(and his voice jumped at least one octave higher)....but it's an original Philippe!

...I know! And I like it this way! Obviously no one wanted him the way it looked before so I decided to give it a new spin. Ha!

And here it is.
Much love, Dina