denise...on a whim: paper

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

A Chalkboard in Bloom

Today I wanted to tell you a little bit more about our spring chalkboard that was hanging next to our new mail holder made from a shutter that I shared yesterday.

This little goodie was already a chalkboard. But, the surface was pretty much shot. You just couldn't write on it anymore.

We had this particular item donated to us by a woman who saw us at our very first show and loved our stuff. She just so happened to have a few things in her car that she was planning on taking to Goodwill that day. Instead, she brought them back to our booth and made a donation to On A Whim!

People can be so nice :)

All I did for this piece was paint the chalkboard itself with Ce Ce Caldwell's Emerald Isle and then I used Annie Sloan Aubusson Blue on the frame and dry brushed some Ce Ce's Santa Fe Turquoise over that. I love the effect!

I printed some letters off of my computer and cut around them. I then cut 3" x 3" squares out of some springy-green scrapbook paper I had and made them into triangles. I glued the letters onto those and I attached the flags to a piece of teal yarn I had picked up somewhere in a free bin with some blue flower brads I had laying around in my scrapbook stash.

I just love the combination of blue and green, don't you? :)

Monday, February 18, 2013

Romantic Jewelry Armoire

I sure wish I had taken some before pictures of this jewelry armoire, because it sure was not very pretty to look at, that's for sure! It was painted black and had dark gold scrollwork and stars on it. Don't get me wrong, I love scrolls, but this piece looked liked some bad magic show relic. Not attractive at all. But it was cheap and had good potential, so we bought it!

The first thing I did was lightly sand the whole thing down. From there, I used some antique white homemade chalk paint on the outside, even on the black hinges, and some aqua on the inside of the cabinet and the drawer. I distressed it so the black would show through. I just love the way an old white looks with black showing through! I then added some furniture wax for protection.

For the insert areas of the cupboard doors, I simply took some coordinating scrapbook paper (in a faded aqua with white flowers and just a pop of poppyseed orange), cut it to size and mod podged it on. And it was that simple. A little paint, a little paper, and we turned a pretty-ugly Goodwill find into a romantic jewelry armoire!