Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Rescuing Old Treasures





I spent a lot of my summer cleaning out my mother's house, as some of you know. With that came sadness, memories, good and bad, and many, many unexpected treasures, big and small. This little cigar box was rescued from the trash pile, knowing with the help of Prima, I would turn it into a pretty desk accessory.  I covered the outside in bits and pieces of paper from the Prima Songbird and Zephyr collections. I inked most of the edges and dry brushed gesso randomly over the papers after gluing to the box. I then embellished the top with lots of flowers and goodies from Prima as well as painting one of my chipboard girls from Leaky Shed Studios. I lined the bottom with more Prima goodness but decided to keep the inside lid as is because there's something very charming about an old box's roots, isn't there?

Prima Paper:
844080 Songbird Title It 
844493 Zephyr Zephyr
844479 Zephyr Celeste
844448 Zephyr Zanella
844486 Zephyr Tempore

Prima Embellishments:
555306 Songbird Chipboard Pcs
558311 Zephyr Wooden Trinkets
560331 Rondelle Crystal Swirls
559038 Zephyr Alpha Stickers
555474 Fairy Belle Essential petals
562489 Zephyr Roses

Other Products:
4" Classy Couture Girl from Leaky Shed Studio
Claudine Hellmuth paints; Blank Canvas, Painterly Pink, Modern Red, Classic Tea
Golden paints for hair; Ochre, Burnt Sienna
Buttons
Twine

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Fun Furniture




This is my first furniture project in a very long time. As some of you may know, I've been cleaning out my mom's house and took some very old, basic wood pieces of furniture home with me. Most of the furniture is as old as I am (old!) and very well made, of maple. This is one of the smaller pieces I have and thought it was a good one to start with. I painted it with Gliddens Primer/Paint mix and wasn't very happy with the way it went on. It was like painting with liquid rubber. I knew I was going to sand it and distress it so I didn't mind using it, however I will not use it again, especially on a larger piece. After sanding, I then collaged it with an assortment of scrapbook papers, mostly Prima of course! A screwed in a glass knob, lined the drawer with more paper and called it a day. I love it! It turned out to be an adorable addition to my craft space. It was originally in our Lake Tahoe cabin we had growing up and it is a small reminder of many years of wonderful vacation times with family and friends.