Loving this beautiful weather!

The rain has finally stopped and we have had a full week of sunshine and warmth. Most people would head outside for picnics, camping, hiking. Not me. I head out to the garage to refinish furniture lol

Last weekend (Memorial Day weekend) was gorgeous. The rain had stopped, the sun was sort of peeking out and the temperatures peaked in the mid 70s. My husband was looking forward to a weekend in front of the television and playing on his computer. Yeah, I didn't let that happen lol

I have been wanting to get rid of the dresser I have been using...it was a hand me down from my inlaws...a bland/blah thing from the 80s. No character and definitely not 'Me'. It clashed with all the antique and vintage style furniture in the room. So I convinced hubby that it was time to refinish the old dresser he had stashed out in the garage.

We estimate, based on wood type and construction, that it is from the 1940s. It was originally stained but at some point in it's life someone spray painted it black and added some hideous gold drawer pulls.

I had already removed some of the pulls before I remembered to take a picture.  Poor thing, it was in pretty rough shape and yet still very structurally sound.....and weighs a tons! lol

I primed it and then painted on several coats of Behr's Cottontail latex paint. I let it dry overnight then hit is with a sander (and a bit of hand sanding) to bring back that aged (and well loved) look.

I then hit all the home improvement stores to find the perfect pulls and fell in love with some that have a dark bronze base and porcelain looking inlay.

The fronts of the drawers have a swirled texture in the wood. I didn't know how this would look when I distressed the paint but I tried to use a light hand and I am thrilled with the results.  And I just LOVE the new pulls!  :-)

It now has a whole new life and although hubby was not happy about losing his weekend, we are both very happy with the results.

But of course, that is not the only thing I have been up to  :-)

My postcard swap items are due in mid June. I completed 2 of the 3 a while ago (see prior posting) and have been stuck with trying to come up with something for number 3.

I finally went digging in my old photo stash.

I found this girl proudly showing off her dress. It isn't a really fancy dress but she seems very happy so I wanted to send her to a dance. I went searching online and found this ticket to a prom "Under the Big Top". Yep, I could see her wearing that dress to a circus themed prom.  I added one of her old hair ribbons and the chorus to one of the songs they played that night.  :-)

Here is the complete set I am sending for the postcard swap.

And lastly, I got a new toy a couple weeks ago. I have a love/hate relationship with the HSN craft days. I see so many things that are new and interesting and thankfully I can usually resist (or only make a small purchase). But I knew this item was coming and I was positive that I didn't need it...and then I watched them demo it and I HAD to have it.

Anna Griffin's mini Minc machine

Have you seen this thing? It is a foil laminator and was just too cool for me to pass up. It had a premier price of only $69, much less than I have paid for other machines in my craft room heehee. (I used it in the prom postcard in case you didn't notice lol)

To be able to add foil accents to projects is just too cool. And I wanted to be able to combine it with other items in my craft room.

Experiment #1: stamp rubber stamp images, scan them then use my Explore to Print Then Cut them.
Then add foil to create fancy card embellishments.

Voila!  How cool would that look on a birthday card?  A shiny light pink and gold cupcake?!  Love it!

Experiment #2: scan images out of my Dover clip art books (I have a couple dozen of them lol) and then print and foil.

The cat is from a clip art book. the flower background is one of the pre-printed backgrounds that came with the Minc. (it came with over 150 printed items including backgrounds, sayings and images....an awesome collection)

The foiled the cat with gold and the flowers with teal. What is really a very simple and basic card has now become elegant. Love it!!!

I am having way too much fun!  I foiled the text for my nephew's graduation card....but haven't photographed it yet (have to remember to do that).

And I made this card for my mom just so she can see exactly what I keep babbling about every time I call her lol

The bad thing about foil is that it is very difficult to photograph!
The background is another of the pre-printed, Anna Griffin backgrounds foiled in silver. The Hello is one of the pre-printed sayings foiled in rose-gold. The bouquet is a Print Then Cut from my Explore.

Well, that's all for this week. I hope you are all having beautiful weather and get to enjoy it in any way that makes you happy.

Fall is Almost here!

I know you think I had forgotten about you. But I didn't. I have just been avoiding my computer. Please don't take it personally....honestly, it had nothing to do with you. Would I lie to you? :-)

Seriously, after working all day long on a computer, the last thing I want to do in my free time is get on a computer. So, although I have been busy in my art room, my computer took the summer off.

I did get a few pages done in my journal (not a lot though, hey, it was summer and I was out playing!)

My flowers did beautifully this year and I really wanted to feature my gorgeous begonia in a journal page. Did you know that begonias have fairies living in them? I didn't either until I downloaded the photos.

Our garden did incredibly well too! So far this year I have made 5 batches of salsa and canned 10 quarts of tomatoes (and spending tomorrow afternoon canning some more)

I love my salsa! So fresh and tangy. I love it so much I created a page to honor it! lol I painted all the ingredients. I then photographed one of my antique Ball jars and printed it onto transparency film for an overlay.

I am still participating in the online journal Challenge! http://artjournaling.ning.com/group/challenge

I don't always follow the rules (ok, I rarely follow the rules) but it gives me great prompts for journal ideas. This week we were supposed to create in a way similar to Van Gogh or Monet using at least one neon color. Um, yeah. Sorry, neon is not on my shelf! lol And as for Van Gogh or Monet, love them but still, not me. Once we painted, we were to doodle over the top.

So, I painted a swish with short strokes in fall colors (oops, no neon yellows or pinks to be seen) and then stamped the tree on top (StampaRosa). I did doodle the leaves. :-)

I did not waste my entire summer. I spent every weekend searching for treasures at yard sales!

I found this poor desk for $10. It is solid oak but had seen much better days. It had been stripped of it's stain many years ago and then at some point, some sort of oil had been spilled across half of its top. To add insult to injury, the top was also dotted with cigarette burns. Poor desk.

My original plan was to paint it up and put it out in my garden to hold my herb pots (I am tired of bending over to pick herbs lol)

If you notice on the above pic, their are decorations near the top on each side. Well only 1/3 of an ornament on the right side as most has been broken off.

I wanted to keep this detail so I created a mold from the remaining ornament using sculpey. I then filled the mold with paper clay. (the original decoration is in the middle sitting on a tissue because it still has the nails in it and kept sliding around my desk) The little piece on the right is the remaining portion of the broken ornament.

Here is the dry paperclay reproduction beside the original. The detail is not as sharp but since I was going to paint them both, I didn't think it would matter.

Here is the finished desk. I stained the top a rich mahogony and even though you can sort of still see the oil stain and definitely see the burn marks, it has beautiful character.

Once it was done, I couldn't banish it to the garden so now it resides in my office holding my tv. I think it is much happier than when I found it. :-)