New to me

Although my main interests focus on art/scrapbooking I have always had a passion for furniture.  I see an old piece of furniture that needs some love and I can't help but want to take it home with me. Over the past year I have worked on a few pieces of furniture but my latest accomplishments were two night stands I picked up at a recycling sale at our local college.  I love the idea of having a trunk show in a parking lot where you can bring your previously loved pieces for someone to love some more.

I picked up two of these beauties and saw a lot of potential even though they were pretty beat up.

My first step was to give them a good wipe down.  Cobwebs, dust and dirt looked as though it had lived on these for a while.  After they had time to dry from the moisture of wiping them down I then prepped them by sanding them with a low grit sand paper.  I removed the handles from the drawers.  After they were sanded I gave them another wipe down to remove any sanding particles.  I purchased a very good quality furniture paint from Rona.  The colour I chose (if you can call it a colour) was a standard white.  I wanted these to fit into any decor as I tend to change out my colour scheme quite often. 

 This picture was after the first coat of paint.  I gave these two good coats of paint.

Here is the finished product.  Although it may not look like a lot of change from start to finish believe me it was a big change.  No more rough spots, everything was nice and smooth and a solid white.

I'm contemplating replacing the drawer pulls as these were the original ones that were brass and I just painted over them.  I'm thinking a clear crystal knob would look quite nice and glam them up a bit!

Anyhoo, one job down and about 3 more pieces to finish.  I will keep posting them as I complete them but it may not be for some time as I have to get back at my altered art canvases.  So much to do, so little time.  I also work full time during the day so trying to squeeze this all in can be a bit challenging :)

My dream is to one day own a scrapbooking store and do furniture refinishing on the side.  Big dreams I know but I will get there :)

ChelleB

Tattered Florals and New Inspiration

This past weekend I was very fortunate to attend a fabulous retreat hosted by Lorrie Strebel.  A wonderful person whom I've know for about 5 years now. She puts on a amazing retreat. 30 something crafters attended a weekend of creativity, sharing and general appreciation for each others creative talents.  I wish I could do this every day!

As I prepped for the weekend I stumbled upon a challenge by the super talented Tim Holtz.  All I needed was his Tattered Florals die and lucky me, I already had it.  I knew I wanted to challenge myself with altered canvas and what better way to get started than with flowers.  I mean who doesn't appreciate flowers in one way or another.

So here we are.  I'm quite proud of this beauty, she was my third canvas that I created this past weekend.  I call it "Garden of Love" because I put a lot of love into this canvas.  I'm a huge "Tim" fan and anyone who knows me is very aware of that .. ha ha.  I find so much inspiration each time I use his products and I used quite a few on this.

1. Tattered Florals die
2. Frayed Burlap and Weathered wood distress ink pad.
3. Grunge paper
4. Paper from his resist Kraft paper pad
5. Alcohol inks
6. Weathered wood distress stain

 

The canvas size is 12 inches wide by 16 inches high.

 

I used quite a few other products including:

1. Miscellaneous metal embellishments (Ebay and Dime store emporium) The metal flowers were embossed with a few different embossing powders to cover up their aged gold appearance.

2. Felt

3. Adhesive back cork board

4. Burlap (Michaels)

5. Teresa Collins paper (Background)

6. Texturized acrylic to create "Garden" combined with teal acrylic paint.

7. Value store gems/bling

I pretty much took anything and everything I had in my stash and used it on this project.  If you would like details on any of the flowers please let me know.  I would love to post specifics of all the products I used by this blog would be really really long if I did :)

I'm looking forward to growing my talents in altered canvas.

Love for the momma

With Mother's Day approaching and my Mom's birthday later this month I knew I wanted to experiment with something new.  I usually venture to make her a card each year but this year wanted to make something for her that she could have as a keepsake.  My new passion is working with canvases so I wanted to use one in my project and here it is.

 

This is a 5 x 7 panel canvas, using the Graphic 45 Secret Garden 6 x 6 paper pack. I love the dimension of this piece and how it all just seems to flow together.  I know my Mom will appreciate it very much, she is definitely my biggest fan :)

 

Graphic 45 Secret Garden

My starting point was drawing a template for the flower petals.  The size of the petals is approximately 1 5/8 height by 1 inch width at the largest point.  I took the template and transferred the outline onto the paper in the paper pack.  I cut 5 leaves out of each design.  I didn't quite use all the designs but the majority of them.

I also used a couple of different papers just to get some more dimension into the petals.  I used papers from the following paper lines:

Lost and Found 
Background and and some petals (this paper has wonderful texture)

 Farm Girl - Denim
Dark denim blue petals

The next step was to apply Tim Holtz distress inks to the edges of each petal.  I used frayed burlap.  I then molded each petals by taking a pen barrel and pulling it along the paper.  The same way you would curl ribbon.

Next I applied the Lost and Found paper by My Minds Eye to the front of the canvas.  I distressed the edges of the paper and inked it up with Frayed Burlap before applying it to the canvas with Modge Podge.  I let that dry for about an hour. 

Next I applied a small circle (about 2 inches) of sticky back cork to the center of the canvas.  

Starting from the outside and working in I applied each petal to the canvas.  The outside row of petals were about 1 inch apart and on the next row I reduced this by about 1/4 inch and continued reducing the distance working my way to the center.  To help the petals stick to the canvas I bent the bottom of the petal so it lay flat against the canvas.  I used Tombow mono to apply the flowers.  Once I had created my flower I let it sit for about an hour to let the petals get a good grip.

Next I applied a piece of peach dyed twine around the outside of the edge of the cork to finish it off.

Lastly I glued a Prima Trinket Bottle cap to the center of the flower and finished it off with a image button I purchased on Etsy.

In order to have an area for writing I cut two pieces of paper from the Graphic 45 paper pack and glued them to the back of the canvas.