Mother Nature is a Real "B"

des·ert (dzrt): 1. A barren or desolate area, especially:

a. A dry, often sandy region of little rainfall, extreme temperatures, and sparse vegetation.

b. A region of permanent cold that is largely or entirely devoid of life.

c. An apparently lifeless area of water.

______________________________________________________________________________

No, I'm not dead and I haven't given up on blogging. I've been SUPER busy the last couple weeks and haven't had any time to post. I'll explain why.

Many of you know that I live in the Phoenix area. Phoenix, as you've probably heard, is nestled in the geographic area called the Sonoran desert.

Just as the definition above (pulled it right off the internet) describes, we get an extremely small amount of rain each year. Aside from the summer "monsoon" season, it is a rare occasion to see rain in the Valley of the Sun.

I've mentioned here that I was a vendor this past weekend at the Vintage Charm Holiday Boutique.

 Let me share a Doppler image of Arizona from Friday.

source

No, I'm not kidding. I wish I had doctored this image, but it's true. The sky decided to un-zip right on top of my furniture.

Here's a photo taken just a few miles down the road from the venue.

And the best part is, it lasted for 3 days. Yep. In fact, Friday was the rainiest day we've had in 10 years. This is the second wettest November in recorded history. So, you can imagine how my OUTSIDE booth at the boutique fared. 

Thankfully, I sold a few items on Thursday before the rain started. Friday, I was stuck at home waiting for a client and watching the kids while my husband went to school and work (the venue was about 45 mins from our house). I asked him to stop by on his way home to survey the damage.

The good news was, only 3 of my most valuable pieces were destroyed (did you hear the sarcasm in my voice?), and everything else had been thrown into a pile under my tent, which was now sitting in 3 inches of standing water. 

We borrowed a truck, grabbed the trailer and drove off to try to salvage what we could. I made sure to grab my camera to document the devastation, but when we got there, I went into panic/survival mode and completely forgot to snap any pics (sorry).

It was great fun wadding through the mud and flooded driveway to retrieve my soggy, wet work! Thankfully, some wonderful person grabbed my white tufted bench and placed it inside before it could get soaked. Other than that, everything looked like you had pulled it up from the bottom of a lake. 

Apparently, my tent had also collapsed as some point in the night landing on my furniture and destroying my tent. I wanted to cry. All I could see was the hours upon hours of work, the time ignoring my kids, the dirty house for weeks. That was all washed away. Not to mention the financial investment. 

I'm going to get real personal for a minute: The money that I planned to earn at the boutique already had a destination. Since we don't have medical insurance, last year I incurred a medical bill that has been looming over our heads. It has now been sent to collections and is perpetually damaging our credit. The money from the boutique was supposed to pay off the bill and get the creditor calls to stop. Now, the little bit of money I made will have to go to repairs and buying a new tent.

Sorry to be such a downer today. On the bright side, I did take photos of everything before I took it to the boutique. So, I'll have posts showing all the "before and after"s. I was REALLY happy with the way most of the pieces turned out. I'm excited to share them with you guys! So, look forward to some update posts coming soon. And thanks for letting me complain about my crappy weekend!

Faux Tarnished Brass Finish

As promised, I finally got the Faux Tarnished Brass tutorial together.

Its a great way to take shiny, new brass and make it look old and weathered.

When doing this technique, your object needs to be clean, and as close to that tacky, yellow brass from the 80's as possible. I've done this with wood before with good results. You just need to prep the piece with a glossy, bright gold paint. 

These box corners that I put on my hope chest were originally the same gold color. With these, I wanted a really grungy look. I used the same technique, but just went a little more heavy handed with the paint. 

The first step is to paint the entire piece with black chalk-based paint. Does it have to be chalk-based? 

Yes. 

Why? A couple reasons. First, it sticks to just about anything. The polished brass is very slick. Regular, latex paint will slide right off. Also, you need to be able to wet distress it. Which is the next step. 

*I've never tried homemade chalk-based paint with this technique, so I'm not sure if it would work. In my experience, the homemade stuff, while nice, just doesn't distress the same. I would recommend buying a sample pot of the store bought kind.

Once the black paint is dry,  use a damp rag to rub the piece, removing a large portion of the paint. Try to keep it in the area that would normally collect junk in "real life". 

After that, it's time to start layering colors. Start with the bronze/brass paint on the left, and work your way right.

DON'T WORRY! I know it's a lot of cans but its easy!

Place all your pieces close together on a piece of paper, scrap wood, etc. Hold the can approximately 24" away, and lightly start to spritz the paint. Build color slowly. The idea is to create a blended, translucent finish, not to "spray paint". When in doubt, start further away and spray very lightly.

Its actually very easy. I promise. First, spray the bronze. Let dry 30 mins. Then the flat black. Let dry 30 mins. Then the clear gloss. Let dry 30 mins. Finally, mist the flat clear over everything.

The clear gloss step is the only exception to the "spritzing" rule. Spray that stuff on fairly thick. That is what's going to protect your piece.

Once it's totally dry, you should have something that looks like this.

Dirty, worn, and awesome! Because of the topcoats, its very durable too. I've banged pieces around with this finish on it and rarely have had a chip. Just remember to let the paint cure for a couple days. It helps it bond and harden.

What do you think? Do you have something you're dying to tarnish? Please let me know if you have any questions.



Linking at:

Milk Paint Card Catalog

No, I'm not dead. The combination of gearing up for Vintage Charm Holiday Boutique, and sick kids has occupied my last couple weeks. I definitely have projects to share, just gotta find the time to post about them. My most recent project I loved so much I decided to make time to share.

I LOVE the vintage-industrial look. Particularly, I've been dreaming of card catalogs. Think back to Library Day in elementary school.

( *For those of you under 25, a library is a place that houses books. *For those of you under 20, a book is a bunch of papers with words printed on them.)

 Remember the process of looking something up before "Google" became a verb? You have to actually get up out of your chair, walk, using your own 2 legs, and dig through the card catalog so you could find a book on the subject. I'm not going to even bring up the Dewey Decimal System.

Anyhoo, I find several pieces by just going on Craigslist, heading to the furniture section, setting a price limit and seeing what comes up. It's like a box of chocolates. 

Last week, while browsing, I came upon this super-cool, solid wood CD cabinet.

 I instantly had a vision. This cabinet was dying to become a card catalog.

First, I removed all 15 wood knobs, added them to my stash, and filled all the holes with Bondo. I know I've mentioned this before, but if I am going to paint a piece, I always use Bondo instead of wood filler. It is so much easier to get a smooth finish, doesn't shrink, and it sands beautifully. Pretty stinky though.

After sanding the Bondo smooth, I brushed on one coat of Pitch Black by Old Fashioned Milk Paint to both the drawer faces and the body. Once that dried, I added some Snow White to the left-over black milk paint, bringing the color down to a charcoal grey with a blue undertone. Brushed that on over the black.

Oh forgot to mention, before applying the second coat of paint I applied a bit of Vaseline to the corners and a few edges to create a "resist" and leave the black exposed.

The milk paint was already starting it's chippy coolness before the paint was fully dry. After waiting a few hours, I took some steel wool and gave the whole thing a good rub down, releasing any loose paint. I've found steel wool works the best for removing paint without leaving those tell-tale sandpaper scratches.

I wanted to add some richness to the color, and add a little.... I don't know.....grimey-ness. So, I rubbed everything down with a coat of Antique Walnut stain, and left it to dry without wiping. It worked great! Kinda dirtied up the finish and settled into the cracks like a glaze.

I sealed everything with 2 coats of matte poly by Rustoleum (love that stuff!), and it was time to attach the hardware.

I found brass label pulls from D. Lawless Hardware for a shockingly low price! While on the subject, I had a great experience with D. Lawless. No, they haven't given me anything to say this, I just wanted to share my pleasant experience. While ordering on-line, I accidentally typed in my credit card number wrong. The next day, I got a phone call from Roberta from D. Lawless telling me the transaction couldn't process. I sorted that out, and received my order 2 days later!

While researching card catalogs, I noticed the drawer faces had 2 kinds of hardware: the label holder pulls, and a little knob. I figured out that the little knob is attached to the metal stringer rod that holds all the cards in place. I've seen furniture transformed into card catalogs before, but they always leave that detail off. I am nothing if not detail oriented.

Being the cheapskate I am, and not wanting to flank out tons of cash for little brass knobs, I wracked my brain for a solution. Did I mention there are 15 drawers on this puppy? Anything close I found was over $2 each. That would cut into my profit by almost $40.

Then I came up with a substitute. Wood button plugs! I just needed to paint them and attached them to the drawer faces like tiny knobs.

I finished both the label holder pulls and the button plugs in my faux tarnished brass finish (tutorial coming soon), and added them to the drawers.

I printed off some labels, put the drawers back in, and here's the final look.

I'm really happy with the way the paint turned out. It looks old and worn.

I think the button plugs worked great to mimic the brass knobs.

What do you think? I was going for authentic. Did I make it? At first I liked the contrast of the new, white paper, but as I look at it more, I think I'm going to antique the labels as well. Good idea?

Well, if you love it, make sure to stop by the Vintage Charm Holiday Boutique in Mesa, AZ on Nov. 21-23. I think it would be perfect in a bedroom for jewelry. I'll be bringing it and lots of other fun pieces to sell!

Linking at:

Remodelaholic

Jennifer Rizzo