Copy Me

 Debbie of  Debbie Doos Blogging and Blabbing is having a fun linky party. The challenge is to duplicate a photo from any magazine of your choice. Sounds like fun right? There's only one problem...I have a plain ole point and shoot, nothing fancy, but I thought what the heck, it's a chance to practice  and improve my photography  skills, plus it's an excuse to play. So after looking through my collection of 9 skillion magazines I found something I wanted to try. The copy didn't have to be an exact duplicate so that made it even more fun. I found a picture that was simple but pretty in Jeanne d 'Arc Living. Here is the original:

I don't have a clock or a silver urn like the one in the the picture, but I have a collage that I made with a similar shape. I have lots of silver pieces, but none like the one pictured so I used one of my small silver plate  tea pots. In place of the Orchid I used coffee filter flowers that I made for my tree last Christmas. I couldn't tell from the original picture what those other things are that are pictured, but I think they are tools for caring for Orchids. To get the same feel as the photo I used finials that I bought a while ago at the Dollar Tree. In place of the simple linens that are shown folded I used some of  my collection of thrift store lace and doilies. Twine? no problem, I've got lots of that.. Here is my rendition:

I think there is a photo in the lower right corner so I added a copy of a vintage photo to my vignette. I folded my linens a little more casually, I wanted a little softer look. While It's not an exact duplicate I think it kind of captures the feel of the photo. Once again here's the photo from Jeanne d 'Arc Living Magazine:

Jeanne d' Arc Living Magazine

And here's my take on it:

I'm linking up with  Debbie Doos Blogging and Blabbing   for the Magazine Copy Challenge.

and At the picket Fence  for Inspiration Friday and  My Romantic Home for Show and Tell Friday.

Paint Party!

 Its a paint party  and I'm painting everything in sight, so I had to join in. I have a few projects that I want to share. The  first things are these mirrors, I have had them for a looong time. I'm tired of gold although I hear its making a comeback. I painted these mirrors silver. Here's where we started.

 I painted the first mirror in liquid silver leaf, but I thought it looked like bright chrome so I added a wash of black paint...umm no, now it just looked dirty, so finally I put a mercury  glaze  over it and that toned it down and softened it up. I can live with it now. Here's the after:

I painted the second mirror in sterling silver by Folk Art paints. Its a softer silver but it took a jillion coats, I also glazed it in mercury. Here's the after:

Next up was a shelf that  that I  bought  years ago and since I'm in redo mode I decided to try a gesso wash. Rosemary at Villabarnes gave a great tutorial on her blog and I was intrigued by it. I thought  these pieces would be perfect  for it. I have two of these. I haven't decided how to use them yet but here's how they turned out:

Before

After

 I love the finish on these. It has the look of plaster which is great for the style of the piece. Its a soft chalk like finish. I'm  addicted to it now and want to try it  on every thing. I decided to try it on a picture frame. This time I sanded and waxed the gesso and also applied a little black glaze to age it a bit. I did another picture like this  earlier but I painted it. I looked all over for the second picture.and couldn't understand why it wasn't in the closet, well long story short...I found it about a week ago when I went shopping in my shed.

This is the before

This is after the gesso wash , waxed and glazed.

The images are from  the The graphics fairy.  Here are my two gesso washed pieces together.

  Finally  I have these suitcases that look vintage but they're  not. My husband bought them for me at Sams Club years ago. he knows I like vintage  suitcases and had a couple so he thought I would like these. He was right, I do. Wasn't that sweet of him, and he wasn't even trying to get out of the dog  house LOL. Here's what they looked like before:

Here is the after:

I did an imperfect paint job on these so they would look like they've been around a while. I let the brown show through in spots. I painted them in Talc by MS paints.  Four projects down a skillion more to go, but I'm making progress.

I cant wait to visit all of you and see what you've been up to. I'm joining the Paint Blog Party at  Debbie Doos Blogging and Blabbing

                                  
And  Between Naps On The Porch for Met. Monday and Mod Vintage Life for Mod Mix Monday and Funky Junk Interiors  for SNS and  Chocolate Drool And Kisses for The Creative Bloggers Party and Hop
and  It's So Very Cheri for the Party and Hop and Kreative Korner for Tea Time Thursday.

My Faux French Enamel Pitcher

 I know all you lovers of  Cottage, Farm House and Shabby Chic  design have drooled over those gorgeous chippy vintage enamel pitchers. Well I don't own any but I'd sure like to... the problem is my budget is tighter  than  a  Botoxed face. Getting a real Vintage one for a price I am willing to pay has not happened. However while getting my craft fix in  Michaels  a couple of days ago I saw a whole shelf of clearance faux enamel pitchers in all kinds of funky colors and they were 50% off. Yippee! for 4.99 I got a  Faux French enamel pitcher. It's not the real deal but its cute and its a new thing to play with, I skipped the multi colored  ones and  went right for the white.

I put a hand tied bouquet in it to see how it looked with flowers  and then played around with the photos.

I got a cute pitcher and I got to play with flowers, life is good. I'm looking forward to the blog parties next week, Will you be participating? I'm working on a couple of pieces, so I'd better stop playing and get to work!

Joining Common Ground for Vintage Inspiration Friday.

An altered planet

I bought a globe from The Goodwill store. I really love the graphics on globes and think they're really beautiful. However I saw a few globes on various blogs that had been altered, some with chalkboard paint, which I love and some had been decoupaged with various graphics....all very pretty. Naturally I got the bug to alter mine. I decided that I wanted a kind of shabby look but not too frou frou shabby. I wanted to keep it simple. So, this is what I started with:

photo source

My globe started out something like this. However this is not my actual globe, like a dummy I deleted my before picture by accident. This is pretty close except mine was old dinged and dirty.  This is what it looks like after I played with it.

I painted the globe with white Behr  premium paint with primer. There are areas on the globe that are raised and I didn't want to lose that texture so I added  crumpled tissue paper to the raised parts of the globe. I painted the stand silver with  liquid silver leaf.  I added a a piece of crocheted lace to the top where the compass is and a crystal knob to the top.

I like the way it turned out. I'm sure it's not every body's cup of tea, but I think it fits the vision I'm aiming for in my home. Here is a close up of the texture on the raised land masses.

I didn't want it to look perfect but I wanted  it to still  look like a globe sort of and not just a big  white ball.
Here are some more shots of my globe.

I'm still working on lots of other projects big and small and I got a great chair from The Good Will that I'll share later. Hope you like my altered globe. I'm joining  Between Naps On the Porch for Met Monday and Coastal Charm for Nifty Thrifty Tuesday and  A Stroll Thru Life  for Table Top Tuesday and  A Diamond in the Stuff  for A Time To Shine and  My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia for Tuesday's  Treasures and  Faded Charm for White Wednesday and  Pink Postcard for Transformations and Treasures and My Romantic Home  For Show And Tell Friday  and  Its So Very Cheri for the Party and Hop.

Decoupaged Table

I needed a  side table to sit beside my sofa.   I  moved  the one I was using to the other side of the of the room.  I wanted the new  table to be larger  so we could set drinks  or whatever on it comfortably. I knew I didn't want to buy a new table and then I remembered a table that I bought from a junk store 12 years ago. I thought it was a really cute table but I could never find the right space for it, so it sat in my shed all this time. I thought it could work but it was  very small.

Then I remembered a glass round  that I had. It used to top an old coffee table. It had also been sitting around for years. I thought if I combined the round with the table it would give me the size that I needed.

Clearly this look was not working. My first thought was to put a skirt on it, But that would entail buying fabric to make one or buying a  pre made, neither of which I wanted to do at this time. I got the idea to reverse decoupage the glass using postcard and script graphics. First I painted the table in Magnetite from the MS line at Home Depot.

please forgive my unfinished baseboards

Then I decoupaged the glass round  on the back using images that I printed from  The Graphics Fairy.

I liked the look a lot. I originally thought about distressing the table and I still might, but  right now I'll just live with it a while before I make a final decision. Below are some closeups of the top of the table.

I got a new table for the price of a 3.00 can of sample paint  I think that's pretty cool.

before

After

I'm linking up with these great parties; My Romantic Home for Show and Tell Friday, French Country Cottage for Feathered Nest Friday and  Miss Mustard Seed for Furniture Friday and Funky Junk Interiors for SNS and  The Graphics Fairy  for Brag Monday and  Coastal Charm  For Nifty Thrifty Tuesday.