ta da

Here they are! I am so happy with how they turned out :) Now we just need to host dinner for our friends! Beautiful chairs from my grandma, made anew. How lucky are we?

Ringo is the perfect accessory :)

Don't they look great? I'm so pleased. Operation: Make Us A Home is not complete...we're just getting started. Now that the chairs are done we are looking for an area rug, which is harder than I thought! Once that is purchased I am moving on to my next transformation:



Yep, that is exactly what you think it is...my camp trunk! Fabulous, isn't it? My mom got my us matching trunks when we went to camp. We were the only ones with them; aka Mom is the best :) Well, Mom and Dad are now trying to pawn things off on their children. And my sister has the trunk from my grandma's house so Mom and Dad brought this and dropped it off at our apartment  I decided it would be fun to take on this project. I'm going to buy some feet for the trunk to give it a little more style and change out the hardware. What Annie Sloan paint I will be using is still TBD but I will keep you updated. I feel like our home will be so much more a home when we have the rug and the trunk completed. Let the games continue.

operation: make us a home - dining room chairs

Since my Annie Sloan experience I have been furiously working to complete my perfect dining room set. While at the workshop I chose Arles as my base paint color with Duck Egg blue as the main event. They are turning out BEAUTIFULLY!

Thank goodness too...because we having been living in a disaster area since I started the project. Ugh....I believe living in discord creates discord in the rest of your life. So its been a tough week and a half! We are ready for our living space to be back to normal and new and improved!

Here's how things are going:

Base paint

It is best to flip the chair upside down and paint the underside first. That prevents missing many spots. The wonderful part about chalk paint is no sanding, no priming!!! :) I was able to start painting immediately. I started with Arles.

Sometimes you have to use two coats of paint but since you are painting another color on top it is not as important.

Top coat

Then paint directly over it with your second color. I chose Duck Egg Blue.

Distress

Once the paint is dry, you can distress using sand paper, steel wool, scot rite pads, whatever suits your fancy! I painted in the house since its so hot here in good ole' Texas but the distressing needs to be done outside because it is CHALK paint, so it comes off like chalk! duh... As evident by my hands, it is a messy process. I chose to sand through to the original wood in some places and just enough to see the yellow in others. Also, try to choose the spots you distress wisely. Think of where your hands touch the most. Do you use the top to pull out the chair? Put your feet up on the leg supports? Do what looks natural.

Wax brush

Then comes the waxing. This is the brush I bought for the clear wax. Its important to get it into all of the nooks and cranies so this brush is perfect to really work it in.

Cover the whole chair with the clear wax. It can go pretty far but you have to make sure it covers everything or else it will wear away faster.

Dark wax

I could have stopped with the clear wax but these chairs need a little something extra, a little more depth so I used the dark wax as well. It adds to the distressed look quite a bit. You really don't want to use a lot of the dark wax because it can change the whole look of a piece. If you use too much on everything it all starts to look the same. Once you put the wax on take a rag and rub it off to how you want it to look.

Add another layer of clear wax to seal it and buff it out with a rag and you are ready to go!!!

Tomorrow I will show you the finished product! And our next project...its never ending, right??



pinch me

That's what you'd have to do if I walked into my own dressing room and this is what it looked like.

I mean, really.

If you have the clothes to back it up...you are sitting pretty. Thank you Traditional Home for this beautiful San Francisco remodel. I will dream of you tonight.



the annie sloan experience

Mom and I went to the Annie Sloan Chalk Paint workshop in McKinney on Saturday and what a fun day it was! First, McKinney, TX is an adorable city! The square is simply precious with quaint stores and restaurants with great antiques and cute boutiques. The neighborhoods surrounding it are beautiful with some eclectic homes thrown into historical estates. If it weren't over an hour away from Fort Worth my mom said they would look over there when my dad retires! Not going to happen...

But, the point of the day was heading to our painting class! We were two of four people in the class, taught by Kayla aka Lady Butterbug. It was so interesting. Each person was given the same materials and same paints. We practiced on boards and each person created a totally unique look. This is a technique that you can make your own.

A little backstory: Annie Sloan was a muralist and created chalk paint over 20 years ago! Where has it been hiding??? She started painting furniture and developing painting techniques and writing about it. She set up a store front in Oxford and since then it has slowly taken off.

The paint is nothing I've ever used before. It is a water-based paint that is super super flat. There are different techniques that we learned, here are a few pictures from Saturday's workshop:

{Primer Red was the base}

{Cloud Technique}

{This is Duck Egg Blue on top of the Red Primer & distressed}

{My mom's sample - totally different than above!}

 

{The spindle with the awesome green and a dark wax}

The last picture had everything to do with the waxes that are paired with the paints. The green was SO bright and threw me off a bit...Incredible Hulk??? Once the wax was on it totally changed the tone. The wax is important, not only for the look, but for the sealing. When you distress the furniture it literally falls off like chalk! So, the wax assists to shine, seal and highlights the little extras in your piece.

It was a fantastic weekend and I've already gotten started on my dining room chairs :) Posts to follow!! Until then, go check out Annie Sloan. It would be wonderful to become a stockist - there aren't any in Fort Worth yet! If only I had a store front somewhere...

harry potter and the deathly hallows

Potterwatch is on the move again. Texas time puts us at T Minus three hours until the premier of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II. Unfortunately, I have a very early meeting tomorrow and then my parents are coming to town so I can't stay up and finish the series as I wish...at midnight, in the theater.

I will be seeing the finale on Sunday, after my parents leave, and I have time to recoup from meetings, enjoying family & our FABULOUS arts-n-crafts weekend.

Shall we take a moment to enjoy the end of HP in film series? I think it should win Academy Awards out of the ears, but I'm also still living in my fantasy world of child/teen movies. I am in complete jealousy of all of my friends with the ability to see the film at the midnight showing. But I will live in excitment and expectancy, until then. Happy Harry Potter Day!!!!!!!

It. All. Ends.

a different harry potter

As I said, I am a cat person and my parents have my two babies at home. In my household, we rarely settled on typical pet names. My first dog was Beauregard, my second Delilah. I had cats name Winston Churchill, Lafitte, Cleo (and then some ordinary ones) and a hampster named Hamlet. We believed in creativity in our pet names.

 My babies at home are Beatrix Potter (the children's author) and Harry Potter. They are both black and white, pleasantly plump, beautiful sungglers and very photogenic. I am a proud mama. We had Beatrix first. Although a sassafras, she is a wonderful pet and I love her so much!!! Harry came to us by the grace of God. We had only one, Beatrix (which was rare in our household), and as Mom and Dad drove home one day this adorable bebè sat patiently by the side of the road. Mom told Dad to stop the car, and that if he let her approach she would get him. Sure enough, as she inched closer to the emaciated kitten and bent down he lept into her arms! He has been a member of our family since and was an amazing addition. Harry is a handsome son-of-a-gun and an outstanding drooler :)

Beatrix Potter

Harry Potter

As we continue to celebrate the final installment of Harry Potter I think of MY Harry Potter, and wish he was here with me now, purring and drooling away :)



the final installment

pinterest

I am a bonafied Potterhead. I have all the books, all the movies and pause anytime there is something about the magical series online, on tv, magazines, etc. This Friday marks the final installment of movies for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Although I have been waiting with baited breath since the first half of the final book came out in film, I am still so sad and will mourn the end of an era. Expect more Potterwatch throughout the week :)



mo-ranch, my ranch

Its that time of year. The time of year when, if I were still a child, I would be at camp. I hadn't really realized it until last night when I was lying in bed; it made me so sad! I had the privilege of attending Camp Loma Linda at Mo-Ranch Presbyterian Assembly from the age 10 until I was 16. Seven glorious summers I spent there. I grew up at camp, made wonderful friends from across the state, better learned the Bible and learned how to be alone/without my parents (which is was no small task).



My childhood dream was to become a camp director. Talk about living the good life! You get to spend all summer in the beautiful Texas Hill Country with fun, motivated children who look at the world with a fresh perspective and play games, rock climb, canoe, swim, hike, horseback ride. Ah, just thinking about it again makes me feel light as a feather!

Alas, the real world hits and you slowly grow out of the idea/realize the salary for said job, and move on. But there is still that dream...And for me, since my camp was on a retreat facility I can still return. That is where the husband proposed! He is a smart man. Chapel on the Hill at sunset, my dream wedding destination, but too difficult to logistically arrange with family being from all over :(  I had my dream wedding in Austin and loved every breath of it, don't get me wrong! But there is the nostalgia at Mo that cannot be replaced by another.



I already dream about finding the perfect camp for our hypothetical babies and hope that they love it as much as I did.

Way down in hill country,

there lies by a river

our Camp Loma Linda, we all love her so!
Its here that we are gathered

to swim, sing and play together

in rain or in sunshine the whole summer through.

In the evening, by the campfire,

we sit and sing together

and kindle fires of friendships

our bonds firm and true!

When summer days are over

we leave you dear Loma Linda

we always will cherish our memories of you.

giveaway extraordinaire.

I love me some Southern Eclectic. Sheridan French is (from what I read) an amazing mother, wife, designer, editor and blogger. Notice the order. Those jobs are the order she puts her life in, which I find important. Certain things should go first and she makes it clear that they are. If you aren't a fan or follower, become one. I love getting to see her articles every month in Fort Worth Magazine, its like a little present each time!

She is hosting a GIVEAWAY! As said, she is an amazing designer. I could live in tunics if life/seasons would allow. I think they are flattering and comfortable and I adore them in the vibrant colors and textures she offers. HOLLER ATCHA! They truely are fabulous.

 

Anyway, visit her site, love on her things and hope that I get a free giveaway! I'm not one of those gals that usually wins lotteries or auctions, etc. But why not give it a whirl, eh? Feel free to indulge on the giveaway if you feel so inclined. Her collection is absolutely fabulous :) Enjoy!

operation: make us a home

Now that we are a married couple it is time to make us a home! I love a good project. We have been lucky enough to have a kitchen table and chairs from my parents for a while now but we really saw something else for our space.

I've been dreaming of a french kitchen table and we found one!!!! Brian and I went to OKC to see my parents. While the men golfed, the women visited our favorite antique stores. Oklahoma is OK...but their antique stores are FABULOUS!!! We found this beauty at the last shop we went to:

And so it came home with us on Sunday! We are so excited! The next part of the project is chairs! We, unfortunately, had to move my grandma into an assisted living facility. But she wants her things to go out to the four girls. So Brian and I got these!

We are getting the chairs' seats redone in OKC and then going to paint them turquoise!!!! Our apartment needs some color; As a coworker told me last week, "life is too short to live in a beige house." On July 16th Mom and I are going to a painting class where we will learn the Annie Sloan technique. What a fun class it will be and how much fun would it be to do for other people. The chest was also my grandma's and it was in my bedroom at her house. Brian and I are going to put that under the stairs and replace this awful side table that I found for free at my old apartment...ick.

Here's to a new project! I will update as Operation: Make Us A Home continues. Until then, wish us luck!