Tuesday, July 19, 2011

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...

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