Knowing when to stop

SO MUCH BROWN AND GOLD. DID A BEAR BARF ON A STATE TROOPER?

Last weekend I bought a small frame and large mirror for a total of $12 at a nearby estate sale. They were really well made and had some nice details, but they were painted hideous colors. My husband came up with the title by the way. Lovely.

The wooden frame was painted dark brown with gold underneath. It just made it look dirty and old.

I cleaned the frame with Krud Kutter (recommended by Miss Mustard Seed) and after the wood was dry, I sanded the piece using 60 grit sandpaper. I didn't want to completely take all of the paint off, so after a light sanding to make the details stand out more, it looked like this.

I think it looks like I just took the same picture but with better lighting, but that was the difference the sanding made! The frame is now more gold than brown and the details are featured rather than hidden. I considered painting the frame white afterwards, but I really like how it is now. I think it's important not to hide everything under paint if the piece is in good condition. A nice antique print will really stand out here.

INDECISION 2011.

The large mirror was painted gold but the details in the frame had a darker reddish-gold hue to them. I'm guessing this was due to age. The condition of the frame was okay. Some of the details had cracks in them so I considered painting the entire frame white after sanding it down.

I started sanding the details and realized that someone had already painted the frame white in the past. I liked how the white was highlighting the details so I continued to distress the sides of the frames and came up with this.

I might stop here but I can't decide if the mirror would look better entirely white. What do you think? I knew when to stop on the frame, but am having trouble making a decision with this guy. Hmm...

Aine's Cloth Baby Book

WAIT. THIS BLOG ISN'T STRICTLY ABOUT FURNITURE? EW...CRAFTS. I'VE BEEN DECEIVED!!!
Yup! I also do crafts. I guess I am a "crafty mom", but I don't like using that phrase. It doesn't give me enough street cred. "Cool mom" is how I'd like to be known. Spread the word. So I'm currently working on a few "cool" projects, but this one is particularly close to my heart. Please stay and read about it! It's so cute you can't say no!

WOW. THAT'S A REALLY CHUBBY GNOME.
My daughter Aine (pronounced Ahn-yuh) is almost 11 months old. She's our first child and she's awesome. She's squishy cute, smart, spastic, goofy, cranky, and gnomey (she looked exactly like a chubby gnome when she was 3 months).

For all those mommies out there, I'm guessing the first child inspired you to hand-make something that you hoped they would hold on to for the rest of their lives. For Annie, I made a couple mini-baby blankets that she could drool on as a newborn. It was actually my first sewing project using a sewing machine. This is the better looking of the two.

I ENJOY TORTURING MYSELF. SLOWLY.
Of course I quickly decided that the blankets weren't enough. I took on a huge pain-in-the-ass project of making her a cloth baby book. 9 months later I finally finished! Hooray! I feel like I can breathe easier because it's been hanging over my head for such a long time. Don't think I worked 9 months straight though. I would work on it 5 days in a row, then take a whole month off. Cutting tiny pieces of felt, sewing tiny pieces of felt onto other tiny pieces of felt, and sewing all of those minuscule felty bits onto canvas can really burn you out quickly.

When I first started brainstorming my book project, I had to make a lot of decisions.

1. What should the story be about?
2. Should I draw on the fabric or use cutouts?
3. If I draw on the fabric, should I use fabric markers or paint?
4. What kind of fabric should I use for the book and if I use cutouts, what kind of fabric should that be?
4. How do I write the story on the fabric? Should I write the story on the fabric?
5. Should I make it washable? Is this really a book appropriate for a baby to play with or is it more of a keepsake?

After debating back and forth, I decided to create a story about a button mushroom named Push who loves to use his/her imagination. Get it? GET IT? YAY! Cutouts were the way to go because I didn't feel comfortable using the markers or paint (again, my hand isn't steady!). I chose canvas for the book itself because of the neutral color, sturdiness, and durability. Felt was used for the cutouts because it was cheap and I could easily buy small pieces of it in different colors. Also I didn't want to worry about fraying. Recently, I decided not to write out the story in the book at all. I will be recording the words and attaching it to the book separately, but I thought it would be more fun for Aine to use her imagination when she's older. Get it again? YAY! Of course she's the inspiration for Push! Last of all, I decided that the book would be a keepsake. I didn't want to worry about her picking off the felt and eating it, etc. so I would make this for her while she's a baby, but not let her play with it until she's old enough to handle it carefully.

Oh yeah and the washable question? I totally ignored it. I did not want to even think about washing the book. Aine will be a clean child. CLEAN I tell you!

PUSH THE BUTTON MUSHROOM.
Here's what the book looked like 2 months ago. Tons upon tons of tiny hand-cut pieces of felt. I pre-sewed some of the cutouts like the "P" on Push's cape. For the pages of the book, I sewed together canvas rectangles and turned them inside out.

PRESENTING AINE'S CLOTH BOOK THAT SHE BETTER APPRECIATE WHEN SHE'S OLDER.
Story included. Keep in mind, this is a really basic story aimed towards young children.

Push the Button Mushroom

Left Page: Hi, I'm Push! I'm a button mushroom!
Right Page: I love to use my imagination.

BOTH PAGES: Today I'm imagining that I can fly. Look how high I can go! Higher than the gum-gum trees and the sweetie birds.

LP: Now I'm imagining I'm a superhero!
RP: On no! It's Spin, the evil turnip! He's always turning up, this time to steal the clouds!

LP: Push to the rescue! POW! CRUNCH!
RP: Hooray! The clouds are back in the sky!

LP: What a great day! Wonder what I'll imagine tomorrow?
RP: The End

Here are some close-ups of my felt cutouts.

After all of the grueling work and late nights hand-sewing the cutouts, it was totally, completely worth it. Also I forgot to mention, to personalize Aine's book I signed it with a sharpie. I have fabric paint but it usually turns out a little puffy and can easily be scratched off once dried. Also when I've used it in the past, I smear it all over the place. So sharpie it is!

I can't wait to read this to Aine and I'm even more excited to hear her version of the story one day.

Linking to:

The first undertaking.

SOMETIMES I WORRY THAT I'M A HOARDER.
My husband and I are experts at moving. Since the start of our relationship, we've moved a total of 7 times and we've only been together for about 5 years. This past year we moved 3 times including a cross country trip from Massachusetts to Texas. Now I wish I could say we've settled down, but I wouldn't be able to say it with a straight face. HAH! Not even close! We're living out a year with my brother and this most recent move proved yet again that we have a crapload of stuff. Both my husband and I love antiques and quality built furniture and we buy the stuff with the intention of lasting a lifetime. This and the fact that I watch the show "Hoarders," makes me worry that we're hoarding. But my husband has assured me we don't (without any explanation or defense). For some reason that made me immediately feel better. He says we aren't so we aren't. Whew!

THE FIRST PIECE OF FURNITURE I REFURBISHED. IT WAS A GOOD START BUT MAN I'M A MORON SOMETIMES.
You'd think we'd have learned by now not to purchase anything new until we've settled down, but we just can't live that way. When I don't have a place to nest, I buy permanent pieces to surround us in our temporary home. So the new piece I had to purchase was a bedside table. We've never had bedside tables and suddenly I felt I couldn't breathe, think, or function until I had the perfect bedside table. Quickly we decided we didn't want to have matching tables.  Different ones would give our bedroom more character! So we went troving the antique stores in Old Town Spring and I found this wonderful white distressed tobacco cabinet.

It was sturdy, heavy, and in decent condition. It had such great detail on the door and legs and the inside was completely lined with tin.

WHERE I START DIGGING MYSELF INTO A DEEP DARK REFURBISHING HOLE.
I paid $80 for the cabinet which actually didn't seem so bad considering the first picture I took above wasn't what it looked like when I bought it. The cabinet was completely covered in white paint, but because the paint job wasn't great, I decided it would be a good opportunity to see what kind of what was underneath and whether I could strip the paint and make the wood gleam. That kind of idea is exactly what makes me a rookie! Look at the legs on that stand. Who the heck wants to strip the paint off of those? And I didn't look closely enough at the piece. The top of the cabinet is made up of 4 thin squares of wood. It has a one full piece of wood underneath that, but you couldn't tell through the white paint that the layer on top was not a piece of solid wood. Another thing I failed to notice was on one of the curves on the sides was patched with wood filler. So part of the curve wasn't even wood. Of COURSE I couldn't just strip the whole piece. The wood filler wouldn't look right unless I painted it. At this point I knew I had wasted my time sanding and now I had to live with the fact that I paid way too much for it!

So after wasting my time sanding the flat areas with a electric sander, the rounder knobby areas with a sanding attachment on a drill, and hand sanding the rest with my own brute strength...I gave up. Only 1/3 of the paint was gone. At this point I felt defeated and just wanted the piece to be done. So I decided to take a shortcut and paint it all white again even though there were still patches of paint here and there.

I painted 3 coats of Behr's Creamy White paint from Home Depot using a medium size brush I bought at Wal-mart. It looked surprisingly good. The paint coated the cabinet evenly and I was relieved.

So that's probably where I should have stopped...

THIS PART IS A LITTLE EMBARRASSING BUT HEY, IT'LL MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER.
Afterwards, I tried to follow Miss Mustard Seed's directions to just distress the high points of the piece, but I wasn't really sure what she meant. They say that everyone distresses furniture to what's pleasing to their own eye, but I guess my eye is psychotic.

Mistake #1: Don't distress everywhere because you think it'll look more even, especially the flat areas of the wood. You think I would've figured that out since MMS suggested to distress the "high points"...but again when I say I wasn't sure what she meant. I REALLY had no earthly idea.
Mistake #2: Use a steady hand. I would distress one corner and suddenly the side of the cabinet would get sanded too. I might be too spastic for distressing, but I figure I can eventually use this to my advantage.
Mistake #3: Take everyone's advice and sand where natural distressing over time would occur. Not rocket science but something that needs to be hammered into my head.
Mistake #4: And last of all, here's what you SHOULDN'T do. You shouldn't try to glaze the cabinet before the paint dries. Yes, I'm often a moron and this is exactly what I did to part of the cabinet. Sigh. This didn't look so bad in the beginning, but once I started the glazing process I got some funky uneven colored streaks.

For glazing, I followed the MMS directions and used Minwax's Dark Walnut Stain. With foam brush in hand, I tackled small areas at a time wiping the stain on the cabinet, and then wiping it quickly off with an old t-shirt. Here's a helpful hint, DON'T keep using the same rag during this process if it's covered in stain. This will leave lots of fun streaky stain marks. I did see this hint later on MMS, but it was already too late. So I had streaks on top of streaks!

SO THIS IS WHAT I END UP WITH?...YAY!
Even after all of that unecessary work, the frustration of knowing I paid too much for a piece of furniture, and far from perfect results...I ended up with a nightstand I love. It's my first attempt at refurbishing and it's a piece I plan to keep for life!

IT'S OKAY. YOU CAN FEEL BAD FOR ME.
You may read this entry and look at the pictures and think, "Wow she really doesn't know what she's doing" or "If this was my piece I could have made it look so much better". But that's okay! I know I'm still learning and I'm proud of what I did.

And for those looking for more aesthetically pleasing pictures, here are the ones  I took with a better camera this morning.

My bedroom is a little crowded with furniture right now, hence the mahogany bureau sneaking into the first picture. But don't worry, I'm not touching that guy. When the wood is that nice, I leave it alone.

HEY, THAT'S A COOL PIPE!
Why yes, that is a cool pipe. Isn't it great? My husband carved it from briar. He's been carving and making pipes for over a year now. Don't you love the natural shape of the pipe and the craggy surface? It looks perfect on my tobacco cabinet nightstand!

Linking to:

Not my first rodeo

This is not my first attempt at a blog, but it is the first time I'm taking it seriously.

HI. I'M EMILY. NICE TO MEET YOU.
When I was a child, I used to say that when I grow up I want to be a mom. That's always been my dream and now it's finally happened. I'm a mother to the most amazing daughter, my Annie. Now as I'm entering the next stage of my life, and as I continue riding the crazy train of motherhood, I insist (I really do...I INSIST!) on achieving a new dream as well. Compared to my first dream it's a little power nap of a dream, but it's still pretty wonderful.

THE DREAM. 
Until now, I never knew what I wanted to do career-wise. I've thought about being a teacher or going back to working in computer management, and then a few weeks ago something clicked (it could have been the gears in my brain clicking back into place after being off-track all this time or it could have been my clicky pen...either way there was a CLICK!). I want to open my own consignment store and I want to do it in the next 5 years.

YES THAT'S RIGHT I SAID IT. 5 YEARS = EMILY OPENING STORE.
Along with consignors' inventory in the store, I want to have my own stock of refurbished furniture and functional (hopefully) home decor items. To meet this goal, I will learn how to repurpose and refurbish furniture and I will do it damn well. I know I need to learn the consignment process and what it's like to be a consignor so...there's this thing called a "blog". And in this so-called "blog", my adventures will be chronicled. I hope that they will all be successful (my adventures...not all blogs in general, well okay...I hope that too), but we know that's impossible because I mess up alot. Not only am I clumsy, I'm also impatient and often refuse to follow instructions. Thankfully for you it'll be extremely entertaining for you all to read!

I DO.
I am making a promise now to write an entry every day and fill it with pictures that you want to see. I will link up to other blogs so you can see what others are doing out there because let's be honest, I'm probably not going to be the best at repurposing furniture or decorating/staging areas, etc. Hopefully you'll still like me anyway. And I know I'm at the very beginning of the process and there are doubts and worries that I will forever be struggling with, but no matter what happens, I know I'll be living this dream the way I want to live it.

THIS IS THE PART WHERE I THANK YOU AHEAD OF TIME BECAUSE NO ONE IS READING MY BLOG AFTER JUST ONE POST.
Thank you to all you future readers out there. I hope you like what you read and I hope to come to know you well.

I REALLY HOPE THIS LOOKS GOOD AFTER I'M DONE WITH IT OTHERWISE I'LL GO...KICK...CHOP...EH, I'LL JUST BE PISSED. YEAH. THAT'S IT. NOTHING REALLY DRAMATIC. JUST PISSED.
This is my upcoming project. Exciting huh? I bought this walnut dining set at the Antique Mall in Spring, TX for $93. It was 75% off the original price. That is an INSANE price for such a great piece (or really pieces).

Just look at those amazing legs (but not so amazing picture quality...gimme a break...my hands were shaking with excitement with from this find).

All the chairs need is a simple upholstery job and they'll be smokin hot again. Right now they're just she-could-be-hotter-if-she-had-some-work-done hot (don't worry everyone, I'm not into surgical enhancement).

This project may take a month just because I'm getting decorations ready for Annie's 1st birthday. But just stay with me and I'll keep you updated on the progress!

HEY. WAIT. HOLD ON. I WANTED TO SAY ONE MORE THING BEFORE PEOPLE ASK.
I'm well aware that the word "beasts" can sometimes look like "breasts" and therefore my blog looks like it's named "Lovely Breasts". I'm thinking that'll get me more readers...although they'll probably be pretty pissed when they find out the blog is full of pictures of furniture instead of boobs.