Dry Brush Cabinet and Knob Redo

I always like trying new things so when I considered my options to redo this rolling cabinet, I decided to go with the dry brush technique. I've never dry brushed any of my pieces, but thought it would be my best bet because of the dark stain that someone had liberally painted on the wood of the cabinet. There were layers and layers of the stain, it almost looked like brown paint, and even worse it was uneven, streaky, and starting to peel off in the back. I got a good work out sanding the cabinet down with 80 grit sandpaper before I started painting.

The cabinet, which was an estate sale find, isn't finished yet but here's what the door looks like right now. I used 1 coat of ColorPlace Interior White (the cheapo Wal-mart brand) and 1 coat of my free Sherwin Williams Samovar Silver sample pint. I still plan to add 1 or 2 more coats of other shades of grey (since I have 7 different samples that I got for free from a woman who lives nearby!).

I followed Kelli's dry brush technique from her cute and creative Restore Interiors blog. It was so helpful but I don't think my cabinet will look as nice as her trestle table! My cabinet is just too boxy. On the upside it's functional and would go great in a bathroom, guest room, or craft room. Especially if the dry brushing works out. I'm still not sure how I like it at this point, if all else fails I'll paint the whole thing just white or grey. Boring, but still an improvement from where I started!

Oh yeah, I should briefly mention the dry brush technique. I dabbed the tip of my brush in paint, wiped most of it off using a rag, and lightly brushed the wood all over. Then using Kelli's advice, I didn't wash the brush before I started the next paint color. Super easy. I can see why so many people use this technique! It's very forgiving :).

And here's my little knob redo! A tiny project for you all. The cabinet came with a ugly broken knob.

The top of the knob was made of clear plastic before (not sure what shape), but all that was left was the back portion. So I used one of my leftover pieces of burlap from my Mission Style Burlap Chair and wrapped it around the knob with hot glue.

It was a little bulky around the edges, so I smoothed it down by trimming the burlap with fabric scissors. See? Just because something is broken doesn't mean you need to throw it away! The knob is so cute now! It still has another life to live, but I don't think it will be back with the cabinet. The styles don't go together. I'm on the hunt for a replacement for the cabinet. Any suggestions?

Loving,

Emily

Lovely Beasts Giveaway Winner!

Thanks to all who entered the Apothecary Dome Giveaway and helped Lovely Beasts get over 100 followers! Woohoo! And now for the winner of the dome, 3 hardware knobs, and 10 pages of the anatomy manual...

Using the random.org generator it's...

...#1! Breana at Vault 31! 

Hooray! Congrats Breana! She has an amazing blog full of one-of-a-kind finds and beautiful handmade jewelry. Please check her out at http://vault31.blogspot.com/ when you get a chance! Can't wait to see what she does with those anatomy manual pages!

Thanks again to all for participating in my first giveaway. It was so much fun for me. And don't worry, it won't be the last :).

Loving,

Emily

105 Followers and Distressing Thank Yous

Hooray! I hope everyone is having a Happy July 4th weekend! I know I am. I now have over one hundred followers thanks to some very kind people out there. Thank you all! 105 is a great number :).

If you haven't yet, please enter my Apothecary Dome Giveaway!!! You have until the end of the day tomorrow before I choose a winner (using a random generator). Don't forget you have 2 chances of winning by commenting and following my blog. Hope you all enter! (even if you don't like the giveaway that much :D)

This past Friday I brought in my cottage headboard to Grace Hart & Co. I wanted to get it in before the weekend for all the holiday shoppers, but I had some issues actually getting it to the store. I'm guessing most people have experienced this, but when paint gets rubbed or pulled off from moving furniture from one location to the next, it can be one of the most frustrating, curse-inducing, inanimate-object-kicking events ever. Now I know some people have had furniture or items break during the move, so that's obviously worse, but I think we can all agree it's heartbreaking anytime something bad happens to a piece you've worked hard on.

In this case, I had to fit the headboard in our little Honda Fit by myself. The car actually has a lot of space when you put down the seats (almost the same as a SUV), but it's nowhere near as nice as having a truck! You may have noticed that my most recent furniture has been on the smaller side. There's a reason for that! I only let myself buy things that can fit in our car. And because I'm still pretty new to Houston, I don't have any friends who own trucks. So the Honda Fit is the official moving van of Lovely Beasts! I knew the headboard was a tight squeeze in the car because I remember transporting it from the estate sale to our house. So I carefully covered it in a blanket before maneuvering it into the back of our car. Immediately paint started scraping off the sides and top of the headboard. ARGHHHH! I screamed and yelled and frightened the nearby kitties and birdies away. I gently pulled the headboard out to survey the damage and proceeded to scrape off some more paint in the process. @$@#%#%$#!

For a few minutes I just blankly stared at the headboard. Do I repaint and fix the issues and bring the headboard in another day, or do I figure out a way to make it work? And I know most people have said thanks for this in the past, but I'll say it again now, THANK YOU THANK YOU to the general public for liking the distressed look! I brought out some sandpaper and distressed the areas that were missing paint, and continued to distress the edges and some of the details to create a more natural look. It looked pretty nice. Possibly an improvement, I couldn't decide. And if you're wondering why I didn't distress the headboard in the first place, I like shabby chic, but lately I've been leaning towards a cleaner look. Glazing without distressing. In this situation though, for my own sanity, I had to distress the headboard. Distress was thy name! Now, I just had to get the headboard back in my tiny car!

So after some light shoving and squeezing, I got the headboard in. And, lucky for me my brain was still working and I decide to bring some sandpaper with me to fix any areas that would get damaged in the process of taking the headboard out of the car when I got to the shop. You would have laughed to see me driving to the store. The front seat was pushed up all the way to the steering wheel and I had to bend my knees to the side to press the pedals properly. Not easy for someone that's 5' 8".

After getting to the shop, I had some help to take the headboard out and further distressed areas that were scraped off. Unfortunately I was so worked up about the whole situation, I didn't get a picture of what it looked like afterwards. But I was content with the results and still felt it was a piece that I was proud of selling. Whew. So just imagine her with some wood peeking through here and there.

So that's my adventure for the weekend. I've gone thrifting and hit up a few yard sales, but no dice. Maybe tomorrow I'll start on a cabinet I've had for over a month now. Or maybe I'll just relax and eat a lot of food that's bad for me. Either way I think I'll enjoy myself!

Apothecary Dome Creation and First Lovely Beasts Giveaway!

Welcome new and existing readers of Lovely Beasts! I hope you all will enter my first ever giveaway today because if you don't, I'll think you don't like me or my stuff :).

I've been buzzing inside for the last few days out of excitement about putting this together! I wanted to have a giveaway the minute I started the Lovely Beasts blog, but told myself I had to reach the goal of 100 followers first. So I'm realllly close (only 3 away) but I've made an executive decision to host the giveaway anyway! It's not really cheating when you're being generous right?!

I'll talk more about making my tiny little apothecary dome, but first a wonderful picture of what you will win if you enter the Lovely Beasts Giveaway! And by the way, this has been my favorite photo shoot/staging yet. Hope you like the pictures because they were so much fun to take!

If you enter you will win my little apothecary dome, 3 beautiful vintage hardware knobs, and 10 pages from a Comparative Anatomy lab manual from the 60's (including 2 pages with animal anatomy drawings).

Wouldn't it be great to win all of this stuff?! Decorate your little refurbished table with the glass dome, update your vintage drawers with the knobs, or mod podge your ornaments or glass with the lab worksheets! Yes! It would be! I know it and you know it. So please enter! The rules are at the bottom of this post.

Before you see more pictures, I'll show you how I created the apothecary dome. Some of you may remember that I bought an antique New Zealand newspaper from 1895. Well it was falling apart and in pieces, so I used one of the portions that fell away for the bottom of the dome. It's an amazing advertisement for Crawford's Pills (I believe to help stomach pain). I mod podged it to the bottom of the dome putting the glue on both the glass and the newspaper. Here's what it looked like before the glue dried.

Once the glue dried, I "shaved" off the excess paper around the edges of the glass with an emery board. Thanks to Gloria from Potentially Beautiful for that life-saving tip! It worked much better than the exacto knife  and reduced the possibility of stabbing or cutting myself. Here's the bottom "unshaven."

Even the bottom of the dome is beautiful to me! Next I took remnants from the newspaper that had fallen away or were cut off from my previous dresser redo, and mod podged them to the outer rim of the plate. I always save paper and fabric remnants from projects because I know I can always use them later! I hate to waste and love to reuse.

After using the emery board and exacto knife to clean up the edges, I mod podged the outside of the newspaper to protect the surface, it looks...awesome!

It's almost like a lens. If you look at the plate of the dome from different angles, you will be able to read more of the ad. After carefully cleaning the glass with some windex, I took the same picture under natural sunlight. You're able to see the color and age of the newspaper much better here.

Why can't advertisements look like this anymore? And yes it's hard to give this lovely dome away, but it makes me happy to think someone else will enjoy it! This is all yours if you enter the giveaway!

Here's a few close-ups of the pages:

And if you're wondering what the whole manual looks like:

The knobs have a wonderful patina and will go great as decorations, hooks, or drawer pulls. And the anatomy book is a bit creepy, but the pages are really fun to frame. I've actually used some to create unique cards and envelopes. There are a lot of worksheets/quizzes in there, but I'll make sure to give the winner 2 pages with anatomy drawings (just like the one of the shark above). A total of 10 pages in all!

So you want to win all of this right? This giveaway is open until July 4th. Everyone has 2 chances to win by doing the following:

• Leave me a comment to enter and let me know what you like about the giveaway
• Follow me! And leave me a comment that you are doing so. If you're new, PLEASE PLEASE follow me! I would love to have more excuses to have giveaways. And I want  to follow you back so leave me your link as well! 

Good luck to all!

loving,

emily

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Cottage Headboard Reveal

I know I know, I've been such a tease about my headboard. So without further ado, here she is! A full or queen size headboard perfect for a cottage or beach house!

I've already shown you hundreds of times, but she started out like this.

Pretty, but there were discolorations in the stain and pock marks all over the place. I thought about refinishing the wood, but I realized that the work involved wouldn't justify the overall cost and worth of the headboard. And in my opinion, this style won't sell well unless it's given a new look. 

So after filling the pits in the wood with Minwax wood putty, I lightly sanded the headboard all over. Here were the ingredients used to get the below look:

• 2 coats of cheap white Wal-mart paint (ColorPlace brand) all over
• 2 coats of my free Sherwin Williams Uncertain Grey sample paint on the details
• 2 coats of Behr Creamy White on the rest
• 1 test coat of Minwax Dark Walnut stain on the middle section

Argh! Barf! The glaze came out horrible. I tried rubbing off as much as I could, but it was still much too brown and way too streaky. I was not happy. Here's a close-up of what anger looks like.

Back to the white paint again! I painted 1 coat of the Creamy White over the glaze and hoped that it would be enough to cover it up. It wasn't, but it actually worked out in my favor. The glaze was now just right! 

I added a good amount of water to my Dark Walnut stain to achieve a similar look on the rest of the headboard, and ended up with happy results. The glaze is darker on the grey details because I wanted it to complement the patina on the circular brass details on the side.

And finally finally, she is done.

 

 

I think she'll look so lovely in a room full of white and grey. So glad she's done!

And I keep talking it up, but I've got an awesome 100 Followers giveaway I'm working on for Thursday! I haven't reached the number yet, but I don't really care anymore. Hopefully some of you will follow me once the giveaway is available!

UPDATE: For those of you who are dropping by from a party, the giveaway is officially open! I would love if you entered here! 

Emily

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