DIY MARUSHKA INSPIRED Mountain Wall Mural Quarantine Edition!

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Welcome back my Beauties!
What a WILD ride this last few weeks has been!

I have to admit that at the beginning of the Covid 19

Stay at home orders, I had GRAND PLANS of creating all kinds of wonderful works and organizing and cleaning.......

Funny, right??? ... I am guessing if you all are like me, those plans were just that.....
PLANS!!

You see I am used to being around my Family; a lot!

My husband is home in the summer and so are my kids,

but its usually WARM out and we can do things OUTSIDE..

This was not the case. 

This was more like winter break.

Lots of eating..not knowing what day it is

and not getting out of our pajamas.

My husband luckily was a bit more motivated than me.

You see since he is a Teacher he normally paints in the summers......for OTHER people.

I usually paint our home.

Since he was home he decided to paint all the rooms in the home that I hadn't painted in 15 years.

I had picked up the paint before all this and since we had it he decided to paint our hallway stairway and upstairs hallway.

He finished all that and I was left with a blank wall.

I sit and see this wall every morning while I am in my chair and drink my coffee;  and

after 2 weeks of staring at the plain blank wall, my Artist brain FINALLY got motivated.

If you have been following me for any amount of time,

you know how much I love the mountains. We do big family mountain hiking trips every summer.

You can see a few of those posts.

HERE

or HERE

Missing those mountains finally gave me the motivation I needed to create something that would really be a time capsule dedicated to this crazy time.

Being a child born in the 70s

I have had some strong influences.

One of them a local artist who created 

what we from Michigan lovingly refer to as

MARUSHKAs!

It was a style of silk screen graphic prints by a local teacher/artist named Richard Sweet

that were pretty much on everyone's wall growing up. 

I decided the wall mural I painted was going to be along those lines.

Simple but BOLD.

I needed a perfect circle to start and after trying to figure out how to maybe do it with a compass and a string and a pencil I looked into my kitchen and saw my little bistro table.

My husband kindly unscrewed the top so I could use it to draw my most perfect circle and focal point for the painting.

After I had that I could start hand drawing my mountains. 

I took a pencil to the freshly painted walls and sketched out my design.

Since I couldn't run out and get whatever supplies I needed I decided to go through all of my paints in the house and use those old color theory lessons and mix up the custom colors I wanted. 

Then I could finally get to work.

Funny how once I finally drew on the wall the painting was not scary.

(I know it was weird that drawing on the wall scared me more than putting permanent paint down)

I got to work painting, sometimes mixing the color right on the wall until I got the right tone I wanted.

Once I had it the color I wanted I filled it all in and gave it 2 coats and some touch ups.

I left some dry brushing on the sun/moon to give it depth and texture.

It was nice to have a distraction from the outside world

while I spent 2 days working on this mural.

One of my favorite things now is being greeted by my Mural as I walk down the stairs in the morning.

It brings a smile to my face as I start my day.

Plus this is my view now when I sit and drink my coffee every morning! I get to see my mountains even when I am stuck inside.

I hope this has brought a little bit of happiness and fun to your day.

Honestly...this was the scariest part!

Having my picture taken.

At this point I hadn't put jeans on in 4 weeks...or makeup...

or done my hair.

I already don't like to be photographed as it is, but decided to be a little brave and get my picture taken...(Again as a time capsule sort of deal) 

I am glad I have this now since most likely its gonna be another 4 weeks before I do any of those things again :)

(UPDATE....I changed my stair runner using throw rugs to go along with the new MURAL... You can see that post HERE

 ---> Using Throw Rugs when you can't find a new stair runner rug that you love)

I hope you are all hanging in there.

I hope you are all healthy and safe.

Make your day Beautiful and Kind! 

Until next time! 

RESCUED ANTIQUE SIDEBOARD MAKEOVER

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Welcome back my Beauties!
Finally I made it back with this post I promised a while back.

You may remember a few weeks ago (maybe a month??? :) )

a friend of mine texted and said he was cleaning out a house he was going to be doing some construction on and didn't want to see this beauty go into the dump.

I of course instantly told my husband to empty out the truck so I would be able to go pick it up and we were there within a few hours to grab it. 

It needed a LOT of work, but when I am saving a free rescued piece I don't seem to mind.

I feel like its been through so much, it deserves to finally get some attention.

So the first thing I did as you can see was to peel off what was left of the veneer on top.

It took a little elbow grease and my scraper but I made short work of it. 

Once all the veneer was off I could get to sanding.

I used my Ryobi sander and a few different grit sandpaper and smoothed out the whole top to prep it for stain.

After it was sanded I wiped it down with some tack cloths and got to work on staining.

Since I was going to go with a rich color for the base of the cabinet I wanted a deep dark tone for the top.

So I used Minwax Dark Walnut.

When it was dry I just used some wipe on poly to seal it.

Now the fun part.

After lightly sanding and cleaning the whole base cabinet and securing all loose doors and things

I used General finishes milk paint in Westminster Green

and Twilight, (in a 1/1-ish ratio)to give an awesome dark greenish blue.

(I kept the legs dark and just cleaned them up with some Restore a finish)

While the paint was drying I just grabbed some vintage hardware and gave it a couple coats of Rustoleum copper spray paint to play off the blue green color.

And there she is!!
Can you even believe this is that same piece.

She just needed a little tender lovin care and a lot of elbow grease!

I just love how that green blue played off the copper hardware and the dark wood!

Now you know I am always working on lots of pieces even if I don't post all of them,

so be sure to follow me on 

Facebook --HERE--!

or 

Instagram --HERE--!

I would love to see you over there!
Until next time,

Have a BEAUTIFUL day! 

Before and After Vintage Umbrella Hall Tree Makover

Welcome back my Beauties!
It's been a crazy week here with kids stuff and unfortunately a funeral for our beautiful Step Grandmother. 
In the midst of all that I decided to add to the crazy by redoing a piece of furniture.
Sales have picked up and I have already gone through my reserve pieces which is a good thing, but that means painting a bunch of pieces in a short period of time to restock the booth.
One of those pieces was this vintage-ish pine hall tree. 
You can't see from the pictures but all the stain was missing from the feet and had many gouges and scratches.
No better candidate for paint.

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As I was looking at the piece deciding what color my daughter suggested white.

You know me.... I very rarely do white.

I love color, but I decided to listen to my daughter.

I grabbed my General Finishes Antique White milk paint 

and gave it a couple coats.

After I was done painting I put the hooks back on and got ready to photograph her.

I gotta say. 

I really LOVE it.

I didn't know how I would feel about the white, but I really think it was the perfect color for this piece.

I think it actually makes it feel more vintage. 

My husband even asked if I was gonna keep it he liked it so much.

But as you can see from the picture I had to move my Grandmother Clock that I had redone to photograph it, and I love my Grandmother clock more.

So its off to the BOOTH for this Hall tree.

I hope you guys enjoyed the latest makeover! 

I am off to my studio to paint some more pieces!

Have a Beautiful day!

Outdated 80s Golden Oak Half Table Updated with Deco Art Vintage Effects Wash Paint

Welcome Back my Beauties.

We are in the final days before all the kiddos go back to school  ( and the hubby back to teaching high school and college) and I am in the push to start knocking out more projects before Soccer season starts. 

One of the projects I finished was this Outdated 80s Golden Oak Half Table Updated with Deco Art Vintage Effects Wash Paint.

You can see here in the before it was feeling tired in is 80s golden oak finish that was starting to wear through on the top.

I decided that since it was in great shape structurally that it just needed a little bit of paint to give it a new lease on life. 

This post is a sponsored post or  uses affiliate links to help you find the products I trust and love

I started with Deco Arts new Vintage effect wash in Black.
You can see the quick little Facebook video I made HERE 

showing how easy it is to use!

I used a sponge brush to put on a thin coat over the old oak finish. (I had just lightly sanded the top to prep it for the paint) 

It went on really easy and I loved how it was so quick to update the oak to the rich dark color, all while letting a little of the grain show through.

While the top was drying I decided to use Americana Decor's chalky finish paint in Vintage for the base. 

Here you can see it drying after the top and the base were painted.

Once the top was dry I decided to use Americana Decors 

Winterberry Wreath Stencil, Centering half way off to help accentuate the half round shape of the top.

In order to protect the whole finish of the piece I used 

Deco Art's Americana Sealer in Gloss

I love how it added an even deeper finish to the vintage wash paint on the top. 

I also love how using half the stencil made the top stand out more.

I can not wait to try the new wash paints on some other projects.

I already have a couple ideas spinning in my head after cleaning out my stash of furniture this weekend.

I hope you enjoyed this latest makeover and that you all have a Beautiful week!