Dogwood Dresser Makeover with KRINK marker and Ce Ce Caldwell paint

Feeling a bit nostalgic today on the blog.
This is still a favorite of mine and
just made me feel happy all over.
Come see the transformation of
this plain Jane dresser into a dynamite dogwood beauty

Can you believe that THIS beauty;

Used to look like THIS???

I saved this dresser from the big furniture dumpster in the sky!
A.K.A. the CRUSHER. It was priced at only 7 bucks at the thrift store because they were trying to get rid of it. If I didn't buy it then it meant that most likely it would go to the
furniture recycling plant which is actually a giant CRUSHER!
Oh the HUMANITY!! I had to save it!

So I brought it home and it SAT in my garage for ......MONTHS!
My wonderful hubby asked me every day; "what are you going to do with it"
I had NO idea....:) It had  become a STORAGE of sorts. Lots of things started to
pile up on top of it...It was time to GO.

So much UNLIKE the A-team..I didn't have a plan...I never do...
I just walked out in my garage and went...hmmmm..
Grabbed the paintbrush....tooled through my paints and picked out my latest fave..
CeCe Caldwells and let the FUN begin!
Look at it... better already!!

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It was at this point that I decided to recreate my Dogwood dresser, but in
different colors. You know me...I have a hard time with WHITE and BLACK unless of
course they are in some crazy sort of pattern.
I drew out my dogwoods and then Grabbed my OH SO FAVORITE paint pen in the
whole wide world ...My KRINK 

Now I am sure you have all heard me GUSH about how much I love them and this is why!
I drew on my first coat of orange in about 10 minutes....DO YOU HAVE AN IDEA HOW LONG
IT WOULD HAVE TAKEN ME TO PAINT IT ON WITH  A BRUSH????
NOT 10 minutes that's for sure.

after going over it again in a second coat I found some old handles that I had gotten
at a garage sale this past weekend. I got a hodge podge in a ziplock bag for 2 bucks.
I found some that worked and spray painted them in the same color coral as the flowers.

I can't even believe this is the same piece of furniture.

 

It makes me so HAPPY just to look at it!

I hope you all have a BEAUTIFUL day!!

Poppy flowered Night stand

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Here is another project that I decided that I want to put my own personal touch on.

My girlfriend gave me this nightstand that used to be her hubby's and it as is the usual with me; been sitting in my shed..:)  

Well, this weekend we got some BEAUTIFUL weather, so I painted a bunch of furniture. This is what it looked like, just painted.

Cute all on its own, but not good enough for me....:)

I LOVE poppy's...I don't know what it is about them...I just love them...so I decided that I wanted this to have a poppy on it. I looked at tons of pictures online and got one I thought would work for this nightstand. This is not the type of picture you can "just transfer" This one had to be painted. So I got to drawing it on, and started painting.

Just so you know, artists don't always use fancy brushes and such...one part of the center flower needed cute little perfect circles. Guess what I used for that????? A q-tip...that's right....this makes perfect little circles...:)

This is before I added more shading and distressing.....

and here she is all finished...I hope you like it....I had so much fun..listening to music and painting on this rainy windy cold day...

I hope you have a BEAUTIFUL day!!!!!

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Birch Trees Painted piano bench

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 I just found this OLD post from way back in the day and I thought it would be a fun walk down memory lane to look back at one of my first blogging projects.
ENJOY!

I gotta tell you, I have been having so much fun this week. Don't get me wrong, crafting and painting furniture is fun, but when I get to "do a painting" on furniture.....It makes me KA-RAY-ZEE Happy...:)

I have had this piano bench sitting in the shed since approximately.....UMMM....FOREVER!!! (actually since the first day of summer vacation for the kiddos) There it sat with more and more of my crap, oops I mean STUFF on top of it. 

Then the other day when I was painting my dresser I thought, I should really "JUST DO SOMETHING" to that thing....:) 

So I gave it a quick sanding and coat of primer and when it was dry, a coat of steeple gray paint.

 Then it sat.....................AGAIN...............in my garage.   I was thinking: oh I will just quick paint a graphic on it or something. But I have not been painting pictures as much as I would like too, and while I was thinking about how I would love to paint some birch trees, It came to me....Why the heck couldn't I just paint them on the bench. DERRRRRRR!!!! :)

And so it began.

 I painted my backgrounds and shadows on the tree trunks, just like I would in a painting. I then I left for my daughters orchestra concert.

By the time I got home it was dry enough to start working on the bark...and with the rough shape that the top was in, it worked out perfect for the texture of the birch trees. 

I finished out the outside edge in black so that it is framed out

. It is now not only a bench, but a work of art. I am so happy with how it turned out.

I hope you all have a BEAUTIFUL day!!!!

Champagne Crate inspired Coffee table

In honor of NEW YEARS..I am resharing my CHAMPAGNE crate Coffee table
One of my first posts I did way back when I first started Blogging.
I fell in love with it then and had to keep it.
I STILL have it and LOVE IT!
I haven't tired of it yet!

I still have this table and my feet are presently propped up on it while typing..:)

Good Morning my Beauties. I am just so psyched to tell you about this project. I don't know if you remember back this summer while I was camping with my Family up in Pentwater Michigan, my husband and I got a chance to go dumpster diving.  Above in the picture are just some of the things we got in the diving expedition.  :)  One of those items was this table. As you can see from the picture it was missing one of the edge pieces and it was very very wobbly and the top boards were popping up. It was BEAUTIFUL!!! I mean, WHO would throw this away??????  :O

When we got home my husband found a scrap piece of wood and attached it and then used my wood burning tool to etch in some lines.  (I would have done it, I just think he was hoping if  he did this right away I would finish it right away)  YEAH RIGHT!!!

SOOOO it sat like this in the shed for almost 4 months waiting for inspiration!!

Well it never came until I pulled out a bunch of other furniture and decided to just paint a bunch at the same time.  Just like when I do a painting, sometimes the inspiration comes while you are working on it and SHAZAM!!  that's what happened with this one.

I decided I would only paint the legs and side of the table. I would let some of the spray get on the top but not too much.

When it was dry I sanded off a bunch of spots on the top and in the middle. It was at this point I decided that I wanted it to look like an old crate of some kind....BUT WHAT???  I had planned on going to the graphics fairy for an old label or something, but then I remembered taking a picture of an old wine crate a while back.

So I enlarged it and put it on the table...then to add more graphic I just used my word processor and made up Chateau grand vin....(I don't even know what it means...I think it means country house of grand wine....who cares....I loved how it looked)

This is where I used my carbon paper to transfer the image...(no freezer paper transfer for this...tooo big...:(  )

Then I got to painting in. When it was dry I sanded it down again to look worn. Then I went over with some wood stain. I only did it in certain spots though. I didn't want it to look uniform. I wanted it to look worn and old.

I am IN LOVE with how it turned out. It had started out as a project to sell in my booth at CHANGING THYMES and ended up as part of my family.

My husband (who I adore at his love for all my stuff..even if it isn't the greatest) came home from work and said.."YOU CAN'T SELL THIS" "IT'S TOO COOL"

My heart melted at that. So welcome to the family champagne table....I hope you like it here. Because you fit in with this family. A little bit worn and wobbly, but beautiful to those who love you.  Have a BEAUTIFUL weekend. We have bon-fires and kids stuff planned for the weekend so I might actually get a break.  :)             

Until Next time,

Go make someones day BEAUTIFUL!

Not JUST furniture. DIY mania at ART IS BEAUTY. Artwork and Photography and Graphic design

 

 Welcome back my BEAUTIES!

If you follow me on Facebook

you know that there has been a lot going on here

at the Art Is Beauty home.

 Yesterday the store where I sell my Art and Furniture,

"Changing Thymes," was Featured on the Local News station

down at this years Art Prize.  2 of my paintings made it into the display.

You can see the video of the paintings HERE!

It was pretty exciting to see my WHIMSY tree

and Moonlight Coventina show up on the television.

I had planned on selling the coventina, but was waiting until AFTER she needed it for 

the display.

If you are interested you can shoot out an email to me at

artisbeauty1@gmail.com.

 Not only was I in the ArtPrize TV feature for the store,

But I was also asked to Photograph our Christmas display

for a spot in

Michigan Home and Lifestyle Magazine  

Winter edition.

If you remember my Momma was in the hospital at this time and 

I was pretty frazzled, but I had already committed to doing the photo shoot,

and I am so glad I didn't back out.

I was nervous, but excited.

Even more nervous about creating the advertisement itself as well.

I love the owner and the store and really wanted to do a very

professional job.

I am happy to say she was thrilled with how it came out.

Now in ADDITION to ALL that,

I also am in charge of the Sale Graphics for the store.

We are celebrating our 5 YEAR anniversary on October 1,2, and 3.

So this was the Graphic I created.

 If you are from the area, we would love for you to come experience the Changing Thymes 

Store and Family.

I told you its been crazy here.

I am feeling much relief at these things being off my TO DO list.

I am also happy to say that my MOMMA is doing much better.

She is getting some of her Sass back, 

and that is a GOOD thing.

This weekend we are in for some more crazy,

with my two Oldest girls going to their Homecoming dance.

Hopefully I will have some pretty pictures of them to share too! 

If I don't say it enough,

I would love to THANK YOU.

All of YOU,

who come by week after week,

and read what I have to say,

and see what I have to create.

I would still be doing it even if you didn't but 

you guys just make it that much more enjoyable.

Thank you for always making my days,

BEAUTIFUL!

Fenner Nature Center ROADSIDE RESCUE Hand painted FERN dresser

Re-Sharing one of my most popular posts today!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~WHEW!!!!!! That is the first thing I have to say about this baby!
The second thing I should tell you is the BACK STORY....
A couple weeks ago, my Niece contacted me about donating a piece of my furniture for an AUCTION
for Fenner Nature Center for whom she works.. I of course said...
"HECK YEAH"...:)
I said," I have some small pieces", but I told her that if she came upon a dumpster dive
or a ROADSIDE RESCUE that would be cool. Seeing as it was for a Nature Center, I thought it would be poignant that we saved something from the landfill. She said she would keep her eyes peeled.
Well, no more than a few days later, she sends me a picture of THIS!!

A SOLID mahogany 4 drawer dresser just sitting on the side of the road...WHAT THE HECK!!! Some girls have all the luck...:)
We got to scheduling a date when she could come stay for the weekend and we could knock out this project.

And knock it out we did!~ (here she is making me laugh at the fact that she had no sooner backed up her truck and I was attacking the dresser like a PIT CREW in a Race)
I don't like to waste time.....

We stripped off the old worn and broken brass pulls and filled the old holes.

Here is my Niece Katie getting ready to sand the top. (I don't mind telling you that I loved having an ASSISTANT to do this job!)

Here is the solid mahogany top stripped bare

and here it is stained with a nice mix of cherry and walnut stain.

Now for the fun part. We were really trying to keep our "footprint"
as small as possible on this project. I KNEW what paint I wanted to use.
Even better, the color I had pictured in my head was an exact match
to Ce Ce Caldwell's  MICHIGAN PINE....If you have not guessed yet,
we are from MICHIGAN...It doesn't get any better than picking an
Environmentally safe paint, for a rescue project, for an auction, for a Nature Center, IN MICHIGAN...
and its named MICHIGAN PINE.......are you hearing angels singing yet????? :) I was.

So here we were...only about 3 hours in and we are already painting the dresser.

This is how we left it for the night...It was waiting for its...."BEAUTI-FI-CATION"

When Katie and I had gone back and forth in emails talking about what we wanted this project to LOOK like...we had finally decided on a FERN...But we didn't want the regular Fern that
everyone thinks of..We wanted something STYLISH...
So I had researched some ferns and this is the one we decided on.(I am not a botanist and I KNEW artistic license would be used..so we have NO IDEA what type of Fern this really is..:)) We drew it on in the morning and got to painting!!

I can't tell you how much FUN I had working on this project. Having another artist to work with and being able to have your idea come to fruition on the canvas (in this case the dresser) was amazing.
Even though it took us 6 hours combined, just to paint on the Fern. :)

Here I am distressing everything that we had spent all our time painting...LOL!!

and HERE is our mess!!! LOL!!

But it was all worth the MESS for the finished product....

With her new crystal knobs,

and the fern gracefully flowing along her body, she is back to being a BEAUTIFUL
part of Nature.

Here is Me and my Gorgeous Niece Katie...all cleaned up trying to look as BEAUTIFUL as this dresser..

Which will be auctioned off to the highest bidder.
Going from Ugly Duckling to BEAUTIFUL Swan!!
To find out more about the auction you can visit
Fenner Nature Center.
The  auction goes straight to Fenner Conservancy to help them meet their mission of connecting people to nature!
Thank you all, and thank you so much to my Niece Katie Woodhams, for allowing me to be a part of
this!! We both didn't know if we could let our baby go..but we know its for a great cause.
I hope you all have a BEAUTIFUL day!!