A new world for me: cabinet and furniture finishes

I've been at big girl "camp" this week, hanging out at Faux Works doing the thing I love to do, but never have time to do. But this time I have been playing on cabinets and not walls. I met some great decorative artisans from all over the world (everybody wants to train with Barb). It is so exciting for someone like me who just does this stuff because I think it's cool, to hang around people like them. I have always been too overwhelmed to venture into the world of fine cabinetry and furniture finishes. Walls were all I could wrap my brain around, and even that was a lot to handle. But I have finally decided to stop thinking too much with all this stuff, and so I just registered to take the class...and now I wish I hadn't waited so long. Barb Skivington, in all her awesomeness, put together a basics cabinet finishes class for all us first timers in the world of wood surfaces and it was anything but basic. These finishes are Habersham, Woodland quality finishes (actually, they are even better). They feel as good as they look. I wish you could see how excited I get when I finally start grasping how these surfaces are created, it's like "ohhhhhhhhh, now I get it". Just thrilling for me! All the below photographs are courtesy of Faux Works website and Barb Skivington's masterful work. And yes, now I can do that! Oh how I love this stuff!

Chalk Paint: My new BFF

I told you Chalk Paint was going to be my new BFF. I'm using Annie Sloan's paint, and it is the easiest paint that I have ever worked with. This piece of furniture was a simple little TJ Max find that I have had forever. Though the daiquiris are cute, they aren't exactly my look, but a lovely coat of "Paris Grey" was all it needed. Paris Grey? Are you kidding me!?!? I would paint my entire house in this color, if my cute carpenter would let me, just because of it's name.

I am going to take this lovely to "The Lemonade Stand", aka: our antique booth. Have I told you my husband has named it "The Lemonade Stand"? He says it is pretty much just a lemonade stand for big girls. I can't say I necessarily disagree with him.

Linking up with The Shabby Nest and A Few of My Favorite Things!

Wall Candy

One of my favorite places on this planet of ours is the design studio where I have done my decorative finish training. It is simply gorgeous! Every time I walk through the doors, my hands immediately go to the walls and my brain starts working on overload. It is almost too much to take in. So many wall finishes, so many cabinet finishes...so little time! If I could choose any profession to pour myself into, it would be a decorative artisan. It is the reason I subscribe to far too many magazines like Veranda, I seek out the walls in every magazine I open. Have you seen the cover of the newest Ballard Designs catalog? All of Suzanne Kasler's designs fall on the backdrop of gorgeous wall finishes. I love the big scale concept of art that comes with creating decorative finishes. Details are too tedious for me, and though I love a smaller scale art project here and there, by far my favorite art form is creating art on walls.

Last week I was able to return to Faux Works for more training. It always kind of feels like I am returning home after being away for a long time. I love spending time here, and I thought you might enjoy a few pictures of Barb Skivington's studio:

Decorative finish sample boards are notorious for photographing poorly. You loose all detail in a photograph, and you cannot appreciate one of the best parts of a decorative finish: the texture. But nonetheless, here are few samples.

I love this quote, and any artist of any kind knows exactly what he means:

Chalk paint, have you heard of it? I think it going to be my new best friend for furniture.

And here is my new favorite lovely. This is probably the most beautiful finish I have ever seen. It is formal and elegant, yet weathered and aged, all at the same time. The photograph does not do it justice. It is a stop you in your tracks kind of lovely, and my foyer is about to get a makeover.

Thanks for touring around with me.

An attempt at explaining stenciling...and a few other things

Sometimes I make things more difficult than they have to be. My stenciled wall was such a thing. Because I like to play with decorative finishes, I was determined to use the color combination of these two products for my stenciled pattern. Aren't they lovely? I mixed them equally at a 50 /50 ratio, and what I came up with was indeed lovely...just not necessary. In hindsight, I should have just used craft paint. It would have been simpler, less expensive, and I would have achieved the same look. Having said all that, if you are anything like me and determined to find the hard way, check out the Faux Effects website to order decorative products. If you are smart, just go to Micheal's and pick out a good shade of Folk Art craft paint to use as your color.

OK. So once you have your color picked out, you will also need to purchase "repositional spray adhesive" to hold your stencil on the wall. You can purchase such a thing at any craft store. And speaking of stencils, if you have never checked out Royal Design Studios, you need to. It's owner, Melanie Royals, carries the most extensive and beautiful line of stencils I have ever seen. I purchased my lattice stencil for this project from her for about $40. They come with detailed instructions and are excellent quality.

Step one to stenciling a room is to plan your layout. If you purchase a stencil from Royal Designs, it will come with instructions on how to do this. Her stencils have "registration marks" in each corner of the stencil. These marks allow you to line your stencil up all the way around your room, keeping your spacing accurate. It is helpful to mark all the way around the room where all your registration marks are so that you can freely move about the room during the process. You cannot stencil one stencil right next to another, as you will be overlapping on wet paint. You must skip about the room while you allow the paint to dry, and the only way you can do this is if you have pre-marked all of your registration marks. Does that make sense?

Step two is to spray the back of the stencil with repositional spray adhesive so that it will stick to the wall and prevent your product or paint from leaking underneath. Are you already thinking that I am weird and completely incapable of explaining this process? No worries, sweet Caroline doesn't think I make any sense either.

Step three is to line up your stencil with the registration marks where you have decided to begin the process on your wall.

Step four is to start rolling your product over the opening of the stencil.

And then repeat...And repeat...

And repeat...

And repeat...

And then stop when you finish. The process is not difficult, it is just tedious...and it may require a glass of wine.

The window treatments. The two long window treatment panels are hanging on a rod behind the valance. The valance has been attached to a 2 x 4 with a staple gun and hung on the wall using "L" brackets...all my cute carpenter's work.

I only hire the very best seamstresses...they do great work.We carried the bed out and spray painted it red. It was killing me not to set the entire bed up with bed linens and do a photo shoot outside. Seriously, how stinkin' cute would that have been...my kids all cuddled up in white linens on this bed outside?!?! But I had no time for such playful things.

I had pillows to make. Remember I told you that I loved the look of Serena and Lily's little buddy pillows. I printed the image out on transparency paper and pulled out my overhead projector. Yes, I own an overhead projector and it is one of my favorite toys. I bought it off ebay for $30 and it was worth every penny. Now I am well aware that there are fancy shmancy computer programs out there that will do such things, but I prefer the prehistoric method. I can easily turn the projector on and off...no computer program to learn that will cause me to feel bad about myself when I cannot learn how to use it.

I traced the pattern onto duck cloth and cut it out.

Border the edge of the dog cutout using a zigzag stitch, to prevent the fabric's edges from freying.

Steam a Seam is a product that will stick fabric to fabric. I use it for appliques on shirts for my girls, and it worked great for this project as well. Directions are included, but you basically just use an iron to steam and secure the cutout into place.

There are two smaller details in the accessories of this room that I think are worth mentioning. In case you are new to Playing Sublimely, I have two tutorials out there in blogger world for monogrammed candles and also decoupaged picture frames. Click here for the candle tutorial, and click here for the picture frame tutorial.

I am hesitant to click publish on this post, as I feel it to be a poor tutorial on the "how to's" of this room...but if I am being honest, my youngest daughter starts kindergarten today and my brain is somewhere else. As it should be I suppose. But please feel free to email me if you desire to know more about the stenciling process...or anything else for that matter.

Anybody else sending off a kindergartner this year?