I was in the gallery Friday working on my walls when the most delightful lady came in.  She took one look at this painting and fell in love!  Nothing makes my heart smile more than to see something I created make someone smile!  While visiting with her I learned that she was EIGHTY years old.  She most certainly did not look nor act anywhere near 80.  I so enjoyed visiting with her, and the fact that she took such joy in my art made my day. 

 

 

 

This particular piece is one of my favorites, and it is my first mixed media piece.  I am so glad someone who loves it as much as me bought it!

 

 

Peace-n-Luv!

Debbie



Layered Chandy

I have another layered technique to share with you.  I was asked to paint a brass chandelier off-white with a little gray thrown in.  This was the outcome:

I started with this:

First I painted on a couple of layers of home-made chalk paint in off-white.  Be sure to apply it kind of messy:

Then I started randomly applying several different colors of gray:

 

From there I just kept applying the off-white and different grays until I had applied several layers.  Then I did a little sanding and little dry brushing here and there.  Here are several close-ups to help you get a better idea of the final look:

 

 

Now the client has a nice off-white "aged" chandy for her beach house. 

 

Peace-n-Luv!

Debbie

 

Partying with:

Coastal Charm
French Country Cottage
Miss Mustard Seed
ReDoux Interiors

It's Back! The Upside Down Tree is All Dressed for Spring!

Yep, that upside down tree in the chandelier is back again, but this time its all done up for spring!  The owner just loves this tree and it makes her happy, so she asked me to change it out to spring a few weeks ago.  Unfortunately the photographs didn't turn out very well and I've not had a chance to go back and take more until recently.  The owner loves what I came up with and I hope you guys do too!

She also wanted to keep the garland around the fireplace, so I added some grapevine garland that I spray painted white.  The designer prefers to keep it simple so I didn't add anything else to the garland.  I changed the wreath out to grapevine wreath that I also painted white with a springy bow.

 



 



 

Well, I hope you guys enjoyed it, and who knows, perhaps you'll be seeing it for summer and fall???? 

 

Peace-n-Luv!

Debbie

Partying with:

Coastal Charm

 



Yaaaayyy! A Pinterest Order!

A couple of weeks or so ago I get an e-mail from a lady saying she had found me on Pinterest while searching for frames.  She had come across a pin from the post I had about framing a wedding invitation.  (You can see that post here.) She needed a wedding gift and wanted to know if I could do something similar for her, but more fitting with the invitation she had.  I said sure, just send me the invitation.  So we go our happy ways waiting on the postal service to do their thing (scary, I know!).  Well a week goes by and still no invite.  I finally tell her that I was afraid it was lost in postal la la land.  I am bummed.  I was so excited to have been "discovered" through Pinterest and actually have an order!  Especially since I in no way even try to promote myself through Pinterest.  I mean I pin things when I make blog posts, but I don't make it a priority.  I know, I know, (this is the point where I hear Lucy at Lucy Designs saying she's going to whip me - lol!)  I'm a horrible business person.  I would be so much better off if someone would do all my quoting and billing and posting for me!!  Well, once again, I digress, imagine that! 

Then as luck would have it, our Internet went out.  Went our for FOUR days!  Yes I said FOUR days! uggghhh!!  Finally they send a repairman.  When I open the front door he introduces himself then says "Is this your mail down here?"  Yaaayyyy!!!  There it was!!  I'm tellin' ya the Big Man upstairs really does look out for ya.  Apparently the mailman had left the mail at the front door because the envelope was oversized and wouldn't fit in our box.  Obviously we NEVER go to our front door!  There's no telling how long it had been out there.  Now, I hate to complain about the Big Man upstairs because he does such a great job looking out for us and everything, but I do have to say I wish he could have found another way to have sent me to the front door, I mean I missed out on all that crap research I look at on the Internet, but the real kicker was that Flower Bud missed four homework assignments. Luckily the teachers let him slide (well that's what he said anyway, we'll see...)  So finally, invitation in hand I get to work and this is what I came up with:

I know it was an awful long story to tell ya about one little ol' frame, but you have to admit it was entertaining!  lol!  It wouldn't have been nearly as interesting if it had arrived in the mail on time.  Then I would have just posted, hey, look at this frame I did.  I got the order through Pinterest.  You might would have smiled.  Maybe.  But not like you did reading this story, huh??? 

Well, I've achieved my goal.  Made ya smile.  My work here is done. 

Peace-n-Luv!
Debbie

Brass to Old Paint Layered Wood

Today I'm gonna tell ya how I got brass light fixtures to look like this:

I think I've mentioned before that I do a lot of work for a very talented designer.  Well, she likes to give me fun little projects (I mean that seriously, not sarcastically) (well, okay, maybe a little sarcastically, but in a fun sarcastic way) (really!).  So the other day she says she has a project for me.  She brings me these (not exactly the prettiest things in the world which I guess would explain why she's bringing them to me, duh!):

 

 

And here's the kicker, she wants me to match the trim on this gorgeous mirror!

Here's a close-up of the trim:

So, after I promise her I'll make the ugly brass look like this (sometimes I just wonder at what comes out my mouth...) I put my thinking cap on and this is what I came up with:

 

First I spray painted them with plain ol' brown spray paint.

 

 

 

Then I mixed up some home-made brown chalk paint:

 

 

And I slapped on a very messy coat:

 

 

I repeated that process with a couple of different colors of white:

 

 

Every once in a while I'd throw in some gold and gray placed randomly:

 

 

I repeated all of the layers of chalk paint MANY times, really, I have no idea how many layers I applied, I just did it until I achieved this:

 

 

Then I started sanding, using different grades of sandpaper:

 

 

Once I got the look I was kinda going after I applied dark wax.  First I used some Annie Sloan dark wax, getting it into all the nooks and crannies and little grooves I created with the sandpaper.  Then I used some steel wool and more sandpaper and kind of sanded bits of it off.  Then I applied some Bri wax in light brown.  Sometimes I would even go back and apply some more chalk paint, really building up the layers until I finally got it to look like this:

 

Here are lots more close-ups, once again I apologize for posting so many photos, but each area looks differently and it is the only way I know how to show you what the finish really looks like:

 

 

Well that's how I made brass look like old multi-layered painted wood.  If you hadn't seen them in the beginning would you have known they were originally brass???  (Okay I'm really hoping your answer to that question is no!) 

 

Peace-n-Luv!

Debbie

 

Groovy Shelves

Happy Fat Tuesday!  I've been mardi grasing it up so much that I forgot to share a post with you.  I did these groovy shelves for a client the other day.  She had recently commissioned some artwork for her daughters and asked me to paint the shelves to match the artwork.  One daughter's room is predominantly turquoise and hot pink and the other's is turquoise and purple.  In fact, not long ago I did the zebra print vanity for the daughter with the hot pink room.  You might remember it, but if not you can read about it here.  Here are the shelves to go with her room:

Originally they looked similar to this (I forgot a before photo of all of the shelves, but they were basically all the same):

She wanted to match this artwork she had commissioned me to do:

Here are some close-ups:

Here is the purple version:

Pretty groovy, huh?  Sometimes I wish I was a pre-teen girl so that I could get away with decorating my room like this!  Ha!  BTW, for more photos/close-ups of the artwork please visit my Facebook page!

Wishing you a groovy day!

Peace-n-Luv!

Debbie