TRANSFORMED, from broken to beautiful
Yippee! It’s time for another break from all my writing and all your reading and get down to something fun. Today I’m sharing a cute table we found a few years back when we happened upon a junky little store in the Pacific Northwest. I loved her from the start. Every wobbly and cracked part of her.
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What do you do to keep from going stir crazy when you’ve come down with a late summer cold that leaves you feeling just…plain…crummy? What do you do when the good doc says, “You need rest,” but resting leaves you restless? When my body is at rest my mind becomes busy with thoughts of all of the things that need to be done. Can anyone relate? So I’ve been doing my best to follow doctor’s orders, resting a lot and only doing “little” projects.
In playing around with paint this week I decided to give this sweet plaster angel an Old World look, like something you might find in a French Flea Market. I first learned this technique from Rosemary, who blogs at Villabarnes and is an amazing artist. It is a technique that is easily accomplished with a little paint and Gesso. Note: Gesso is a medium used to prepare painter’s canvas and can be found in art and craft stores.
This painting technique looks best on items with lots of nooks and crevices, such as frames, carved boxes, and figurines. Thrift stores have a wealth of items available or you might want to try it out on a decorative piece you already have at home.
I began by quickly painting my angel with dark grey paint. I wasn’t particularly careful about how I painted it and I left some areas more sparsely painted where I wanted the original gold to show through.
After the grey paint dried I slathered on some homemade Gesso. Yes, slathered. I wasn’t at all careful about full coverage.
Before the Gesso could dry I wiped back the whole piece with a paper towel, exposing the color beneath.
Finally, in certain areas that I wanted to highlight, I wiped even more of the Gesso away with the corner of a damp paper towel.
A little drying time and VOILA, a new creation! Old Things New or maybe New Things Old?
Here she sits on my dresser amidst my Vintage Lace Bottles, wearing a little vintage jewelry of her own.
I like the color contrast of this angel against all the creamy white.
Here you can see the areas where I didn’t quite cover the gold. I ended up sanding back even a bit more to allow more gold to show through.
I do believe this is the quickest and easiest DIY I’ve ever posted. I love simple projects like this don’t you?
I made my paint and Gesso with very little expense using recipes that I learned in the Farragoz Painting Course but you could use any chalk type paint and store bought Gesso to accomplish the same effect.
I’m off now to take a little rest before transforming another garage sale find! 😉
Blessings,
TheDIYShowoff, LifeOnLakeshoreDrive, NiftyThriftyThings, SilverPenniesSundays, SundaysAtHome
Do you like shopping with girlfriends? I LOVE it, and I am wayyy . . . past due for a girlfriend’s shopping day. In fact, it is one of the things I miss the most since moving from Washington State to South Carolina last year. I had the bestest shopping buddies back home and my hubby never worried about our shopping dates because we had more fun being together and laughing with each other than spending a lot of money and having to pack around a bunch of bags (though that can be fun too)!
Well, I haven’t found new shopping buddies here in SC yet so maybe y’all will come with me. Or maybe ALL y’all will come with me, because that’s the way we say it here when there are more than a few people. Are you in? Great! If you don’t mind, I’d like to make a stop at Starbucks for a Grande Soy Iced Caramel Macchiatto. Maybe you’d like something to drink for the road too? My treat!
Today’s shopping trip won’t be for clothes. My buddies and I used to love going to Bellevue Square and spent a lot of time in Nordstrom’s shoe department (Roses’s favorite). Today, since I’m doing the driving, I’ll be taking you to a very special place that I visited for the first time while on vacation this month. The Old Luckett’s Store! Now this would NOT be Roses’s favorite place because she isn’t fond of used things, but she was always a sport and went along for the ride. I don’t really think it was Debbie’s thing either but it grew on her, and since she and her hubby bought our old house she’s been seen frequenting places like this more and more.
Anyhoo, let’s get started. When we enter the doors of Luckett’s you are in for a real treat. Enough talk already. Explore away. And be sure to let me know if you come across any old corbels!
Oh look! Here’s Mr. OTN holding a shutter to match my eyes. He is the sweetest and I never know where he might turn up!
He also found the very corbels I’ve been searching for! Muah!
Did you find anything inside the store that you couldn’t live without? Let’s head outside for some more shopping.
Amazing yes?
Can you say PERFECT PATINA?
The Old Luckett’s Store 42350 Luckett’s Rd Leesburg, VA 20176 703-779-0268
The sweet ladies working at Luckett’s showed me this before and after picture of the store and I would be remiss not to share it with y’all. I’m as much in love with the house as it’s contents.
Thank you SO much dear friends for indulging me by going along with me on this virtual shopping trip. I wish I could have you here in person so we could “Oooh” and “Ahhh” together. After a morning of shopping we’d find a fun place to have a light lunch followed by a heavy dessert (shared of course). Then we might indeed find a Nordy’s (a native Seattleite’s nickname for Nordstrom’s) where we would look at all of the pretty clothes, and maybe find a great pair of new shoes. Once we were done there we would need another coffee or tea before hitting the road back home.
It’s been a great day with friends whom I adore. See ya’ soon!
Blessings,
Do you remember my recent trip to Pasadena and The Greatest Flea Market on Earth? Remember all of the “to drool for” items that I captured on camera? Well, there was one vendor who is so talented at doing what I myself am all about, making OldThingsNew, that I decided to save her photos for a separate blog post. Lisa of Raphael Creations creates fun and funky re-purposed light fixtures from vintage items.
I can hardly wait to show you the pictures but before I do, let me tell you a little about Lisa:
Lisa’s career has spanned 20+ years of nearly every type of job in the entertainment industry. She has always had a creative and imaginative mind (she was one of those kids who was always getting into trouble for taking apart her dad’s electronics). Her recent creations came out of a desire to do something with an old Underwood typewriter she owned. “Bright” idea: She turned it into a lamp for her home. After that she was on a roll and today she creates and sells her lamps both online and in various Southern California locations.
Have a look at a few of her fabulous re-purposed items!
An old Westinghouse radio lamp . . . in turquoise (love)!
A little extra kitchen lighting via an old meat grinder!
Does anyone collect vintage cameras? I would love to have this one.
Pipes and fittings light fixtures.
And an old Underwood turned table lamp! I wonder if this is Lisa’s original first creation?
Who knew that Lisa’s curiosity would lead her to one day begin creating and selling such unique, one-of-a-kind light fixtures. She also takes custom orders for lamps made from vintage items that you own. What a fun gift idea . . . Father’s Day perhaps?
To see more of Lisa’s work, including microphone, blender and vintage gas pump lamps(!), head over to Lisa’s website at raphael-creations.com
Thank you Lisa for letting me take pictures (after I promised that I wasn’t going to copy your work and admitting that I wouldn’t even know how)! You are one talented lady!
Don’t you love seeing other people’s junk re-purposed into new treasures? Did you have a favorite one of Lisa’s creations? If you’d like to view more great re-purposing ideas please check out my Old Junk Transformations board on Pinterest.
Blessings,
So where do I begin? Anyone who reads flea market type magazines has heard of the Pasadena Rose Bowl Flea Market. I myself have been fascinated by stories about it for a long time. So when my youngest daughter Bethany moved to Pasadena I was thrilled to have the the chance to check it out for myself.
It is billed as The Greatest Flea Market on Earth! I don’t know if that’s true or not but I’m here to tell ya’ that it is ginormous! We started off shopping the circle around the perimeter of the arena first before we realized that there was another huge section over the bridge and behind the arena. Row upon row of junk, glorious junk!
There were handcrafted items, vintage clothing, antiques, Steam Punk, rustic, industrial . . . but enough talking already, come along and see our day at The Greatest Flea Market on Earth!
Of course we couldn’t possibly see it all. There comes a point in the day where you just can’t take any more in. But it was wonderful and fun, there was something for everyone, the prices ranged from a bit too high to great bargains, especially as it came closer to closing time and the vendors were offering discounts. I was restrained in my buying (a fortunate thing I guess) by the fact that I had only one bag to bring home on the plane and it was already full with the flowers I bought at the L.A. Flower Market. We escaped the market with only one small purchase for my daughter’s apartment (which is darling by the way and well done on a student’s budget, but that is for a future post).
So was it The Greatest Flea Market on Earth? I’ve never been to one better, and in the end it was a great day of sunshine, people watching, eating, shopping and spending time with my girl. I would definitely do it all again!
Blessings to you,
