recycled furniture obsession update

Yay, have finished my latest recycled furniture project and am quite thrilled with the outcome. i had a bit of an obsession with it for awhile (it being painting furniture).  here's a few of the pieces i've painted in the past. 

now, i can't take credit for this idea even though i would REALLY like to. the idea came  from this wonderful woman/artist's blog that I follow, you can see it here. and I think her's looks better than mine.  i think it is the paler coloured papers that she has used, and i kinda wished i'd used paler colours.  anyway am still very happy with my unique piece of furniture. 

this is the ugliness of how the cupboard started out ...

then I  used ESP on it and then painted it a cream colour ....

 cut up a heap of scrapbooking paper and glued them on using Mod Podge Hard Coat ...

 ... and here it is again in all its gloriousness

 and a bit of a close up ...

it really is an easy project, and surprising quick to do.  give it a go.  you'll enjoy the process and the blissful outcome. really.

reversed canvas

look at these .... just look at them.  i can't believe how simple yet amazingly fantastic they are.  they are just a reversed canvas.  think of all the possibilities and all the sizes ... and all the colours!  wowee my brain is in overdrive.  and how easy would they be to make????

I found them, along with lots of other goodness, over here.

recycled love

before my latest obsession for painting began, i had a mad obsession with painting old pieces of furniture (that was just around the time of my mosaicing obsession of which i still have boxes and boxes of plates and tiles under the house).  my main objective was to shabby chic them and make them look all old, worn and (hopefully) french looking and save myself a ton of money by having furniture i wanted without the huge cost.

why i am talking about this is that this week after years of ignoring my furniture painting obession,  i have started another project using vintage style papers to cover the draws of a chest of draws, (but more about that in another post) and i am surprised about how much i am enjoying it.  such a sense of fulfilment.

i thought i'd post the recycled love of previous years and upload a few photos of some furniture that i've painted.  there is a before and after photo of one piece, but i forgot to take a before shot of the large dresser type piece on legs .... it was painted white and had been sponged with a chocolate colour. just lovely. anyway .. here they are.  by the way, its VERY easy to do.

From this ......

... to this - and I have two of them

i just love this monster and doubt if I will ever part with it ...

so there are just a few of my blissful furniture painting adventures ... with more to come. 

more more and more paper

as i constantly mention,  i love colour and i love paper.
i recently acquired some wallpaper samples in the most amazing colours and designs.

they are the most fabulous papers that, although i want to use them in artwork, i can't bear to cut them up as they are so special and delicious.  is anyone else like that?

a little aside story .......

before i started selling my own cards i always had a huge stash of cards in an attractive box so i always had an appropriate card to hand for whenever i needed one.  my challenge with having this stash of cards was that when i needed to choose one i would question whether the recipient was worthy of the card.  seriously.  mostly i would say - no - i don't think they are worthy and that divine card would be sent back to the stash.   so, now that i am selling my cards and prints of my designs i get a lot of comments from people saying that they like to keep a stash of special cards so, like me, they always have cards to hand.  well i told a customer one day of my feelings that my recipients were often not worthy, and this person said they were exactly the same in parting with their card stash. yay.  i now mention it alot and guess what ......there are lots of card crazies out there that hate parting with their fantastic cards.  lots. love it.  although not good for business if you sell cards like me is it.


anyway, back to wallpaper ....... here is a selection of some of the samples i obtained from this most fantastic wallpaper outlet.