Saturday, September 15, 2012

Shades of Blue Gray

How do I know what to paint on my furniture?


The pieces of furniture that I paint are meant to find a home, YOUR home, and I paint them in a way that might match your taste or decor style.  A lot of the time, the pieces lend themselves to certain designs based on their lines or function.  Sometimes there is a trend I want to try out.  Sometimes I feel like painting a bunny or frog on something.  Regardless, they all turn out unique & and serve as focal points in any room.

Sometimes they become inspiration for pieces you might already have.

This end table I picked up at a garage sale.  Everyone can use a stand like this SOMEWHERE in their place, right?  And I recently bought a copper/patina faux finish kit that I wanted to try out on something small and safe.  This stand seemed to be the perfect guinea pig.

It invloved painting a layer of copper metallic paint, spraying it with the magic potion it came with & then watching the copper paint turn turquoise.  Except the turquoise was a little ugly, so I blended it down with some sea foam blue paint & came up with this pretty cool faux finish. 

 

 Because I wanted to feature the finish, I didn't do a lot of decorative painting, just linear flowers. 

 

But I did add something else I wanted to try: a top full of text.  I have been saving quotes & decided to run them all together to fill the top surface completely.  Notice the touches of copper, too.

 

The sea glass knob was a perfect touch (purchased at Anthropologie- an AMAZING store).


A customer saw this piece & decided it wouldn't work for her, but loved the finish and the simple painting style...and the glass knob.  This gal went home, looked at her old buffet in the breakfast room & decided I better paint it for her.  I'm ticked that I forgot to snap a before picture, but it was stained a dark brown with gold hardware.  Not too exciting, but very functional in the space she had.

I visited her house and memorized the shade of blue she needed, while still planning to replicate the copper/turquoise faux finished from the nightstand she liked so much.  I took a few pics of her rug and existing furniture & hoped for a good match once I walked out of there with her piece.

Here's the final.  She was thrilled and admittedly relieved.  In her words, I "nailed it."  Whew!




Hello Kitty!


Let me know if there's something I can paint up for you!


Thursday, September 6, 2012

Recycled Ornaments

I'm very excited about my spoons.

I have painted Santa and snowman spoons, forks, and knives for several years now and always enjoy their unique expressions. 




I eventually branched out to Santa keys and the eventually the sought after skeleton keys.


 Each key is so cool and unique, I love to feature them as an ornament.




Then I stumbled upon souvenir spoons, you know, the ones that old ladies have on display in their dining rooms showing all of their places of travel?  

 

 I decided to paint those up for the holidays too, featuring little scenes on the spoon tip.


Beach scenes for the Florida, Hawaii spoons, lighthouses for the Maine spoon, Central Park ice skater for the New York spoon.




It is addicting to hunt for the spoons & then paint them up as one of a kind keepsakes, souvenirs all over again!


Stop by my show this weekend in Loveland, September 9, 2012, 11-5pm to pick one up for yourself!

Loveland Art Show
Sept 9, 2012
11-5pm
Nisbet Park, Loveland Ohio

Or you can purchase one from my etsy store: www.coriekline.etsy.com!


 Thanks for looking!