Timeless Treasures

                                                        Today I went to visit this girl.

You may know her as the model for Evergreen Living, and I was quite excited when she agreed to meet with me over lunch. I'm hoping she'll agree to an upcoming photo shoot for me. Her agents M&D will look over the contract and let me know in a couple of days if she is willing or not. Cross your fingers for me!!!

While I was also in the area of Waterloo I went to "Timeless Material Co."

They have what seems to be an unlimited amount of resources for anyone wanting to add a unique touch of yesteryears detail to your home. I walked through multi levels of windows, trim, and piles of old tin ceilings. Doors of every shape and size. Entire staircases, fireplace mantels and some of the most interesting hardware, for just about anything.

 Things can be a bit pricey for me, so my purchases were small, but needed and it has been the first place I've been able to find what I need.

I've also want to check out their Southampton location, which I shall save for another day when I'm out and about.

Vanity Fair

A couple of weeks ago I posted this picture of a little vanity.

I've had it for most of the summer sitting in my garage and scanning the internet for inspiration. I had an idea, but anyone who knows me, knows I like to research things. See what products others are using, what works best for them. Then I'll take the plunge and give it a try. Thus it was for this. Chalk paint. Not to be confused with chalkboard paint. This paint comes from the U.K. and is pretty pricy, but I took the plunge and ordered it. This paint boasts of its ability to paint over varnish or an existing paint job with no need to sand or prime and is perfect for painting furniture.
There are two other things you should also know about me, my inability to wait long periods of time and my  cheap side "thriftiness".  I found a recipe to make my own chalk paint. It too painted right over existing varnish with no need to sand beforehand, so for the most part, the paint did exactly what I wanted it to do. I have yet to try my new paint because it arrived halfway through this project so I can't compare yet. But these are the results.

As you can see from some of the pictures it also distresses quite lovely. I also tried a new thing to seal it. Beeswax! I'll let you know how that experiment goes.

By the way, all my after picture will now and forever be done by my lovely daughter, Amelia. 

(or until I let her teach me the proper way to use a camera)

Waiting Patiently

See this little gem...

I've been waiting for it to tell me what it would like to have done to it. I've had a thought or two but I think it finally spoke to me last week. That's a good thing because I have an empty spot waiting to be filled by it.

Some of you may have seen this little baby at the craft show

When asked by many if it was for sale, my reply was no. I'm only 80% happy with it. I had long ago decided that it would make a great display unit for me at the sale, and so it would be my center piece, and definitely be for sale. It wasn't really until the week of the sale that I became disenchanted by it. I needed to figure out what went wrong, but I still needed it for the show.

I will show you that once upon a time it looked like this...

So after some research I figured out the problem and will fix up this little fixer upper.

I'm also glad that my little gem waited to tell me what it was it wanted me to do. I want to make sure that I get this just right and do it proud the first time.