The Krackin'

A while back I had bought a bottle of stuff that was supposed to give me a aged crackle finish. I used it on a few things but never got the look I wanted. So I began to look at inexpensive products to achieve a wonderful crackle finish. (I'm always hopeful that there are cheap ways of doing anything) I found this glue being used by someone on Youtube who was doing crackle finishes and it seemed promising.

 I  bought it from Amazon because Canadian Tire or any other local store didn't seem to carry it. I then used it for its intended purpose and let me tell you, it's an awesome wood glue. But it is a hide glue which means it has a fun odour, a little like stinky feet.
I thought I'd finally give it a try while I was making my signs to see if I could get that wonderful aged vintage look to my signs and guess what...it works!!

This was my first sign to try it on.

And my chalkboard also got a dose. See how super shiny it is after it dries.

A little goes a long way when using this glue. You dont need too "paint" it too thick but if you're to thin you won't get the crackle effect either. The best part is it needs to dry completely. The other stuff I used said wait till tacky. If I waiting to long nothing happened. If I didn't wait long enough it turned into a mess. You kind of can't go wrong with this glue, it just magically makes itself old. Heres a tip: don't go back over it to much when your painting or it will smear your work and won't crackle properly.
When it was dry I sealed it with my homemade beeswax polish because I had used a chalk paint on the frame. Ordinary latex paint should be fine without sealing it.

You've got time my friends to make yourself or someone else a fun christmas sign, frame or even try it on furniture. :)

To Market, to Market to buy a Fat Pig

Well maybe not a pig for certain but for me the past couple of weeks I've been deep into Christmas merry making and its felt odd thinking Christmas with leaves gentle falling and spooky pumpkins aglow. But one can't help but feel festive when preparing for a Christmas Makers Market.

My daughter Ashley is putting together the sale and what I love about a Makers Market vs Craft Show is the variety. Anything hand made or locally grown may be at a Makers Market so meat, coffee, honey, candles, chocolate, and crafty things can be found. One stop shopping! 

So what crafty things have I come up with? Here's a bit of a tease.

 Ugly Sweater stocking!

I've got a few furniture pieces coming along as well. Keep checking my Facebook Page as I add more teasers! :)

For the love of Junk.

We have junk day in our town. That's when everyone can put out as much junk from your basements, attics, garages, you name it, it can go out. What makes it fun is watching how many people drive around, bike around, walk around looking for salvageable junk, including me.

This was one thing I found.

 This mirror is actually off a dresser, which may be long gone or the dresser made it and the mirror didn't, but what I did know, it was all mine now. It was all duct taped together and the wood was split in a few places, but it had character. And if it didn't turn out the way I thought it would, it was after all, just junk.

                      So after some cleaning, gluing, clamping and painting this is it today.

Here was the fun part. I got to see where it was going, and got to take a picture of it in its new home.  It's hanging in The Music Box in Ms Aimee brand new studio which opens TODAY!!  Her whole studio looks fabulous and I'm super happy I could be a little part of her transformation of what is now a beautiful space.:)

So you know....

So you know how the rule in my house for Christmas is that gifts must be hand made. No store bought exchanges, which at first was kind of tricky for some, but did not seem a problem this year at all. So over the next couple of posts I'll show you some of the things that were made.

First up, Roger's gift and how it came to be.

For years Roger has been wanting to build new steps for the basement, so with time on his hands, one day he and Isaac tackled just that.

But he when he tore out the old treads he was thinking they seemed pretty heavy and wanted to know what they would look like cleaned up.

                                        I'm not an expert on woods, but I do know this is a hard wood of some type.

Now this was the hard part for me because I wanted to jump in and take over a few times on his Christmas present. But I'd give my hand a slap and ask him what he wanted to do or thought. And this is what he came up with.

   A much needed night stand, with old treads as a new top that turned out to be some beautiful wood.

I think he did just fine with his design.

Happy New Year!!:)

    

A little Snow

Since Roger no longer has a job to speak of, I've been putting things into two categories in my mind. Wants and needs. Since wants are usually frivolous things that I don't actually need I'm finding more things falling into that category. :(  But with a little thought, and a little help from pinterest, we came up with a very cheap way to add a little fun to the kitchen.

Now its no secret I dislike my ceiling very much, but it does come in handy at this time of the year for hanging things up.

 To keep this project within the budget of super cheap I found this

 An old Reader's Digest I picked up at my local thrift store. The covers on these old ones are pretty neat and will become something else down the road. 

We began by ripping out pages and cutting strips for chains and making snowflakes.

Every year M'lynn forgets how to make these and it takes her a couple of tries. This one's not bad, but she gets better as she makes more.

Everything we made, cost about a $1.00. This was one frivolous thing I could afford.:)

Trashy finds.

I have these 2 wooden chairs. They were found in the garbage and to me they were too cute not to love, so we rescued them. They have been used as a make shift stepping stools, moved with us, used as stepping stools again and as of late where used as shelves to hold my junk. But now they are going to be used what they were original made for.... sitting.

                                                  Before and after all in one shot.

I had seen someone do a similar treatment to a chair they had and was intrigue by the way it looked. They referred to it as "dipping", which made it seem all the more fun to do. No dipping is actually involved just taping and I like the look between the "old and new".

 I first dry brushed one side white, wanting to keep the rough chippy look to it.

Then taped off what I thought was a good spot, then painted it this vibrant spring green.  I gave it a couple of coats of paint, only to see that my white seemed a little too white. I grabbed some dark stain and went over the white and wiped off the excess. It toned it down nicely. Next up I gave it a coat of outdoor poly to seal it. 

This chair and its mate will be spending its summer up on my top porch. Now I just need a table. :)

A little on the Side.

I've got about 4 projects on the go right now, so I thought I'd add one more on the side. This one was something I wanted to build for me, but I was happy it found a new home and I can always build myself another.
It started life as a door, Just a plain little old door, found at Habitat, that wanted to come home with me.       Then it sat waiting for me to do something to it, so one day we did.

                      We began adding a little of this and a little of that until it looked like this.

Its now patiently waiting for its coat of paint. What we spray painted black was some brass door knobs and some hinges. You'll see why in a minute.

See, it would have looked silly if I had left them all shiny and new looking.

And it has a little seat that we built on the bottom.

It could store some mitts and stuff. In our case I'd love to put dog accessories in there for a quick grab on the way out the door.

And a quick check in the mirror. 

You may notice some extra hooks in the middle that if you sat and put your boots on, it would give you a nice clunk in the head. Since this piece found its new home at The Garden Gate it will be used for display, thus extra hooks.

And those hooks we bought for it, came from Lucan Architectural. I like that store......a lot.

Thats the story of the door, thats now a Hall Tree.

       I like Happy Endings!:)

From Rags

It started as a bunch of things. Two were old sheets, some were leftovers from other projects and some was just a fabric stash from days gone way by.
The other night on my Sugar Shack Facebook page I posted a picture of a couch full of fabric strips that had been ripped into inch wide strip, and then I knotted them together. Once they were knotted I begin to crochet a large rag rug for my stockpile, for my little room makeover.

I made about 4 large balls of scraps for this rug, and it took me about a day and half to make the whole thing. These do work up pretty fast.

 Yesterday I took it to my model so she could show it off for me.

I really liked the multi colouredness of this rug. Usually I match the rug to the room but this time I wanted something fun and I will be doing this again. 

Mom came to play too!! :)