Painting Furniture with Annie Sloan's Chalkpaint

I thought this shelf had a really unusual shape, and bought it about 2 years ago with the intent of painting it.

Don't you love my Matryoshka dolls?

My mother bought them at Expo 67, the World's fair, from the USSR pavilion, and gave them to me a few years ago :)

Below the dolls is my antique "Anne of Green Gables" collection.

The green book on the extreme left next to the blue one, is first edition 1909!

Both of my parents and their families before them all the way to Scotland, are from Prince Edward Island.

I had a day with nothing on the calendar, so I decided to paint.

Yummy, doesn't this look delicious?

I loooooove red!!!

You can paint over anything with chalk paint, even fabric.

This piece of furniture has a cheap finish but the paint still went on really well.

I love a distressed look on furniture, and with chalk paint, you don't have to keep you strokes even.

You can just stroke the brush any direction you want, it's so easy!

It didn't take long to paint the shelf at all and it dries very fast, like 5 or 10 minutes.

See that little black stool in the background?

It's going to be painted soon.

I'm sort of sick of black furniture, and want to brighten them up.

The next step is to start sanding the shelf with a little sanding block, to add to the distressed look.

See how the original color of the shelf is showing through when it's sanded? 

 See the chalky look?

That will disappear soon, I'll show you how.

I really like the distressed look and it's so easy to attain!

The next step is to wax the shelf, that gets rid of the "chalk" look and gives it a really nice finish.

After the shelf is covered with a thin coat of wax which was applied with a round brush, I just polish it up with a buffing sponge.

It takes a little bit of elbow grease to polish up all the nooks and crannies, but it's not much work at all.

My shelf is painted, waxed, buffed and back in place, all in a matter of 2 or 3 hours :)

I think the dolls look much nicer on the red shelf, don't you?

Mini Medallion - August

This is the third section of the border in the mini medallion series, for the month of August.

There will be 3 more additions given once a month, through the month of November.

These are my fabric selections for the border.

The first border is in gray, I think it goes really well with the text print and offsets the brightness of the orange.

I made 16 flying geese blocks and layed them out, altering the blue prints.

All finished, I really love this medallion.

You can find all 3 month's instructions on my Pinterest board, here.

Needle book with tutorial link

I made this little needle book for my friend for her birthday :)

I really think it's the cutest one I've made!

The little red car with 2 little faces in the windows, and I backed it with a piece of linen and hand stitched around it.

Have you ever shopped at Anthropologie?

It's one of my favorite stores!

I save the ribbon handles from the shopping bags and I used one to trim the bottom of the cover.

I stitched on 3 little mother of pearl buttons and used an unusual diamond shape, antique button for the closure.

Inside the book are 2 pages of felt.

I added many different little adornments and scalloped the edges of the felt for more detail.

The back of the book is made of 12 little 1" squares and I hand stitched them all.

See the hen in one of them?

The inside lining is little dogs, a 30's print.

I know my friend loves dogs :)

If you would like to see the other needle books I've made from this tutorial, you can see them here, here, here, and here.

 You can find a link to the tutorial for this cute little needle book, here on my Pinterest board named "random tutorials".

Modern Instabee - August

It's time for me to make August's block.

Ellen has chosen the Triple Star, it seems to be the most popular block in our hive.

About 2 months ago, Ellen mailed all the hive members the little center block you see below with the bumble bee.

She said she wants to make her little daughter a quilt for her bed, and that we needed to use bright, happy colors to match the square.

These are the colors I chose :)

Here's the first block.

Here's the second one.

Here's the triple star.

Do you notice how I messed up? Aaaaaggghhhh!!!!

I thought very seriously about leaving it, but I just couldn't.

I had to take off the entire outer star, and re sew the half square triangles together.

How did it happen?

I tried chain piecing instead of laying the pieces out each time I sewed them to make sure they were in the right order.

Mini Medallion QAL, June and July

I showed you the 12 fat quarters I chose for my Mini Medallion.

This QAL is a mystery, we get a little bit each month, from June to November.

This is my first layout, and I love the text print for the background.

This is the center block, the QAL for June.

It wasn't very time consuming :)

I love how the border uses all 4 prints of aqua.

Krissy, the designer, uses a different technique for joining them. 

This is July's completed block, a little more detailed than the center block.

Notice the rotating prints of orange, I think it adds a lot of interest.

The August addition to the medallion will be released today, you can find it at Clover and Violet, here.

You can find all of the mini medallion posts on my Pinterest board.

Mini Medallion Series

Have you heard about the mini medallion quilt along?

It's being hosted at Clover and Violet, and is written by Chrissy from Sew Lux Fabric.

They post once a month, it began in June and ends in November.

I am going to start mine tomorrow, this is the stack of fabric that I chose to make the mini medallion quilt.

I'm a little behind, but I don't think it will be very hard to catch up.

It is a mini after all, and we are given 6 months to complete it.

I have a Pinterest board dedicated to the Mini Medallion, here.

I had a great time choosing my fabrics, and look forward to sharing my progress with you :)

Fat Quarter Quilting: Reproduction Fabrics

The first fabrics I used when I began quilting about 10 years ago, were civil war reproduction fabrics.

I love the richness of the colors and the prints.

The name of this quilt is "Row Sampler" from the pattern Fat Quarter Quilting:  Reproduction Fabrics by Lori Smith.

Here is the link to her website and the pattern.

This pattern is 16" X 20" and is perfect for a table topper.

I hand quilted this mini quilt to make it look authentically old :)
It took some time but was definitely worth it!

I love a quilt with red binding,  and I used reproduction fabric for the backing too.

I wonder if people used to hand quilt outdoors during warm, sunny days when they had more light and the days were longer.

My little mini quilt is all rolled up, ready to gift :)