French Flower Cart

I just have to show a great example of why I love to paint furniture so much! The last project I just finished is always my favorite...and this is my favorite right now.

This project was actually done for a client. Her Grandmother's tea cart is now updated and looks like a French flower cart to me!

The client who owns this cart said it is perfect..makes me happy!

I have been fighting off some kind of bug. Just feeling achy and tired. In between naps I finished this cart...and it has lifted my spirits at least :)

I am still planning to do my tutorial post on making something similar to Bentley's cabinet--which includes how to do the striping shown here. Stay tuned for that if you love to paint like I do :)

Hope everyone is doing well..and staying well!

Thanks for visiting!

Latest Project and Fun Class

Last night I finished a project I have for sale and thought I would share.

My Mother found this at a garage sale for me and it looked like this..

This piece is much newer than the pieces I usually paint but I like how it turned out.

I did a lot of distressing on this one too--I think the distressing brought it to life. I hope there is someone out there who will love this piece :)

Update: I put it on the local Facebook classifieds and it sold within minutes--with a line of people wanting it next if the first person didn't get it. So I guess I found several people that love it :)

Last night Janae and I took such a fun class! It was a Layered Patina advanced painting class. It was taught by my blogging friend Amanda from Girl in Pink. This is the second class Janae and I have taken from her and we enjoy them so much!

It was a great evening and really inspired my creativity. We made canvas' using layers of different protects...my favorite protect was fine stone. It was pretty awesome :) 

 

I just love how old this looks!

We used learned how to use transfer gel and made a adorable little blessings board.

Can't wait to do some projects with these new techniques!

Have a great day and thanks for visiting!

Happy News and a Birthday Gift

Life is full of so many ups and downs. I want to thank you all for the comforting comments on the loss of my sister in law. It is still hard to grasp that she is actually gone...and hard to see the look of great loss on the face of my brother in law. I know that all the love that has been shown to our family helps us all get through it. Thank you for your part in that.

Life goes on and we still find things to find joy in. Shortly before Kirsten passed away Janae and Sidney announced their engagement. They have been dating since high school and it was wonderful to find out they were going to make it official. Kirsten called me and told me how excited she was for them..which is a wonderful memory now.

We are planning a cozy garden wedding in our backyard. Our house is small, as is our yard, but we all decided we could make it so pretty and it would be a wonderful place to have a beautiful ceremony! Janae and Sidney's dogs are going to be members of the wedding party--no surprise there! lol We are so looking forward to the big day and I will post many pictures--so it will feel like you were all there :)

Another happy thing is tomorrow is Janae's 25th birthday! Seems like yesterday I was suffering through 42 hours of labor. Janae and I have many plans tomorrow (which include mostly shopping and eating :) ) and so she came over tonight and we had a little early family birthday party. I have been so excited to give her the big gift I made for her. It started out looking like this...

A cabinet I found free on the side of the road not far from our house. I knew that Janae had been wanting a clothes closet for her boy Pom, because the closet in their Pom playroom is already full of the girl Pom clothes.  I knew I could make something cute from this cabinet and I am just tickled with how it turned out.

Isn't it adorable? It was one of those projects that was so much work but so much fun to do.

Jerry hung the closet rod on the inside for me. I am sure it will be full of clothes shortly. Yes, these dogs have way more clothes than I do! For those of you interested in how I did this I am planning to do a post soon of both how to do the gingham painting technique and adding the photos to the furniture. Stay tuned!

I also painted a frame for Janae with a recent photo of all her Pom babies.

I hope this finds everyone enjoying the beginning of Fall--or whatever season you are experiencing in your part of this world.

Thanks for visiting!

Sad Times for our Family

It has been a long time since my last blog post. Many of you know my sister in law has been fighting cancer. A couple weeks ago she lost her fight. It has been a huge shock to all of us..she always had such a good attitude and would say, "I've got this" when asked about her cancer. We didn't think we would lose her.

 She was 33 and had 3 children. I call her my sister in law but my husband's brother and her were only engaged..and the wedding was planned for this August. My last text messages from her were showing me her wedding dress and saying how excited she was for the wedding. She was so happy.

The picture below of Kirsten and her daughter was taken the weekend before she died.

She looked so happy and healthy. Shortly after this photo was taken she picked up an infection. Her body wasn't able to fight the infection and she died within hours. Her youngest, Jaxon, was staying with me at the time.

The kids are taking it as well as can be expected. I don't think the youngest, Jaxon, really understands what is going on. He just knows everyone is crying and he doesn't know where Mommy is.

My daughter Chantel turned 16 on the 1st of September. Though it was something to celebrate we so wished Kirsten would have been there. Who knows...maybe she was?

So we are all trying to get back to normal life. My projects are piling up all over the house and I so need to get painting. I know that Kirsten would not want me to sit and grieve and worry about the kids and not get things done so I need to get it together and get back to life.

That is what Kirsten would want for all of us.

Kirsten will always live in our hearts.