String Art Tablets & The Divine Minimalist

If you have followed the blog for long, you know of my love for string art - as seen here and here.  But those are more, installations for your wall and can't come with you if you move.  So I thought I should try to do a few on wood, since I LOVE wood grain too.  Here are some photos:

I picked out a nice looking piece of wood and began to cut it into tablets.  Then I beveled the edges and sanded the fronts smooth.  I chose my designs for my prototypes and got to stringing. It was a lot of fun! These are all available in my Etsy shop, and I'm available for custom orders.  My favorite is the Old English letter, which obviously can be done in any letter or font.  I think they'd look great on each side of a bed, or on the bedroom doors of a family home.

On the same note, just this morning I saw a post on The Divine Minimalist about my string art! Special thanks to a long time friend, Betsy Webster, for featuring my string art tablets on her blog today.  If you haven't checked out The Divine Minimalist yet, hop over when you have a chance.  It's like a steady stream of eye candy for those of us who love design and home decor.  Plus all kinds of creative ideas to keep your creative side lively and fresh.  I LOVE her post on wood grain candles, seen here. Thanks Betsy!

Featured: Better After!

Aah, what an honor - both in the same day! Yesterday was a big day for the Frank Lloyd Wright Table! Lindsey, from Better After, featuring not one, not two, but THREE of my before & afters on her blog! I LOVE better after. I subscribe to the updates so everyday I get 3-4 morsels of inspiration from other furniture refinishers in the world. I was so shocked to see my pictures come through the feed!  Her post is super sweet too, made me blush! Head on over to Better After and cruise through all the amazing transformations.  Thanks again Lindsey!  Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

Featured! On Design*Sponge...

I love Design*Sponge, I've been following them for a few years now and I've been lucky enough to be featured on their front page as part of their before & after series.  If you haven't checked out Design*Sponge before, head over! There's something for everyone and a LOT of great ideas. A big thank you to the team at Design Sponge for including my table!

Here's what she had to say:

"I know that painting or drawing on wood continues to attract controversy, but today I’m excited to share two* of the prettiest painted furniture pieces I’ve come across recently. First up is this Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired table by Jesse Dresbach, owner of the furniture-restoration shop Nine Red. We’ve featured some of Jesse’s skilled restoration work in the past, but this may be my new favorite — the combination of the ultra-dark espresso stain with the rich, earthy color palette is wonderful, and the pattern is a worthy homage to the talented architect and designer who inspired it.

According to Jesse, the secret to this project is Frog tape, but I would have to add a patient, skilled hand to the requirements. If you don’t feel like acquiring either of those, you can always purchase the original from Nine Red. Great work, Jesse! — Kate "

Sakura goes to France, Part 2

I really liked the original Sakura table (here) and wanted to do another one.  We came across this table on a walk one day and I fell for it.  It had all the right shapes and carvings one would love, but the overall look left much to be desired.  I had to highlight those carvings, and what better way than a good distress & stain job?  Top it off with another visit from the Sakura flower punch book pages, and we have Sakura goes to France 2.0.... Here it is before:

 and here is the after!

I like how it came out, and I went a little more subtle with the flower this time. They are cute and make some very interesting phrases as your eye goes across them... This table is for sale in the shop, and will have free shipping for the holidays.  Have a great weekend!

Frank Lloyd French

I just finished up this sofa table. It was an experiment, and I like it! I wanted to do another table where I mixed the wood and the paint design, similar to the Hexagonal French Provincial from a few weeks ago.  I have always really liked the designs of Frank Lloyd Wright, and I had wanted to do something geometric on this anyway.  Originally I wanted something sort of Native American, so this design and color scheme worked out perfectly for both.  Here's my best before shot:

I forgot to take a picture before sanding, so that's the tabletop in the raw...  Here's the after:

I liked it so much I put a bird on it! Haha... Portlandia reference.  This one is for sale, and I'm going to do free shipping.  Luckily the legs come off very easily, so it won't have to go show up in a giant box! On the horizon I have another Sakura table, and I'm about to finally get the ball rolling with the string art wall tablets. Have a great weekend!

Spotlight: Buffet Table

One of my readers saw the post about the Minwax Stain selection, and decided to try her hand at it.  She was nice enough to send the photos in, and let me share with you! Check this out, she scored a nice buffet off craigslist, and then vamped it up in Minwax's "Spice" color. I love it! Thanks Lorena!

Nice, right?? It looks great in her house too, all those colors are going together well. Great job Lorena!

Jade Standing Mirror

Joel had brought me a standing mirror that his friend was getting rid of, and I am kicking myself now for not taking a before picture! How can I describe it... it was in pieces, missing hardware, and it looked like someone fell asleep while they were priming it.  All in all though, it was a solid wood mirror in great shape, with plenty of potential.  I mulled over it for a while, and finally came to terms with the fact that I have, and will, always love the color teal and all it's siblings in the turquoise department.  So, thinking back to this chandelier project, I wanted to re-use that wonderful Jade color paint! It was hard to find, but amazon brought it home to me.  Here's the best picture I could scrounge up for a "before" of the mirror:

However, the paint was not in such nice condition! So in I started on the jade, and after seeing that all the wonderful wood grains were showing through the paint, I went with a black glaze.  I wanted to utilize the back of the mirror too, which was just wood.  So I made it into a magnetic chalkboard. Here are the pictures, I hope you like it! It's for sale in my etsy shop. 

 I painted the hardware black and distressed it a bit, to match the rest of the mirror.

The holes for the hardware were completely open, so some wooden plug in black make a nice accent. So there you have it, the Jade Standing Mirror. I'm so happy about the magnetic paint! I hadn't used it before and it has really surprised me. I tested it out and it works great!

Have a wonderful weekend.

Featured! on Young House Lovins....

Wow, what an honor! I was so surprised yesterday to find out I'd been chosen to be on the blog Young House Love.  I have been a follower of their blog for a while now, watching their many adventures in DIY home repair.  They have a section called "Reader Redesign" and they chose the Hexagon French Provincial for their spotlight this week.  Head over to their blog and check it out, and explore their many many wonderful posts.  This comes at PERFECT timing because I've started on another french provincial, and I was thinking about doing a similar wood vs. paint design. This encourages me to do it! Have a great weekend!

Spotlight: Farmhouse Table Tutorial

I just saw this post from Miss Mustard Seed, and I love it! The table looks like a project that is easily tackle-able, and the materials are pretty easy to come by.  Check out some of the pictures:

 So that's the finished product, here are some pictures of the during:

There you have it, not too bad at all! Check out the full tutorial here.  Have a great one!

Bamboo Sofa Table

I just finished up work on a sofa table that a customer fell in love with. Here's the before picture:

 

Solid wood, and originally done in a sort of dirty wash.  I stripped it, sanded it, and removed all the hardware.  I really wanted to test out minwax's color stains, and let me tell you, it was love at first...  stain? Haha. This stain was great, easy, and water based. I put two coats on this table and it was perfect!  This is Minwax's Green Tea.

Take a look:

After the stain set, I hand cut two sets of stencils.  The bamboo poles, and the bamboo leaves that would layer on after.  Here's a tip if you ever stencil: I sprayed the back of the stencil with spray adhesive, then let it dry. This makes a tacky, almost sticky note surface so the stencil adheres perfectly.  This worked like a dream... I did it for the leaves and not the poles though, however, I like how the poles came out foggy here and there:

There you have it! The customer really likes it, I really like it, we are happy.  This was a really fun project to do, it was seamless from start to finish.  I love it when everything seems to just go well, with no surprises!  Hand cutting that stencil was really fun too, I can definitely recreate this look any time.  Have a great day!

Spotlight: Double Wide Dresser

I saw this post come through the Better After feed, and I fell in love. Not just with the project, but with gradients in general.  I've always LOVED the look of paint chips, and it's so neat to see all the art people make with them.  It seems the paint companies themselves have hopped on the bandwagon and had people make things for their ads too.  Well take a look at this double wide dresser from Frou-FruGal:

Boom! Isn't that great? The stencils were actually reversed too, so she blocked the letters and numbers to keep the wood grain showing through. I love that. See how it gradually gets darker as it goes down? She started with the color on the bottom drawers, and for each level up added a teaspoon and a half of white.  Brilliant! It gives a great effect.  And those drawer pulls are macrame monkey paws! I've NEVER made those but I'm totally inspired.  Check out her step by step tutorial, here.

On the topic of paint chips, I saw the front of a Martha Stewart Magazine a ways back with some really neat wall art on it using paint chips.  And they didn't even alter them at all! Take a look:

This just follows along the same line of my love of color organizing.  It can totally change the look of a collection.

As far as my own projects, coming up I have the Sofa Table that I'm doing in a colored stain, which I have never done before.  I'm using Minwax's Line of colored stain, "Green Tea".  More on that later...

Have a wonderful Wednesday everyone!

Spotlight: Paint by Number Murals

I've always loved the unique look of paint by number, and seeing it on these wall murals makes me fall in love all over again!  I recently saw this post from Nicole who writes the blog Making it Lovely.  People take paint by number pictures, copy them onto transparencies, project them on a wall, trace, paint, adore. Simple! Haha, just kidding. It looks like a LOT of work, but totally worth it. Enjoy the pictures, and head over to Nicoles blog for the original post.

 Here's a sea themed one from the cute blog: Easter Kiwi:

I'm extremely tempted to do this on a wall in my house, but I'm a renter and wonder if I should invest all the time in something I can't take with me for a few years! I love the look though, and as soon as I can do it - I am!  Have a great day :)