All Mopped Up...

Hi everyone and welcome! Today we're talking storage. Having purchased this basic set of drawers over a year ago with the intention of getting a little more organised and filling it with all my embellishments, I finally got around to altering it to 'look the part'. It went from this...

To this... (better, right?)

Having received my new Tim Holtz paper pad I did the usual thing of stroking it, then thinking of all the cards/projects I can make with it, then prematurely grieving the loss of these glorious sheets (once used) to friends, family, etc. So it occurred to me that I could retain a little portion of the pad by using some of the 3" square sections on one of the pages on the front of this box.

Ageing the whole thing took several layers of paint and a huge bundle of inspiration from the master of up-cycled furniture, Mark Gould; I started with a coat of 'Relic' Decoart Americana Decor Chalky Finish paint, giving it a light sanding when dry (no need for primer either!); next a good rub over with a plain wax candle; then a coat of thoroughly watered down 'Postbox Red' IndigoBlu English Cottage Artist's Acrylic paint; another good rub over with plain wax candle; and then a final coat of 'Vintage' Decoart Americana Decor Chalky Finish paint covered the outsides of the box and drawers. By now it looked great but not aged enough, so I mixed some of the 'Clear' DecoArt Americana Decor Creme Wax with a small dab of 'Hot Cocoa' IndigoBlu English Cottage Artist's Acrylic paint (you can get a brown version of the creme wax but I improvised!) and brushed a light coat over every surface, rubbing off any excess as I went. It gave the whole box a beautiful smooth finish and dried completely in minutes.

With the wood completely altered I turned my attention to the drawer fronts. As mentioned above, this involved using some of the smaller 3" square replications of the larger sheets, cut to fit the openings, Distress Ink blended around the edges, stencilled with the Tim Holtz Bubble Stencil and Wendy Vecchi's Translucent Embossing Paste, and given a thin coat of the 'Clear' Creme Wax. I think you can just pick up the stencil detail in a few of the photos as the idea was to add texture without overly obscuring the beautiful paper designs.

And now it's full with all those bits and bobs that we all use on our projects (and boy, does it weigh a bit as a result!) The rest of the room really needs tackling to house the ever expanding collection of 'stuff' but it could be a while and require a fair wind before I attempt that!

That's it from me today. I'll be back tomorrow with my regular IndigoBlu slot so I hope you can join me for that. It's a full weekend ahead of training classes that now awaits me, so I'm off to finish the prep! Whatever you're up to take care of yourselves, Jenny xxx