Saturday, August 24, 2013

One cool cat!


OK..First of all I KNOOOOOOW I'm pushing 40!

SHUT. UP.

BUT, no matter HOW old I get I will never release my love for the "Kit" Taaaaay!

 I grew up in the 80's era of :

 Hello Kitty,





 Land of the lost,






 and My little pony..



The REAL My Little pony...Not the slutty versions...
P.S..Who the hell's bright idea was it to sexualize My little pony?!


Like, Really?! Why the fake lashes, long porn star hair?!
Who wants a slutty pony?
Don't answer that!


He Might?.... =0

ANYWHO~

So, with me being in paint hibernation helping everyone else..My very first piece out of the cave had to be FUN!
Buck the rules!

So here she is...A Hello Kitty "NERD" Side Table:



She wasn't always this cute though...She used to be "Frumpy Franny!" from the Goodwill..






Just a plain Jane little end table..I was gonna' go the whole "Shabby" route...Old White...some distressing...clear/dark wax yadda yadda...blahblahblah..BORIIINNNNNG but, I said NO!

She needs some COLOR! Also, I had been dying to try out some of the stencils Deborah got in at Peinture  
so I got busy painting her in a fun Turquoise (A mix up of Florence, Provence and couple drops of Napoleonic)


Ok. WAIT! Eerrrrrrt! Stop the presses...THESE.ARE.AMAZING! (Said in your DEEPEST Oprah voice)



I found these at Big Lots! (Or "MacFrugals", for you East of the Mississippi folks)

They're "Bed Risers" I have no idea why you wouldn't just buy a friggin' box spring, and  frame for your bed to get it off the floor??! but what.ev's..
I thought nooooooo I can use them to get my pieces off the FLOOR and paint the legs and everything alot better instead of flipping upside down to get to the bottoms...
Worked.like.a.charm!



O.K Sorry for the A.D.D interruption.. So, got here painted up, painted the top in Pure White then realized I didn't get the stencils! So, I did what every good DIY'er does...I turned to YouTube! I found this lady, Amanda  from "Mommy is CooCoo" blog who did THEE most easy to follow video on how to paint chevron stripes like EVERRRR!

I did as she told and Voila'! It turned out amazeballs...






To get the image of Hello Kitty on there, I used my good ole' $20 Overhead projector from Craigslist and a free image of Hello Kitty from Google images printed onto a transparency..Taped down the image..VERY important..the projector heats up AND it has a fan blowing to keep the machine cool at the same time..NOOOO BUENO when you are trying to trace an image onto something and the mother clucker justs drifts off the top of the glass! Ggrrrrrrr...anyway take my word for it..
TAPE THE TRANSPARENCY DOWN.





Lay the piece on it's side..Lay down on your stomach, grab a pencil and LIGHTLY start tracing your out line..It actually doesn't take too long to do!



Once the outline was done, I grabbed a couple small artist brushes a bottle of black Acrylic craft paint and filled in the head and glasses..



Now, for the bow..I did the inside of it with 2 coats of Annie Sloan's Emperor Silk
and don't get me wrong..It looked great but it need a lil sumin' sumin'
So, I poured out about 1/4 cup of Mod Podge, grabbed a bottle of Martha Stewarts teeeeney, tiiiiiiiiiny super fine glitter and dumped like 1/4 of the bottle in there! =0. I wanted glitter damn it! ;]



Well - A glitter bow I do have...Voila!



 And there she is folks, in all her feline splendor..

oops! forgot to show ya' the LEOPARD drawers...Meow!



Thanks for stopping by..I am totally addicted to this damn projector now..so I'm sure you'll see more projects using it BUT you have my scouts honor..NO HOOCHIE PONIES!
 hahahahhaha

Smooches,
Mel








You know this girl likes to party!

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Annie's book signing and.... I crapped my pants!!




O.K get out your trifocals...(Do they even make trifocals)??!

this is a long one...



Did you know!?

Did I tell you?!

That Annie Sloan came to Peinture!!

um' yah..it was kind of a big deal.




I'm gonna' go out on a limb and GUESS this was Debbie's reaction when
she found out Annie was coming to HER store..
....



Like...press, reporters,billboards..the whole shot.

I mean,the woman came to America and only came to 2 stores for a book signing!

We were pretty much cleaning and preparing as if we were 4 nesting pregnant women! *and anyone that has ever nested KNOOOOOWS what I'm talkin' about!



(Isn't that some crazy shit!?) 



anywho, I digress..

Well, we got the shop in tip top shape! Lookin' good, smellin' good..paint displayed like NOBODY's business'..then, since we're awesome and had sold a bunch of pieces we needed filler! Debbie asks if I have anything I am working on and if so, bring it into the shop..so, In fact I had been working on this antique dresser







 and a tooootally cool old secretary.





I finished them up and brought them into the store. We had everything in place. Angela had made some really nice tablecloths and chair pillows using Annie's fabric (which is ridic)...by the way..Debbie brought some new art work in, we had a local tea bar set up a tea social in the back with macaroons, and little finger foods...sorry, no crumpets. (by the way, WTF is a crumpet)? 







and one of our favorite customers had dyed some drop cloth in each.and.every.single.color, using Annie's paint for us..so we had a phenomenal fabric display also. We even recruited the hubs as Security!





*He's been workin' out and shit, so who better to test his new Brawn out on,then some fluffy, middle aged women?..duh'!!*



He's kickin' ASS & takin' names!




So now, all we needed was Annie!





Yeah, this is basically what we looked like waiting for Annie to come..Hope she didn't see us!



She gets there you guys, and it was so funny..My husband was telling me that he was expecting her to pull up in some big Mercedes SUV or a caravan of blacked out chevy suburbans but no, here comes little Annie in her very sensible rented Nissan Maxima. 
Woompwoompwaaaaaa...
Sorry Jose, there will be no blacked out suburbans for you to guard for Annie =<







Anyway, she comes in and you guys this lady is the sweetest,humble and down to earth "celebrity" I have ever seen. I mean, there isn't a pretentious bone in her little body. The First thing I noticed was she stopped dying her hair.. She has the best salt and pepper thang' going on and I lurved it. She immediately came in and was greeting everyone, taking pictures and signing books before we could even get her settled in..and boy did we need to get her settled in! Poor Jose was on the verge of having to crack' some skulls out there! The line was gettin' a little cray cray up in there! Bein' all sassy and thangs' with poor Jose..
"When's she going to start signing"
"Why isn't the line moving"!?




"When are you gonna strip"?
 HAHAHAHAHA kidding. He WISH they were telling him that! ;) anyway Jose dealt with the ladies and ushered them all in..and everyone got there fill of Miss Annie..
She signed away and after mingled about and answered people's questions..








she was taking tons of pictures all over the store and then Jose comes over and bumps me all excitedly..

"Look! Annie is taking a picture of your secretary!!?"
"WHAT!??"




Omgeeeee you guys I basically sharted..right then and there!
She turns around,and says "What a gorgeous piece"!
OK, at that point if I was a peacock you couldn't have gotten NEAR me!




I was cooing, and twirling (in my head) like a fool!








I eventually calmed down... Later on she came over with Debbie and told me what a great piece it was and I told her well, all thanks to YOU and your magical paint! Seriously, I don't know if I can even sell it now! It will just forever be known as "Annie's piece"...

Ha! Who am I kidding..

We're open Wens.- Sunday 11-5...come on down "friend-o"..Cash is King.

Anyway, Annie stayed and talked and laughed and I think she enjoyed her time at Peinture. It was a total success..record sales, yummy food and good music from our resident pianist Trevor..we officially pulled off a uber successful book signing and didn't even have to crack any skulls.
Mission Accomplished!





Melissa, Annie & Debbie
 April 2013

















frenchcountrycottage shabbycreekcottage savvysouthernstyle polkadotsonparade diy by design

Ivy & Elephants 
Handy Man, Crafty Woman
omesticay speaking

Monday, March 18, 2013

What a long strange trip....

A Long (Beach) strange trip that is...Sunday Debbie, Angela & I went on the hunt at the Long Beach Antique market. For those of you who don't know, Here in Southern California...the Long Beach Antique market is the older, uglier, and slightly gimpy sister..to the All mighty "Rose Bowl" in Pasadena.


Yah' kinda like this... Just sayin'



 The selection is good, but the pricing varies from completely delusional, yuppy, wanna be "Pickers" to not quite lucid, possible tweakers(?) selling their poor granny's stuff at just cat shit crazy prices! So......needless to say..yah' gotta' weed through the vendors! At least we had a list and a focus since we were on a time crunch!Buuttttt my A.D.D ass was all over the place! They had so much. WEIRD stuff!



Buckle up...I'm gonna run you all over this motha'!



Eewwww...Body Parts..everywhere!


Aww.....Furniture! 


  I am a complete SUCKER for vintage linens! Tablecloths,runners,hankies,doilies..yada yada yada..So for my kindred spirits out there, here's a little linen porn for ya'!....Bow chica wow wowwwwww






 OK..EERRRRRRRRRRTTT Stop right HERE. THIS. guy was a highlight of the day ..A real live leprechaun in the flesh! Fah' real you guys!!!!!.....
O.K.
Continue...












All in all we had a great time and accomplished our task..We went home with these beauts'

A huge panel from the back of a CA school bus from 1969...a kick ass laundry basket, industrial floor lamp


Some vintage Mexican art, & a friggin' solid metal tricycle! *Random, I know.



But I just have to give an honorable mention to a couple of my favorite pieces....




Ummm...can everyone see that this MONSTROSITY is propped up against a 4x4 JEEP! This woman is the longest woman in history! Uh...your height perception is just a TAD bit OFF their... Picasso





And THIS one.. well it's pretty self explanatory right? lurved it!


So there you have it, the Good the bad and the very frickin' ugly! In short, it is a great place to find one of a kind pieces and a JEM of a place to people watch! See ya' there!
~ Melissa



















savvysouthernstyle
mygirlishwhime
diybydesign.
flusterbuster
cedarhill-ranch
domestically-speaking
thetrendytreehouse