Hello, hello! Sorry I've been a little MIA this week, guys! Whew.
I took the last few days to seriously, seriously clean my house from top to bottom - like, cleaning out the cupboards and in all the nooks and crannies and reorganizing and all that jazz. It feels sooooo good now that it's done!! :) Like a fresh new start, in here.
We went out last night and tromped around downtown to soak in some Olympic spirit (which was in full force, cuz Canada won the hockey game!) - saw some fireworks, caught up with one of Tzanko's old friends who's in town, grabbed some sushi, got jostled around by lots of drunken red-face-painted-maple-leaf-pants-wearing teenagers. Yay! lol. Naw, it was great out there. :)
Anyhoo, after all that I'm feeling like I need a day here (finally) this week to make stuff and do something for me, though - I feel like curling up in a blanket and sewing something pretty. I get peopled-out very easily...lol, and I know it's gonna be a long Olympic-celebration weekend. I get a little grumpy and irritable if I don't get time to myself, too. Silly, yes. But that's me. Plus, the headache and backache and footache I'm nursing def. make this a home day. lol.
Okay, enough about me. In lieu of '5 Little Things Friday' (which I'm gonna skip this week), here's a little vintage pirate plate re-vamp I did for one of my Style School projects (Restyled Houseware!):
I've been dying for one of these cheesy brass pirate plates for ages and ages, and finally sunk and nabbed one from the Salvation Army a few weeks ago (perfect for the pirate kitchen!). It was this super-dusty garish brass color (which is why I haven't bought one yet - brass?? Eeew.), and was a little tarnished but the overall shape was still in great condition.
I gave it a good wipe (I usually wash all of my vintage houseware finds with warm water and a little vinegar), and got it ready & prepped to be painted anew.
After it was all wiped and dry I gave it about 4 light coats of Krylon 'fusion' spray paint (it bonds to metal, plastic...pretty much anything!) to completely cover the brass coloring, and let it dry for a few days.
I wanted to faux age it a little bit, so it still looked a little vintage, and make the shape of the ship stand-out a little more, (though it did look really good all white!), so I grabbed my small can of wood furniture stain and a soft cloth.
I brushed the brown furniture stain all over the plate with a brush, and then wiped off most of it so that it 'antiqued' the white painted surface and got stuck in all the little nooks, giving it a really nice light brown washed look. (This is one of my fave techniques!)
I let the stain dry overnight (it stays wet for a long time on surfaces it can't sink into!), and then I added another coat using the same technique, only this time I used watered-down black acrylic paint.
Compared to the stain, acrylic paint dries crazy fast, so I watered it down a little in a container first and slopped it on with a brush and had to wipe it all away immediately - you can see how it got more coverage than the brown stain because it dried so fast! :) I also gave it a light coat of matte sealer to avoid any chips in the future.
And here's my 'new' restyled pirate plate:
A lot more updated, but still a little old-looking, no? :)
And it's new home in the pirate kitchen:
Speaking of the pirate kitchen....
A few more things:
1. My pirate-kitchen is nearly finished (2 more things to sew!) and will be photographed this weekend and posted early next week with a rad freebie print! (which you can kind of spy in the photo, above). Eeek!
2. The blog re-design is almost done, but some links in the sidebars don't work yet, still, and the pages have no content (if you notice while clicking around...) lol. Stay tuned for it's finish early next week and a schedule of upcoming fun stuff, too!
3. The third installment of the walnut ink tutorials will be coming in the next few days. :)
3. There's only 2 more days to enter Kara's class giveaway, below! :) Enter now, if you haven't yet!
Okay, I'm outties to catch up on e-mails and sew and feel better. lol.
Happy day!
