Animal Print Silver and Gold Leafed Side Table

You may remember the small turquoise table I did a little while back http://savardstudios.blogspot.com/2012/04/vintage-turquoise-console-and-side.html. I decided to be a bit crazy with it's mate (although now they don't go together at all!). Such a simple, classic mission style table.

..until I finished with it! Now it's a truly, unique, one of a kind (ooak) side table.

Parts of it are silver leafed, parts are gold leafed. The top was transformed with a zebra print stencil. The legs and drawer were accented with leopard print. The entire table was glazed with a warm brown glaze. Once dry, I polyurethaned the table for durablity, two coats on the top. I used an old cabinet knob and upcycled it by priming, painting, silver leafing, glazing, sealing, then finished it off with black diamond Swarovski cystals. Talk about a blinged out table!! Do you think I'm crazy?! I would love to hear your opinions on my furniture transformations.
Here are the step by step instructions for this table. First I sanded the table and wiped it down. I base coated it with a chocolate brown, furniture grade priming base coat. Color here is not terribly important since I'm covering it with gold and silver leafing. A little color peaks through here and there, but not much. It's classic to do a red base an let a little more color crack through. Here's how the leafing size looks going on. It's milky white but dries clear and sticky.
I did the silver areas first. Once they were leafed, I came back and did the gold areas of the table. After all the leafing was complete, I added the zebra stencil to the top only. 

I used a black glaze for this step because I didn't want it to be solid black. A little more sheer suites my taste better.

Next, I added the leopard stencil to the gold legs and gold drawer face. I think I've mentioned before, I actually hand cut this leopard stencil, many years ago using an exacto knife. I really need to get a new one. There are many places online that will custom make stencils for you. I must do that soon.

Once the stencil design was complete and dry, I glazed the entire table with a warm umber glaze. Love the way this gives the foil a slightly tarnished looked with years of aged beauty and dimension. (Wish I could rub it on me for aged beauty :) ) Since I used oil for this, I let it dry several days before I varnished with an oil satin varnish. The finishing touch on this piece was the upcycled cabinet knob in silver leaf and black diamond Swarovski crystals!

So once again, here's the finished piece.



It's heading over to the Dilworth Blacklion this week. It will be in Booth 409 Eeeklectic Town, www.eeeklectictown.com.  It's already listed on Etsy at www.etsy.com/shop/savardstudios. Shipping on this piece is included. Here's a sneek preview of another clockface table already listed and heading to my booth this week as well. It will be in one of my upcoming blogs!

The Baddest Gym in Town!

So this post is related to painting, in that we did some decorative painting in one of the coolest gym’s in town. This is the Matthews, NC location that houses Carolina Adventure Boot Camp, as well as the personal trainers that run it. My sister in law is one of the owners. I’ve been working out in her “boot camp” Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 5:30 am since October. It was brutal at first (not the getting up early, been doing that for years!), but the physical intensity. But, the plus side is you see results so much faster than easing into it. You get a great sense of accomplishment as you  see you strength and endurance increase. And once it’s done at 6:30 and you have your whole day ahead of you! ( You don’t feel so bad about the bottle of wine, bag of chips or chocolate cake you ate the night before. Who am I kidding, I never feel bad about it anyway…)

So they selected some very simple slate looking vinyl for the bathrooms and hallway. It had very rich color, so from that we quickly decided on some wall colors. We choose a slate blue venetian plaster for the bathrooms. For the main body of the personal training area, we choose a warm goldish terracotta. We glazed the back wall with an iridescent gold glaze. Once dry, we glazed over that with a very warm burnt umber glaze. We also glazed the hall wall with the burn umber glaze. All colors looked fabulous with the flooring and the gym equipment. This is not your father’s gym! It looks amazing and is so inviting to work out in. Makes you look forward to it! I’ll let you be your own judge.

Carolina Adventure Boot Camp, offers women only camps, co-ed camps, personal training, nutritional training and they have a massage therapist onsite. If you are looking for a great work out and wanting to get in shape, check out Maria’s website. I would love to see you out there! http://www.carolinaadventurebootcamp.com/site/index.php.

Black and Gold Crackled Chairs and an Antiqued Green Arm Chair

I love when my beloved clients want to keep an old piece of furniture, be it for sentimental memories or just to upcycle something and save a few trees. Two clients had chairs they wanted to transform. Both were nice, solid wood, but had seen better days.

Jury Chair

The pair of jury chairs where definitely dated but were very solid. I saw a set of 12 of these on Craig's List for $50 each.  http://charlotte.craigslist.org/fuo/2946229121.html.   I think with a cool upholstered cushion on them and some caster wheels, they would make great game table chairs!
Both chairs needed to be lightly sanded and primed. I used a slightly off white latex, stain blocking primer.
The chair with the upholstered seat was to be green with a glaze. I used an interior latex paint in a eggshell finish. I used color 6970, Baltic Green from Porter/PPG Paints.
Since the jury chairs were going to be black and gold crackle I needed to start with a gold base. I used one of my favorite metallic bronze paints. Brushing on metallic paint does leave a brushed metal effect, but since a black crackle was going on top, it doesn't affect the finish.


Once the gold on the jury chair was dry, I applied a crackle size. It goes on milky and dries clear and shiny. It's what makes the topcoat crackle. Once the size was dry, I randomly brushed and stippled the black crackle paint. It's a bit thicker than regular paint, and dries slower to allow for better cracking.
Once the green paint was dry, I was able to glaze it with a chocolate glaze.

After the black crackle dried and the glaze was dry, I was able to add a polyurethane to both chairs. For the crackled jury chair, I used a latex, satin poly. For the antiqued chair, I mixed satin with flat poly to give a more aged appearance. Thought these turned out fabulous!

Beautiful, Blooming Peony

Just had to share a few photos of my blooming pink peony! We purchased this plant many years ago from the Grower's Outlet on South Blvd. It was tiny and in the clearance pile for $5. We planted it, but thought  maybe it got too much shade. We watched it get green, year after year with no blooms. We thought we just got what we paid for. After 3 or 4 years we moved it to a spot with a little more sun, and the next year it had one bloom!! We were so excited! I guess it needed to mature. It's been about 4 years now since we moved it and it gets more blooms each year and the blooms are getting bigger. That last frost affected some of the blooms, but not this one!

So pretty! I hope this reminds you that it is still spring, even though it feels like Summer!