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!

Upcycling Old Furniture

So this week, I have some wall painting projects that aren't going to be as dramatic as last week. So I thought I show you some old furniture/cabinet pieces I'm working on in my spare time (chuckle).

I have this very old, rickety teacart that a dear friend gave me. It had been in her family for years, but she didn't have a need for it any longer. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it, so I've been staring at it for months! I decided I just needed to get working on it. Got my hubby to look at it and with his manly tools, was able to tighten it up and make it not rickety. One of the bolts for the wheels was bent, so he went to our local Indian Trail Hardware store. They were stunned! "Where in the world did you get that? It's really old!" No kidding. They found a suitable replacement (It will likely be silver leafed as well). So this picture is without the wheels attached. This thing was wood at some point, and had been painted various colors over the years.

My vision for this is for a little girl's room. I think it will make a great accent table. Definitely some pink shimmer! I know I'm silver leafing the wheel spokes. Needs some leopard print, just not sure if I'm going black or brown yet. There will be crystals! (Wonder if that could be an academy award winning movie title? Like, There will be Blood, only "There will be Crystals") Bling girls will understand that. So anyway, you'll have to check in for my next blog to see what I decide. I would love some comments or whether to go black or brown with the pink.
I also, have an old painted cabinet door that was used to show some crackle samples to clients. My vision for this is to turn it into an awesome coat rack. I don't have a photo of this, but I'm sure we can all visualize an ugly, painted cabinet door. You are going to love the finished product!

And finally, I have a very cool french chair. Actually, a pair.

They look pretty nice as is, but wait until you see the final. One is sold to a custom order customer, but I'll talk about that process and show you how it turned out. The other is still up in the air. If you're dying to see what we did to this chair, you can see it in my Etsy store.  http://www.etsy.com/listing/91368120/upcycled-french-chair-burgundy-leather
Otherwise, wait till the next blog  (http://savardstudios.blogspot.com/2012/01/upcycling-old-furniture-after-pictures.html) to see the details and pictures. Hopefully, I'll have it up over the weekend. Thanks for stopping by! Can't wait to hear your comments!