Planning a Party and Refreshing Furniture Hardware

We are excited about Justin and Madison's engagement and are having a party

in their honor so the two families can meet and get to know one another.

So before my parents head off to Florida for the winter I will be 

organizing a dinner party celebrating the event.

I wanted to get an invitation that would be a keepsake for the couple

and I didn't have much time to do it.  Luckily I found the most fabulous place

right near my shop called the Paper Store. This is not a sponsored post by the way,

I just was thrilled with the options and the professional help I received when 

I visited the shop.  Lilly, their design gal, showed me how I could select a 

template, then pick out all the colors I wanted for the image and the font as well

as tweak font styles.  The above image was shown in the

 store as a red image with black font.  If you know anything about me, 

you know red is not a color I use very often.

So I selected a pale greyish blue and paired it with a taupe font.  Then the 

couple's names were made a bit darker to highlight them.

Lilly showed me backer cards which are heavy stock cards that you can have

your invitation mounted on, and it looked very polished that way,

so I opted for a chocolate brown backer card.

This is just a snippet of the card as I don't really want 400 people showing up

to the party!  The most amazing thing was that Lilly did them right in front

of me and I had them within an hour! The price was very reasonable too~

so if you have a special occasion that you would like to make a little more 

special, take a trip to the Paper Store and check out their custom invitation section.

I went there thinking they would have all things paper, like scrapbook stuff and 

fill in the blank invites, but its really not like that at all. Its more of a boutique 

with lots of cool things and a fantastic invitation department.

So stay tuned as I do a little redecorating around the house

for the party.  I want to do a little freshening up of our decor and isn't

 a party just the thing to make you want to take action?

 While I am thinking of freshening up my decor, 

you might be thinking the same thing with the holidays rolling around.  
Take a look at some of your furniture and think about giving it a 
makeover with easy to use Chalk Paint®! Or just freshen up the 
hardware by changing it out to silver or brightening it with a gold.

Here is a dresser we are working on right now in the shop. 
 I think it would be a fantastic small size buffet piece 
in a dining room or even a hall table.  

A good before and after is always fun to look at.  

You can see all the details this piece has going for it. 

My kind of cabinet! I knew it would look great painted, 

and we broke out our Chalk Paint® decorative paint by Annie Sloan.  

I used Old Ochre for the main part of the cabinet and then highlighted 

some areas with a mix of French Linen and Old White.  

The hardware was removed this time instead of painted over, 

and it was darkened with time and age.

 An easy peasy way of reviving your hardware 

is a finger tip brushing of  Gilders Paste.  

 Here is the cabinet showing the left untouched and the 

right with a swipe or two of German Silver Gilder Paste.  

German Silver is one of the many metallic colors you can use for your hardware.

 Its a color I liken to a champagne. 

Its a silvery gold color....not too silver and not too gold. 

We have all kinds of other wonderful metallics too,

Celtic bronze, and Antique Gold and plain Silver to name a few.

A side by side comparison shows it off nicely.

At $11.99 a tin its well worth it and

 simple to apply with just a finger swipe.

Find this at our online store

www.shopmaisondecor.com

Looking forward to our Chalk Paint Workshop on Saturday!

You can sign up and register online as well as shop for goodies 

and paint and paint accessories.

Did you know we have the lowest prices on Chalk Paint®?

Well, we do and we are proud of it!

Lastly, we want to thank all of our new and repeat customers

that have come to our shop at 150 Main Street Reading MA.

We had a successful Columbus Day sale and sold 11 pieces of furniture!

So that means we will be getting more pieces ready in the shop

and of course we will be showing them off right here.