This and that and Advanced Workshop schedule

 Our Boston store has a new display in the window.  Justin channeled a bit of Ralph Lauren for this one...while I was in the auction house he texted me his idea and so I shopped for a few items to add to his display.  All of these items are for sale of course.  I love coming into the Boston shop to see what's new as I rarely get to spend any time in here.  Last Saturday when the Malden shop closed, Colin and I took a ride into Boston with a few new items to add to Justin's inventory.  I couldn't resist snapping a few pics to share them with you.

 Gothic gilded mirror leaning against a great painted dresser with fab knobs.

                           A low chest perfect for a flat screen console~

 Some hand painted mugs~

Justin makes the coolest little signs and 

he displays them in white piglets.  Love his hand lettered font.

 While I am just snapping away Colin sat with Sylvia, Justin's schnoodle. She is our Boston mascot and is just a little puppy with a darling disposition.  Justin was at the gym next door working out after hours when Colin and I popped into the store late Saturday afternoon.  Little Syl was just sitting on her tiny dog bed and was so sweet! Colin scooped her up while I ran around the store grabbing a few photos.

 

Colin and Sylvia

 When we got back home Colin showered and got ready to go out with his friends~I had never seen his shirt before...it had the breast cancer pink ribbon thing on the button placket. I asked him where he got it~he told me he ordered it from a fancy shirt company and said that 20% went to breast cancer research. His friends thought it was pretty cool and they got the black polo shirts too.  The girls they meet at the nightclubs think its pretty sensitive of a guy to care about breast cancer.  Colin is just a handsome young man who actually does think about such things. I don't know how we got so lucky with him! He is a pleasure~ok, enough bragging on him...

 I finally got the Maison Decor Advance Workshop schedule started and I have decided to do it in a monthly series. One special workshop per month will be offered.  I added a Glazes and Washes class for February 17 and an Artisan Technique class for March 24 which will be all about the Pearl Plaster and other products.  At the end of this month I am headed to Colorado to spend  5 days with one of the creators of the product and I will get some one on one training time from the master of these wonderful and exciting products!  Of course I will still have my Annie Sloan Introductory workshops, two times every month. March 10 has SOLD OUT and March 17 has only 5 spots left.  Please sign up if you are considering it, as they will be gone probably by the end of the week.

 This table leg bears a smokey wash and a gilded wash...

And last but not least~

Thats my mom on the right in 1969.  She looks pretty chic in her tight bob and cats eye glasses and empire waisted shift!  She is standing next to my Nana, and then next to Nana is my aunt Cynthia, my mom's youngest sister and my Uncle Arthur. They have 2 boys and 2 girls.  Very sadly Aunt Cynthia died of melanoma when she was only 49 years of age. We miss her.  I think everybody agreed she was the prettiest out of the 5 daughters and had a matching personality to boot!  Uncle Arthur is one of my favorite uncles~he is that dashing kind of guy, tall and handsome and got charisma in spades.  When he walked in a room, he just lit it up!  Now he is plagued with an undiagnosed condition and the doctors are busy trying to figure it all out and find out how to treat him.  So if you are inclined, please add him to your prayer list. 

Hang in there Uncle Art! We love you and are pulling for you.

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Custom color candles in two minutes!

 I used to be a white candle only person...I think I read somewhere it was

a design no no to use colored candles.  I am so glad I don't have to follow 

all the rules anymore..."cause I am all grown up and I have my own ideas!

Well maybe my ideas are greatly influenced by what I see in books and on

beautiful blogs~but at any rate I had in mind a set of ten bright pink candles for 

these antique candelabra.  The last time I wanted a certain color candle I went online

and ordered some in turquoise from a very expensive store~and they were perfect.

Since I needed ten candles for a store display this time I went to TJMaxx looking

for a boxed set of pink candles...but the only color candles were neutrals.

So I bought two boxes at $7.99 each and headed to the shop~as I 

was driving it occurred to me that I could try painting them with Chalk Paint!!
I was all excited thinking this could really be a great thing if it worked~

Selina Lake's book Romantic Style has room after

 romantic room and many of them use brightly colored tapers

in the antique candle holders and candelabras, like this one in hot pink.

Here is another photo of a candelabra similar to mine and

 there are two shades of a chartreuse green candle.

I love the funky spunky look of the bright candles with the antique fixture.

So I got to mixing up my pink paint~

I used about 3 parts Pure White to 1 part Emperor's Silk.

You can see the fleshy colored tapers laying in wait...

The first candle gets a quick one coat paint job....

I held it by the wick and then zapped it with the hair dryer

 to hasten the drying.  I wanted to light it to see if anything bad would happen~

It appeared this was going to work!
But after an extended period they start throwing a smokey trail.
What a bummer!
So use these for decorative purposes only please!

Then I painted the next 9 candles all with one coat 

and stuck them in water bottles.

Maybe you can stick them in something else, but I had all these 

empties from my last Paint Workshop and they were just the right size!  

The next thing I did was to take one out at a time and do a 

quick second coat followed by a hairdryer blast

 for a minute or two and they were finished!!

I was so pleased with the finished result~I had the 

bubble gum pink candles I wanted for just pennies!!

Think of all the colors you can make with your candles~

plum,  aqua bright orange!! Just look at the Annie Sloan paint chart!

My candelabras were looking swell~
For decorative purposes~not meant for burning!

I knew the pink candles would totally make that vanity top pop!

Now all I have to do is paint the vanity.

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I want that Bohemian vibe

~My shop~

I've been craving a little funky color and style~and to me

that means heading off in a Bohemian direction.

One definition of "Bohemian" from the internet:

"Movement of artist and poets in late 19th century                                                             France, especially in Paris. Bohemians believed in living outside of the   bourgeois (conventional, middle class) mainstream culture."

So heading outside the mainstream for me means going ahead with my latest impulses,

which are peachy pinks, florals, gold, gold, and more gold and funky accessories. 

It has to be vintage and when all that comes together its a winner in my book!

A Florentine style table was a recent auction purchase and is now for sale at the shop~it inspired a little setting I created in the front window that included some vintage metal things.  I bought a set of 6 metal and porcelain Italian decorative wall sculptures from  my picker Rebecca....not sure what to call them, and I wasn't sure if they were cool or weird or what.  But something about them made me want them~it was the pale peach colored handmade porcelain flowers.  I thought they  would look cool climbing up the wall like a big vine...but first I needed to paint a backdrop for them.

 For a long time I have been wanting to paint more walls with Chalk Paint.  

I poured some Scandinavian Pink and some Antoinette into a paint tray,

 then added a blob each of Pure White and French Linen....

got a paint brush and started painting.

 I painted in big stroked and then I spritz it down with a 

spray bottle and rag it all around for a nice soft effect.

It came out pretty nice and the flower vines looked storybook climbing up the wall.

After the wall was finished a shop neighbor stopped in with a desk I 

bought from her~she is closing her hair dressing shop and she wanted

 to know if I was interested in her decoupage desk.  The desk was also 

one of those things I wasn't sure about when I first saw it...I wasn't going

 to repaint over the decoupage~did I think it had a chance 

of appealing to my buyers? I decided it did~its funky and french

 and fits the Bohemian style nicely. 

Certainly some cool girl will want this very different desk!  

 Its got some great style but all the feet are tired and have seen better days~

I'll touch them up with black paint and they will hardly be noticeable! 

The price will be right and this desk will have a new home soon I predict.

Paired with a gold chair its the perfect Bohemain writing table~

I'm feeling colorful and lively and in a go with the flow mood~

How are you feeling lately?  I still love the neutral palette

but think the store will be having touches of Bohemian style

to inspire me as I work through Annie Sloan's paint palette.

This Saturday I am hosting a Workbook workshop.  We will be making

color wheels and building color palettes and then doing plenty of clip art

and inspirational design work in our Workbooks, which comes with the class

admission price of $85~so sign up if you have two hours this Saturday and

get your inspiration down on paper in your own Workbook journal.

A page from my Workbook shows the colorway of 

peachy pink that has been on my brain lately.

Its definitely peachier than pink...and I haven't liked Peach for a long

time...funny how a color can come around again. 

Lots of new ideas and things we will be doing at Maison Decor

and I will be sharing it all right here with you.

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Turquoise and Gold Inspiration!

With the start of the New Year I was looking for a little

inspiration for my shop and I came across this page in 

Selina Lake's Romantic Style book, one of my favorites.

I keep some decorating books around the shop for people to flip

through for inspiration and I often look through them myself.

So I left the book open to this page, but not before I called Colin

over to show him this room and mention that I loved the look

and style of this room~that I wished our shop had a bit more of this 

feeling to it.....he agreed with me, as he is an affable sort!

I had a meeting with my picker, Rebecca, scheduled for later in the day.

In the meantime Colin and I wanted to move things around 

and get the shop layout to function better for our

workshops as well as to make an effort to spruce things up

a bit after the hubbub that the year end activity had left the shop

in a bit of disarray.  Lots of clocks were painted and shipped out,

as well as books and gifts and furniture pieces being made over~

all in all the store had lost a bit of its mojo.

So this photo gave me a clear head and some direction.

 Rebecca came by and had a bunch of pretty things that I bought for the shop~
to include more mirrors and this pair of candelabras~she said they came out of a Catholic church and were from the Victorian era. They were enormous at 30" tall, and once the tapers are added they will be three feet tall at least! I had to have them~so decorative featuring wheat shafts, grapes and grapevine leaves, and lilies entwine the 5 candle holders.  Colin was busy stringing some bistro lights across the shop as Justin had done in Boston (below) with great results.

While Colin strung lights, I got busy mixing up a turquoise paint color out of Chalk Paint by mixing Florence, Provence and Pure White for a stunning blue. Our long french dining table sits in the middle of the room and when not used for workshops we cover it and use it for the painting projects like mora clocks and the mirror you can see below.  We planned to move the monster armoire to the end of the shop as it makes passage around the workshop table difficult during workshops.  I wanted to place it at the very back end of the shop behind my desk.  Problem was it weighed eight thousand pounds, and Mr. Maison Decor has had a sore back, so it was left to Colin and me to figure it out.

We would have to figure it out~but in the meantime I had that 

inspirational photo in my head and I just had to create!! 

 I have written more than once on my affection for the French gilding wax
that I sell....I just cannot tell you how important it is in many of my projects,
taking the nice enough finished result to a higher level!  I just touch a finger tip into the pot and then spread it on the surface I wish to gild. Its simple and fast with amazing results.

This is the custom turquoise blue I mixed up for the mirror.

I painted the entire thing with this blue. Then I added a watery layer of Versailles over the blue, except in the paneled area of the Trumeau.

After that, I applied clear and dark to the entire mirror frame.

Now it was time to bring it to life.

Pot of Gold!!

 Here is a rough pic of the mirror all finished~I will be adding mirror hardware to the back of it and hanging it today and will update the blog with a beauty shot as this photo doesn't do it justice. Its four feet long and huge.

 Below is a pic of the before sent to me by Rebecca.

The Trumeau mirror has a worn out wood frame with a bit of water damage and crackling, and the center piece has gold paint on it...less than stellar. I knew there were a few ways I could have taken this mirror~like a beautiful French Linen and gilding wax...but I wanted to go for that rich turquoise and gold look.

 I worked the same routine on another 4 foot wide sofa mirror she brought me which had also seen better days~its got an enchanting Bohemian quality now.

The gilding wax just picks up the high points of carved decoration and it is incredibly easy to get a masterful result just with a finger tip application.
After the mirrors were finished I went back to look at the inspiration photo~
and much to my surprise I saw something unexpected in the photo.

Ahhh, I love this turqouise and gold...but look!
There on the mantle!!

 A candlestick practically identical to the ones I just bought from Rebecca!

 Mine had the same three elements of wheat, grapes, and lilies! They also held five candles! Woah! It was like the law of attraction from the Universe had come into play at Maison Decor! At least that is what I believe.

 This was a mind blower~I had never ever seen candlesticks like this....and two hours after saying I wanted the shop to look like the image in the book, this very accessory walked through the front door. Amazing.
Does this kind of thing ever happen to you? Have you experience the law of attraction?  I'll say its not the first time this has happened to me, but each time it continues to amaze me.

Yesterday we had the most productive day! We painted and strung lights, and even got all the furniture moved around in the shop!! I will be sharing the entire thing with beauty shots tomorrow~the workshops are coming and I can't wait! I'll be teaching ten ladies on Sunday and then ten more two weeks later! If you wonder what you can expect in a Introductory Workshop I am planning a blog post that goes through it with a bit more detail.  Its four hours of action packed learning and tips and insider info that will put you in the Chalk Paint driver seat.

For more information on the Gilding wax, click here.

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