Stanley Dog - and Back to my Old Ways

Well - what do you think of this little fellow?

Doesn't he look like Cath Kidston's Stanley dog? I love the grumpy expression! He's definitely coming to the shop.

I made a big effort last week to make a start on clearing my excessive amounts of stock from home - and get it in the shop where it should be (no I can't keep it all - naughty me to even think it!). So I tried to be really organised, and put together a little system - picking a box; going through the whole box; getting rid of the unsuitable items; preparing and pricing the rest; and getting them into the shop. Yes, I even wrote down a little flowchart to help me focus on making some progress (sad, but true!) So, how did it go you may ask.

 Well, I cleared quite a bit, but still not enough to actually use my dining room. But, this week, after putting the new stock in the shop, I decided that the shop was beginning to look a little drab; it needed a bit of pick me up. Ahhhhh! I realised what it was missing  - my old ways - you know when I just pick and choose stock according to how I feel, and what I think would look nice with the rest of the stock in there. SO........ it's back to my old ways this week (but just this week, cos I really must get that dining room cleared!). I'm picking and choosing ........ Ooooh, it's lovely....... the freedom to just go whereever the mood takes you. And that is how the Stanley lookalike came out!

But, I bet you'd like to have a look at some of the other things. I have an amazing Art Deco uranium glass dressing table set. The shapes of the trinket boxes, and the sunburst pattern of the glass is SooooooooO Art Deco - I love it!

And this little measuring tape - so cute - it has a little button on the back which makes it retract. Quite distracting, cos it makes you keep pulling it out and retracting it, rather than getting on with the sewing!

And on the subject of sewing (or indeed knitting, tapestry or crocheting) I thought these lovely crafty books would go down well in my growing crafty section of the shop. 

Of course, anything with Kaffe Fassett's touch is bound to be uber-colourful, and these books do not disappoint on that front. But I was also really interested in the alphabet charts, which could be applied to embroidery, tapestry or even knitting - but particularly nice for embroidering onto some plain linen napkins, I thought.

I had to share these tapestry cushions from the books with you - they are totally gorgeous!

And after all that, who wouldn't like to have a sit down in this chair to flick through the lovely crafty books?

Yes that is a tapestry screen - all hand stitched, amazing!

No sitting around for me today, though, I must be off to Bourne Mill to rearrange my room and display these lovely treasures.

Late night opening

So, this Thursday was the first late night opening at Bourne Mill - Yay!

We had a little vino fizzo and good old natter in terms of a celebration of this milestone! But only once I'd straightened out my room a bit -

I took a few shots for my slide show on the web site.

 

Maybe I should have taken these shots after I'd filled in the gaps with the new stock!

But sometimes you don't notice these things until you look at the photos.

You can't beat a bit of a sparkly light, can you? So pretty!

I'm not completely happy with the way I have my room laid out, so I'm going to have a really good look over all the photos I took on Thursday so that I can get it better. It can be tricky, as all my pieces of furniture are for sale, so when they get sold, all the contents get dumped on the nearest available surface, and I have to try to rearrange and make it all look nice again as best I can when I go in to restock. Any ideas or tips, would be very welcome!

Meanwhile, the plate rack and the what-not I showed you as WIPs in my last post are now finished.

I stripped the old wax off this piece, then I knotting solutioned it, primed it, 1st coated it in F&B Pointing, 2nd coated it in a mix of acrylics (from the paint box) in greens and blues applied in a sponged on wash (at this point it looked like it had gone mouldy!), 3rd coat in F&B "Bone", 4th coat in F&B "Pointing" - phew! that was the painting finished. Then I distressed it (quite ruthlessly) so that you can see back to the wood in parts, but through all the various layers of paint. It was a bit experimental, but I'm happy with the result. Mr Thing said if he was going to buy it that he'd want a bit more paint on it (cheek! - I think he missed the point). I'll have to let the public decide - it will be going in the shop on Monday!

Meanwhile the Cath Kidston decoupage on the little what not has been very satisfying. I love papering furniture! For anyone who fancies trying it, my first tip would be to make sure you use paper which is proper paper - if you know what I mean! Don't use wrapping paper for example which tends to not have much actual paper content and has a "shiny" finish, as it doesn't absorb the glue - so you can get a horrible mess when you apply it. You need paper which is a bit absorbent (like wallpaper) so that you can work it whilst it is wet. That gives you time to get all the air out, so you get a nice finish. Maybe I should give a quick tutorial on my blog sometime?

Have a nice weekend!

Painted furniture update

As promised, it's time for an update on the painting and general furniture makeover progress at the Gorgeous Things Studio (aka the dining room at the old village hall).

Here is a lovely bun footed bureau. I love these pieces of furniture - I think they are really practical. Little Thing 2 has one in her bedroom painted white, but with a pink girlie interior! They are great bedroom pieces, cos you can store stuff in them, but then you can fold the desk part down for using your laptop, and then fold it up again out of the way when you've finished. How practical is that? Brilliant, I think! As a furniture revamper (is that what I am?) I love the fun of the foldaway part - it is just asking to be decorated with a bit more pizzaz than the outside, cos it isn't always on view.

See? A lovely bit of Cath Kidston floral there on the inside. Now it's looking pretty good, huh?

Cute little cubby holes for all those bits and bobs.

And a pretty desky bit to cheer anyone up while they are working or doing their homework.

Another feature about furniture that I love painting is "the twiddly bits", so when a cheval mirror with lots of twiddly bits came my way I was very excited. Not only did it have some nice twiddly bits, but it also had a nice flat surface (back of the mirror) which was just asking to be prettified with a bit of floral.

Front (above) Back (below)

Shall we have a closer look at the twiddly bits?

I love these bits so much. Little Things 1 and 2 are both pretty keen on this mirror, so I'm not sure it will make it as far as the shop! Luckily I have a few more pieces which are WIP , like this little what-not..

...which needs another coat of paint before I set to with some decoupage on those shelves. Then I have this plate stand thingy which has been through the mill a bit here in terms of me trying out some paint effects.

I have just painted over the paint effects at the moment, but after another coat of Farrow and Ball "Pointing", then I will start to distress it, and then the paint effects underneath will emerge - I'm looking forward to seeing how this turns out! Meanwhile, these Midwinter plates look right at home on it!

And, just in case I don't have enough in the revamping studio - I have just picked up some more pieces !

This rather dirty lloyd loom chair is just crying out for some gorgeous vintage cushion - well, after it has had a good clean! But I'm thrilled to have found an original green one - the colour is really, really gorgeous!! Needless to say this one will not be painted over!

Then I'll have a bit of painting and upholstery to get this lovely shaped chair ready. I'm thinking of some sort of patchworked vintage fabric seat for this one - luckily it is a drop in seat, which means it is pretty straighforward to recover.

And I managed to find this nice shaped dresser back - which is always popular in the shop.

I'll get the knotting solution over this one whilst watching the tennis this afternoon! Then it'll have its undercoat on before the school run. I really don't like orange pine - so I'm in a rush to get it covered up!

By the way, if you are interested in buying any of my pieces, please drop me an email. I am in the process of getting a blogshop up and running, cos I don't want to fill this blog with a list of items for sale. I'll be linking to it from here just as soon as I get it sorted.