Flea finds

I'm posting some of the things I picked up at flea markets, yard sales and my fav spots like GW (Goodwill) and TSA (The Salvation Army).


Vintage electric candelabra

These are painted silver engravings from the Finden bros.



Galvanized watering can

Rusted frame with antique picture of a young girl with a sombrero?

Flowers adorn this tea cup, tea pot and pretty cake plate

Shabby wicker side table

Armoir

Mirror

Candle holders

Vintage end tables

Ceramic cherub plant potter

Crystal candy dish

And one of my favorites is this Infant of Prague statue along with a rusty crucifix 

These are just tidbits of some of the things I have picked up. In regards to the wood pieces like the armoir and the end tables.  I'll be refinishing those once I get the Annie Sloan chalk paint from Patty Seaman at http://www.bestfurniturepaint.com/

Thanks for taking the time to stop by and see what I've been up to lately.

Gorgeous Antique Frame

Hello again.  I wanted to post up one of my recent finds.  Since I'm always on the hunt for something old to make fabulous.  I came across this frame almost by accident.  You see, there is a little antique store by my 'day job' that I've been trying to get into and check out for a couple of months but were always closed.  So one fine day I decided to call ahead to see if they were open and it just so happened that they were that day.  I drove over and was disappointed to find a half empty antique store. The shop owner said his reason for closing was that he was tired of being in the retail business for over 20 years and he didn't want to renew his lease so he was taking a couple months off.  He was in the process of putting all his antiques into boxes and shipping them off to storage.  There were still some antiques that hadn't made their way into boxes so while I was looking around, of course, something shiny and gold caught my eye right away.  I noticed this very pretty and ornate gold frame.  It was a good size and when I went to pick it up it was very heavy.  The owner of the shop told me it was an 18th century picture frame made of bronze and he would let it go for $75.00.  I immediately put it down, even though it was very pretty I didn't have $75.00 to pay for just 1 picture frame, no matter how antique it was.  I asked him if he had anything in the $20 or less range hoping that he wouldn't laugh at me or ask me to leave.  He went to the back of his store into a tiny little room almost like a closet and said I could have this for $10.00.  Once I saw it my mouth dropped.

If you look carefully there are 6 ornate metal pieces all around the frame and there is pretty scroll work design all around behind, what looked like to me, paper. 

I started to prep this piece at first not knowing what was in store.  I noticed that besides being very dirty it was very wobbly.  I started to hammer the nails that were starting to stick out to reinforce it and that pretty much did the trick. 

I then started to clean the frame, I was using a sanding block to take off the paper that custom frame shops us when someone uses a frame to hold a piece of art with a matte. 

As I did this I wasn't taking notice of the fact that I was taking off some of the paper that held the scroll work.

I was a bit bummed that I had just done that, so I carefully folded it back in its place and will eventually need to use glue to stop it from ripping any further.   Now check out this frame carefully and take notice of its details.  Isn't it worthy of the word G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S?

 

I'm putting this post up because I am looking for some advice on refinishing this piece.  Since the ornaments are made of metal, I thought about spray painting them.  However I will need to spray paint them on the frame because I can't take them off.  As you'll see in this picture that it has what looks like a washer however its small and its embedded into the wood frame.  So I would have to cut into the frame to gain access to the washer.  To me, its not worth it to try since I may just damage the entire frame.

  As for the scroll work that is covered up by this paper, I was thinking of painting over it, but I think that it would hide the scroll detail.  So now I'm thinking of perhaps a gold rub or leafing would work in exposing the scroll detail on this frame.  I'm not entirely certain on how to go about it.  I'm open to all your advice for this.  But just to give you a brief description of my vision in my head of how I would like for it to look like.  I see the ornate pieces as silver and gold on the scroll work and its all enclosed with a nice piece of shiny mirror.  Can you see it?  Can you envision it with me?  Drop me a line on what I should do. Thanks a million for all your help.  Oh yeah that purdy ol' table that the frame is resting up against is my latest greatest. I'll post all about that in a bit.

Vintage Syroco Photo Frame Re-make

Hi all,

Today I wanted to share with you a quick little story about this vintage Syroco wood frame I purchased at a local flea market.  For this piece I had to dig around in order to find it.  What caught my eye was that it was gold and has pretty bows.

So to prep, I wiped it clean with a damp cloth and then removed the frame backing with a butter knife since I didn't have a flat head available at the time.  What you saw in the picture above is actually a phillips head.  And I'm sure you're noticing that I'm working on top of the same shabby mirror I posted about.

I primed the frame with white primer spray paint, since I love to spray paint and let it dry out in the sun.  And yes this time I'm using a drop cloth, no more spray painting the grass.

For a second I thought about leaving it white and shabbying it up a bit, but I felt this pretty frame needed more than that.  It needed some color, so I chose a pink acrylic and mixed it up with some of the Valspar bronze metal glazing and what I came up with was a pinky pearl color, it was absolutely beautiful while I was mixing it and painting it.  However, I needed to add a few coats because the glaze is not a paint and its not meant to coat as thickly as paint should.  So sometimes with every brush stroke I would remove paint instead of painting the frame.

I let it dry and bake in the sun.  So glad the weather was cooperating that day. 

So this is the finished product, I put a piece of scrapbook paper to boost its color and until I can find a purdy ol' picture for it.  Its also going to need a piece of cut glass since it didn't come with one.
Pretty nice, right?  I think so.  Tell me what you think and leave your comments.

Shabby Mirror Updo

So basically, I live at flea markets, well not really, but if there is one local to me then I have to hit it up.  I love seeing the people, the vendors, the smell of food in the background and of course the stuff.  Besides the merchandise, I absolutely, truly, truly enjoying searching and digging and picking something buried and forgotten and most importantly CHEAP!  This gives me so much pleasure that I could do it all day long.  Another favorite aspect of fleas and yard/garage sales is haggling, bargaining, hustling, negotiating or whatever you want to call it.  To me it makes the entire experience so much fun and satisfying.  Especially when I take what I bought home and say to myself WOW! I just got that fabulous such and such for dirt cheap. (Not to say that dirt is cheap, because if you ever needed dirt for any reason, it ain't cheap..lol)

Anyway, at a local flea, I picked up this heavy lead mirror and frame for $9.00.  Its 38" x 24", but besides the size what caught my attention was the heavy wood carving and detailing, even though it was hiding behind some black paint. Please don't look at my horrible floors, they need to be redone but that is another post.

 I thought to myself, who would want to hide all this beautiful detailed work behind black paint.  So my goal was to brighten it up and let all the world see what a fabulous mirror this could be with just a little elbow grease and inspiration. 

Isn't it wonderfully chippy!  Look at those details, they needed to come out and I was going to do just that.


Now I haven't been doing re-fabs, re-dos, or re-makes or too long, as a matter of fact I just started and this is now my second project.  I'll have to show you my first project, but that too is another post.

So, I bought some white primer spray paint at my local (HD-Home Depot) and a little painter's tape and I started to spray away....

This is what it looked like after I did 2 coats of the primer.  Now mind you, at the time I thought I would just replace the mirror with a new one since this one had age spots on it, so I wasn't too concerned with the overspray.  My hubby (Mr. Racer) was not too happy about spray painting the grass, but I figured it would just grow out and would go away once the grass is cut.  :-)

If you're wondering why I call my hubby, Mr. Racer, well if you knew him its because he lives and breathes his hobby race car, big time. See..

Ok back to the frame..now look at all that detailed carving, absolutely gorgeous!

Next thing was shabbing it up a bit with a small square sanding block.

Nice!!!

You can see the original black paint chipping and even a little bit of the wood peeking through.  I love it!!!

I've been reading at all the DIY blogs (by the way, big fan of all you guys) that glazing is the way to go if you want to bring some age or for a vintage look.  So I was reading at The Speckled Dog about her tutorial on glazing which inspired me enough to spend the $9 at Lowes and purchase Valspar antiquing glaze in Asphaltum which is essentially a blackish color.  Oh yeah, I also purchased the Valspar Metal and Patina Glaze in Bronze, very pretty.

This is where naiveness or inexperience comes in, because I was thinking at the time that a Bronze metal glazing would make those wonderfully delicious details pop.  So I gathered my supplies, which was a painting brush, a clean rag, the glaze and a some water to hold the brush (in my case an empty Snapple bottle)...

But instead this is what happened, after I applied some of it on.....

And rubbed it off...

No popping of details, instead it made it look yellow, whatha?

Okay, I thought, I'll just try the antique glaze - Asphaltum.  I painted it on...yes, right on top of the other glaze..no shame on my game...

Then I rubbed it off and got this...

Not too bad, right?

So I kept going.. and ended up with this.

Of course, I'll be changing the mirror but I just hung it up for visual purposes. What do you think?  I was going for the shabby chic, vintage look.

Here is a close up.

I kept the outside border of the frame plain white as a contrast to the ornate frame.  Should I shabby this up as well?  Let me know and give me your feedback.  I'd love hear your thoughts on this project.

Oh, so you may or may not have noticed during this whole frame redo story, that after I spray painted 2 coats of the primer, I never, ever, ever spray painted or painted another coat of glossy white.  I just glazed right over the primer.  So the frame is looking a bit dull and dingy for me, rather than vintage.  I think some Polycrylic gloss spray should shiny it up.

I'm on the fence as to keeping it as is or priming it again and putting on some rub on gold for the details and skipping the glazing.   Again, look past the horrible floors.

Thanks for reading about my mirror makeover and stay tuned for some more DIY decor and projects from French Wench Designs.