Wedgy Wedgy

This Summer I have found myself drooling over wedges. Clarks have a particularly shoetastic collection this season and I just love their vibrant, fun colours. I love that you can dress them down by pairing them with a casual outfit like denim shorts and a vest top, or they can be worn with a dress for a more glam look. 

I finally give in to these beauties. They are from Jones, The Bookmaker. I told myself that I would, most certainly, have lots of occasions to wear them and 'no, of course they are not too high.'

 

I plan to wear these next weekend to an evening wedding reception, with a bright orange Hobbs dress. But for now they rest in my wardrobe waiting for me to release them into the world and I can't wait.

VV x

Chest of drawers: Upcycled project #2

My next upcycling project was this pine chest of drawers that Jon and I 'inherited' from his parents.

While I am not totally against the odd piece of pine furniture, our bedroom was starting to look like a salvage yard, full of miss-match furniture.

I started by painting the drawers with the beautifully chalky Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Original . It's amazing paint because you don't need to rub down the surface before you paint. My mum recommended that I water it down as it is really thick and this definitely helped the application. I gave them at least two coats of the paint.

The carcass of the drawers is very heavy so I carefully painted them in-situ! Tut, tut!

When all the paint was fully dried I lightly sanded down the paint work and wiped it over to make sure all the dust was gone. I then applied natural beeswax, with a clean paint brush, to the drawers and the carcass. This changed the colour of the paint to give it a slightly darker colour and has a wonderful smell!

I decided to keep the knobs rather than replace them. I sprayed them with the same gloss paint that I used on the bench and table (see post below) and I really like how there is a contrast of matt wax and gloss surfaces.

My mum gave me a mirror , which was originally in my room when I was growing up. I sprayed that too with the Antique White paint.

All in all, I am very happy with my finished project...what next I wonder!?

The Garden Bench: Upcycle project #1

It comes and goes in waves, my Ebay addiction. Some weeks I can spends hours searching for 'Vintage Dress size 10' or 'Antique furniture' and then other weeks I forget that Ebay even exists.

Recently I started yearning for a garden bench, as you do, and so I begun my quest to find the perfect seat for our cottage garden. Local garden centres were selling pristine examples for something like £150 and that was a price that I was not prepared to pay. I turned to Ebay and found this little beauty, complete with matching table for £30.

In a way I quite liked its worn out, weather beaten look but I couldn't resist the urge to paint it and bring it back to some kind of former glory.

 

So, on the first day of my summer holiday I set to sanding it all down. I then gave the body of the bench and the top of the table 2 coats of Cuprinol's Seagrass and sprayed the wrought iron arms, and the legs of the table in Antique White gloss.

 

At first I was a bit unsure of the colour. Maybe a tad too bright for our garden, but in a couple of days softened and now I love it.

 

What do you think?

 

 

 

 

VV x