CREATING ART THE AMATEUR WAY

I had a plain wooden winebox stored in the bottom shelf of my computer work station for years with just cables and various computer stuff in it.  One day, desperate to decorate something, I decided to give it a makeover.  After all, I had decorated the work station.  So, I painted it, stuck transfers on it, and gave it a varnish.  It is still used for the same purpose but it was fun doing it. 

One day I was looking around to see what else I could decorate and my eyes landed on a plain wooden knife block in my kitchen.  I gave it a coat of green chalk paint, let it dry, and gave the green paint a bit of a sand to give it that rustic appearance.  Then I stuck bits of unused transfers on it that I had left over from other projects and finally a coat of varnish.  Years later, it still looks the same.  Decorated wood knife block

Years ago I bought some flat-packed pine furniture.  I knew that at some point I would become bored with it, and I did, during the Covid madness.  I decorated my living room's sideboard and a chest of drawers with a white and baby-blue chalk paint, using masking tape for the stripes. I added the quirky touch with different coloured knobs.  I also decorated the drawer of a large coffee table that I have. The chalk paint was waxed over with Annie Sloan white wax, rubbing on and off to achieve a blotchy, not solid, effect.  

A while ago I went crazy, it was during the Covid madness and I ended up decorating everything I could lay my hands on, except the cat — and he came pretty close to it.  This was one project that I really went to town on and I love the result, even now.  It's chalk painted, using Annie Sloan paint, and the top  and legs are varnished to protect the surface. I used clear Annie Sloan wax on the sides.  The design was created using protective masking tape.   How it began... 😀  Alfie, my elderly Ragdoll cat, gets everywhere!

Nothing in my home is safe from me decorating it.  I wanted to buy some designer cafetières for my kitchen and could not find a single thing of interest, so I decorated the ones that I have. They are stainless steel with thermal walls so they never get hot to the touch. I used rub-on transfers that pretty much obliterated anything showing behind them. The black and copper cafetiere got painted over with a coat of black chalk-paint first. These are the results. The top one was all stainless steel and two types (patterns) of opaque rub-on transfers applied directly to metal.  It's was a bit tricky around the handle and spout but perfectly doable.  This cafetiere, as you can see was originally black and copper and had become rather scruffy so, as I mentioned, I gave it a coat of black chalk paint and then applied a transfer on top.   They both have lasted years as they were and only recently have started to look a little shabby.  I might just decorate them aga...

In my garden there is a little garden room made of cedar and a lot of UV protective glass.  As I like to surround myself with artwork and quirky work, I created some framed artwork to decorate my garden room walls.  Although nothing inside the room fades, due to the special glass, I didn't want to take any risks with a painting that had taken me a very long time to do.  I bought the frames online and varnished them.  I used MDF backing boards on which to stick the rub-on transfers, painting the boards first with chalk paint, and then I set to work arranging transfers into pictures that pleased me, with a final coat of UV protective varnish (just in case).  Here are some examples.  

I went through a decorating madness phase and when I ran out of furniture and pots to decorate, I decided my grey plastic dustbin was boring and deserved the treatment, so I set to work on it.  I gave it a good clean, of course, then I painted it with several coats of chalk paint.  When that was well and truly dry, I stuck transfers on it and gave it several coats of varnish/lacquer.  That was a few years ago now and it still looks good.  The only problem was that it had to be protected from the elements for quite a long time so I started decorating the dustbin (trash can, garbage can, whatever you call it) the day the men collected the rubbish.   Here it is:

Here are some examples of how you can repair and even repurpose broken pottery. First, a repaired terracotta pot which was broken into several pieces when it accidentally fell over. A thick layer of multipurpose filler was applied, then chalk paint, then transfers and finally a UV protective coating of lacquer/varnish. Waste not, want not. And another terracotta pot, repaired with multipurpose filler, painted with chalk paint, a transfer applied, and finally a protective coating of UV protective lacquer/varnish: Below is a fragile pottery urn that had a hairline crack from top to bottom.  It was only a question of time until it fell in half. Much as I hated to do it, I decided to repurpose and save it although I loved it as it was.  This time I did not use transfers but the multi-purpose filler, then white chalk-paint dabbed a sponge loaded with a dark grey.  To me, it looks a bit like granite now and can be used as a vase to hold artificial flowers. Below is a vase I bou...