the Fancy Flea is coming...

Goodness Gracious, it's that time of year again!
The Fancy Flea Vintage Home & Garden Market is coming!

Here's a few of the vendors participating:

Stellar Junk
Shabby Chic Addiction
Robyn Story Designs
Paris Rags
Vintage Soul
Polka Dot Closet
HeartVintageDesign
Sweet Pea Home
and many, many, MANY more!

STELLAR JUNK & SHABBY CHIC ADDICTION'S space
will be on Kentucky Ave, between Cedar & Main in Lakeland, FL.

Come on out, leave your husband at home, he'll only tell you you don't *really* need that.
And you do. You really, really do.

See you there!

a sweet rocking chair for baby Lane

I love this rocking chair. I snapped her up last year at a yard sale. I admit, I liked it so much I paid way more for her than I should have. But look at her, she is SO pretty. You would have overpaid too.

I named her Dorothy. 

Dorothy was moving to customer & friend Jessica's house, into her two year old daughter Lane's super girly & pink Parisian themed bedroom. YAY. As the mother of two boys, I will jump on any pink & girly project faster than you can say "there are too many boys in my house."

I suppose that particular phrase isn't that quick, but whatever.

Jessica is one of those amazing clients who tells you "Just do whatever you think." Totally awesome, and it's music to my ears as an artist, but it can also be a little intimidating in the 'omg-what-if-they-hate-it" kind of way. But, I formed a plan for ol' Dorothy, Jess liked it, the rest is history.

My opinion was that Dorothy needed to have some wood showing. She is far too pretty to completely cover in paint. Not that I'm a purist. I really will paint almost anything. Almost. :)

So a custom pink Annie Sloan blend (primer red + old ochre) was the starting point, and a fleur-de-lis for the nod to the Parisian theme. I painted the fleur-de-lis by hand...you can kind of tell in certain areas, but, if you follow this blog, you probably already know I like a little imperfection. I took a piece of chalk and did the outline first, and just kept altering it until it felt symmetrical, then painted it. After it was dry, I distressed it a little bit. Same with the stripes - just 1.5" masking tape stripes, then sanded back down for a distressed look.

And here is little Lane, already playing on her new chair. I hope she likes it. :)

She is such a cutie pie, it makes my ovaries ache just hanging out with her.

Till next time - Happy Painting everyone!

and the winner is....

Hey everybody! Thanks to all of you for visiting my blog and for entering this giveaway sponsored by Royal Design Studio!

The winner of the free stencil, up to a $50 value (free shipping too) IS.....
DRUM ROLL.........................

randi1956!
I hope you have LOTS of fun playing with your new stencil. I would love it if you would update me via my Facebook page of what you did with your stencil. I'm sure RDS would love to know as well. I will email you shortly with the steps to claim your prize. :)

Anywho...there's lots of fun new projects coming up in Stellar Junk Land, so stay tuned y'all! :)

a nightstand for a junk loving bibliophile

This little table is Charlotte.

Here's her story.

I found Charlotte in the garbage. Sometimes you know you found a total gem, and other times (like this one) you will be questioning your sanity as you load the hunk of crap into your trunk. Then your husband will question your sanity as he sees the latest "stray dog" in the garage. You will defend the poor little project, and tell him it will be cute, when really you'll tuck it into a corner of the garage, and have to sit on it until inspiration strikes. Because truthfully, it's just that hideous. That was Charlotte. And trust me, the above photo doesn't even really give you an idea, since I'd already sanded most of the funk off.

I'm assuming Charlotte originally had a glass insert, and when it broke, she got tossed. I asked my Stellar Junk likers on Facebook (click here, then go "like" me!) what they would do with the space, and man, I got some creative answers. You guys rock! As much as I loved all the suggestions, I wasn't really feeling it as a plant stand, and I REALLY didn't want to put 84 hours into a mosaic top. So I just kept thinking, how would I use this piece in my own house?

My personal nightstand might as well be a bookshelf. Except it's not. It's a dainty and delicate little one, with 108 books constantly piled all over it. So I would *LOVE* a nightstand that had a little nook for the books I was currently reading, as well as room for the ones on the "to read" list. So the plan was formed, turn the oddball space into a basket of sorts to store some books. I ended up using chicken wire, since:
1. It is my current obsession and I would wear a chicken wire outfit if I could.
2. I have a ton of it.
3. It is easy enough to shape and mold and this space was such a funky shape, I needed to work with a pliable material.

I got out the snippers and snipped a piece that I could mash and shape into place. Then I turned the table upside down and secured the wire into place with u-nails. Note to reader: wear long sleeves and gloves. I have little patience for things like this and always live to regret my impatience. I think it was totally worth it though.

I gave Charlotte's base two coats of paint in ASCP's Primer Red, and then drybrushed on some Paris Grey, because I wanted it to look like it had been worn away or maybe even sanded down. I didn't wax the piece, I ended up using polycrylic to seal it, because I didn't have enough wax to complete the project and remember, I'm impatient. But I really like the end result. Plus to be honest, brushing on poly is a heck of a lot easier than waxing.

For the top of Charlotte, I sanded all the nasty old stain off that was chipping away. (Don't you just love that, when the old finish FLYS off?? Oh it's just the best!) I loved the rustic look of the wood once she was sanded, so I wanted to basically leave that as it was, but add a phrase for embellishment and to make the table's concept more cohesive. For the lettering, I printed out my phrase in a simple word doc in the font and size I wanted, then used graphite paper to transfer the image onto the top of the table. (Trace the letters and bam, you've got your outline.) Then I just filled it in with the finest paint brush I could find. It was my first venture into the oh-so-popular land of Typography, but I'm happy to be a member of the club now. It wasn't nearly as scary/difficult/tedious as I thought it would be. And it looks SO much nicer than my first free hand attempt that I will NOT be posting a picture of. I post enough of my failures.

book lovers never go to bed alone



And here's a couple more photos. Hope you enjoy them!

Here's a peek at the cabinet, it opens all the way thru to the other side, where there is another door.

Find Charlotte for sale on Etsy here.


Thanks for reading everybody, and till next time -

Happy Painting!
Jess

Royal Design Studio Stencil Giveaway!

Does my last blog post have you thinking of starting a stenciling project of your own?

 Did you miss the post? Click here, read it now.



(the disgusting before shot of my jute rug)

Wouldn't you like to *WIN* a stencil worth up to $50?  Well, of course you would!


So here's what you do to enter the giveaway.

First make sure you're a follower of my blog.
You can even follow by email if you want.
Never miss a single post!

Then visit the Royal Design Studio website by clicking here.View their AMAZING collection of stencils, pick your fav, then pop back over to this blog post.
Leave me a comment letting me know which stencil you'd want if you were to win.
That's worth one entry in the giveaway.

Want additional entries? (Of course you do.)

"Like" Royal Design Studio on Facebook by clicking here.
Tell them Stellar Junk sent ya!
Leave a comment on the blog letting me know you "liked" them.
(it's worth mentioning that they feature gorgeous stencil projects constantly
on their Facebook page. Inspiration!)


Follow Royal Design Studio on Pinterest by clicking here.
Leave a comment telling me you're following them on Pinterest, get another entry!
I admit it, I'm a total follower.


Follow Royal Design Studio on Twitter by clicking here.
Leave a comment letting me know you are following their Tweets, get another entry.


Share this blogpost on your Facebook page by clicking that
tiny little "F" for Facebook logo down toward the bottom of this post.
Leave a comment telling me you shared, get another entry.

Now I know all these separate comments take time, but they are your entries.
If you tell me you did all five steps in one comment, you will only get one entry! So take a couple minutes, do the steps, make the individual comments, get all your entries and you will be *that* much closer to your own shiny, happy, wonderful new stencil!

And don't forget, you can check out Stellar Junk at the following places:

http://pinterest.com/stellarjunk/

https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Stellar-Junk/183110605080693


Ok, so you've certainly got a lot to do.

WINNER WILL BE ANNOUNCED ON FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 11th, 2012!

Until then,  Happy Painting! :)

 - Jess

a heinous old rug gets shown who's boss

This nasty old thing is the rug that's been sitting under my dining room table for almost 5 years now. As you can see, it's positively DISGUSTING. It embarrasses me to no end. So what do I do when something embarasses me? Put it on the internet for the whole world to see, of course. Well, at least when it has a happy ending I do. I'll just take solice in the fact that I if I did a pop-in to your place right this second, I'm sure there would be something you would want to hide from me. Right? 'Fess up.

This 8'ish x 10'ish rug cost about $149 about 4/5 years ago when I bought it. It's just your classic jute rug, and it's been a good one. However in those 4+ years, it has been sitting under the high chairs of two little boys who were big fans of throwing their food. I just didn't want to spend the money on a brand new one while my youngest is still in said high chair. (Not to mention, he still loves to sweep the food off the tray using his forearm to signal that he is done eating. Nice.) So I've scrubbed it, vaccummed it, swept it, beaten it, shaken it...and it was about to face the curb. Until it dawned on me. I never *painted* it.

Having been inspired by some amazingly bold & graphic print rugs at stores like West Elm and CB2, I decided to pop over to Royal Design Studio and select a stencil so I could make a bold, graphic rug myself. The "Large Marakesh Trellis" stencil started screaming my name. Then I selected my color palette. That part was easy, since I bought some cushions for the dining room chairs a while back, and they have a gorgeous cream/olive/aqua thing going on. YUM. And since I am just loving using Annie Sloan Chalk Paint these days, I was excited to put it to the test on a project like this. The only medium I've used it on so far has been my furniture. I knew I would need to wash the entire rug in one base color (preferably dark, to maximize stain coverage, so therefore - the olive) while choosing another color for the part of the pattern that would be dominant once painted on.

My first step was doing a wash over the entire jute area in the color I selected as my base. I took some ASCP in Olive and added a dash of Antibes just for fun, and watered it down so that it would almost pour off my brush and into the cracks of the super textured jute, rather than "glob" on, like with typical paint viscosity. (A huge thanks to Dana at Shabby Chic Addiction for brainstorming this out with me and suggesting I use a wash when I said I was going to use a roller. That would have been a nightmare with jute. Dana, you rock!) You can see by the picture below that I wasn't worried about it being too perfect. I knew the Marakesh stencil I selected would only reveal a small amount of the olive, so I didn't bother with two coats.

I figured the corner was as good a place to start as any. I taped the stencil down so I wouldn't have any budging or complications, and then started dabbing away with my custom aqua color. (Mainly Louis Blue, some Provence, a dollop of Paris Grey.) I didn't wash this down, I used the typical paint thickness.

So I dabbed. And dabbed and dabbed and dabbed. And then I dabbed a little more. I liked it, but I decided it needed a little something extra. For those of you who follow Stellar Junk on Facebook, you *might* remember me complaining about my decision to handpaint white borders on 242 Moroccan "tiles"? Well, this was that project. If I was going to live with this in my house, I didn't want to walk past it every day and get annoyed that I didn't take the time to do it right and to ensure that I would love the finished product.

Two hours later, I was kicking myself. Two additional hours later, I was celebrating. I loved it and it was worth every last moment. I LOVE this rug. Two coats of Polycrylic sealer to finish things off, an overnight drying time and BAM, furniture on it in the morning. I couldn't wait.

Now, it's not perfect. You can see that I handpainted the white borders, but I don't mind that. If perfection's your bag, you probably won't even attempt painting a rug anyways. But I love how the white borders make the aqua pop. I think if I was doing it again, and I wanted to avoid the handpainting part, I would have chosen colors that were more drastically different from each other. Once I saw my color choices together, I just felt it "needed something."

Here it is in my dining room...

And here's a closer look at my awesome seat cushions that inspired the color palette:

                                                 

All in all, the rug has it's imperfections but I was happy to have extended the life of it and delayed the cost of buying a new rug. And I'm always down for a fun project that will give me something unique at the end. I was really impressed with the AS chalk paint (as usual) on the rug and I was thrilled with my Royal Design Studio stencil. I have another project I am going to tackle with it soon. Yay!

****a teensy disclaimer & some exciting news****
Royal Design Studios did send me a stencil to review on my blog. I was in no way obligated to write a positive review. But guess what else they're doing? Well, they *might* be sponsoring a little giveaway right here on my blog, so you guys can get your hands on one of their products for free! Stay tuned and I will post the details of this giveaway in a couple days.

Thanks everybody!

Hi. I'm Jessica and I'm a Pinterest and social media addict.

Hey everybody,

I admit it, I'm kind of a terrible blogger. It's sad when you are so into the instant gratification of the interaction via social media that you can't tolerate the steps to post on your own or comment on another blog. And I'm just too needy, I like the feedback on the other mediums. So I wanted to give y'all the info so we can connect there too.

Here's my Pinterest info:
http://pinterest.com/stellarjunk/  


Here's my Facebook info:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stellar-Junk/183110605080693?ref=tn_tnmn  

Won't you like it pretty please? Thanks!
 
See you there! :)