The Decorative Paintbrush, Designs by Mary Mollica: June 2011

Saturday

60’s Psychedelic Surfboard Table

Okay, so it’s not really a surfboard, but from the moment I unscrewed the legs it was all I could think of.

This was a curbside find and I actually fell in love right there on someone’s front lawn. The curve of the legs, the large oval top, what isn’t to love! She’s beautiful. Yes, I’m actually swooning over a piece of furniture. I took her home, sanded her down, and primed her out.

I knew for certain that the legs were going to be a zebra print, but I wasn’t exactly sure what I was going to do on the top.

Recently, Benjamin Moore Paints was giving away a free coupon for pint size samples (Go to their Face Book page and click on the “upload coupon” on the sidebar, it’s good till June 30th). Can you say SCORE! I totally loaded up! Can I get a whoop, whoop! I had seen this color combination on a sample card in the store and knew I had to have it.

So, now I had the zebra legs & the color palette, but I was still wondering about the design. I don’t know about you guys, but one of the most intimidating things for me is looking at a large, white canvas! Sometimes you just don’t know where to start. I happened to have my last piece (The Funky Chicken) next to me when I noticed the circular flowers on the back. That’s when the light bulb went off. I started grabbing a bunch of circular items and started tracing.

I love when it all comes together. Once that happens I become like a crazy woman, painting, painting, painting, just trying to get the image out of my head and onto the canvas (furniture). I just want to see the finished product.

I decided on stripes for around the outer edge, to balance the spherical forms on top, as well as, the oval shape of the table itself. Then I screwed the legs back on and lacquered her up. As I stood back and looked at it, all I could really envision was a 60’s style surfboard! Hahaha! Don’t lie; you see it too, right?

As you know, or maybe you don’t, I’m participating in The Syracuse Arts & Crafts Festival in downtown Syracuse at the end of July, so I’m obsessed with getting enough inventory for this 3 day event. So I’m cranking out pieces left and right! The next project on deck is this cute little ditty that I purchased at a local garage sale, so local I just walked across the street! Ha! Isn’t it cute!

I’m curious, what would you do with it? Give me your ideas or color choices. What would it look like in order for you to say, “WOW! I HAVE TO HAVE THAT!” Leave me a comment. Maybe, you’ll see your ideas transformed into a funky piece of furniture!

Happy Painting, Y’all!

Mary

Check her for my link page and all the friends I share with:
http://thedecorativepaintbrush.blogspot.com/p/inspiration.html

Tuesday

The Funky Chicken

It isn’t often that you can say you love your neighbors, but I do, and the reason I love them is because...they throw away some pretty cool stuff! When I first started curb shopping I usually went at night. I was kind of embarrassed and didn’t want my neighbors to know I was taking their things, but now a days, I actually have people stopping me and saying, “Are you that furniture lady? (Like I’m some crazy cat lady that lives on the end of the street) I’ve got a dresser you can have!” People ask if their table will make our blog, or what we’ll do with this chair, they have even helped me move larger pieces to my storage unit! How awesome is that! I'm like a rockstar on my street, lol! Either that, or people just think I'm plain nuts! I'd like to think the first, but I'm guessing the second.

This, is one of those pieces. I scooped it up from 5 houses down, it was a total score! One night after picking my daughter up from work I spotted it. “If it’s still there when I come back (I was running late as usual) I’ll grab it.” Sure enough there it was. We opened the van door, pulled it in, slammed the door, and squealed off. No one was the wiser and we we're one step richer! When I got a good home I took a good look at it. I knew immediately it was going to have funky chickens on it, I mean how could it not, right! It reminds me of a chicken coop.

But first, I had to do the boring stuff…I removed all the hardware, primed it and sanded it, BORING! Even though the majority of it was going to be white again, I knew being a used piece I better prime it just in case.

I removed the wire from the doors because I wanted to clean up the build-up of paint that had accumulated from years of painting and give it a smoother look, plus I wanted to spray paint the wire black without creating overspray on the door. I popped the staples out with a screw driver, then laid the screens on some card board, and then spray painted them black.

While those were drying, I spray painted the hinges to match. These hinges were really old but I thought a coat of spray paint would bring them back to life. No such luck. They were really crusty looking. I made a mad dash to the hardware store to grab some new ones, but they were out of black ones in the size I needed, so....silver it was (then back to the spray paint). I had to spray paint the screws as well to match. I use a floral Styrofoam square to hold the screws and spray the tops then just touch up with my fingertip after I screw them in (if necessary).

Once I sanded the doors down, primed and painted them I reattached the hardware, plus some really cute knobs from Hobby Lobby (50% off 1.29 apiece).

So, now for the fun part! The funky chickens! I use this great paper to trace my pictures when I want the same thing over and over again. Its awesome stuff and very easy to use. You lay it down (dark side on the bottom) lay your picture on top, trace over the top of your picture with a pencil our any dull object, then peel it back, and voila! Then just color it in. The lines are erasable and do not show through the paint (only sometimes through light colors, like pencil would). You can even use this paper on dark colors.

I then used some really high tech stencils for the flowers on the back. Notice the leaves? They're paint chip samples from Home Depot, but they make great leaf patterns don’t they?

Somehow, I wanted to incorporate a fun basket of eggs into this chicken coop, but I just wasn’t sure how, when this quirky little idea popped into my head one night.

I was lucky to find this bowl set at the local Rescue Mission Store for $3.00 (“Winning!” I could use the one bowl for the piece and sell the other bowls at our next craft show).

Picked up 2 packs of wooden eggs, painted them in wild tricked out colors and patterns, slapped them in the painted bowl, glued them to the top and called it a day! Yaya! Who’s your daddy?

After I did the final photo shoot I did add wheels to the bottom of this piece and magnet strips to the inside of doors (the kind you see on the insides of your cupboards) to keep them from closing in on themselves.

This piece will be going with us to the Syracuse Arts and Crafts Festival in July. I'm hoping somebody finds it as amusing as I do! Hahahaha!