Oh Agate. I have been promising a tutorial forever now, so here we go.
I know I promised it on my entry wall, but I have issues:
1- Been crushed for time lately, sorry it a lame excuse, but stripping the old painted wallpaper, priming and painting makes me exhausted just thinking about it.
2- The Mr. has recently given me carte blanche to do whatever ever the hell I wanted to with our bathroom since he decided we are gutting it in a year.
I know most of you would say why bother doing anything if you are ripping it out.
I have a blog to run and I need shit to paint so this is one huge "blank canvas" score for me
(and lets not forget I get bored with stuff FAST, so the reno will be perfect timing for change.)
So agate in the bath, ok?
Sorry, I still promise to do one of the other techniques we discussed in the entry.
Instead I give you TABLES OF AGATE:
There are a couple different looks you can get with this technique, super crispy or big and soft.
This is the top of an IKEA Lack table I am currently "agating", super crispy...
and the Furniture Bank table from last post, big and soft:
You have a couple ways to get these looks.
You can either go BIG (like the Furniture Bank table- lets call it FB),
which I learned is challenging since paint dries fast,
or take it in small doses like the first picture (Ikea Lack table- IKL) that breaks things into 4 pieces.
I recommend the bite sized IKL piece approach to get started.
So I made you all SPECIAL video
(who-hoo so exciting... actually I'm all business so not really)
that shows how to make the IKL agate happen:
As far as BIG agate directions:
While painting the FB table my hands got super covered in paint
and I had my 5 year old take pictures. Bad idea.
They are real blurry and look like 5 year took them. Seriously.
So watch the video if you plan on doing this, or check out the following steps for a half-assed BIG approach. your choice.
What you'll need:
-Something to "agate", painted in a satin or semigloss base coat.
*paint it the lightest color in the agate, I did white.
-Latex glaze mixed two parts to one part latex paint
*mix it with darkest color in agate, I did Navy Blue
-gloves to keep that mani fresh!
-a softening brush
-torn pieces of cardboard
-various sized artist brushes
-images or pieces of agate
-black and white artist colors to darken or light areas
-cup of water and a rag for wiping up your mistakes
-paint brush to apply glaze
Its go time! These directions are for doing BIG agate, but trust me... watch the video for smaller sections. I learned the hard way here and if I just brushed the entire table top out with glaze and took it off with larger chunks of cardboard it would have been much faster
and I wouldn't have made so many mistakes.
-So first I brushed out a few base lines to follow, and filled in a darker center area...
I sponged the dark area to lighten and give texture:
added another line around the center
(I know what all you with dirty minds are all thinking...)
and kept painting on lines on varying colors of blue/black:
once I got enough of a base down I let it dry:
and then I covered the whole thing with glaze:
(Here is where the 5 year old steps in and I lost a few shots.)
Basically what you missed was me dragging a clean dry paintbrush through the glaze, following the base lines to get a strie-looking texture going on in between...
It would have looked much cooler if I used strips of cardboard like in the video. I have no good pictures from here on out, but I can tell you I messed with it a ton and added more glaze to darken it.
and I repeated this for all four sides:
Now go watch the video to see the right way to do it.
I do have a giveaway...
I am giving up this here IKEA Lack Table that I painted in the video
(as nice as it goes with my navy & white kitchen, I have no room for it)
I will be adding a few coats of high gloss polyurethane to shine it up:
Just leave a comment with your name, and winner will be announced this Friday (11/0/2012).
If you have any questions or need help with this technique, just give me a shout!
xo
Danika
AND THE WINNER IS:
#5.... Ann
Please shoot me an email Ann and let me know your address and I will get this over to you!
This past week has been rough with the hurricane. Watching the news and talking with friends and family in NY/NJ/PA/CT has me feeling a mixed sad bag of emotions.
My heart goes out to everyone that lost their home, or worse a loved one.
We were very lucky here, only having a tree hit our roof.
On a positive note...
Of all weeks, I can't begin to tell you how glad I was to be knee deep in a fundraiser.
I painted my brains out and was temporarily distracted from reality.
The Coalition for the Homeless/ Furniture Bank Event was Thursday night and it had a great turn out. I want to thank everyone that came out to support it, and I was so excited to meet some of my blog readers. Especially ones that live around the block! (It makes me feel a little better to know some of my neighbors might actually read this blog and know the real reason why I am spray painting for hours on end in my driveway, and not some crazy lady with a paint fume addiction.)
The focus was to raise awareness of the MCH Furniture Bank. I can't tell you enough how important this program is. It supplies families transitioning out of Homelessness with furniture and household items that they could not afford otherwise.
You can help just by picking up the phone to arrange a pick up of your old furniture.
Items you no longer want will give someone else a fresh start and the creature comforts that make a home feel like home.
The event was held in the Furniture Bank warehouse in Lynn, MA and it featured three design groups in a room challenge. Each group got to choose pieces from the Furniture Bank, and had a few weeks to transform them with a little paint and elbow grease. The items were then assembled into a room in a one hour challenge, and later raffled off.
I was joined by my O'verlays partner Cheryle Rhuda, and good friends Phyllis Tracy and Julie Richard (both of whom are sweethearts and repurposed pieces for the event too).
me, Phyllis Tracy, Susan Wornick (the evening's MC), Julie Richard (Shelter Interior Design)
We had lots of back up help too, Cheryle's daughter and her friend Nikki and even my Dad (aka MacGyver) jumped in to help with the set up. It was crazy and a lot of fun!
The evening flew by and I realized I didn't get any individual after shots of pieces because it was just too busy, so I am hoping some friends snapped some.
In the end all the items got raffled off to new homes.
Cheryle and I with the winners of our Greek Key desk and my painting,
Liz Larson and Robin Blake...
Lots of high gloss spray paint went into the pink bookshelf, the white/gold desk,
and white tall shelves.
Here they are before:
(pink bookcase)
After:
A big thanks to my new design buddy Lucy Dearborn over at Lucia Lighting for providing our lighting. If you in the Boston area and need lighting, they are AWESOME!!! Go, I command you.
( Design tip-we added IKEA Capita legs sprayed gold to the bottom of the bookcase to give it height)
Desk:
Bookshelf:
Afters:
So as promised, I will be offering up tutorials for many of these projects.
Here is the line up for next week's posts:
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
(the only before of the mirror I had, its beside the frame)
