Projects in progress.

Book swap backgrounds

If you don't already know this about me, I must tell you, that I rarely only work on one project at a time. Sometimes one gets put away to work on another but often they just start piling up here and there until I'm forced to clean to have space to work again. It's just how I roll. I don't question it any more. But some days I look around and wonder how the studio got to this point of disarray. I'm sure I couldn't have done it all on my own but there doesn't seem to be anyone else around to blame. That's when I know that I share my space with fairies who keep working on things when I'm out of the studio. They're usually pretty helpful at fixing creative blunders or blocks but they are very messy workers.
Well today is one of those days when I walked in the studio and am sure the fairies have been at it again. First of all above you can see the pages in progress for a book swap that's due in April. If I leave them on the table, every once in a while some new things just happens to them. 

Hmm...where to go from here!

 And then their is the painting projects I started. A few weeks ago while visiting Laura Daub's new studio, across the road I discovered another wonderful new shop, Malenka where Katrina transforms or as she likes to put it 'refreshes' old tired furniture. Well the wheels just started turning and I had to try out this inspiring new paint she sells by Annie Sloan called Chalk paint. First I bought a small jar of Duck Egg to try out on my last Ikea drawer set. This is as far as it's gotten. I'm thinking texture paste and lots of antiquing but you can never be too sure how these thing work out so who knows really.

Oh my that's orange!!

And then I had to go back to get some Barcelona Orange for this bedroom bookshelf and possibly a dresser. I have to admit I'm kind of stuck now with this one. I know it's not done but I haven't decided just how antiqued and/or distressed I want it. Also the dark wax isn't working exactly how I expected to so some experimenting is in order. I think it's going to go back into the room to contemplate on it some more. Also I've run out of time and need to clean the studio for Easter weekend. 

If you have some time this weekend, I highly recommend these wonderful shops in the Britannia area of Ottawa. Go Saturday afternoon and do some doodling with Laura. I went last Saturday and had great fun and learned some new doodling designs.

Have a Great Easter weekend.

Get creative!

Wendy

Altered metal drawer set.

 After finishing the next set of drawers, I was again left with the decision of what to use for drawer pulls. I had a few ideas, but  decided on these Tim Holtz faucet knobs. I used black alcohol ink to make them darker. I knew there was a reason I bought that black alcohol ink, it just took me a few years to figure it out! 

 This set has 3 drawers, all the same size. I'm going to be keeping my metal embossing tools in it so it seemed appropriate to use metal for the drawer fronts. 

This is the same technique  I do when teaching this mirror. It's kind of like a puzzle once most of the metal is embossed. It takes me a while to figure out where it all fits together. As I was working on this I thought I would want to do some kind of design on the sides but once the drawers were put in, it didn't seem to need anything else. So here it is all finished.

My next metal embossing workshop is Sunday, April 7 at Laura Daub Studio.

What are you creating this weekend?

Wendy