Mr. T's Student Desk - Spledid Transfer Tut

Mr. T surprised me with this desk that he made while I was at work. He had a moment of divine inspiration. We had talked the night before about building a bed tray that we had seen at one of my favorite blogs, Funky Junk Interiors. He was really proud of himself and I of him. It took a couple of days before I confessed to him that it wasn't high enough to use as a bed tray. It broke his heart “Not to worry” said I, “it will make a great student desk!”
This is how it sat at one of our craft shows. Many interested people but no buyers.

I  had read a tutorial on some pens called Splendid Blenders by Chartpak over at Villabarns blog. (Check out her tutorial on transfering to fabric.)  I just knew they’d be perfect for this project. Rosemary had found the pens at her Michaels; mine had never heard of them. Art Supply Warehouse online sold them for the same $2 each as Michaels so I ordered 4. Glad I did because they are now almost $4 each!

These pens are AMAZING and are Tee-goof-proof! NOTE; THEY ONLY WORK WITH LAZER COPIES. This is how I did my transfers to painted wood. Reverse the print if you’re using text. Here’s what the prints looked like. BTW, you don't have to cut out the image. My vision is poor so I wanted to make sure that I was only going over the intended transfer area and not waste this "magic juice".

Well dang, I didn't get a pic of the other print. Oh well, it's not necessary, you get it, lol.

1. Flip your print over, ink side down.

2. Tape your image in place to keep from smearing

3. Rub your Splendid Blender pen over the back of the image. It doesn't take that much. Life a corner of your image to check transfer.

4. Done - seriously

Here are the awesome results. (pardon my photo skills - I'm working on them)

No need to varnish at all. I didn’t tape my image down my first attempt and it caused a blur. Silly me thought I’d just wash it off. Okay, sand it a liitle. Sand a lot, really? Ugh, sanded a lot then added kiltz followed by paint.

Splendid transfer, personal review. There’s not a lot of liquid in the pens so small projects are reccomended. These two 5″ transfers used the majority of 1 pen. Not bad compared to some transfer techniques. If I can find them at $2 each again, I’ll definitely buy. Not likely to pay the $4 + shipping.

OH, I almost forgot to tell ya’ the best part!! Mr. T’s Student Desk sold for $40. The buyer had seen the desk at our craft show on Saturday; just didn't buy. She came to the shop and was excited that we still had it. Me loves my Mr. T.

PS: I believe that the pen and ink images came from where all great images are found The Graphics Fairy

Thanks for letting me share.
Love yuns,
Tee

Distressing a Stressful Side Table

This little sweetie was NO quick flip. It had been painted with that old hard as nails speckled black paint and apparently varnished a few times for good measure. I’m just learning about picking the right pieces for quick turnovers and I failed on this one :(

I sanded with my trusty vibrating thingy until I felt like I had Parkinsons.  BTW, isn't this a flattering photo?

A friend was over working on some of her own things. She took a few turns at the vibrating thingy. As you can see in the picture below, she wasn’t impressed. Do you friends have birds growing out of their hands? All mine seem too

Here she sits in our mall booth, much purrtier than when she was discovered. I think I paid $3 and she sold about the 3rd day for $29.99. That's the kind of DE-stressing I can handle!

Thanks for letting me share!
Love yuns,
Tee

My Primitive Roots

I fell in love with the Primitive style about 15 years ago. I was in a very close online sharing group. One of the girls directed us to the Prim Mart Community. I didn't play with many dolls as a child but these funky dolls stole my heart. I had to have them! WAIT, I had to learn to sew so I could MAKE them.

Mr. T and I were in line at Wal-Mart within a week, buying my 1st sewing machine. He said to me, "of all the things I never expected to buy you, this is it."  We brought home the new contraption. I took out the manual and was instantly frozen. I had only sewn for a couple of months during High School Homemaker class, I earned an A in cooking and an F in sewing, lol. My biggest dilemma was how to thread the darn thing! Arrows here, arrows there, what??? Mr. T kindly stepped in, figured it out, taught me and I was off and still going. I won't bore you with pics from my 1st efforts but I'll say that it took at least a year before I made anything worthy of selling.

Fast forward 15 years. Through trial and error I finally found my niche and even have a small following of loyal customers. I make and sell white dolls but my niche turned out to be extreme-grungy-black dolls.  Below are my latest babies. I've bought prolly 100 different patterns but I rarely use them, lol. They were great learning tools.

Closer to fall I'll be sharing the other crazy primitives I make for shows. For now I'm focused, okay,  obsessed with Shabby Chic furniture re-dos.

Thanks for letting me share!
Love yuns,
Tee

Another Quick Makeover

Found this cute litte magazine rack at a yard sale. Paid a whole $1. Sanded, painted a few coats then added a cute medallion that I found at Hobby Lobby for $3. It sits pretty in our shop with a price tage of $15.

Check out that gold lame’ briefcase, lol. Had to have it and still don’t know why

Thanks for letting me share!
Love yuns,
Tee

Being Thrifty

Found this 60′s lamp at our local thrift store. It was marked $26.98. A good price for the average person but I ain’t average, I’m cheap.  I talked with the manager about reducing the price. I intended to offer her $15 but she said, “oh, that old thing. Would you give me $12.98?”  Yup, I’ve got a new best friend

Here’s the before and after. No big steps involved but I’ll tell you that after lightly sanding and putting on 6 coats of paint, I can reccommend using a primer first, duh!

Here she sits are purrty and white with a modest $35 price tag.

Forgot to mention that the lamp came with a really expensive lamp shade. I traded out a less expensive and more approriate one.

Thanks for letting me share!

Love yuns,

Tee

Attempts at Mixed Media Art

Ever wanna try something new but just too scared to try?  Well, that’s me.  I’m a big o Oscar Meyer Weiner with great legs!  I know psycologically that “if at first you don’t succeed, try try again” but the cliche doesn’t often get used in my life.
Insert Christy Tomlinson, mixed media artist extraordinare.  I think I found her on Youtube but I follow her wonderful blog now. Anyway, if you’ve ever wanted to try mixed media, this is your go-to gal. She talks alot and is very funny, messy and talented. Best of all she's done many videos that  make everything look so easy that it will give you the boost you need to jump in.  I finally did and I’m proud to say that I’m less Oscar Meyer :)  Below you’ll see my first attempts. I followed Christy a bit too closely but I’m now confident that I can use her techniques and find my own niche.

I branched out a little from the canvas to these other projects.

Thanks for letting me share!
Love yuns,
Tee

Hats On - Hats Off

This style hat seems to be all the rage around here. I call them Fidel Casto style Decorating them isn’t something that came natural to me but at a great customers request, I gave it a go. She bought all except the pink;  her sister bought it. Even though I made a little money, not sure I’ll do them again.  I'm doing this post because when I went online searching for inspiration, I couldn't find ANYthing like them.

BTW, aren’t these mannequin heads awesome? There are two local spinster sisters that make them. They start with a regular strofoam head. They add their “secret sauce” to give them this porcelan finish. They are stunning in person.

Thanks for letting me share!

Love yuns,

Tee