Thursday 19 July 2012

Tick Tock....Teapots & A Clock.

Every once in a while you happen across something that you fall in love with...for me these things are usually broken, battered and old. I see broken things as a challenge to fix them....battered, as added charm and old without a doubt is better than new! 'Old' has a history, it has a past life....I realise I will probably never find out what that past life entailed but I do always wonder...I wonder if this particular thing was someones pride and joy and then the style went out of fashion so they just got rid of it...or if it broke and they didnt know how to fix it so threw it out.

A little off point but this might help you understand how I tick.
I honestly believe that 'things' have feelings. There. I have admitted it.

I'm the older version of a little girl who used to get attached to a stone because it was nearly perfectly spherical and when I lost the nearly perfectly spherical stone...I cried. Yep that's me. I am the teenager that got attached to the ugly stuffed toys that you won at the fair ground because I felt that if I didnt take them home and love them nobody else would.

I do love beautiful things....but if something is really truely hideous. I have to have it.

This point can be proven in my collection of teapots.
What kind of teapots I hear you ask? Perhaps Royal Doulton? Denby? No. Perhaps I just really LOVE tea? No. Dont drink the stuff.

My Ugly Teapot Collection
That's right. They are fruits and vegetables with faces and hands.
The little ones arent even big enough to make a cup of tea in. Totally pointless as well as ugly. 

Anyway...I digress.

I noticed this little guy at a car boot sale recently. He was sad, scuffed and broken....but that just added to the appeal. I didn't buy it at first. I just looked at it for a long while planning what I would have to do to it, and then left it there. As is usually the case when this happens...I went back to get it.

Before: Clock with shelves 

I got it home and removed the old broken clock mechandism which had only 1 hand. I sanded the wood down and gave it a couple coats of the same Farrow & Ball Tallow No.203 Emulsion thats my kitchen table and chairs are painted in.....there was no question I would be keeping it. It was not for sale.

After: Clock with shelves





10 green(brown) bottles sitting on a wall....

I recently came across this image. 
The colours.
The embossed jars.
The flowers.
Whats not to like?!
Image - Original Source Unknown.
A couple of days ago my husband had just finished a bottle of American Root Beer. The bottle was on the coffee table next to me. I noticed it had a cool embossed logo on it. I thought it was worth thinking about if there was anything I could do with it.

Before: Root Beer Bottle

I had just inhaled quite a bit of Annie Sloan wax (Its pretty stong smelling stuff) as I was in the midst of finishing off some other furniture peices and so my brain wasnt working properly to think of my own ideas. So, I posted this picture of the bottle on my facebook page and asked my lovely 'likers' to suggest what I could do with this cool old looking brown glass bottle.

I already had thought about using it as a vase, but there is always something more creative out there isnt there? A couple of people referenced the image of the painted jars and suggested I could paint the bottle and sand off the paint from the embossed text! I hadnt even thought of this idea despite having seen and shared the jar image only days earlier!

So I got out a pot of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint - Paris Grey...I had heard you can paint glass with it so lets give it a go!

When the paint had dryed I got some sandpaper and rubbed it over the embossed text parts until the brown glass underneath was revealed.

After: Root Beer Bottle
One coat is probably enough to get that rustic look..I really love the effect!
I was impatient and didnt wait for it to dry properly. Oops. I think if I had of waited they would come out even better but I get excited and have to everything straight away!

After: Root Beer Bottle

The plan is to get lots of these bottles and paint them all different colours!

I will have to stock up on bottles of Root Beer!