La vie est Belle-Captain's chair

I got this Captain's chair from a friend.

It was big and sturdy, it just needed a little TLC.

Sanding and priming.

Then, filling some dents.

This time I used Dry Dex Spackling.

It goes on pink and turns to white when it's dry and ready to be sanded.

It dries pretty quickly and is easy to sand.

I decided I want some French writings on the back.

My son who speaks French suggested me

"La vie est belle" (Life is beautiful),

so I decided on that one.

I got this pretty Baroque style fonts from here and traced over it....directly on the monitor screen,because it was the perfect size :)

Put this paper right side out to the window and trace again.

Then you end up with this ↓

This time, you put this wrong side to the chair ( and you are facing to the good side ) and with a pencil you cover all the letters.

Then, Voila!

I traced this over with an artist's brush and added some stencilling on the seat and some white accents.

Waxed the entire piece and it's done.

Oh, I also added a little sparkle on top of the "i".

Yes, I'm starting to realize now but, I love girly!

La vie est belle, what  beautiful words.

Life is sometimes not so easy but

fill yourself with lots of love and be kind to people around you,

then your life willbe beautiful :D

Sayuri

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Elizabeth & Co. Feature

Today, I'm so excited to write about my feature :D

Sharon at Elizabeth & Co.featured my little girl's set in her link party.
I didn't expect it at all, I was just scrolling down the page and Voila!


                                           

http://www.elizabethandco.blogspot.ca/2012/03/be-inspired-features-and-link-party-12.html

I saw my pink room set!!! It was awesome!!!!!

Thank you so much Sharon for featuring my project.
Also, Margaret gave me a link to the movie "Taken back".

http://antipodalarapaima.blogspot.ca/2012/03/amanda-tapping-taken-back-province-new.html

I hope they'll really use the set and I'll be able to see them on TV one day:)
Thank you Margaret, for your skill on Google! lol

Have a great day, everyone!!

Antique Side Table

When I saw this side table, I fell in love right away.
Pie-shell top, curvy legs, I just love everything about it.
It looks like it's an antique dates back in 1938, more about it later.

First glance, it looked pretty but up close, she showed her age...

I stripped the top finish with Furniture Stripper and sanded the rest.

At the beginning I really wanted not to paint it, because I liked the wood looking for this piece.

But the top edge was missing and after much thinking, I decided to paint it.

Also I filled the missing top edge.

One day, a friend of mine who also love to work on old furniture came over.

I showed him this table and he told me,

"You know, when you use orbit sander and you end up with all the dust in the bag?

You can mix the dust with a little bit of white school glue and fill it with that, then it'd look like natural wood and you don't need to paint everything just because you used  wood filler."

Wh,wh,wh,what???

If I knew it before I filled the top, I'd have definitely tried that method!!

Anyway, it was too late for this one so I started to prime it.

But one day, I'll try that. It's good to know!

OK, about this piece being an antique, I found some writings under the top.

It looks like this side table was a wedding gift!

From Jaeger C. to J-D Cantwell, November 19, 1938.

That means, if the married couple had a baby in 1939,

the baby is 73 years old right now :D

I usually work in the shed, but this time, I decided to do this on the top floor of our house.

It's a games room and it's huge and have a wonderful view.

It was a beautiful day and while I worked there, it was so quiet.

All alone and painting quietly ( sometime I listen to rock though) is

one of my favourite time:D

Beautiful North Shore mountain view. 

At this point, I craved Lemon Meringue Pie!

Then I stencilled pretty patterns on top and distressed it.

2 coats of Wipe-On Poly and waxed, then it's done!

I'm so happy the way it turned out.

She's so pretty again.

Now I really want to eat some lemon meringue pie......

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My Favorite Coffee Table

                                           I finished this coffee table months ago.

But I didn't have time (or energy) to stage nicely and take good pictures.

So, when I'm done working on it,I just brought it in our living room and it started her new life with us...

.....which includes 2 boys.....

And today, these 2 very playful kids started fighting......

.....with their sister's......

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!((((  NAIL POLISH  ))))!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I went into the living room where they were throwing each other  toothpicks dipped into  nail polish.

And to my horror, I saw it smeared on my beloved table.

That moment,I feared if I waited any longer, this poor table will need another refinishing job and I won't be able to show it on my blog anytime soon.

So I cleared the boys out of the living room

(Go to your room!)

and cleaned the nail polish (Phew! it was still fresh and easy to wipe off )

and took some pictures.

So here I go!

When I got this table and put a picture of it on a Japanese social networking site(Mixi), one of my friend in Japan said, "Wow! Giant green tea youkan!! Did you eat the entire thing? Was it good?"
and I laughed so much because the colour of this table was exactly that of green tea youkan.
Youkan is a Japanese sweet made from small red beans and sugar.

                                          See the resemblance???

Anyway,although I'll never turn down the green tea youkan if someone offered me,  I wasn't so crazy about the colour on the table.
I loved the details on the legs though, are't they cute??

I'm not really a good blogger because I often forget to take step by step pictures.
I sanded the top with orbital sander but I figured  it'd be waaaaay too much to sand the legs, so I decided to prime directly. And it worked, no paint was coming off, yay!

                                  I painted in my favorite colour, blue.
                                  It's icy blue from General Paint.

                                              Blue & White detailing.

This is my cat, Candy.

I love her so much! :D

One problem remains.....

How do I fend off my crazy boys from this coffee table???

Let me know if you have any great ideas!

Sayuri

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