Farmhouse Chic Chicken Wire & Chalk Paint Shutters

Oy! I can't believe how long it's been since my last blog post! As I said in my last post, I'd been busy painting clients' homes, which virtually no time to work on my own chalk paint projects. 

Well, that's all changed now. I finally finished a project for my Etsy shop, that I started back in June, and finally had enough free time to perfect!

Voila!

European Farmhouse Chic.....

I rescued these years ago, and they were a dingy white, and empty. I applied a fabulous coat of Marigold/Mustard chalk paint, and topped it with my go-to Tiffany Blue chalk paint.

I then embellished them with lots of Marigold leaves, with warm brown details and cream highlights.

Original petite, porcelain knobs, which now look much more interesting with the leaf accents.

Since these were fairly old and worn to begin with, there were lots of opportunities for distressing the pre-existing flaws. There were holes which I assume once had a latch for holding the shutters closed. They were partially filled, but I chose to leave traces of them, in the event the future owner wished to add latches. There were also hinges that attached the shutters to an interior window/pass-through, which I removed, but kept just in case.

These are the kind that you secure little curtains into, and I was thrilled that they still had all the spring-loaded rods inside the tops and bottoms. 

I ruminated quite a bit over how to proceed, but finally decided I wanted these to have chicken wire. Yep, that illusive 1/2" hex chicken wire I've been thrilled to have for the last year, and feverishly creating with.

I knew it would give these the European farmhouse look I was striving for, but I also wanted to leave the option open for curtains, should the owner wish to add them as a backdrop for the chicken wire.

So the best solution was to attach the chicken wire the same way I did with my Mercantile Spice Rack, using tiny brass screws, and wiring each screw to a hex, to keep the chicken wire attached securely. Though I'm sure many might have gone the staple route, since it would've only taken minutes to complete, it just wouldn't have the aesthetically-pleasing and old-fashioned look I was going for.  Needless to say, my method took hours, but the result was clearly worth it.

Although I already oxidized the chicken wire, I felt the powdery grey was too cold for the paint finish, so I applied a very thin warm bronze brown chalk paint wash, keeping the weathered matte finish.

Standing 23” tall, and 35” total width of both together (when closed flat), these will make a fabulous statement on a mantle, a pass-through window, or in a home office, using the chicken wire to clip notes to.

Now that these are finally done, with any luck, I will get some Christmas projects (gasp!) done.....:)

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Chalk-Painted Rusty Verdigris Pumpkins

I’ve been so so busy the last couple months, knee-deep in paint, but not chalk paint! I’ve been painting interiors for several clients, and also kitty-sitting, so no time for blogging or creating anything to blog about. So until I can produce a finished creative project, I thought it would be nice to welcome September with a chalk paint pumpkin creation I whipped up just after Halloween last year. RE-POST from 2013: Now that Halloween is past, most people (including me) are thinking about Christmas. But before we move on to Christmas décor, I thought I’d do something out of the norm for me. For a change of pace, I decided to give little pumpkins a decorative chalk paint treatment, without the usual Halloween theme, and simply an Autumn theme. I give to you……

Rusty Verdigris Autumn pumpkins.  They have sort of a Tim Burton/Seussian vibe to them,  dontcha think? 
Chalk Paint = Faux rust!

I used the same paint treatment as my Clock planter from this Summer.

   

They started out like this.

Followed by black chalk paint. This design was pretty fluid, so the colors after the black morphed a bit. As you will see, I added more paint after the stem construction. If I were doing these again, I would construct the stem and leaf before painting, but the order isn’t make or break.)
   I used an awl tool to burrow 2 holes on the stem. One on top and one on the side. (The stem can be a little hard, so use caution when poking the hole.)  
  I stuck a piece of tie wire into the top hole. After twisting it to see how much I would need for my new stem, I cut off any excess. No rules here. You can make the stem as long as you want.
 
I took the wire out, straightened it, and laid it on a piece of tin foil that has been folded in half. After you fold it, lay down the wire to see how much foil is needed to cover it, minus ¼” for the bottom part of the wire for inserting into pumpkin. The top end of the wire is where you form a curly-cue if you desire. Once you’ve measured the folded foil, cut the foil in a tapered shape, as shown, so when you roll it around the wire, it will gradually get thinner as it reaches the top.
   Now roll up the foil with the wire inside, just tight enough to keep the wire from slipping out, about the thickness of a cigar.  
  Hold on to the wire and thickest end of the foil with one hand, and using the other hand, start molding the foil into the wire, and twisting a little as you go, till it’s relatively smooth. It should then look thick at the bottom, and gradually ending with a point at the top. If you covered the pointy end of the wire, you can gently tear away some of the foil at that end to reveal some of the wire for the curly-cue.  
  Now for the fun part. Hot glue the bottom of the wire stem into the top hole of the pumpkin stem, making sure the foil is pushed up against it. If it isn’t, make the hole deeper, or cut off some of the bare wire. You can try to glue the foil against the stem, but if it doesn’t stick, no worries.

Now hold on to the stem base with one hand, and with the other hand, start molding your foil stem into whatever shape you want. To form the curly-cue, use some needle nose pliers.

  Before you wrap the stem, you will want to attach the leaf. I made my leaf using oilboard, but thick cardstock would work too. I drew some leaves, cut them out, then scored a bunch of veins on them. After scoring, I bent them up a bit, to look more natural.
I then hot-glued the leaves to short pieces of wire, thinner than the tie wire I used for the stems. The thickness of the wires is a personal preference, so use what you wish. After painting a black base coat on the leaf, I hot-glued the leaf wire into the side hole of the pumpkin stem. The reason I painted the black before I inserted it, is because it would be hard to paint the underside of the leaf after it’s attached to the pumpkin. You most likely won’t be able to see under the leaf once attached, but I just didn’t want bare cardboard there.  
Now that the leaf is attached, you can start wrapping the entire stem in florist stem tape. I used brown because I had some, but any color will do since you’ll be painting over it anyway. Make sure you start the wrap at the base of the pumpkin’s part of the stem, and also the leaf stem, so the tape can help the wire stems be more attached to the pumpkin. Cut a small, manageable length of the florist stem tape, and just cut more if you don’t reach the end of the stem. Wrap it till you reach the exposed wire, then tear off the excess.  
Finally, it’s time to paint paint paint! Over the black base coat, start adding chalk paint from dark to lightest colors. I used chocolate brown, then a brick tone, then rust, then aqua for the verdigris. The most important thing to remember, as with the clock planter, is to dry-brush every color over the black.  
The really cool thing about these pumpkins is that they have a lot of texture, so if you use a light touch with the dry-brush painting, you can accentuate all the texture. I chose to keep all the pumpkin’s crevices darker for contrast and contour. You can blend them in slightly so they don’t look like obvious paint lines, but rather a natural rusty finish.

There is not really any need to seal these, unless you feel they will get bumped around or handled a lot. Use a matte finish if you do seal them.  
I created these pumpkins just for decoration, but the curly-cues would be great if you shaped them to hold place cards at your Thanksgiving table. I would opt to use the really mini pumpkins for that though, since they would take up less space at the table. And again, as a bonus, painting pumpkins vs. cutting them, makes them last a lot longer, because the paint seals them!   Come Join Me on Instagram! @MagiaMiaEtsy

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