Faux Tortoise Shell Finish...Maybe?

I remember seeing a book at Home Depot as a teenager and I saw the  how to do faux Tortoise shell finish in there.  I didn't buy it and to this day I wish I had... so thanks to google and etc. I searched the web for a suitable substitute.... what I found was:
This guy: optimism and white paint
This guy: xrestore
And, this chick: gorgeous shiny things
Of course, I didn't do it quite the way any of them did it... :-)  Not to mention that I had ordered a 1990's book by Annie Sloan all about how to faux tortoise shell....  but that just came today.  A day late and dollar short of course.

This little guy came from my dad's warehouse. A treasure
trove for sure.  I initially painted it all black, distressed it
and stained the recessed area and was about to call it
a day.  Then I thought- this would be a perfect piece to
try tortoise shell on... its not a family heirloom and its
obviously not been loved, so I sanded the recessed area
down and decided to try it:

Most faux tortoise shell how to's tell you that you need a
yellow base.  So, after I sanded it down I painted it yellow,
not a perfect paint job.  Just enough to cover it.

EEK... So, I did this with Burnt Umber and
Coffee Bean plaid paints. I was kinda
wanting it to look like a chevron spine type
thing.  That's why I did the diagonal lines
instead of random all over...

Then I put glaze coats over it.  I just watered down the
Coffee Bean and Burnt Umber and kept applying them
I still applied it in the diagonal chevron pattern...
looks a little better...

Oh, ya.  I needed the black lines too. 
I read on one of the how to's that I should
sand it after I put on the black... ok. I think
that could have been skipped.  It just
brought out more of the base yellow....

So, a few dozen more glaze coats.  I read somewhere
on the www. that glazes are basically just thinned
out versions of whatever paint you want.  So, since I
didn't have any fancy glazes or anything- that's what I
did.  I just kept thinning out my 2 browns and brushed
them on.  Then I decided to add a little copper metallic
paint. So, I thinned that down and started brushing a
few coats of that one too.  That's what's wet in the upper
left and starting to dry on the upper right...

You can see the copper glaze better here.  I also :-) decided
to add just a hint of a gold metallic paint too. I wanted a
glitzy tortoise shell, I guess... A couple dozen more glaze
coats and:...

This is what I ended up with.  I put 1 coat of polyurethane
on.  I think it looks pretty good for my first faux tortoise
shell.  Now that I have my Annie Sloan how to book I'll
be trying a version of her tips next :-)

Burlap Frame

I'm really loving this frame.  Good thing its already sold. 
Otherwise- I might of needed to rearrange what I have on
my walls already.  I did the back out of burlap.  The pics
I clipped to the board are all pics out of the Summer 2011
Ballard Designs catalog.  They're all showing something
made out of... BURLAP :-)  Even the bed skirt in the bottom
left is burlap... 

Since my patron told me that she was planning on using
this board for her scrap booking inspiration supplies- I
included several large and even some of the baby
clothespins that were painted and distressed to match.
There is the embellished flower clip on the top left
corner and on the right I did a rope and button embellished
clip.  I hope she likes it!!!

Big, but boring!











Check out: DIY by Design  AWESOME blog!!

My First Burlap Flower

Burlap seems to be a popular fabric right now.  Have you
checked out Ballard Design lately??  So- I did the burlap board
and needed to embellish it just a wee bit- so I thought I'd make a
flower to go on one of the clothes pins. I went to
 craftaholicsanonymous to check out how she did it. She has
AMAZING tips on burlap- like how to get it to cut straight. 
 Wish I had read that post before I cut it for the board.  Anyways-
 so this is how I did my flower:

They look like little peanuts :-)  I made 3 of each size.  The larger
ones are almost the same length of the clothespin I glued them onto.

My peanuts all cut out.

Ok- so this is where something went wrong.  craftaholicsanonymous
said to fold over at both sides in the center and glue in place....
well- mine kinda just got pinched in the middle.  What can I say-
the glue and I were not getting along
(In fact- I have a glue burn blister on the tip of my finger now)
To make it still work and not have to start all over I just cut
a v notch out of each one and fit the next petal (peanut) into the V.
Which you can see the V in this picture.  Glued them at the V's
and ta da.  It still worked. YAY!!!!  To finish it I just glued
one of the buttons from my button jar in the center. 
Not bad for my first flower (esp since I did it out of Burlap)