Frenchmen Love Women Jewelry Armoire

I know I should be writing a tutorial right now on how I decoupaged the jewelry armoire. The tutorial would drone on about what kind of primer I used, what kind of paint, how many layers of each. Then how I use a wallpaper seam roller to press down the paper images into the glue, yada yada yada.

I'd rather talk about how much I enjoy the process of making things like this.

First, the part where I'm walking around a secondhand shop or thrift store, picking up pieces of what would appear to be crap and turning them around in my hands to figure out whether I can recreate them to be better, prettier, more functional.



Then there's the part where the piece of "crap" sits in my house for a period of time and I just mull it over, thinking about what I might do with it, what color it might become, how I might take it apart and rebuild it, whether I will glue things to it. I might even get hung up about it, not able to make a start, not able to decide what to do with it. It might sit in my basement for months. It might sit in my craft room for weeks, even taking on a different role altogether before something finally hits me. Yes! That's it! That's what I'll do.

I have a wood shelving unit sitting in my craft room right now, for instance. I picked it up at a garage sale. It has some lovely fluting down the sides and I'm trying to decide whether I'm going to keep it and re-work it for myself or re-work it and sell it.

Not all things sit around the house waiting for ideas to hatch. Some things I have a very sure idea about. But then perhaps the process is long and arduous. Finding the right paints, finding time to get to it. Like the dresser and vanity I did for my niece's bedroom a couple years ago. "It will be ready for your birthday in March," I told her. Then, "It will be ready for Christmas." And now I can't remember when it finally got done. Probably in the following Spring.

I always figured I'd rework the jewelry box, but it took me awhile. And as I said, once I settled on the Matisse print, everything else fell into place.

Two coats of primer, two coats of yellow enamel paint, making it nice and shiney. Sanding off the ridges of the metal hardware to shabby chiq it up a bit. Then prints from three French painters, Matisse, Gauguin, and Toulouse-Lautrec complete the look. Thus the name:

Frenchmen Love Women Jewelry Armoire

I'll still put a few more layers of Mod Podge on. So the process continues, but for me, that's the best part.

This page also linked to Skip to My Lou Made by You Mondays, Made In a Day Made U Look Linky