Finding inspirations

I am new to this whole learning about furniture and history behind it.  I have to admit that I started repurposing and painting furniture because I was running out of wall spaces to play with.  There are so many different style of furniture but favorite of mine has been french chairs.  There is something incredibly feminine and regal about them.  I can't get enough of them.  Recently I found a pair of these french dining chairs for $30 at my favorite place in the whole world, The Trading Post.  The caning needed help and the legs need to be reglued but they were just so pretty.  As I was leaving, the owner asked me to take the other two chairs from the set for free.  They were in even more bad shape than the ones I bought.  She said if anyone could fix them, it would be me.  So I came home with all four of them.

 


Here's the deal.  I love to paint.  I have pretty much no problem painting anything...but do you remember I made that promise to my upholstery instructor that I wouldn't paint something if there were over a hundred years old??? Sooooo...these were.  I found out that these chairs were made in the late 19th century French before there was electricity.  They were hand craved out of fruitwood.  I imagine young french apprentices craving out the details and making these chairs by the window since there was no such things as electricity yet.  Isn't that crazy?

As much as I appreciate nicely painted chairs, I am going to just restore these chairs.  My plan is to upholster them in a faded shabby blush and light blue velvet.  I think they will look very nice with the dark wood.  The goal really is to appreciate and show off as much of the details as possible.  Hopefully I will get these ladies done by next week.  In the mean time, I have been doing a lot of doodling and painting.  It is funny because I started this blog to share my passion for art and creativity with other like minded people.  I have to tell you blogging world is a serious business.  I never realized that.  I am in awe of the amount of amazing projects and blog posts people can bang out in a week.  I found myself starting to put pressure on myself to do a project just so I could have something new on the blog.  That is never a good sign.  So I put my upholstery tools down.  Put away my furniture.  Grabbed my camera and had a little photo shoot with my ever ready model, Aurora.

That, of course, inspired me to want to paint something whimsical and springy.  I am not a trained painter.  I have never taken a painting class and it is my dream to be able to really paint.  I have been inspired by Katie Rodger of Paperfashion for awhile now.  She paints the most amazing and whimsical fashion illustrations and she also has mini tutorials on how to paint.  So this is what happened.  Insomnia+inspirations+the girls' Birthday invitations= Me painting on every single envelop.

Here is a magical world where wearing a gown everyday is completely normal.

Everything is inspired by flowers and spending the whole day swinging on a floral swing is acceptable.

You can run down a field of flowers in your ball gown without somebody calling the police.

I had so much fun painting these even though they will be ripped and thrown away within seconds of the kids opening them.  I excitedly asked Bella what she thought of them today.  Her reply was "But where are the ninja dragons??"  : )



Love,
Victoria