Totally Unique and One of a Kind Creation

This past week a friend of mine, I shall refer to her as my "partner in crime" came to stay at our bed and breakfast and we had no plans but to CREATE.  We just wanted to get out lots of product and make up some beautiful finishes and that we accomplished.  It is so much fun to just let your creative juices flow without any interruptions.

I had attended the International Decorative Artisan's League yearly convention in Portland this past July and had taken a fantastic class from Krista Vind and Susan Bickford called Transitional Temptations.  The gals are awesome, very talented and a barrel of laughs to be around.  The products were included in the price for the class and readily  available.  I had fun creating and brought home some beautiful sample boards.  However, the problem arises when you go to create this look and you are missing about 11 out of the 12 products needed to recreate. Of course these are not items you would ever dream of purchasing at Michael's or Home Depot but ordering via the internet and paying the shipping from Chicago or wherever else they may be located.

The first sample we decided to create was named Chrome Bubbles.  Of course we quickly saw that we did not have Wunda Size to serve as the adhesive to attach the silver foil required, nor did we have a stupid tool (if  they were not referring to our brains of course) and we ended up calling the next door neighbor to see if she had any bubble wrap crammed into a closet left over from some Christmas gift.  We also were lacking the Venetian Gem Black Onyx so this was a great challenge to try to create something a little similar, yet using our products we had on hand.  This also proved to be a very fun challenge that we were ready to take on.

After first basecoating our sample board with black paint, we were ready to start our rounds of substitution.  I had a big bucket of Armor Faux, no color added and we troweled a layer on.  Before it was allowed to dry, we impressed the bubble wrap, overlapping in some areas to create texture.  Let is set and lightly knock down with a clean trowel.  Dry completely.  Then  we troweled more Armor Faux through a Laser Excel circle stencil which I already had.  I just randomly put small, medium and large circles here and there.  When that was dry we did not apply Wunda Size and let dry till sticky, nor did we use silver foil but instead painted the entire surface black and after that was dried, rolled on some silver metallic paint mixed with glaze and then squeeged it off.  This left some beautiful silver in the pits of the texture.

The final step was to mix some Van Dyke Brown Stain & Seal with Rich Brown and apply it the the entire surface(didn't use that stupid tool required).  After the entire board was dried we propped it up to ohh and ahh over our beautiful creation.  I am convinced this is how unique, "one of a kind" finishes are created.  Go ahead and try for yourself.  It is quite a sense of accomplishment!