Tutorial on how to paint white furniture WITHOUT SANDING

I recently completed painting my kitchen hutch.  What a good feeling to finally have it done.  Now I only have about 3 more pieces to finish:)

I hate pre-sanding and have gone way out of my way to to find a great way not to have to do it!  It's all about the primer.  Gripper.  I don't care what you're painting or how shiny the surface, if you start with a light layer or two of Gripper, you can paint it.

This piece came from my husbands Grandmother's house.  The glass had been long before we got it, but for my purposes it wasn't a problem.  I needed it as a shove spot more than anything (I can never have enough of those......so many craft things). 

The blue and white toile fabric was a round tablecloth I found on deep discount and used thumbtacks to attach to the back.  I tacked up the whole piece first and lined up the center to have it lay strait.  Then I cut it mainly to shape, folded in the edges to make it clean in the back and re-tacked.  Worked great.

The TUTORIAL on PAINTING WITH SANDING goes like this......

Coat 1:  Gripper by Glidden.  Don't go back over your strokes, maybe even thin it out slightly.  It won't be a pretty coat.

Coat 2:  zinsser primer/sealer/stain killer. Although gripper has some stain blocking abilities, the Zinsser does even more. 

Coat 3:  The top coat is Valspar multipurpose primer. I like this combo for the furniture because it's not gloss but it's also not too flat.

I hope you give it a try and share if you do.
Thanks
~Renee

Turning plain into perfect

I love finding garage sale or dollar store items that have a nice shape and paint it the way I'd like to see it.

Here I've repainted a plain white dollar store bird into a sweet colorful piece for my garden.

This little birdie was really never noticed. Again plain off white and tan - now a brightly colored friend among my plants

brown was the original color. Now a distressed pink with white highlights. It's so fun to find something and turn it into what you really like and works at your own home.

Don't forget to gesso your piece first - it will make your paint stick. Finish with a few coats of clear spray paint, high gloss. You'll love the results

Hurray For Me Day


Well, I'm done! I'm done! For the past two weeks I've been painting whenever I wasn't working or sleeping. My wonderful family picked up the slack of dinner, dishes and general cleaning up while I've been racing to finish the display wall for the Christmas Village in Philadelphia. I'm so happy how it turned out. Hubby and I went down to City Hall today for the final installation. It was very cold and both of us completely under dressed, but despite the frozen fingers and toes we were able to get the boards attached to the support frame, add the shooting star and the Happy Holidays sign.

These pictures are a kind of walk through of how I got from blank page to complete.....



Day 1& 2...........finalized the design, traced it onto the plywood, color blocked out the Christkind and most of Santa, the sleigh and his bag.

For the second panel, I was scared to tackle the deer. I first laid out their shapes with painters tape. That worked much better than drawing and erasing. Once I had their basic shapes, I masked them out in white over the tree and quickly headed back to panel one............




So I made a lot of progress and just kept going, motivated by a deadline and my love for painting. Today we headed downtown to City Hall and installed the peak-a-boo display wall. If anyone is in the Philadelphia, visiting for the Holiday Season, please stop by and get your picture taken at the display - I'd love to see them! (please click on picture below to see full image)