new {ish} shop space

I have moved my space at My Little Vintage from the back of the shop all the way to the very front. A better, brighter space, so fingers crossed it brings good things for me! Pictures are a bit rubbish I'm afraid...

Lots more space for my printed shades & cushions!

Vintage glass ware, painted mirror, retro stag, restyled furniture!

 I will be replenishing & tweaking my stock here, but I sell cushions, lampshades & tea towels which I screen print & hand make with organic, ethically sourced fabrics. Also, vintage finds such as retro glass ware, kitchen ware, lamps, decorative pieces & restyled furniture.

Pay a visit to this lovely shop!
My Little Vintage, Earls Barton, Northamptonshire

don't buy that, buy this! {1}

Don't get me wrong, I love Ikea. I think it's fantastic that nowadays people can completely furnish their homes on a tight budget. BUT, on my last visit, I spotted a rather attractive vivid green dining chair which I was rather surprised to see priced at £100. It was attractive, a lovely green but it was still Ikea, still flat-pack and you would still need at least 4 for most dining tables! My reaction was "Why would you pay £100 for a new Ikea chair when can buy a vintage G-plan one for a fraction of that price?"(Actually, what I probably said was "F***ing Hell, a hundred quid?!") With that in mind, I'm attempting to start a new post finding vintage alternatives to high-street goods. The aim is not to say that Ikea or high-street, or chain stores should be avoided (I do buy new too!), but sometimes the vintage styles that these new designs are emulating, can be found at similar or cheaper prices than the modern versions. They will often have signs of wear which can add to their charm ...and as they have already been around for a few years you can be pretty sure they are made to last! Also, I think sometimes people want to create an eclectic, vintage look in their homes but don't know where to start, hopefully this might help!

So, post No.1: I haven't gone for that green chair, but for this cheaper metal-framed chair. It is only £29, but vintage alternatives are available at similar prices. I found two school chair alternatives from Mayfly Vintage and Nixey and Godfrey:

{1} Korpo chair, Ikea £29
{2} Vintage Stacking School Chairs, Mayflyvintage.co.uk, £20
{3} Vintage French School Chairs, Nixeyandgodfrey.com, £35

chippy shelves

The other day I went to our local YMCA shop & found just the thing I was looking for - a cheap, boring, bog-standard shelf unit to use as display at my next fair. Of course I wasn't to let it get away without being painted within an inch of its life... and of course, I haven't bothered with a before photo, but I'm sure "crappy flat pack pine unit" isn't too hard an image to conjure up.

I thought I'd experiment a bit as it's not for selling. I wanted to achieve a "chippy" paint look, like its been knocking about for years (insert your own joke). So it got two thick coats of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint, first in "Florence" (dark green) and then "Provence" (French-style greeny-blue). After a layer of clear wax, I attacked the top layer of paint with a screwdriver. After that, there isn't much of a method, but I played around with dark wax, watered down white paint and generally building the layers up until I was happy-ish with the look. It was all sanded smooth, finished with a good layer of clear wax and finally buffed to add a smooth sheen.

I prefer this worn out look to just sanding the corners a bit, but I think it's worked better on the edges than anywhere else, but it will be fine for display.

restyled bureau

This has been an on-off project for the last few weeks; done in bursts due to a horrible ear infection, a disturbing reaction to antibiotics (that's a whole other post), H's birthday and half-term stuff. Anyway, it starts with this lovely bureau that I found in a charity shop. It was in very good condition, with nice detailing and clean insides. Actually a nice piece but a bit yellowy and some signs of wear and tear, but still solid.

As you can see from these images, it has been given a complete transformation. I painted the exterior in Annie Sloan's "Florence" and built up layers of dark and clear wax, with some distressing and lots of texture, as I did with this table.

We removed the interior shelves to paint the inside in Annie Sloan's "Emperor Silk", a vivid red colour. Once removed, we discovered these numerals that were otherwise hidden...1923 I presume.

I applied gold leaf to the carved molding on the top drawer, I wasn't sure if this would be overkill what with the vivid green and red already used. So I made sure it was distressed and any cracks filled in with dark wax so that it isn't a solid section of yellow-gold.

The handles were just lightly rubbed with wire wool for a bit of a clean

We treated the unpainted wood with teak oil and kept the red to a minimum. A gold tassel has been added to the key and the drawers lined with Cole & Son "Cow Parsley" wallpaper.

 I've just realised that I haven't included a photo of the finished piece with the door closed!...I will come back to that.* Anyway, this will be for sale at the next My Little Vintage fair on 8th March at Earls Barton Methodist Church, details here.

Or contact me if interested in buying, cost £150.

Thank you!

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* This sold before I had the chance to add a new photo!, Quickest sale yet, thank you Ann!
x

screen printed furniture

I have wanted to screen print my designs onto furniture for ages, to create more cohesion between my printed textiles and my painted furniture. I don't want everything to be plastered in co parsleys but the odd element here and there would be nice...so today I tried this for the first time. I wasn't sure how the inks would work on wood although I've read online that it is possible. I have just printed this one image onto a small foldable table that I picked up reently (with the intention of doing up a bit)... 

...it seems to have printed ok, I just need to let it dry and see how best to seal the ink to make it durable. I will also add other painted elements to the table. But if this is a success, it will be something that I do more of.

Florence painted table

I recently bought a tin of Annie Sloan's Chalkpaint in "Florence", to paint a candelabra with. That project has been put on hold for a bit, so I needed another project to use for the paint. I found this side table in a charity shop. I thought it would be a perfect match for the rich emerald green of Florence!

The table didn't need much preparation, just a light wipe to remove any dust etc. I painted over the table with the chalk paint, painting fairly quickly and liberally. The great thing about this paint is that you can pretty much just "slap it on". I knew I wanted to work dark wax into it for an aged, textured look and so the paint needed to be quite textured to achieve this. Once dried I applied another layer of paint (as some of the dark brown was showing through). Again, I didn't paint too evenly and made sure that there were visible brush strokes for the dark wax to sit in.

Once the paint was completely dry, I sanded some of the paint back for a worn look, then I wiped a layer of Annie Sloan's clear wax all over the table. You can this with a brush (I am coveting one from her own range), but I am using a cloth at the moment - which works fine. With a different cloth, I worked in small amounts of dark wax. I concentrated on a small area at a time so that I could work the wax before it dries. I applied the dark wax in a circular movement, pushing it into the textures of the paint. I then quickly wiped off any excess with a cloth. I did this all over the table, building up the layers of dark wax until I was happy with it.

A final coat of clear wax was applied all over for protection. This was all buffed with a clean cloth to give it a smooth, shiny surface, with none of the "chalkiness" of the paint. It does have the look and feel of an old piece which has accumulated marks and texture over time, which is exactly what I wanted.

I'm really pleased with how it looks and love this colour paint, especially when combined with the dark wax.

This table is available to buy, email me or message me through my Facebook page if you are interested...thank you!


Products used:
Annie Sloan Chalkpaint in "Florence"
Annie Sloan Dark Wax
Annie Sloan Clear Wax
Annie Sloan website here

Chalk Paint Chair

This is a little bit of a "before" and "after" using Annie Sloan Chalk paint. I am a relative new beginner to this little joy, which has many enthusiastic users and now I understand why. I have painted a fair bit of furniture before but this chalk paint means no preparation and can be used in different ways to achieve different techniques. In this example, I used a chair from a charity shop which had thick layers of old gloss paint on it. With other paints, I would have sanded the white paint first to prepare a painting surface, but with this chalk paint there is no need!

So, above is the charity shop chair with its not-very-attractive thick gloss paint. The only prep I did was to wipe the chair with a clean cloth and then I just started painting. I used Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in "English Yellow'. I'm a bit obsessed with yellow at the moment. I painted a couple of layers of this stuff all over the chair, as Annie Sloan says in one of her YouTube demos the trick is to "just get on with it", so that's what I did!

This is the chair with its good coating of yellow paint - as you can see, there are brush strokes and texture in the paint. I painted quickly and in different directions to intentionally leave brush strokes in the paint. This is where the dark wax will sit to give a distressed effect.

Next, I applied Annie Sloan Clear Wax all over the chair, I used a lint-free cloth (my budget hasn't stretched to a £35 wax brush just yet) and again applied this fairly quickly, rubbing a layer of the wax all over. Next, I brushed in the Dark Wax, using circular movements and only working on a small section of the chair at a time. Excess dark wax was then wiped off with a cloth leaving it sitting in the textures of paint. Once completed, I used sandpaper in some areas to distress further and the whole chair was given a final layer of clear wax, to give it a smoother feel and durable finish. 

vintage finds

As well as selling my handmade textiles, I have for a long time, wanted to sell vintage items and second-hand furniture. Our home is full of second hand, handmade and customised finds - not only because I love transforming things, but because it means that we have unique things in our house which have cost very little to achieve. Now that our house is pretty much full, I often find that when I come across amazing bargains I have to walk away from them...but no more! After much talk, I have finally added vintage items to my Etsy shop. We are also busy working on furniture finds to add in the not-too-distant future. So recently, we have been scouring car boot sales and charity shops sniffing out treasure...

At Potterspury car boot sale, we bought this lovely old wooden folding chair. It needed just a light sand and wax as its aged look is part of its charm.

Chris also sanded the hinge which was heavily rusted. 

This lovely hamper box was only £4. I think I will have to keep this as I often need baskets for storage and this is a good under the bed size.

This lovely box is an "after"photo. Unfortunately, Chris got to it before I had the chance to photograph it "before". It is an old metal deed box. It was painted black and heavily scratched and rusted in parts. Chris sanded and polished it back to the bare metal, leaving behind lovely distressed marks where the rust had been. Lovely!