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Miss Mustard Seed’s Milk Paint

Before and Afters

Say Hello to Ironstone

I’m finally getting around to introducing another Miss Mustard Seed’s Milk Paint color… …Ironstone…     What else would I call my white?  For this piece, I’m so glad I finally got a lot of chipping.  All white pieces aren’t really my style, so I was hoping for lots of chippiness, which I got,  and I left the top and drawers wood.   Here’s how the piece started… I sort of laughed when I showed my husband the finished dresser.  Most people would probaly consider it a “before” with the partially painted chippiness.  Oh well.  Those who get it, get it.     I was so fortunate to buy this piece with the gorgeous original glass knobs…     Oh, Milk Paint chippy goodness on turned legs.  Sigh.   I did make a video on getting the chippy look with Milk Paint and I just need to edit it to get it

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Miscellaneus

I needed Faith

I had a little idea a few months ago. It was just an idea to have milk paint colors I loved in cute packaging.  I kicked that idea over to Homestead House Paint Co. and they thought it sounded like a good idea.  Well, I announced this little idea on my blog and it has exploded!  We’re about to launch the paint line with 80 retailers around the US and a few in Canada and one in the UK.  Plus we have about 150 potential retailers who have sent inquiries.  All of this is awesome and terrifying and overwhelming and exciting and it’s finally pushed me to hire someone to help me.  (It’s about time, I know!) Meet Faith, my new Business Manager…   How perfect is it that her name is Faith?  If you aren’t aware, Miss Mustard Seed is a reference to a verse in the Bible about

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Before and Afters

Say hello to “Kitchen Scale”

Time for another reveal of the next Miss Mustard Seed’s Milk Paint color – “Kitchen Scale”…   Here’s how this piece started…    Yeah, it’s hard to believe it’s the same piece, isn’t it? Here’s why I named the color Kitchen Scale…     The color isn’t exactly the same.  My aqua has more green in it, but this scale was my inspiration.     I love how this paint finish turned out.  It only chipped in a few small places, but the entire finish had this wonderful texture.  You can see it if you look closely…     I decided to jazz up the dresser with some branches and blossoms.  I’ve enjoyed the decorative painting I’ve done lately and it seemed fitting for this piece.  It’s a very petite dresser, so it’s perfect for a little girl’s room or guest room.   It chipped just a little bit around one

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Before and Afters

Say hello to “Flow Blue”

It’s time for another reveal of one of my Milk Paint colors. Here’s Flow Blue…   This is how the piece looked before I painted it..   ..and this is how it looked with two coats of paint, some detail painting and before I refinished the top.  This is the part where I was not in love with it and was ready to start all over…     …but then I refinished the top and sanded the finish to soften it…   …and it all worked out.  (Do you know that’s pretty common for me?  There’s almost always a moment of doubt or a time when I think the piece looks terrible, but I press through and it always seems to work out.)   The name of the color come from the technique used in the 1800’s – early 1900’s to transfer blue patterns onto pottery.  Flow Blue dishes have

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buying & selling antiques

in the lobby

Well, I’m all cozy and snug in my new retail space in the lobby at Lucketts!  There’s still a lot that I want to do, but I was able to get some pieces in the space and figure out my game plan.  Some girls got my space settled while I was out of town and they put these two huge, beautiful bookcases on either side of the hardware counter.  They looked absolutely perfect there, so I changed my game plan and bought them to keep in the space.   (I’ll probably paint them eventually.)  The plan is to fill the shelves and bins with my paint, companion products, books, t-shirts, bottles of glitter and some antique goodies.  I’ll put a feature piece (probably a dresser) up on the hardware counter and on the wall where the Lucketts Green dresser is.     I decided to bring my legs in so

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Miscellaneus

Milk Paint Video Tutorials!

I just uploaded my first three video tutorials on working with my Milk Paint!  The milk paint won’t be widely available until August 2012, but I wanted to start putting the videos out there to answer some questions about Milk Paint and to show what kind of tutorials will be available.  Enjoy!   Subscribe to my You Tube Channel if you want to see the latest videos when they come out! More to come…  

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Before and Afters

Say hello to “Typewriter”

What else would I call the black in my milk paint line?  I thought about “fan”, but that didn’t work for me, so I went with Typewriter, one of my other favorite vintage decorating elements. Introducing this color was tricky for me because I don’t usually paint pieces entirely black.  It looks too heavy to me and I think you lose a lot of the detail of the piece.  So, I decided to leave the drawers wood, paint the body black and add a little decorative painting to the front.   Here’s how the dresser started…   Those stripes are contact paper.  I was about to rip them to shreds (figuratively) for being so ugly, but then I realized it was really pretty clever.  They applied a burled-looking contact paper in strips to look like inlay.  Ugly, but the idea is clever.  Very thrifty, too.  I pealed off the contact

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Before and Afters

Say Hello to “Lucketts Green”

Happy 4th of July to everyone!  We just finished our hamburgers and corn and I’ll partake of some black cherry ice cream once the boys go to bed.  This morning, though, I had some time in the workshop to complete a couple of dressers to introduce two more of my milk paint colors and to get the pieces ready to take to Lucketts tomorrow.  So, without further delay, say hello to Lucketts Green…   Here’s the dresser before…     So, why is it called Lucketts Green?  Well, if you’ve ever been to Lucketts, you would know immediately why I call it that.  For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure, this is why… It’s very similar to the color of the shingles on the exterior of The Lucketts Store.   And for those of you who don’t know, it’s one of my favorite places on earth and I am privileged to be a

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I’m Marian, a painter, writer, and lover of all things creative. From art and antiques to home projects and everyday life, I share my journey in hopes of inspiring you to embrace your own creativity and make beauty in the spaces you live.

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