Have a Seat

My chair painting project is  now done.  The only thing left to do is get rubber caps for the bottom of the legs.  I stopped by Home Depot this week but they were out of stock on black.  White will not do!  The legs are a tad bit uneven so not only will the caps protect the floor, I can stick a penny in the one that is a little short and that should even things out.  I've been working on this project for months and months, just fooling around a couple of hours here and there in the evenings.  It will be a birthday present for TBG's BFF's little girl.  She'll be two this fall.  I painted that small white chair with the flower for her too.

I decided to go with a funky patchwork type of pattern for the seat and the edge it with black and white squares.  I used gold and sliver paint pens to break up the areas and filled in the edges of the squares first with a black sharpie, then with a black paint pen.  There was no rhyme or reason to the patterns, I just painted them as I went along.  Staying true my color-blind approach -- I used all sorts of colors so it wouldn't matter if they matched or not.  There were times when mixing a purple was hard, or making sure I wasn't mistaking a red section for green, but I think I did OK!

Once I was done painting, I added accents with the metallic paint pens.  I sort of kept the a pattern scheme for each of the big legs, and also did some base color matching for the supports.  Once I started doodling over it all, the scheme sort of became incidental --  but it was also a way for me to keep track of what I was doing as I went along.

TBG would check on my progress periodically and think I was almost done... but I knew I had to keep going until no more detail could be fit in -- like putting the little dots and squiggles with the paint pen between the paint lines on the back (and I did tiny little dots inside those lines).  The final step was to do two coats of polycrylic.  Using acrylic paint meant that the color could easily wipe or wear off.  A protective top coat was in order.  It was nice to have the shine added as well.

I wish we had more room in the house so I could do painted projects like this for us.  We just don't have the room.  I do have another project lined up for this little girl and can't wait to start that.  Since this family has nearly no furniture in a new house, I'll have some place to send my pieces to live.  Finding the objects at garage sales and in the trash means I can create something for around ten bucks.  Having something creative to do and also being able to be generous at the same time makes it worthwhile and enjoyable for me.  Now I can't wait to give it away!