Friday, October 29, 2010

Winner of the Artograph Projector Giveaway!!

The morning has arrived to announce the winner of the Artograph Super Prism Projector!  We ended up breaching 600 entries!  I’m amazed at the turnout!  I’m not a fan of giveaways in general, but I have been SO excited to be able to offer you all this incredible tool!  A very huge and special thanks to the folks at Artograph for sponsoring such a fantastic giveaway!  I’ve really been enjoying mine.  :)

This time, it turns out that it pays to arrive early to the party.  The winner, as generated by Radom.org is #18, Dayna Barolin!

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Congratulations, Dayna, on winning the much sought after projector!  Dayna is just starting out furniture revamping, so I’m sure it’s going to prove itself supremely useful.  :)

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Artograph Projector Giveaway Ends Tomorrow!

Just a reminder, that I’m going to be drawing a winner sometime tomorrow morning, so if you haven’t yet entered the Artograph projector giveaway, better get ‘er done!!  Good luck!!

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Monday, October 25, 2010

Red Jenny Lind High Chair

This is actually NOT a projector project (though I do have one more in the works to show you.)   :)  If you are one of the few people out there who have yet to enter the giveaway, there’s still time before the Artograph Projector becomes someone else’s this Friday!

I picked up this adorable Jenny Lind Spindle High Chair at a yard sale the last weekend for $7.

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After going round and round about how to finish it, I decided on a deep, Pottery Barn style red with a black glaze.  I love how it turned out!

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This and all the rest of my current inventory (along with the stuff I’m going to try and get done in the next few weeks) are going to be available for sale at the Junkrestore Vintage Market in Camp Verde, AZ, put on by Tara of Junkrestore, November 19th and 20th (the weekend before Thanksgiving.)  Camp Verde is a great, central Arizona location!  Those of you in Phoenix, it’s a quick jaunt north.  From the Prescott area, it’s just a skip to the east.  From Flagstaff, head a smidge south and you’re there.  From Payson, just a mosey to the northwest.  This is going to be a great sale with lots of fantastic vendors.  I’ll share more information as we get closer to the date.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Toddler Girl Clothes, Anyone?

Just a quick, off-topic note!  I have a little bit more 18-24 month and 2T toddler girl Fall/Winter clothes left along with one pair of ADORABLE practically new hot pink Size 7 GAP Mary Janes that I’m trying to get rid of.  Is anyone out there looking for these sizes?  If so, leave me a comment with an email address where I can send you the pictures and prices.  Save me from Ebay!!  Thanks!!  :)

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EDIT :  Everything’s now SOLD!  :)  Thanks to Karen for buying the lot of clothes and to Vallerie for snagging the fab shoes.  Hope you ladies enjoy!

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Guest Post from All Things Thrifty

If you are an avid Google Blog Reader user like I am, you may not have noticed that our Twice Lovely digs have been freshened up thanks to the lovely Lauren over at Designer Blogs.  I was fortunate enough to win a blog makeover from my friend Christa over at Stories of a House.  When I started emailing back and forth with Lauren about design ideas, I realized that there were things about our blog design that I wasn’t willing to throw out the window.  I wanted to keep some elements the same and keep the bloggy digs feeling familiar, just spruced up.  Lauren was terribly gracious, professional, and FAST!  Here we are, a week later, and it’s up and running!  Pop over from your reader and check it out!  You can even grab our cool new button!  :)

I’d also like to make a quick mention that my Palette of Metallics project was selected for the Top Ten Projects for October over at The DIY Club!  Hooray!!  If you get the chance and feel so inclined, hop on over there and put in a good word for me.  The winner for the month gets a glorious prize package worth $1500!  There’s lots of stuff that I could put to very good use.  :)  Thanks a bunch!

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So, you remember that Artograph Super Prism Projector Giveaway we have going on?  :)  Well, I’m thrilled to introduce you to Brooke at All Things Thrifty, who posted a few weeks ago over at her blog about using a projector to paint a fantastic design on a boring block wall fence in her backyard!  This is not the first time Brooke has used a projector on a project.  This fantastic Wall Art was what inspired my dresser transformation last week.  She also did some cute truck art for a little boy’s room and painted a huge, awesome design on a focal wall of her kitchen!  With her courteous permission, her is her tutorial post about her most recent go-around with the projector, her block wall fence.  :)

 

The inspiration: Our backyard is definitely in the "work in progress" category. We have planted trees, and my husband has built me an amazing swing set, but our projects are only beginning. We just finished one that I have to share! A few months ago I was watching the DIY network. You are probably not surprised that I LOVE the DIY network. :) Well, I was watching a Turf Wars episode because my backyard design was up in the air, and I was hoping for some inspiration. I was in AWE at this amazing idea that I had never heard of. The backyard designer painted something on the fence. I LOVED it. When our block wall was complete, I was overwhelmed at how tall it was. In fact, we have nicknamed it "the tower" around here. The reason why it is so enormous, is because our backyard neighbor's (who are great, by the way) lot sits much higher than ours. So, the bottom portion of the block wall is a retaining wall. The wall is around 10 feet tall. When you walk out my back door, the first thing you see is this GINORMICA wall, and this bothers me. So, with the trusty help of the hubsters...we went to work painting the Turf Wars design onto our wall. Items you need for this project: An (old school) overhead projector :) A printable transparancy A few small high-quality paintbrushes Outdoor latex paint in the color of your choice A ladder Step 1: Choose a design, and decide where you want your design to go. We used the exact same design that was on the DIY network. We simply printed it off onto a clear transparency. If you look closely in the picture below, the artist put guides for the projector that came in handy. Since this project took us several nights in a row to complete, it was a great way to keep our projector in the same spot. We marked these guides with chalk.

We found the design with a Google search. :)

 

Picture source (Munkey Mind)

Step 2. Set up your projector and make sure it is in focus. You need to set it up in a place that is level. It is easy to bump the projector, and every bump causes the design to be nudged off target. Hint: tape your transparency onto your projector. If your projector gets bumped, use the guides to get it in the exact same spot again. Step 3:  Begin painting.  We learned from the get-go that painting a porous surface like a block wall is pretty challenging. It was difficult to get the lines to be smooth. After some practice we got pretty good at it, and from several steps back you cannot even see the difference. We could not see the design during the day, so we painted at night. We didn't have any idea how long this would take us...but like most of our favorite projects...this one took a lot of time and patience!

Here is a better picture at how far back the projector was. At some point during the project we painted sitting down.

We painted standing up! Here is my friend Jen helping out!

We painted, and painted, and painted!

On the third night, we finally needed ladders to reach the top.

Here is Dan getting ready to paint the last line. It was definitely camera worthy!

And here is the completed project during the day! We are quite proud at how great it looks. The design ended up being 14 feet wide and nearly 9 feet tall.

As you can see, the lines are not perfect, and painting in the crevices was a challenge. We did our best to keep the lines straight. 

Now, I just need a nap to catch up on some lost sleep. :)

Some of our neighbors think it looks like a tribal tattoo. I agree, and I love it. It makes the focal point I was going for. So, instead of noticing how HUGE the wall is, people notice how great the painting looks! Mission completed! The greatest part of all of this!?!? It was basically FREE because we had the paint from a previous project!! Now that's what I call THRIFTY!

 

Thanks again to Brooke for letting me share her tutorial!  Her blog is so fun.  You have to drop by and check out her house!  No fear of color there.  :)

Have I convinced you yet that you NEED a projector of your own?  :)  If so, there’s still time to pop over and enter our Artograph Super Prism Giveaway.

More to come!

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

French Medallion Coffee Table

Holy Shlamoly!  Do you guys know how to come out for a great giveaway, or what?!?!  A huge welcome to all our new readers.  And a great big thank you for all your lovely comments about my newly made over dresser!

My Damask Dresser had a decidedly modern feel to it, so I decided that up next, I would do something with the projector for all you French, distressed, hand-painted furniture lovers out there (and I bet there are more than just a few.)

I picked up this coffee table at a community yard sale day a few weeks back for $5!!  Total steal!

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I painted it an off-white with gray undertones.  Then I composed a medallion using two different designs that I found on istockphoto.com and projected the medallion on the center of the coffee table top.

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The design on my Damask Dresser I wanted to be very precise, so I chose to outline from the projected image with a pencil,  then go back in and fill in with the brush.  This time, I wanted the design to have a freehand painted feel to it, so I painted with a golden yellow paint on the table top using the projected image as my guide.  After I had the entire medallion done, I went back with a gold metallic to add the shadows and give it some dimension.  I then distressed the whole coffee table, including the painted medallion to give it an aged look.

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Here’s the finished piece:

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The more I play around with the projector, the more ideas I have for applications for it.  It’s so fun!

If you haven’t already, check out my post on how you can enter to win your very own Super Prism Projector from Artograph.  :)

 

Linking to:

Domestically Speaking, Faded Charm, My Backyard Eden, The Shabby Chic Cottage, Somewhat Simple, The Shabby Nest, Miss Mustard Seed, Finding Fabulous, Chic on a Shoestring Dcorating, Stories of a House

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Guest Post from Miss Mustard Seed

Thanks to everyone who’s entered the Artograph Projector Giveaway so far and helped spread the word about it!!  Just a reminder to please leave a separate comment for each of your entries (following, liking on FB, posting on your blog, etc.)  I’m going to be drawing a comment number at Random, and I want you to have all the entries you are entitled to!  :)

Also, if you have not yet done it, please make sure that you have an email address associated with your Google profile.  This way, I can get a hold of you if you win!  It also makes is SO much easier for me and other bloggers to personally respond to your lovely comments.  :)  Here’s how you do it:

Go to your Blogger dashboard.
Click on "Edit Profile."
Make sure the e-mail address listed is the one you want people to respond to.
Check "show my e-mail" under the privacy settings.

Most of you, I’m sure, have heard of the quite lovely Miss Mustard Seed.  If you haven’t, I’m thrilled to introduce you to her!  Her blog is a wealth of inspiration, and her growing success as a business woman in a creative enterprise has emboldened me and countless others to follow our dreams of making lovely things for others to enjoy.  One of my favorite things Marian makes are her vintage inspired signs that she creates using (what else?) a projector!  Here’s her tutorial on how she goes about making her fantastic old (looking) signs:

 

I am finally coming good on my promise to reveal some of my sign-making secrets.  Before you get intimidated and think, "I can't paint.  I can't draw.  My lettering always ends up looking all funky and like a second grader made it."  Let me assure you that anyone can make these signs. 
Start off by finding something to paint.  I prefer old doors and boards that I find at antique stores, yard sales and flea markets.  I like that they have an age to them already, so I don't have to create that. Try to look at things in new ways.  I've used sides of an old crate, table leaves, and a dismantled shelf to make signs.  If you can't find old doors or wood, though, don't despair.  Some crackle medium, distressing and glaze can make any piece of wood look old.
The second thing you need to do is create your design.  I look for inspiration everywhere and snap pictures if I see old signs or cool designs I like.  I don't copy them, but I use them for inspiration. 
I use MS Word to develop layout and select the fonts.  I'll then use a sketch or clip art if I want to add a picture to the sign. 
The third step is to transfer your design onto your board/door.  I use a projector, which is an awesome tool for this.  It's much more flexible than stencils and is faster than using a transfer method.  A projector is about a $100 investment, but it's well worth it if you're selling your work or making a lot of signs for you home, friends and family. 
If you don't have a projector or cannot justify buying one, you can use graphite transfer paper.  Simply print your image to size and trace over the lettering with the transfer paper between the image and the board.  A Cricut or Silhouette is also a handy tool for making your own stencils.  
Paint over your traced design using whatever color you want.  I use acrylic paints and generally mix them to achieve the desired color. 
Once the paint is dry, sand it gently to distress and apply an antique glaze over the entire piece to bring it all together.  I generally use dark walnut wood stain on my signs.  If there is original paint on the antique door, I'll sand (wearing a respirator) and seal it with polycrylic before painting the sign.  Please read my post on lead paint, if you're unaware of the dangers. 
So, those are the basics for making a good sign, but the one last component is one I can't teach you.  It's a sense of what is going to look good.  I play around a lot with fonts, designs and borders before I get to the painting.  I also try to match up the design to the kind of wood or door I am painting on, so the sign looks authentic.  This just takes research, practice and developing your gut feel for it. 
I hope this gives you some ideas and confidence to go make signs of your own or at least it gave you a point in the right direction!
I also have not forgotten about the video tutorials.  I filmed two of them last week, but it sounded like two children (mine) were being tortured in the background, so I need to film them again when I have a quiet house. 

Miss Mustard Seed

 

Thanks to Miss Mustard Seed, Marian, for helping to get the word out about this giveaway, and for permission to repost her fantastic tutorial!

If you haven’t done so yet, make sure you enter the giveaway and you could win yourself a brand new Artograph Super Prism Projector and be on your way to creating gorgeous signs like these!

Friday, October 15, 2010

Damask Dresser & Artograph Projector Giveaway!

Have you ever been perplexed about how to get a cool design on a piece of fabric, or a picture in a book, or a graphic on your computer onto a wall or a piece of furniture?  Well it’s something that’s plagued me for a while.  I’m decent at freehand painting, but when it comes to symmetrical designs, or repeating designs or getting something really tiny to be huge, I have been stuck, so I started looking around for an opaque projector I could use for that purpose.

I spoke to the lovely people at Artograph, who graciously offered to send me their Super Prism  Art Projector (one of their top-of-the-line models) to use and one to offer our readers for a giveaway!!  Isn’t that SO exciting!  The Super Prism has a manufacturers suggest retail price of $400, so this is a fantastic opportunity for you to own this incredibly useful tool for the creative DIYer!  Details about the giveaway are below, but first, I thought I’d share with you a project I did for my very own bedroom using my new Super Prism Projector.

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We inherited our dresser when we were first married, 10.5 years ago, from my husbands grandmother.  It was very 70’s looking, with the slanted drawers, boxy shape and yellow wood tone.  When we first got it, I decided it might make it look a little less 70’s and a little more traditional if I added some pulls and knobs. 

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It helped, but I’ve been yearning to give it more of an update forEVER, but my husband has a thing about painting wood, so being the loving, dutiful wife that I am, I conceded the issue for years.  Finally I could take it no longer, so I did what any loving, dutiful wife would do.  I waited until he was at work, and whipped out the paint!  :)  Surprise!  He was only momentarily disappointed that the wood was no longer, because he loved the way it turned out (as I knew he would.)

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Now it matches my Roadkill Rescue Headboard I redid years ago!  Yay!  (You can see it in the mirror.  By the way, this is probably the first time in at least 3 years that my bed has been somewhat made, just to keep it real.)

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Here’s a better look at the headboard and duvet cover.

 

So let me show you how I accomplished this using my new projector!

I wanted to use the damask from the duvet cover as the design on the dresser, but the pattern was a little too large to fit on the copy area of the projector.  (It has a 7” x 7” copy area.)  So I found a picture of the duvet cover online (they sell the Havana pattern at Target still) and printed it on a smaller scale that would fit on the copy area.

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The projector was simple and easy to use, right out of the box.  I just placed my image on the copy area, shut the lid, turned it on, adjusted the distance between the projector and the dresser until the image was the size I wanted, then turned the end of the lens to focus it.  Maybe a minute, and we were in business!

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I traced around the image with a pencil.

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Then flipped the image upside down and traced on the other side. 

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(I wish I could take credit for idea of this awesome design, but it was inspired by this damask wall art that Brooke did at All Things Thrifty back in April.  It’s been swirling around in my head ever since and I was SO excited to finally see it to fruition.)

So then, the painting began.  I’m not going to lie to you and tell you this was a quick process, but I think the end product was TOTALLY worth the time and effort.  Here it is after 1 hour of painting:

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2 hours, and we’re half-way done:

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I want to say it took about 5 hours to complete all the black painting with touch-ups and everything.  I just put on some tunes and painted away.  Not difficult work, just a little tedious.  Luckily, my husband was home yesterday when I was working on this part, so my kids were not completely neglected.  ;)

I really could not be happier with how it turned out, and am totally stoked to have everything in there looking like it goes together.  It was only 10.5 years in the making.  Good things come to those who wait.  :)

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Now for the GIVEAWAY details!!!

You have the opportunity to own your very own Super Prism Projector from Artograph!!  Here’s what you have to do:

1.  Be a follower of Twice Lovely and leave me a comment telling me so.

2.  “Like” Twice Lovely on Facebook and leave me a comment.

3.  Link to this giveaway on Facebook, Twitter, or in a blog post and leave a comment for each that you do.

4.  Post the giveaway button on your sidebar for the duration and leave me a comment.

 

That’s 6 opportunities to win one of these great machines for yourself!!  PLEASE be sure to leave a SEPARATE comment below for each of your entries!!

I will pick a winner 2 weeks from today, on October 29, 2010.  During that time, I’m going to be showing you LOTS more ideas of things you can do with a projector of your own.  We have a few guests posts lined up with even MORE great projector projects and tutorials.  I can’t wait!

Good luck!

EDIT:  This giveaway is now closed!

 

Linking to:

Miss Mustard Seed, Finding Fabulous, The Shabby Chic Cottage, Tatertots and Jello, Funky Junk Interiors, Under the Table and Dreaming, I Heart Naptime, Chic on a Shoestring Decorating, House of Grace, Fine Craft Guild .com, The Shabby Nest, Domsetically Speaking, My Backyard Eden, Thrifty Décor Chick

Photobucket HOUSEOFGRACE