Antique China Cabinet- Part 1 stripping off veneer

I was lucky enough to get this beautiful piece of furniture from my grandmother. I believe it belonged to her grandmother. Not entirely sure, but nonetheless, it is OLD! It was sitting in her garage just rotting away and I convinced her to let me take it home to give it some love and make it beautiful again.

Unfortunately, it has been sitting in my garage now for about 6 months waiting on pretty weather to start!
I actually needed to test it for lead paint since it is so old, but luckily it came back negative! I got out there this weekend and started to poke at it and figure out where to begin. I’ve never done a piece this big or that needed this much work. It is going to be a learning piece but I plan to take it very slow and do it right!
I enlisted the husband to help me remove all of the rusted screws and hardware. I do think that he was enjoying himself! ;)

Next, I (we) removed the door, glass, shelves, and drawer. I decided that the first step would be to start scraping off the peeling veneer from the drawer. I started with a flat head screwdriver just to see how much I could pull off easily.

I was so worried that I would loose the beautiful detailing and designs but it seems to actually be carved into the wood beneath, not just the veneer. YAY!!! Here is a close up of the design on the front

I really didn’t get much further with the screwdriver than you see in the picture above, so then I had to figure out what to do to get the glued on veneer with out destroying the drawer front.

I did some quick Googling and read several sites that said using an iron is the best way. So this is how I did it.

**disclaimer: please do not use this as a tutorial. I am learning as I go so if anything, it can be used to get some tips but I am NOT A PROFESSIONAL

Step 1. get your supplies together.

• Iron. One that you are willing to destroy
• rag. old one is best
• bowl with water
• measuring cup with water to fill your iron
• hammer
• paint scrapper

Step 2. Heat your iron and set it to the hottest setting with steam all of the way up

Step 3. wet your rag. doesn’t need to be dripping but very wet

Step 4. lay the wet rag over the veneer that needs to be removed

Step 5. place the hot iron on the rag for about 1 minute and let it steam and heat up the veneer. You are melting the glue here so some pieces my need longer time and others may not need as much time.

{the girls were pretending I was a dragon blowing fire every time the iron steamed! haha}

Step 6. remove the iron and CAREFULLY remove the rag. IT WILL BE HOT! (duh)

Step 7. acting fast while the wood is still hot, use the paint scrapper and hammer to gently pull the veneer away from the wood. Be careful not to gouge the wood! It should pull away much easier now.

Repeat when it becomes hard to peel again.

I was able to finish the drawer this weekend. The rest of what you see will easily sand off. I also plan to put a thin layer of paint stripper on there to remove the red paint and gunk from the carving lines. I had set the girls up to finger paint in the garage with me to keep them entertained while I worked but sure enough, that got out of hand so I had to stop. These days, I am lucky to get 10 minutes to myself to work on something like this so I was pumped!

 

Next, One of the sides of the cabinet is peeling too so I will have to tackle that next chance I get. Then I will be on to stripping the paint. I will update when I can!

Updated Family Photos

Hello out there! I realize I probably don’t have any readers, however, I am peeking my head out from my “motherhood abyss” to show off my new family photos by my cousin at Tanya Pabor Photography. Here's my favorites that I plan to make a big wall collage of.
I also updated my banner at the top with a new silhouette using one of these photos. Hope you like them!

 

Jackson’s Newborn Photos

Here are the newborn photos I did of Jackson this weekend. He was such a great model and would fall asleep in every pose I put him! I really wish I had more props and backdrops. Maybe one day I can invest in all of that. I have a few more poses in mind that I would like to do with his sisters but for now, I have some great pictures. That is the real point, right?

Welcome Jackson Max!

Our third child and first son was born on June 1, 2013 on his actual due date! I woke up that morning feeling some contractions but went about my business since they were not too hard and I had been having contractions off and on for days. At this point I was already 4 cm and 80% effaced. After about 2 hours of timing they were averaging about 3 min apart and lasting about 40 seconds. Still not terribly hard but we decided to go in and at least get checked. This time around I was NOT wanting to deal with false alarms so I was even hesitant to go in at this point. I had one false alarm with Avery and several with Norah so I was not in the mood (being his due date and all) to be sent home. We had a plan to tell the nurse and doctor on call that if I was at least 5 cm I wanted to stay.
Sure enough I was about 5 cm and the nurse told us that since this is my third baby and had a history of short deliveries, she was going to do everything she could to let me have that baby that day. I was on board and they admitted me right away.
I got the epidural a few hours later but my contractions never picked up. I figured I would go ahead and get it before everything got too bad. My water finally broke shortly after that and we thought for sure we would be holding him very shortly. My body had different ideas though! It never wanted to kick into active labor. According to the monitors, my contractions never got harder (with the exception of a few here and there) and they even seemed to be subsiding. I was getting so discouraged! I really didn’t want to have a super fast labor where I couldn’t get the epidural but since I had the pain meds I was really not wanting this to drag on any more! after about 4 hours we started to request some Pitocin. The doctor on call did not want to give it to me just yet so we waited a bit longer.
**side note: I don’t understand why some doctors wont listen to the patient in situations like this. I was obviously not in a critical situation so I could think rationally. I knew that as soon as I got just a tiny bit of Pitocin I would have the baby almost immediately! I had done this twice before. I think I know my body! She wasn’t even my actual doctor! sheesh
Anyways, sure enough as soon as I got the Pitocin, I had the baby an hour and a half later at 6:15 pm. Could have been about 4 hours earlier if they would have just listened to me and Jeff. Oh well!
We had a healthy big boy weighing in at 9lb 6 oz and 21.25” long!! I knew this whole pregnancy he was going to be huge! I could feel every little ounce of him; I was in so much pain at the end!! Here are some pictures from the hospital:
Waiting and waiting…

Finally here!

We are so excited about having a son! The girls are adjusting greatly. Avery is a little momma to him. She is OBSESSED with babies right now. She is a great helper holding his bottles, changing diapers, baths, etc. She loves to sing to him and gives him kisses any chance she can get. Norah is a little jealous but only here and there. Having Avery around to play with helps with that I think. I was feeding him a bottle the other day and she came and sat next to me, took my hand from his bottle and put it on hers and she took her hands off the bottle. She wanted to be fed like a baby too. It was very cute and I knew right there that she is watching every little move I make and does not want to be forgotten about! Of course, she could never be forgotten but I know that I need to make a conscience effort to give her lots of extra love right now.
I can not believe some times that I have been blessed with 3 beautiful children! It is so surreal that I am at this point in my life. I could not be happier and thank God for Jeff and my babies every day! I could not love anyone or anything deeper and stronger than I do right now. My cup overflows!

Encaustic Painting

Here is the second art technique that I think would be fun to do with my photos.
Back in April, a friend and I went to The Woodlands Art Festival. It was so nice to get out of the house just us girls and do something that we are both very interested in! Thanks Tammy for going with me!!
While we were there I discovered a type of art that I had never seen before I am was instantly intrigued! I couldn’t get any of the artists to tell me all of their secrets (understandably, I guess) but I  had to know how they did it!
Let me back up. If you have not heard of Encaustic painting, it is basically painting with wax. The possibilities are endless and you can transfer images to the wax and layer paint and colors and objects all within the wax.I knew instantly that this is exactly what I want to do with my photography.
Here’s some examples:

Source

Source

Aren't these beautiful?! I love art that has depth and dimension and texture to it! I have been doing some Googling on techniques and it definitely looks like something I would fall in love with doing. The only problem? It is not simple to get started in. I do not have any of the tools or the set up for it. I found some classes in Houston that I would just love to take one day. Maybe once the kids are in school…..

Transferring a photo to wood

To keep me busy today I decided to try a craft I saw on Pinterest. I want to make some art for over our new bed  and I have always wanted to hang some of my photography so I thought this would be a great combo. Is it just me or are just plain photos (no matter the content) are so boring! Being a photographer, that is probably shocking for me to say, but I have always felt like they are missing something. Well, I think I have found my solution! 2 actually, but one is much similar than the other.
If you are a fan of Pinterest, you have seen tutorials for transferring photos to wood. I was a bit skeptical that it would actually work until this afternoon. I found a piece of scrap wood in our garage that was 5”x6” and chose this picture

at random from my portfolio and printed it on my printer on normal printer paper. I figured I would start with the easiest stuff first. I covered the wood with mod podge and used the back of spoon to smooth out the bubbles in the paper. The tutorials I found say to leave it over night but I got impatient and after about 4 hours I thought I would give it a try. I got my fingers wet and slowly started to rub the paper off with water. Obviously you have to be gentle with this but for whatever reason, the image sticks to the wood and the paper crumbles off! Here is a picture I took after I rubbed the paper off:

** sorry for the lame iphone pics in this post. Like my toes in this picture?? lol did I mention I am being really lazy lately?! ;)

As I was typing this I turned around to look at it and noticed that when it dried it had a white “film” over it. I had not rubbed all of the paper off so I wet it again and scrubbed a little more. You have to be careful because you don’t want to rub too hard or you will rub the image off in spots. I don’t mind the roughness around the edges and depending on the picture, a little distressing could be cool. If it is someone’s face, though, I would not recommend it! lol
I decided to try adding a top layer of mod podge to the top while it was still damp to see if that helps. we shall see…

A few hours later, Here is what it looks like. It’s not perfect so I need to do some playing around with different materials, but I think I could really make some cool artwork!

Here we go again

Hello! Ive been going through another blogging slump lately. I have plenty I could talk about but finding the motivation sometimes is the hardest part. Why? I have no idea. Hormones probably. I have not had much motivation to do anything. We decided to get real bedroom furniture so that has taken up a lot of my mental capacity. It’s amazing how much energy it takes to to just simple tasks when your 9 months pregnant and chasing 2 toddlers. I think I can say good bye to energy for at least the next year.
I am 2 days from my due date and at the end of my rope. As of 3 days ago I was already 4 cm and have been having lots of contractions, just not regular enough to time, so I am praying something happens very soon. This boy is getting big (and momma is getting HUGE) so I can’t take it much longer!
Ok, done complaining….
I was able to get one quick maternity picture done this time around. I really was not worried about doing a whole session with someone since I really only want a belly picture for a future project I have in mind. Thanks to my sister who came over to help, I was able to set the camera up and guide her through shooting one for me. I think it turned out pretty cute!