My Sweet Boudoir

Well I know it has been awhile since I blogged. I have been a busy bee trying to get my boudoir all finished before we started having our annual parties. I still have a few small projects to finish and a few items that I am still working to incorporate, but I am very close to being done. Well, at least done for a period of time. That is the story of a decorator/designers life it seems. I know myself I am always looking for the next item that will make my collection complete...I don't know what or where it is, but it is out there and I will find it...some day. At least that is the excuse I always give for my incessant need to shop at thrift and antique stores. I just can't seem to help myself. 

So since my room is as close to the state of being as finished as it will ever be, I have decided I can't wait any longer to share pictures. 

Up first is a picture of my very large window. I couldn't lose a whole wall to a window so I placed a beautiful antique buffet that I painted in Annie Sloan Old White in front of it. I am very proud to say that all of my curtains I have gotten from Goodwill for great prices. I love thrifting and often you can find amazing items that may not be vintage, but you can make it work for your style. If you ever see me at Goodwill, I will be the girl in the curtain aisle sniffing the window adornments. All vintage curtains have a musty, old lady smell...call me crazy, but I love it! And yes I seriously do sniff them. I always take a look around and make sure no one is looking, but I really don't care if someone sees me and thinks I am weird.

On the buffet I have placed some of my favorite items. It is the home of some of my most beautiful Limoges pieces including a stunning chocolate pot and matching tea cup, as well as a sweet small version of a chocolate pot, which I was told is a hot water pot. Amongst these items is also a set of antique opera glasses with a mother of pearl and brass exterior. Yes, I have used them! Under the opera glasses is a pair of sweet vintage pink gloves that I recently wore for my family's annual Christmas Tea. These gloves and the hand held mirror I got from a very dear friend. I could go on and on about all of these items and where I got them. They are all so precious to me.

    

Next is my bed. I spent over a year looking for an iron bed. It didn't have to be vintage, but it had to be white and have an ornate, yet simple design. Finally, I found one that I fell in love with. I love the scroll accents and the understated simplicity of the shape of the headboard and footboard. The pink settee is a beauty that I drove a total of 4 hours to pick up. I want to eventually paint the frame, but right now I am loving the contrast of the dark wood from all the white pieces in my room. On my sweet settee is my very first glass doll that I got when I was about 7 years old. I just recently found her in storage and thought she deserved a comfy place to sit. I can't believe I have had her for over 20 years...does that mean she is vintage?!

I think the hardest part of decorating my room was what to place above my bed. I had lots of wall décor items that I had collected, but nothing that was large enough for that blank space. I was up late one night, playing with some ideas and laying combinations of pieces on the floor of my bedroom when it hit me like a brick! I had a few special/favorite items that I knew I wanted to show case, but wasn't sure how. I purchased the frame on the left, which has an antique lace collar piece behind antique bubble glass and the beautiful pink and gold frame in the middle from a special and very talented friend of mine. The picture I found on Etsy. I had the picture all pulled apart and almost touched my brush to the gold frame when I got the idea to keep it as is, which is a rare occurrence for me, and decided that the light pink in the frame would accent the blushing pastel colors in the picture and the gold frame would create a bold contrast. On the right I put together a frame that I painted and a lacy shabby wreath. I wanted the pinks in the middle to pop as the focal point, but also be softened by the simple whites on either side. 

  

This gold gilded cabinet is the newest addition to my antique collection family. I saw this on Craigslist and I fell in love with it. I had no idea how large my room was before I started decorating and realized how much extra space I had. So I had to fill it! Another excuse I used to go shopping :)!

I bought this cabinet because I needed a place to display some of my vintage/antique jewelry collection. Here are some of my favorite pieces, ranging in age from the 1890s to the 1960s. I have very eclectic taste. Oh how I wish antiques could speak...my what stories they would have to tell! This is one of the only pieces in my life that will NOT get caressed by my paint brush!

This is also a new addition to my bedroom. I love this antique dresser. It needed some paint to help bring out its character...so what better color than Annie Sloan Old White...my favorite. It had good bones and lots of flaws. I love highlighting the flaws in a piece. Because I tend to obsess about imperfections, painting and accenting dings and damaged spots helps me keep things balanced and in perspective. It allows me to find perfection in the imperfections. I always say that a piece will tell you what it wants to be...believe me this is more true than you can imagine...but I will talk more about that in future posts.

Last, but certainly not least is my beautiful French dresser that I painted a couple of year ago as an early Christmas gift to myself. My cat of 18 years had just passed away and I was so distraught at the emptiness I felt in the house. I decided to channel that energy into this extremely heavy dresser. I custom mixed my own pink using Annie Sloan Scandinavian Pink and Old White. I just pour until I like the shade...it really isn't rocket science, but almost impossible to re-create, which makes it more unique. On this dresser I have placed a mixture of finds from a mint green, antique Austrian teacup and saucer, a leaded glass window, some beautiful rhinestone jewelry, a hanky box that I helped design, and of course my favorite lace table cloth. You can never have too much lace. I also painted the dresser to the right in Annie Sloan Old White. 

My last room was all pink...EVERYTHING! Now I love pink as much as the next person, but I have fallen head over heels for the simply sweet whites. I thought that this would be a great opportunity to shift to whites and let the pinks truly shine by being the accent color. This dresser I got from another friend...did I mention that I have some wonderful friends?! Anyway, we made a trade and I got this beauty. The stunning accent to my large French dresser, and the perfect place to display my vintage hats...and yes I collect those too. I guess it would be a shorter list to say what I don't collect. 

Well, those are the highlights of my bedroom. I hope you enjoyed the tour. I have way more projects to do and another room to finish, so I will leave you with this and I hope you will visit my blog again soon. Stay tuned for more projects to come.    

Vanessa

I Believe in Pink

Sharing with:

Feathered Nest Friday at French County Cottage

Home Sweet Home at The Charm of Home

Treasure Hunt Thursday at From My Porch To Yours

Show and Tell Friday at My Romantic Home

Pink Saturday at How Sweet The Sound

Persisterance

Well I have taken the plunge. A good friend of mine, Amanda of Girl in Pink, has been encouraging me to start a blog about my painted furniture. So I spent some time doing several things on this stormy day: 1) trying to figure out how to work this crazy program, 2) struggling to find just the right picture collage that captures my style, and 3) wondering where to even start...which is probably the most important question of all. So I will start at the beginning. Picture it, 2012...just kidding. Any Golden Girls lovers will get that reference.

My name is Vanessa. I started painting furniture 3 years ago. What an adventure it has been! But in order to explain where I am today, I need to rewind a few years. Over the last 10 years I have struggled off and on with anxiety, depression, and OCD, a trifecta brought on by changes in life. When your situations change from what you know as the norm it can make you learn things about yourself that you didn't know. The true test is will you become a victim or victor over the challenges that will shape you into your future self.

In spite of my severe and sometimes crippling anxiety, I managed to graduate with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English Literary Studies. It is an accomplishment that I am very proud of and one of those treasures that no one can take away from me.

Just a few short years after college, the company I worked for throughout college and after was experiencing many changes, all of which were bringing the anxiety monster to the surface once again. In 2012, I was struggling worse than I ever had. My depression was at an all time high to the point where I could cry all day and sometimes for no apparent reason. My anxiety made me physically ill to where I couldn't get out of bed to go to work, and my OCD, well I won't even go there because it is so embarrassing. I knew I had to do something. I was stuck in an internal tornado that I could not escape. This is where my story really begins.

I started thinking about ways to relieve the stress in my life, which was causing me so much mental, and physical pain. I baked for awhile, which helped, but once you bake it you have to eat it, so that isn't exactly ideal for someone who is a stress eater. There had to be something that could give me some relief!

Now, I have to take a break here in the story to tell you a little more about myself. I AM AN ANTIQUE AHOLIC! It's true. I don't know how I got this way, I have always felt like I was born in the wrong era. One of my favorite pass times is going to antique stores and treasure hunting or my collection. My favorite antique store is Camas Antiques, right downtown in the heart of Camas. It is a lovely shop and it was also my inspiration for beginning to paint.

I had seen several vendors there paint furniture and I just started thinking how fun it would be to give that a try. I researched how to do it and then found the amazing Annie Sloan Chalk Paint! No sanding, no priming, no rules paint! I read everything I could and decided to invest in 4 cans of paint and 2 cans of wax. That simple descision changed my life!

I started painting small things and I found that as I painted, working with my hands allowed me to channel the negative, pent up anxiety and stress into a treasure that I had found. It was amazing. Once I started, I couldn't stop. It was so addicting, and still is to this day. Little did I know that the first piece would lead to hundreds, that the local bazaars I set up for would lead to my own vendor space in the very store that started my love affair with paint (Camas Antiques), and that my life would be forever changed by a quart sized can of colored thick liquid and a brush!

Over the last 3 years I have spent my time picking special pieces to transform, shopping for vintage/unique smalls to fill a booth, and of course painting! Painting has saved me in more ways than one. It has allowed me to harness my anxiety, face challenges, learn new things, grow personally and professionally, channel my OCD into something constructive instead of things I couldn't control, and it has given me the gift of meeting some amazing people.

So that in a nutshell is my story. Don't get me wrong, I still struggle, but on rough days I hunker down in the garage and start channeling my creative juices. With each stroke of the brush my stress melts away. 

There is so much more to tell about my journey, my style, and my approach to painting furniture and styling a space. I hope you will continue to follow my blog to learn and grow with me. Thank you for visiting I Believe in Pink.

Vanessa

PS: A few more things you will learn about me throughout the course of my blog journey is 1) that I love to quote movies, shows, and novels and 2) that I love watching anything set in a different time period. Hence the title "Persisterance" which is from a sweet British series called Larkrise to Candleford. If you haven't watched it, you should.