When life gives you lemons...

Hey people! Loooong time no see...I know I'm the worst blogger ever and its been forever since I posted last! I honestly have been in a bit of a creative funk lately and just focused on Mom stuff and wife stuff and haven't had much in the way of creative goodness to share. UNTIL TODAY! So you guys may remember the estate clean-out that I did for a friend...well I scored a really beautiful mirror from that same clean-out. The mirror was GROSS and really REALLY big and heavy and it had a chunky wood frame and loads of potential so I hung onto it. And it sat....and sat....and sat in my garage until yesterday when I decided that I had been in a stagnant pool of blah for TOO LONG and I busted out the paint brushes! I originally was going to paint this mirror a suuuper bright yellow oops paint that I scored a while ago...but then decided to go the safer route and do a two toned dry brush look. I stained the frame with Minwax dark walnut first...then waited a whole episode of Dora the Explorer before I rubbed it off! (gimme a break...I'm on toddler time!) After it had cured for a couple hours I dry brushed some white oops paint into all the nooks and crannies and just kinda glopped it on there. I then sanded it to make the white paint look like it was just barely hanging on. I wanted it to look beachy and weathered. So since I majorly suck I don't have a before picture AGAIN...I know...hate me! Well after the frame was dry I stood back to examine my gorgeous new mirror and realized that I now had to clean off the glass...well after a lot of scrubbing I realized that hidden underneath all that gunk was about 5 deep large scratches!!! Yup...sucks to be me! I just refinished a mirror that would not be hanging on my wall. I was majorly bummed but then I remembered that I had been dreaming about having a huge chunky chalk board for my kitchen! If you want to know how to transform a mirror into a chalk board and have it be really durable here's a tip. Prime the mirror first! I painted on a medium thick layer of primer and let it dry first so that the chalk board paint would stick really well. Then I painted two and a half coat of latex chalk board paint letting each coat dry thoroughly before doing the next coat. After all the coats were dry I hung that sucker up! It says on the back of the chalkboard paint can that you should wait about a week before writing on it so it doesn't "burn" the words into the surface. I guess it needs a while to cure so I'm waiting a bit before I write up there. Here she is in all her beachy glory!

Oooh la la I looove it! It doesn't look nearly as big in pictures as it does in person. Its HUGE! What a happy accident! I actually like it way more as a chalk board than I did as a mirror anyway! :) I hope you all have a fabulous week!

Partying it up @