I'm still here TRYING to get things done but I think it's back firing on me..................

It has been a rough week with financial "mayhem" and poison ivy all throughout my front landscaping project.  I don't have it on me.......yet!  But I did last year and had to resort to steroids to get rid of it.  I searched the internet for a "natural" way of eliminating it but to no avail and had to get Roundup for Poison Ivy and spray it all around my raised beds where my vegetables were so, yes...........no more vegetable garden.  I know these are "small potatoes" compared to some people's issues but sometimes when you try so hard and nothing works it gets pretty disheartening AND expensive!  I try to take it as guidance though and that I am being "steered" away from one thing towards something else that's better for me.  Meanwhile, I threw myself into other projects to deflect the failure  learning in the other arenas.  I'm not sure that was a good idea though.  I think I would have been better off just kicking back and watching movies or something. LOL!
Anyway, I didn't blog Sunday because I had made no progress on my YOP projects and Monday I didn't blog because I was still reading the same books as last week but today I decided I just had to blog about something!  So here's a hodgepodge of what I've been TRYING to accomplish.    
I've been working on my bedroom and decided to take an old dresser and "refinish" it with homemade chalk paint.  I got the recipe from In My Own Style and it's great!  I've never used Annie Sloan chalk paint which is pricey but this imitation worked wonderfully and I liked it better than the watery and messy milk paint I tried!  Before I did that I sanded and took antiquing wax from Miss Mustard Seed and applied it to my milk painted little shelf..........

 Then I wiped it off and VOILA!

  

I like the way it turned out except the milk paint is so "watery" that it made the wood raise up in places so don't ever use it on veneer!   I do love that color green though.  She also has the regular furniture wax that you can use if you don't want to "antique" it .  I had also purchased her 100% Natural food safe hemp oil to use on my cutting boards..........

 and items that would be difficult to apply wax to............when I gently applied the hemp oil to the little basket it took off some of the paint....

In the future I will be using Johnson's paste wax instead of the pricey "carnuba" and the hemp oil will be reserved for my cutting boards alone.  The antique wax will be replaced by an experiment with acrylic paints that I can use as glazes and shoe polish...much cheaper alternatives.  Live and learn!

On to my homemade chalk paint which is "the bees knees"!  So easy, so cheap and so love the results!  If I'd only left it alone after I painted it and just applied the plain wax but no, I wanted to experiment and see what all the distressing and antiquing and waxing was all about so....I mixed up a batch using my "buttermilk" color that I'm using on the walls in my bedroom.

 This is the "before" which I almost forgot to take I was so excited to slap this new paint on.......

 They say there is no priming or pre-sanding needed but if it is highly varnished like this piece I would recommend roughing it up a bit with sandpaper not to make the paint stick as it sticks just fine but for the antiquing and sanding later.

 It went on like a dream and 20-30 minutes to dry and I applied a second coat.  You can see it's still wet on top when I took this picture but it was the easiest painting I have ever done!

 I did not paint the knobs because I planned on getting new hardware to "gussie it up"........

 Then I sanded everything and got this effect.....................

 Then the antiquing wax....which antiques and seals it.............you apply ....

and let it sit about 5 minutes or not and wipe off and buff with a clean rag and you get this........

I can't close the drawers because I haven't put the knobs on and I was going to get new hardware UNTIL I priced the knobs I wanted and they were $7.50 each and I need 8 of them....uh oh....Houston we have a problem!  So, anyway, I'm not sure this wasn't another failure learning experience! LOL!  When I figure out the knob situation and get it back where I want it with lamp and accessories hopefully it will look better but right now I'm thinking maybe the "before" looked better than the "after"?

Tonight I'm shampooing carpeting....I can't screw that up can I?  I know....never say never!

I hope your week and weekend went better than mine!