Hello World!

Greetings!  This is JaYing, and it's my first blog post ever.  The purpose of this Blog is to share our adventures in getting The Artistic Home Studio and Boutique off the ground. Rachel and I will chronicle our experiences testing different products and techniques that we want to teach at the Studio, as well as show our progress in getting the Studio/store ready for the grand opening (hopefully in April 2013).

Rachel and I are extremely excited about working with a specialty paint product called Annie Sloan Chalk Paint (ASCP for short).   If you haven't heard of this paint, well let me tell you, it's quite phenomenal!   Rachel learned about it at a decorative painters conference this past summer.  ASCP was created by Annie Sloan, a British fine painter/decorator, over 20 years ago.  It arrived in the US in 2010 and has since taken the DIY blogisphere by storm.  What's so great about this paint?  It's mainly used to paint furniture, cabinets, walls and floors.  But it also works on metal, laminate, plastic, glass, fabric, brick, concrete, indoor/outdoor! With Annie Sloan Chalk Paint, there is:

• No stripping
• No sanding
• No priming
• No odor
• Low VOC's
• Is water soluble

When we heard of this, we said "NO WAY!  Unbelievable."  We checked out LOTS and LOTS of online DIY home decor/improvement blogs and read about how great the paint works.  So we decided that we had to get this paint and try it out on some ugly furniture that we own.  We took a Beginner's Chalk Paint Workshop from the fabulous Tami Fandrei of Patina Decorative Finishes in Vacaville, CA.  Tami taught us several painting techniques as well as how to use the Annie Sloan Soft Wax to seal the paint.  Rachel and I bought several cans of ASCP, rushed home and began painting!

First project: my husband's old, OLD cabinet from when he was little boy.  It was pretty beat up with some deep scratches, and we'd relegated it to the storage room.  Keeping to the mantra of No Stripping, No Sanding and No Priming, I just wiped it clean and began painting with ASCP color Emile.

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See the deep scratches?  They were pretty deep.  The first coat took about 15 minutes to paint.  The paint went on very smoothly and was not streaky.  It dried in about 35 minutes, so on went the 2nd coat.  See that big scratch on the little drawer, second from right?  Gone. Covered by 2nd coat of paint.  Wow.  However, I could still see the scratches on the top, albeit much fainter.  After the 2nd coat dried, I painted a 3rd coat on the top only.

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See how smooth the top is now?  Remember, I did NOT sand or prime or strip before painting!  The paint levels into cracks really well.  Impressive!

And guess how much paint I used?  About one cup of paint!  The cabinet is 30"x13"x30".  I'd read people saying it takes just 3 quarts of paint to cover an entire smallish sized kitchen's cabinets and didn't believe it.  I think I believe it now.

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Next job, after the paint dried, is waxing.  Annie Sloan developed a soft wax that is rubbed on her paint to seal it and give it a soft sheen.  Waxes come in Clear and Dark colors.  I chose Dark Wax because I wanted an aged, antique look to the cabinet.  The wax has the consistency of Crisco or margarine.  I used a flat topped waxing brush and rubbed JUST A LITTLE wax it onto the wood.  The dark wax looks like dark shoe polish and smells a bit like it too.  Right after I applied the wax, I began wiping off and buffing the wax.  Again, the trick was to use very little wax.

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Voila!  Here's the finished piece!  So much nicer, huh?  I've since moved it to our home office.  That's my next project: painting the mismatched metal file cabinets and our desk!  I'll post the before and afters as soon as I finish.

In the meantime, check out some AWESOME photos of things people have painted and posted on (click) Pinterest

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