Feature Friday: The Paris Dresser

Okay, another late Friday post!

I've been meaning to show this transformation by Jeanne Palmer for a few weeks now.

She does amazing work.  Check out this armoire. 

I'll take one of these in my living room, stat!  Here's what the before looked like:

Nothing special.  Good bones though!  She had to strip the original paint, which was oil based.  No fun! 

Then she added the wooden gingerbread to the doors.  I like the depth they add.  She finished the whole piece of in Annie Sloan Paris Grey. 

Then she used our Paris Rue Henri stencil underneath the gingerbread on each door.  I just love the way this one turned out.   I love the door hardware too.  Perfect!

If you're interested in Paris Rue Henri, we offer it as a 12x12 in our French category.   It's a customer favorite. 

You should absolutely check out Jeanne's Facebook page, Cottage Chic Furniture.  She does before and afters of all all her transformations.  Really great stuff. 

Should be back with another stellar feature this Friday, if I can get my act together!  We're also running another sale on all our new stencils this week.  Keep your eyes peeled for an email reminder.  If you're not on our email mailing list, drop us a line at maisondestencilsinfo@yahoo.com and we'll get you added.

Au revoir!

Feature Friday: Annie Sloan Chalk Paint Books

Technically it's Saturday, but it's been that kind of week.  :)

I just had to share with you guys, the lovely ladies at Annie Sloan Unfolded are using our stencils. 

Their most recent post highlights how you can use stencils and Annie Sloan products to create amazing antiqued books that look like they time traveled from the days of Gutenberg.  Gorgeous stuff. 

Debbie Dion Hayes did these books and I must say, they are stunning!

Also I learned from this blog post that Annie Sloan is making fabric now.  Like I needed another amazing product to spend $$ on!

So the process here is that you get a book, Goodwill would be a treasure trove for this.

Paint the book with Annie Sloan Graphite (2 coats), let dry.

Stencil with Annie Sloan Old White.  As far as I can tell, the stencils used here are Ave Des Champs Elysees SKU 551 - Chateau Gothic SKU 705 - Marche Aux Puces SKU 641.

Wax with Clear Soft Wax and Buff, Wax with Dark Soft Wax and Buff.

Dip a finger with Silver Gilding Cream and run along book edges.

I think the Gilding Cream is really what takes it to the next level.  These just look amazing.

Also, if you're considering becoming an Annie Sloan stockist, you get to use our stencils in your training class.  How cool is that?! 

All the stencils used in this project can be found in our French category. 

If you want to check out the original post, look no further than Annie Sloan Unfolded. 

Have a lovely weekend.  It's grey here, but not currently raining and we're supposed to have a 48 hour stretch of no rain.  Thus begins the eternal dilemma for Coastal Oregonians, do I paint or not paint?  The winter here is rough on a house, I repaint our porch and sills every spring. 

My little boy has been standing at the window and staring this morning so maybe we'll just go for a walk!  :)

Stencils Are Like Donut Holes

They are, trust me.  Delicious little confections, donut holes!  Are they really the leftover dough?  Probably not, but I like to think that every part of the donut is being used.

Have you ever thought about what happens to all the stuff we cut out of our stencils?  Where does it go?  Say you buy a fleur de lis stencil.  You essentially receive a square sheet with a fleur de lis cut out of it.  Which means that here in stencil production land, we have a fleur de lis donut hole.  A leftover part.  We cut a LOT of stencils every day, so we have lots of these donut holes.

I hear you asking, what do you do with all those little bits?

Well, we recycle a lot of the boring stuff.   In a perfect world, I would collect every letter and have a bin where all the like letters could go and if you wanted, I could send you a big bag of Es or a giant tub of Rs.  I think that'd be neat.  But please, I have a 2 year old.  I'm lucky if I get to vacuum and get my teeth brushed!

My confession is that I save all the neat stuff.  All our animals, our crowns, big chairs and chandeliers.  We have these wonderful neighbors next door and one of our neighbors works at the local shoe store, Gimres.  (Do visit if you live in Oregon, it's the oldest shoe store in the Western US and has wonderful shoes).  Gary, our shoe selling neighbor, has taken a lot of our floral bits to use in displays.

I think we need a stencil with a shoe graphic so we'll have leftover shoe bits for his next display!

A lot of my stencil donut holes I save to ambush my husband's office.  We had a run on Easter stencils this past month, and rabbits multiplied all over his desk over night!  

Special shout out to Embellish and Restore - who bought a few of our small horse graphics set recently.  I corralled those wild stallions to hang out on my husband's laptop today.   Whoa Nelly!

Hope you all are doing well!  We're busy busy with sales and I try to post every so often.  Keep sending in those pictures of your finished products, we'll get to them all in due time.  I've got a great project on deck for Friday.

All the best!

Feature Friday: Monika Wagner

Guten Tag und Glücklicher Freitag (that last bit means Happy Friday!)

We just had to share a fabulous set of stenciled things from one of our lovely German crafters, Monika Wagner.  She's got a Dawanda shop, which is basically like German Etsy, as far as I can tell.

Look at the treasures:

Pinboard using our Musee D'Orsay Address Stencil

Our Simple Family and Friends Stencil on a Leather Satchel

Key Collector with our Chateau Villandry Stencil

How great are these?  I love the satchel and I never would have thought to stencil on that!  She also has a bunch of amazing found objects, you should absolutely pop on over and check them out.

Thanks to Monika for letting us feature her wares!

Keep your eyes peeled for a promo code coming up this weekend.  We'll advertise it on our Facebook and Twitter as well.

Take care!

Feature Friday: The Typewriter Case

Happy Friday!

FYI:  30% off all stencils now through Wed, Feb 20 with promo code president2013.

This is such a unique feature, just had to share with you guys.

Betsy at My Salvaged Treasures took our "Family and Friends Gather Here" 12x12 Stencil and applied it to a vintage typewriter case. 

How gorgeous is that?  She also did a companion case with stencils from another source.  I love the little keys she added for extra decoration.

Here's the layout before she got started.  Good opportunity to show what our packaging looks like if you're not familiar.  All our normal sized (12x12, 5.5x11.5, 8x8, 12x18) stencils come packed in clear cellophane sleeves with backing.  If you get a large stencil like our 24x24 or 6x24 stencils, those will come wrapped in tissue and arrive in a tube.

 Great picture illustrating the amount of paint she used.  I've said it before, I'll say it again.   A little paint goes a long way and you can always add more! 

The peel-away.  No bleeding underneath the stencil and this is a rough surface.  I've been talking with one client recently who was concerned that the stucco texture on her walls might cause some bleed with stencils, which is definitely a legitimate thing to be worried about.  We sent out samples for her to test in an unconspicious area, but seeing that this bumpy typewriter case took paint beautifully leads me to believe she'll be in the pink.  Or white.  Or whatever color she chooses to paint!  :)

Family and Friends Gather Here is an incredibly popular stencil, we offer it in 2 varieties in 12x12, and one in 12x18.  We also have a Family and Friends simple that we ran a free promotion with a few months back.  We will be adding that for sale shortly.

If you'd like to check out the Family and Friends Family (not redundant at all!)  have a peek at our French category.

Thanks to Betsy at My Salvaged Treasures for showcasing her beautiful work featuring our product on her blog.  We're also going to be running a giveaway with her soon, so keep your eyes peeled.

Have a great weekend!

Feature Friday: The Red Piano Bench

Well Readers, it has been a goodly long while since posting.

Our holiday season was jamming, we've run a few great sales, and my NYR (It's only Feb right, still counts) is to blog more.

Hope you had wonderful holidays and your NYR is to stencil more because I have an awesome inspiration post for you!

One of our favorite clients, LittleMissMaggie, took a dinged up flea market find piano bench, and gave it a swell French look.

How great is that color?  I love deep, true reds.  This is the same color as our front door and it makes me happy every time I see it.  It's just cheerful and bold! 

She used our ever popular Hotel De L'Avenir stencil for the center.  We offer this in a 12x12 and 12x18.  For paint choice, she used Rustoleum Colonial Red for the base and then a Miniwax Jacobean stain on top.  Gives a wonderful aged look.  The stenciling is done in off white acrylic.

And then, get this, she masked off the stripes.  I know that doesn't seem like a big deal, but I am so, so bad at stuff like that.  If you too are bad at you know, painting straight lines, we offer a feedsack stripe stencil for just this purpose!  But props to Maggie for doing it freehand.

Check out the original post here. 
And here's a link to her entire blog, it's full of great stuff! 

If you want to check out Hotel De L'Avenir, look no further than our French Category. 
If you're interested in the stripe stencil, take a gander at our Feedsack Category. 

Going to try, try, try to be more regular with our feature posts.  We've had so many awesome folks share projects that I've got a whole year's worth of content just waiting for me. 

Catch you next week!

Special Saturday Post: Sale Sale Sale

Hi there!

We've got some great new stencils available on the website.  We're celebrating by running a 15% off sale now through 12/18.  Just use coupon code fifteenoff (all lowercase) to save on all our stencils!

Stock up and Happy Holidays!