For today’s Art Every Day, I finally got the urge to tackle granddaughter’s vanity-to-be.  It was my mother’s from around 1935 – 1938.  Mom and Dad got married in 1938 but I seem to remember that she brought this furniture set and my old bedroom set with her to the marriage.  My old vanity serves as a work table in my office now and my dresser is in my jewelry room holding craft supplies and tucked into a closet.  The dresser and side table that go with this are in my bedroom.  If the 4 poster that matches it were bigger – it’s a double – we’d be using it too, but it’s in the shed.

Normally I don’t paint wood but this wood has burns in it – Momma was a smoker – and water rings and paint specks and looks generally as if it is in fact almost 80 years old.  But it is as sturdy as they come.  So I’m going to do a makeover for granddaughter.  It will go with the makeover to my old vanity seat.  Somewhere around here is the vanity seat that matches this set but I can’t put my hands on it.

This vanity has been living in our old box truck that we used to use for our live sound reinforcement business equipment.  But that’s long gone as hubby has been with the 9:30 Club in DC for almost 20 years now.  So it has been spillover storage.  After redoing the stool, I knew I needed to redo the vanity for granddaughter.  So here is what I did today.

I sanded the top because I am designing a ceramic tile top for it (as you will see).  The rest I rinsed down with furniture soap and rinsed off so it is nice and clean for primer and paint.

I used stamps, including several I made (they’re on the left end), and lace, including tatted circles made by my Mom’s sister, my Aunt Queenie.  I love all this history in this one piece of furniture, and plan to write it in magic marker on the back wood so that she’ll have it forever.

The veneer on only one of the drawers was loose so I have glued it back together with my trusty Goop (which I am having an awful time finding in the local hardware stores!).  It will be ready tomorrow when I take knobs off and start painting.

Here are the paints – white for the undercoat and then pinks and purples.  I will also handpaint a lot of detail.  I’ll get a good start on painting tomorrow, but there’s a lot of work left to do.  I figure if I focus on it, I might have it done within several weeks.

I haven’t finally decided whether or not I’ll mosaic some of the drawers too.  I do have a great idea for the top, but you’ll have to hang around to see it because I’m keeping that a secret.

Tonight I am going to go learn how to do something called “metal muddling” at the Bead Boutique in Prince Frederick.  I’ll show you that tomorrow – it’s exciting and I can’t wait to learn!

Have you learned any new creative activities lately?  Be sure to share!