Faux Tortoiseshell

You guys, it must be spring or something because I'm actually getting sh*t done around here!  Of course, everything is taking about 10 times longer to complete than originally planned, and I'm taking next to zero pictures because I'm the best blogger ever, but I'm still super excited that I'm crossing some things off the list!

#1 - I planted the first stage of our front yard garden this last weekend - two new flower beds and cleaning up a huge amount of weeds/lava rock.  Of course, stupid Austin decided to almost freeze the next couple of nights and some of my annuals are not looking so great, but hopefully they'll recover.  This weekend, I'll get around to mulching the new beds and putting in a few stepping stones.

#2 - My neighbor and I built rolling pantries for our kitchens (she lives on the other side of the duplex so our kitchens are mirrored).  They're based on this idea by Classy Clutter.  I will not be doing a tutorial, but maybe a "lessons learned" post.  It'll be functional, but not my best DIY moment, that's for sure.  They need to be painted and the back installed.

#3 - The boyfriend has been refinishing a pool table for the past couple of weeks and he's almost finished with all of the woodwork.  I will do a post on this later, because he's done such a wonderful job. I know he did all of the hard work, but I'm going to give myself a producer's credit since I gave such great advice. ;)

#4 - The dining room is 80% done.  Maybe even 85%.  It's actually been looking good for a while now, I just lost the cord that charges my camera, so I guess I'm going to either buy a new one or take crappy phone pics.  Tomorrow, I'm hopefully going to be picking up this bad boy from Craigslist for $20.

It's the last piece of furniture I need for the dining room - a coffee station/bar cart (sans wheels).   I'd love to get some mirrors cut to fit in the sunken oval sections and, unless I really dig the finish when I see it in person, I'm leaning towards experimenting with tortoiseshell.

I'm not the biggest fan of faux finishes, but I think tortoiseshell can look super pretty on rounded wood.  See what I mean?



SadieandStella via Pinterest

There are a couple of good tutorials online.  Some blog link I lost along the way led me to this wonderfully detailed tutorial.

Extreme Restoration

I also read through the comments on this Little Green Notebook post and followed Laura's link to The Paint Effects Bible on Amazon.

I guess a trip to Michael's just got added to my list as well.  Isn't that always the case - finish one project (or in my case - step 1 of a project) and add a couple of new ones? 

Have a great weekend!