Chairs for Charity 2015

I finally finished my chair restoration for Chairs for Charity auction 2015.

Each year I donate an up-cycled theme decorated chair to a great cause. Chairs for Charity to bring awareness to L.A.M. My friend Carrie suffers from this lung disease and is a champion for getting the word out and raising funds and awareness of this little know affliction. You can read more about it here.

Below is the primed chair--it was a walnut wood color with this rose pink seat

 After priming, I used a couple of different stencils to get my flourishes on the back panel. I then used a chalk finish paint called Americana Decor in the "Yesteryear" color.  I will put my 2 cents in about chalk paint. I know there are many die hard Annie Sloan paint fans out there. I have used her paint, I even took a sponsored ASP class, and I love her paint. But at $40 a quart, the alternatives on the market are just as good. And there are a lot of recipes on the internet to make your own and several are not the right proportions and you can get some bad results. I have found the best "make your own" recipe is on the Lowe's website. You can buy their little sample pots (they will mix you any color you want). But for this project I was able to get this paint on sale at Craft Warehouse for $6.99 and I really liked the color.

Next was the waxing. I started with an antique color wax. I hated it! With the brown cast on the grey it looked dirty. So I mixed a clear wax with some black acrylic paint and waxed again and got the results I was looking for.

 finding the perfect seat fabric was not easy!

Sometimes it pays to walk back to the clearance area of the fabric store! I found this amazing remnant for $9 a yard. The bird was the perfect shade of grey.

 

So now the hunt begins again for next years chair!