in painting “opf” (the young joneses’ code for other peoples’ furniture, as in “mom! there’s opf stacked up at the back door!”) over the years, i’ve found all sorts of fascinating treasures, bits, and ephemera inside armoires, dresser drawers, buffets and the like: an almost-empty flask of potato vodka and some fancy swizzle sticks, a bay city rollers album cover, the circa-1982 modeling portfolio for an aspiring young krystle carrington wannabe. this may be the sweetest thing i’ve ever run across, though…wedged between the drawer and the bottom panel of this old china cabinet…
…was this photograph.
on the back, it says
kimyatta
birthday
“looking good”
how adorable is this? the smile, the pigtails, the dress, the party hat, the way she is happily leaning into the picture, and the fact that someone baked and frosted a big cake and then blew up all those balloons and taped them to the wall for a birthday celebration…that is love. i am keeping this snapshot safe as a good luck charm.
hopefully, kimyatta would like what i’ve done to try to give her family’s old china cabinet a new life beyond gary’s junque shop. after a good cleaning and a coat of clear shellac to seal in the old stain, i mixed up some miss mustard seed’s milk paint in grain sack and gave it a first coat. the color is a wonderful neutral, but got a little washed out against the walls. so, i put a second layer on, this time using shutter gray, but left the medallions and the drawer sporting the grain sack. where i sanded the paint back a little, tiny bits of the first coat show through:
in characteristic fashion, the wonderfully unpredictable milk paint left cracks, slubs, and streaks of pigment wherever it pleased (though i did rub back the edges just a bit, the crackling is all at the whims of the paint):
to brighten up the inside, i used mustard seed yellow, and stenciled the back with a little leftover grain sack and royal design studio’s fabric damask stencil.
a coat of clear wax, then antiquing wax, and mercury glass knobs from the shelves at the studio completed the re-do, one i hope is worthy of both marian and kimyatta.
Gail says
What a great story and the piece is fabulous.
CAT says
love it Stephanie! just wonderful!