So when I first started this blog site, I didn’t know that within a month, my endeavors would evolve into decor… but they have! I knew that I needed better ideas and items for staging, and so I’ve been keeping my eye out.

Our usual weekend thrift store walk-through found me this:

A hideous, gaudy gold painted quadruple fleur de lis. $4 and it was mine. I knew I wanted to paint it and distress it.

I chose an off white for my color (you can’t really tell it’s off white)

I didn’t see it at the time, but getting into all of those little crevices really took some time. Each little edge that you can see through to the towel underneath needed a coat of paint, and this piece is a couple inches thick! So with two coats painted, I needed to let it dry. I skipped off to bed.

Day 2: I woke up thinking about the fleur de lis. Should I distress this piece, or glaze it? I thought about my choice for about an hour, and it came to me. Do I want to highlight the high spots, or the low cracks? There are a lot more cracks on this piece than high points, and decided that if I distressed this piece, it would look worn out and tired. I definitely wanted to try the antiquing glaze instead.

I painted the glaze in the corners, letting it dry for a bit and wiped it off. This is definitely the look I wanted!

The first time I tried the antiquing wax was on the little pie safe; and I thought I’d made a mistake in purchasing the grunge glaze by Dixie Belle, but nope! I absolutely love the stuff, and I’m very happy with how the fleur de lis turned out.

This piece can be hung on the wall, or set on a table for a nice highlight:

What are some of your thrift store flips?

With Love, Erika Nora