Reimagined Monday: A Boy's Bedroom Makeover

It's Reimagined Monday! Check out our new blog post!

Sneak Peek:

Project Personality: Custom Colours Made Easy-Peasy!

Project Personality

with Apple Box Boutique founder Leanne Playter Korsos

Hello and welcome to Project Personality!  Today I am going to share a bit of a secret with you -- an easy-peasy way to create a 'personality colour'.  We all have colour preferences, and if you are like me, it is more about shades than colours.  I like blues, but only if they have certain undertones.  I like reds, as long as they don't have too much orange in them.  And I like orange.  Crazy, right?  Or maybe not...

One of the questions we get asked a lot at our Boutique and in our Studio is how to mix paint colours to achieve that perfect shade of... well, whatever it is our customer's heart desires.

The great news is that Annie Sloan developed her Chalk Paint™ with 31 gorgeous colours AND the concept that they should freely be mixed together to create new and personalized shades.

She went a step further and published her Work Book to provide information, tips and a great place to paint your creations, explaining that is was meant to help "plan the colour palettes of a room, work out a piece of furniture, and draw little sketches. You can use the pockets to collect ribbons, fabric pieces and cuttings from magazines. Experiment with colour combinations making your own mixes."

It's a fantastic tool and lots of fun to fill it with your creativity.

Sometimes, though, you are looking for quicker way to get to a colour, and The Purple Painted Lady has the answer.  She developed an online Paint Mixer that allows you to add different amounts of 'paint' to get to the colour you've been dreaming of.

I was looking for a 'muted peacock' colour using Chalk Paint™ decorative paint.  Have you ever tried to explain something like that to someone?  I did, and while they worked hard to come up with my vision, it was always a bit too blue, or too green and nothing like what I was envisioning.

I turned to the Chalk Paint™ mixer and created this:

All I had to do was start layering in the colours by adding 'parts'!

Mixing 1 part of Antibes Green to 3 parts Aubusson Blue brought my vision to life in a matter of seconds.  I could have added a third colour, but I loved what I saw and that's all it took for me to grab a paint brush and get started!

It is good to keep in mind that since this is an online tool, your monitor will play a part in how closely your virtual mix matches the actual colour, but I have to say that mine was petty darned close. I'll share the painted piece with you as soon as I finish it up so you can see the results!

I happened to use it for the Annie Sloan paint line, but The Purple Painted Lady also created one for Miss Mustard Seed's Milk Paint - another hugely popular paint product.

We're fortunate to carry both these paint collections, and I am already mixing up a custom Milk Paint shade for a client's piece.  I'd love a 'corally orange' -- yup, another shade that currently doesn't seem to exist out in the 'real world' but that is floating around my imagination and as pretty as can be.

I am inspired to create it!  Next stop:  The Purple Painted Lady's Paint Mixer!

~♥~  Leanne

_______________________________________

We'd LOVE it if you shared our blog:

Here is Part One of Three BIG Announcements!

We've been hinting at some BIG news!  There are actually three REALLY BIG events coming over the next few weeks, but we wanted to let you in on one of them.  And since it is Reimagined Monday, we thought this would be the perfect day for it.

We do our best to hear our customers, and one of the things we've been told is that you wish we had another location closer to the North and West ends of the city.  While we aren't giving specifics quite yet, we can say that we are close to accomplishing that.

So, stay tuned for more details to come this month, with a very big

                        -------- (and we mean HUGE) --------

surprise to follow.  But for now, we are very happy to share this with you:

Happy Monday, everyone!

♥, 
Apple Box Boutique

_______________________________________

We'd LOVE it if you shared our blog:

Reimagined Monday: It's A Sign of True Love!

(ON TUESDAY!)

Yesterday was such a busy day that we didn't get a chance to publish our Reimagined Monday post --  BUT this one is so darned fabulous that we just can't wait another week to share it!

Wedding season is always so much fun for us in our events division, but it can be hectic as well with not a lot of time to take pictures. That's why our lovely customer Melanie gets a big high five for managing to squeeze a few in as she worked through her wedding decor project.

After seeing a similar sign on Pinterest, Melanie designed her own take on it for her daughter's wedding last weekend.  Our bet is that everyone was wowed by it!

Melanie wrote, "I used the milk paint in typewriter on the plywood then mixed a wash with the milk paint and the chalk paint in old white to get the grey effect. Letters done in old white chalk paint and finished off with clear wax."

Here's the photo play-by-play!

Melanie used her Cricut to cut each letter out of card stock.

Melanie said her daughter loved it.  So do we!  

Thank you for sharing this with us, Melanie -- and CONGRATULATIONS to the happy couple!

Don't forget to enter our monthly contest for your chance to win!

Here's the info:

Reimagined Monday Draw

We would like to highlight more customer projects!  Send us your before/during/after pictures and tell us about your creative process using Chalk Paint™ or Milk Paint and you'll be entered into our monthly Reimagined Monday draw.

Each month we will give away a different item like paint, brushes, books, supplies, gift certificates and more. You don't have to be featured to be eligible... the month you enter is the month you will be included in the draw.

Send your name, pictures and story to:

info@appleboxboutique.com for your chance to win!

♥, 
Apple Box Boutique

_______________________________________

We'd LOVE it if you shared our blog:

White Wax is Here! "What is it?" you ask...

White Wax is the newest, 'white-hot' finish on the market!

Described as "a fine museum quality wax based on an old family recipe", it is made from beeswax with a little carnauba wax and tinted with a creamy white, perfect for creating a faded, washed or limed look on a piece of painted furniture.  It is easy to apply, provides a durable finish with a beautiful luster and smells so good!  Want to see it in action?  Check out this fantastic tutorial by the lovely Abbe of  All Dolled Up.

Abbe is an MMS Milk Paint retailer, and educator for the Miss Mustard Seed designer milk paint line, so who better to give us all the inside look at this fabulous new product!

Thanks Abbe!

White wax is here! It’s still has the buttery smooth finish we love about the Furniture Wax, but with a soft white pigment, that will give your finishes a soft, muted, white-washed or limed finish.

First of all when you open the tub it looks good enough to eat. (Don’t eat it, though!) Anything that looks like whipped frozen yogurt or cream has to be great on furniture too, right?

I wanted to share with you a way to use White Wax that couples with our favorite uses for Antiquing Wax (read about it here). Today we will bring out the details on your piece by letting the wax settle in the nooks and crannies achieving seamless white detailed work without the headache of hand painting it in.

This solid oak coffee table is cute as can be in Mustard Seed Yellow, but how about softening it up a bit and bringing out some of the details in the skirting under the top? I didn’t want to deepen the yellow at all, so white wax is the perfect solution for keeping it sunny yellow.

The trim detail on this piece is just the perfect way to illustrate how white wax can bring out the detail of a piece, as well as softening the overall hue, but first let’s see how it changes the color on top:

We are creating a white washed effect, the white wax will settle in the wood groves and grain while simultaneously creating a durable seal on your milk paint.  (This works best on a piece with a deep grain in the wood, like oak, or one that has a lot of texture in the surface.)

As you can see, the color is still very much yellow, but the brightness is subdued and the color is creamier.

Now the fun part…just as you would build up age with antiquing wax, we are going to brighten up details with the white wax.

Here is the skirting before the white wax:

Here is the skirting after:

Just let the wax build up in the groves and keep it light on the flat surfaces.

After you have built up the wax in the areas you want highlighted, smooth and work in any excess wax on the flat surface, leaving all the soft white pigments.

Isn’t that amazing? I love the layers of texture it creates, yet it’s JUST two steps: paint and wax!

Here is a wide shot before and after...

Before white wax:

After white wax:

And all cured and ready to display:

It creates a soft and subtle finish.

I really love how the curve in the skirt is highlighted now. This was effortless to achieve!

And all finished:

And for a different look: Try softening darker colors with the white wax.

Here is white wax turning Typewriter to a charcoal gray!

White Wax can be used on acrylic, chalk/clay paints, flat latex, stained wood, Milk Paint and more.

Available now in-store and online at Apple Box Boutique!

♥, 
Apple Box Boutique

_______________________________________

We'd LOVE it if you shared our blog:

MMS Milk Paint Contest: Win the Latest Colours!

Win the Latest Colours!
Tell us which of the gorgeous Milk Paint colours in Miss Mustard Seed's designer line are the three newest, and you will be entered to win each of them!*

How to Enter
It's easy!  Comment below on this blog post or on our Facebook page, then send your name and email address to: info@appleboxboutique.com.  

Comment on Both ...and you'll receive two entries!

Don't miss it! 

Our MMS Milk Paint contest closes in just 7 days! That's Thursday, August 15th at midnight Mountain Time. (*Winner receives one bag of each of the three new colours.  Each bag makes approx. 1 qt)

Best of luck from all of us at Apple Box Boutique!

♥, 
Apple Box Boutique

_______________________________________

We'd LOVE it if you shared our blog: