Mantle Redux

Good Wednesday Morning my Friends ~

...another soggy day here at the farm...
yesterday was a mixed bag of hot sun early on, then wonderful thunderstorms in the aft ~

The power went out for a short bit so I decided to change out my Keeping Room's mantle

(again)

remember a couple of posts ago ~ i changed the rugs and mentioned that I needed to 'tone-down' the blue paint on the mantle a bit?

(you can see the brightness of the blue in the photo below)

well I did & here is the result:

Here's what I did:

I took a small bottle of

Folk Art Antiquing Gel Medium (Dark Brown) and a sponge brush ~

watered down the medium just a tad, and then splotched (real professional word, huh?) it on all over the blue paint & wood...

then I took a damp paper towel and smeared the medium around into the nooks and crannies of the wood, architecture of the mantle and especially onto the blue paint...

I let it dry a bit, then took a dry paper towel
 (ok...many dry paper towels)
and wiped away the rest of the medium.

I let that dry for a couple of hours with the floor fan and then I took brown shoepolish and polished the entire thing...let that set up for a bit, then brushed the whole mantle with a shoe brush ~
bringing a mellow glow to the finished work.

(whew!)

Lots of elbow grease, but I love how it looks now ~
let me know what you think about it?

(the two larger black dolls are from The Burlap Owl, the white prairie doll I purchased at Millstone Mercantile...the printed rabbit is from the Fishersville Antiques show ~ and I made the rest)

((the hooked HOME SWEET HOME rug is from Sherry Kristoff))

Many thanks for the encouraging emails about my new fabric design!!!!

Blessings from the Farm!

Lori