A Cottage Garden Bookcase

This is the largest project I have attempted so far.  I decided to 'upcycle' an old bookcase that originally belonged to my parents, so it's as old as I am!  I had some new Paint Fusion stamps that I had been waiting to play with, and I wanted to coordinate the bookcase with our newly decorated hall and stairs.  This is the second time that I've 'upcycled' this bookcase, and probably the last.  It took a whole weekend to do this project, mainly because there is a lot of drying time involved, and obviously a LOT of painting!  I have used stamps by Sheena Douglass from her Paint Fusion range; acrylic paints;  emulsion paint; PVA glue.  I mixed some green, yellow and white acrylic paints to match the colour used in our hall.  This was my undercoat and I painted the whole bookcase with it.  When that coat was dry, I covered it with PVA glue.  As it dries the glue starts to crack and split, like old painted wood.  When it was almost dry and had formed a 'skin', I painted over the glue with a cream emulsion paint.  The green undercoat shows through the cracks, giving a vintage, shabby-chic look to the piece.  Next I decorated the top of the bookcase using the Paint Fusion technique, a mixture of stamping and folk-art painting.  I stamped the Lilac flowers and leaves, grouping them at the corners, then stamped the Ivy along the edges.  I then painted all the stamped images with acrylic paints.  When everything was dry I gave the whole piece a coat of clear varnish to protect the artwork.  This was the first time I had used these stamps and I am really pleased with the result.  The bookcase looks exactly how I wanted it to, breathing new life into an old favourite.