Fall 2014 VMD Recap 2: The Demos and What Caught My Eye

If you missed day 1 of the Fall 2014 VMD recap, click HERE where I showed off my booth. Now, on to the rest of it!

On day 2 (Saturday), there were TONS of people who came in the morning. The afternoon slowed a bit and I was able to sneak away (with Bruno watching the booth) while I did a Chalk Paint and Waxing Demo. I think there are a lot of people who don’t know all the different things you can do with Chalk Paint, and most importantly how to wax. So I wanted to clear some things up through a quick demo. Chanda, the owner of St Louis VMD hand-selected a few of us to do a few demos: Nicole from Rescued Furnishings, John from JMG Design, and My Treasure House.

Here is a pic that the event photographer took:

For my demonstration on Saturday, I brought a small chest/nightstand and show my technique for painting, plus I described some other awesome uses for Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. I described what makes Chalk Paint unique, why it is important to use wax at its topcoat, and I showed how to correctly distress and wax a piece of furniture. On Sunday I showed how to paint fabric with Chalk Paint, and how to correctly distress and wax furniture.  You might wonder why I showed how to distress furniture, and I know there isn’t one “correct way”, but too often I see really ugly distressing on furniture, that ruins an otherwise beautiful finish. So I showed and described my approach, whether I want a lightly distressed finish or a shabby, chippy finish. I will be doing videos within the next month, showing briefly what I showed at the demonstrations, and posting them here on the blog!

At the end of the Saturday demo, I stuck around a bit to finish up some waxing and painting and I was so glad I did! A sweet gal and her mom were asking me some questions about Chalk Paint as I finished up and I invited them to come get a closer to look at the piece I was working on. As soon as she got closer, I recognized her. We were talking and I stopped… “I’ve seen you somewhere….” She smiled and asked if I was a blogger, then told me she was Tonya from Love of Family and Home!!!! I have followed her on Instagram and Facebook for a while now and I was SO EXCITED to meet her in real life!

So of course we had to get a pic together:

 Isn’t she adorable? She is even more so in person, if that is even possible. Such a fun, sweet personality!

 

So are ya’ll ready to see some of the other beautiful vignettes I captured?

This was the very first booth that most people saw and it was so gorgeous!

A really liked this strikingly chippy piece from The Rusted Pearl!

 

This little spot caught my eye, because I wished I could buy that ‘P’ so bad! And that glass water jug in the crate!

The other booth that was primarily furniture was Rescued Furnishings. She always has beautiful things that are finished in such a clean, almost modern look. I was crushing on all the dining tables at the fair, including hers.

Aren’t these german glass glittered Christmas trees sweet?

I LOVED this wooden pew/bench and the set of frames on that door. Simple yet beautiful.

I TOLD you I was crushing on dining tables! This farmhouse table was so charming, especially with all the mismatched chairs.

I then poked my head inside one of the buildings and quickly came upon Melissa from Villa Design. She makes lots of truly one-of-a-kind jewelry, but has a spectacular collection of vintage cameras! And I think this was after she sold nearly a dozen of them!

I loved the layers found in this booth.

This booth blew my mind with these books. They had dozens of books with different words and pictures that were created from folding the pages!! Can you even imagine?? The girls said they made each book themselves! I was uber impressed.

I couldn’t resist capturing this one… my sons love it!

 

I loved the clean lines and keyholes of this piece.

 

Here was another booth that really caught my eye.

Never seen them before and I thought these wooden pallet deer were so neat! I would love to have something like this on my mantel (if I had a mantel)!

 

And last, I will leave you with something positively sigh-worthy…

This amazing card catalog:

I think everyone was ogling it.

Next week I will have some great before/afters of a couple of my favorite pieces… have a great weekend!