Annie Sloan Craqueleur

I love using Annie Sloan's Craqueleur for achieving an aged patina.  I picked up this white, ceramic madonna wall hanging at an estate sale because I thought it was kind of cute.

It was plain, white, and boring, so I added some depth and character with a little Chalk Paint, Craqueleur, and gilding wax.

I love the Chalk Paint palate and whenever a customer asks me my favorite color, I am stumped because I really love them all. I painted the crown in Louis Blue, the hair in Coco, the skin in Country Grey, the cheeks in Scandinavian Pink, the clothing in Old White and Antionette, and the base in Paris Grey.

It looked soft and pretty after I painted it, but I wanted to achieve an authentic, aged patina.  I applied step one of the craqueleur, let it dry, and then applied step two.  I used a blow dryer on a high heat setting after applying step two.  Every time I use the Craqueleur I start to think it did not work because the crackle is very difficult to see before using the dark wax.  After thoroughly drying step two and having a little faith that the crackles, although invisible, were indeed there, I rubbed the entire surface with Annie Sloan's dark wax.  The crackles magically appeared, giving the madonna and baby a glorious, patina! For a finishing touch, I used an artist's brush to sweep a bit of gold gilding wax over the wall hanging.

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The Alameda Point Antiques Faire

We brought Loot to The Alameda Point Antiques Faire this past Sunday. Here are some pictures of our space at The Alameda. 

We loaded up two pick-up trucks and a trailer with all of the items we wanted to sell from the shop.  Then, we had to wake up at 3:00 in the morning to drive to Alameda and get our space set up before the early birds arrived at 6 am.  As soon as the sun started peeking up on the horizon, the shoppers started making their rounds. 

It rained hard all night Saturday and I was so afraid The flea market would be cancelled on Sunday due to weather. I was picturing driving all the way there after all the work of loading the trucks and trailer, only to have the whole thing cancelled. It turned out to be a gorgeous sunny day with big, white, puffy clouds in the sky. 

 It was a very long day, but we are happy with the amount of merchandise we were able to sell and I think we might actually do it again!

Say goodbye to our little, gold chairs. They found a new home, as did our rustic, wood trunk!

I took lots of photos of the other fabulous spaces at The Alameda to share with you.  The first stop is well known in blogland: Atelier de Campagne.  It was difficult to get in to take pictures of their booth because of all the people swarming around them. 

For those of you that are not familiar with Atelier de Campagne, they import amazing, stylish antiques from Europe.

They do container sales at their estate in Corralitos, CA a couple of times a year and also sell at The Alameda every month.

Let's see what other booths I loved at the flea market. This one had interesting and unique pieces like this large, wooden arrow with lights.

I love the old, gray medical cabinet and industrial signs.

I adore this rustic sidboard on caster wheels.

 This booth had gorgeous, painted pieces with sold tags on nearly everything.  I love these lamps with the burlap shades.

Nancy and I are looking for a new farm table for Loot since hers sold right away.  There were several beautiful farm tables at The Alameda, like this one.  They were just priced too high for us, so our search continues for the perfect one.

Here is another view of the space with all the pretty, painted pieces.

This space was just full of metal industrial letters spread out all over the ground. The shoppers were rummaging through them searching for the right letters.

I also loved this space with all the giant, antique baskets. I really wanted one, but they were a little out of my price range at $400 each!

This was the first time I had been to the Alameda and it was a wonderful experience.  Not only is the setting amazing, but it is so inspiring to see all of the creative displays. They can accomodate 800 vendors and they get up to 10,000 visitors in one day!  It is held the first Sunday of every month in Alameda on the old Navy base runway.  There is a stunning view of the San Francisco skyline on one side and the massive, shipping containers, cranes and cargo ships on the other.  The best part of The Alameda is that it is full of one-of-a-kind pieces like this old, metal card catalog. 



It took us almost two days to recuperate from the heavy lifting, moving, setting up and lack of sleep, but I am looking forward to doing it all over again!

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