Great Craftswoman Of The Week - Laura Ingalls Gunn

Laura Ingalls Gunn is an interior designer and writes the blog Decor To Adore. She recently posted in my Modern Craftswoman Monday link party, a story about her 23 year old DIY project. It is truly inspiring and every hard working craftswoman should read it.

Life was not easy for her growing up. She was orphaned at an early age and had to overcome more obstacles than a young girl should ever have to face. But now, after 23 years of working towards her goal, Laura's success story will surely inspire you.

Her tale will take you from losing her parents, to castles in Europe, and back again to the United States where she finally realizes her 23 year old dream....

...her graduation ceremony where she was awarded a degree in interior design.

Expect great things from this wonderful lady.

Please visit her site and become one of her followers at:

http://decortoadore.blogspot.com/ .

Congratulations to Laura Ingalls Dunn on reaching her 23 year old dream. You are my pick for the Great Craftswoman Of The Week.

Wood River Chisel Set Review

Thinking of buying a set of chisels? Here is a post about Wood River chisels.

I have to admit it. I am always a little skeptical about tools that are reasonably priced. But these looked pretty nice for the money, so I decided to take a chance on them. At less than $10 per chisel, they were worth a shot. I layed down my money and took home a set.

The set I bought is the one pictured. It came with 6 chisels and a canvas bag to put them in. The handles are of a hardwood, with brass ferrules and nicely polished blades.

The blades were sharp right out of the package, but not razor sharp. I can't hold that against Wood River though. It is par for the course to have to tune and sharpen any chisel to get maximum performance out of it, even though it is new.

So, the first thing I did was check it for flatness using a plate glass and sandpaper method. I have to tell you. I was pleasantly surprised at what I found. Normally a chisel in this price range requires a lot of grinding to get it flat. They were not perfect, but were close enough to impress me.

I completed the sharpening using a Work Sharp system and finished them off with a light polishing on a cloth wheel. This system worked well with the Wood River chisels. They were now razor sharp and ready to put through some paces.

The first thing I tried doing was to use them for making some simple furniture joints. I tried cherry, poplar, and walnut. They held an edge fairly well and I had no problems with them.

Then I tried using them for a little bit of wood carving.





I used them to help hollow out a few spoons and do some rough out work. I used walnut and mahogany. Once again, no problems with the chisels.

I was pretty impressed with this set. If there was one thing that I might change for me, it would be that I would want larger handles. You ladies out there will probably be just fine with them. I just have fairly large hands.

It should also be noted that this is a set to be used with a wooden mallet, and not a steel sledge hammer. If you need a chisel for beating out dried caulking from an old window casing, this may not be the set for you. If however you are more into finely tuned furniture joints and light to medium use, this set will serve you well without having to spend big bucks.

Considering the price, I have to give the Wood River chisel set an A+.

Click Here for more information on the Wood River chisel set.

Antique Picture Frame Makeover

I run across a lot of picture frames in my travels, and for some reason find them hard to resist. I bet I have refurbished at least 100 of them by now, but this particular frame is one of my favorites.

I found it at an outdoor flea market in South Carolina. I paid $5 for it. The picture of those 2 stern individuals is a 16 x 20. It looks to me like they just had an argument.

I really loved the detail of the ribbon running around the outside edge, amongst the flowers. It gave the frame kind of a whimsical feel and I wanted to emphasize that. So I removed this fun loving couple from the frame and went to work with some gold leaf and gilding paint.

Here is the after.......

I used gold leaf as a base and then hand painted the details with the gilding paint. Three different kinds of gold were used. To make the twisted ribbon stand out I used copper for the top of the ribbon and gold for the underside. It made it look as though the ribbon had a front and a back, really making the twisting stand out. Then I took a dry artist brush with small amounts of black paint and sort of burnished it in. This toned the gold down a little, gave the details some depth, and aged the frame.

I have been told by my best girl, that as a skinny young man with curly dark hair, I used to resemble the guy in the swing. I guess that's why I am so fond of this frame. Ahhhhh, younger days. Gotta love it.

Here is a closeup of the detail...

It now hangs in our house in the master bedroom. Hope you liked it.

Be sure to join my link party, Modern Craftswoman Monday. You can also see who I am linking up with this week by visiting my Link Party Directory featuring over 100 link parties this week!

Faux Finish vs. Natural Finish

The debate goes on! In a couple of recent posts, there have been a ton of comments on whether or not the majority of us are at least a little bit tired of white rooms, white furniture, and magazines with page after page of white photographs.

I mentioned a couple of alternatives to white, such as seafoam green, or maybe just adding a little silver to an otherwise white piece of furniture, to give it a little zing.

The one alternative that I left out was good , old, natural. You don't hear about it much anymore, but I love a beautifully done, natural finish, more than anything else. Perhaps, I am just an old school guy.

I know that there are sometimes a multitude of problems when applying a natural finish. Numerous clear coats, stripping, staining, sanding by hand, and polishing is a little more work than most people want to go to and it is really time consuming to do it right. But consider this...

White and seafoam green paint may not be in demand when the next fad rolls around, but beautifully finished furniture is always in style, even if it is not the "trendy" way to furnish a room. Here is an example of a table I refinished, instead of painting.





This one was done with 3 coats of polyurethane, sanding between each coat, and polishing to perfection. Yes, it was a ton of work. Yes it took some skill. But it turned out to be a real showstopper, and will probably be admired long after seafoam green and white are forgotten.

And, with today's green earth thinking, having a table or chair that is practically "fad proof" seems like a good idea to me.

I would love to hear this discussion continue. What does everyone think out there?

Be sure to join my link party, Modern Craftswoman Monday and visit my Link Party Directory, to see who I am partying with this week. It lists over 100 parties!

Link Party Time! - Modern Craftswoman Monday #3

I thought I would post the link party early to give everyone more time to join in, so here we go!

Rory's Really Simple Rules:

1.) Become a follower if you haven't already.

2.) Link back to the party somehow. Grab a button, link in a post, put it on a blog roll. I'm not picky. Do it anyway you want.

3.) Post your best craftswoman project. Pretty much anything goes. Quilts, tables, makeovers, woodwork, whatever you want. It's all good. I will let you post up to 5 of your projects this week.

That's it. I will be doing a Great Craftswoman Feature Post on at least one of you on Friday. Good Luck!

The Sunday Wrap Up - Tools Are For Women Too!

It has been another crazy week here at Tools Are For Women Too! It started on Monday with the Modern Craftswoman Monday link party. Out of the party came my Craftswoman of the week, Cierra from Cierra's Tattered Elegance. I did a feature about her on Friday. Click Here for the link if you missed it. And, if you have not had a chance to go see Cierra, it is worth the trip. Pop on over and say hi for me. Here is a little taste of her blog....

The Link Party Directory was a big hit again this week. It is still listing in excess of 100 link parties a week, so stop by and take advantage of it.

Tools For Women Too! has now hit 150 followers. Wow! I am not sure what to say about that except thank you to everyone. This blog is still less than 3 weeks old, so it really hasn't even been picked up by the search engines yet. It has all been word of mouth and I owe it's success to all of you who have helped make this a destination site. Thank you all, again.

A special thanks to 2 great blogs that were kind enough to feature Tools Are For Women Too! Early in the week came a feature from Avid Accents: My DIY Diary. Avid Accents has a link party called Make Your Style Mondays.

Then I got the news today that I was featured on Fireflies and Jellybeans! This blog also does a link party, but it is on Thursdays, called Show Off Your Stuff.

Both of these great bloggers liked my Wine Glass Shutter project, and both of them are listed in my Link Party Directory, so don't miss their parties.

The winner of our Sterling Silver Giveaway this week was Red Door Home . Here is a sneak peek of her recent bedroom reveal.

You need to go visit her to see the rest. Here is the link http://reddoorhome.blogspot.com/

And, finally we had a guest feature post this week from my good friend Rebekah at Potholes and Pantyhose. She wrote a neat tutorial about making a table from a tree, using a chain saw. If you missed her post you can read it by Clicking Here.

A big thanks to everyone that stopped by this week. Next week should be another big one. Be sure to join me at my link party, Modern Craftswoman Monday.

Seafoam Green vs. White

In an earlier post I made a comment about being tired of looking through magazines that were pic after pic of white furniture, in white rooms. A few of you sent me your thoughts on white makeovers as well. It was about a 50-50 mix of opinions. Half of you said you were also tired of the white craze, and the other half said, no way, I still love it.

What I didn't mention in that post is what I do like. So, I thought I would show you ladies a color that I am currently pretty fond of, called Seafoam Green. I had seen lots of examples of this color at the Scott's Antique Show in Atlanta and wanted to create my own versions of it. I have now done quite a bit with this color, and the oval mirror above is one of my latest projects.


This mirror frame dates back to about 1880, and it was in pretty bad shape when I started.


To get this look, I started by applying a flat powder blue latex paint. I added a coat of green tinted glaze and then took a rag and dappled on some amber shellac to highlight the carved gesso.


This was a really easy project. I love the depth of color. I am far from being an interior designer, but I am much more attracted to something like this than just another white mirror. That's not to say I don't do a mirror in white once in a while. Here is an example of one I did, not long ago. It dates to the 1920s.

I used flat white latex on this mirror frame and then used rottenstone in the crevices to highlight the carving somewhat.








Here is a close-up of the detail.

I would be really interested in hearing from more of you about what you are leaning towards as far as colors go. Do you like the white better? the seafoam green? or throw out your opinion about an entirely different color you think is pretty hot right now. Let's hear all about it!

Please be sure to join my link party, Modern Craftswoman Monday and visit my Link Party Directory , to see who I am linking up to. It lists over 100 link parties this week!