Sunflowers in Spring

Springtime in North Idaho can be anything from snow, to thunderstorms, to beautiful sunny days (OK wishful thinking on the sun).  Since it's way too early to think about gardening I thought I would paint something a nice sunny yellow.  Jeez, you'd think that would be easy enough don't you?  Well this little chair gave me so many fits that it almost went in the burn pile.

Sorry, I didn't get a before picture, but just picture about five coats of different colors ending with gray, chipped off (not nicely), with blobs of paint and grime from sitting in someones garage or shop for years.  Now I know I'm only going to get about $25 for her so there was no way I was going to take the time to strip it.  I sanded down the thickest blobs, then used some homemade chalk paint that is a greenish gray for a primer.  Then I took some leftover yellow paint that I had toned down a bit and started in.  I don't know what happened to this paint, it was a pain to work with the first time, but now it was a hot mess!  It streaked, it clumped, it was just horrible, so on went another coat of the chalk paint.  My hubby thought it was good just like that, but I thought it was totally boring.  So I tried doing a French transfer on the seat.  Nope, that didn't turn out so well.  So off to the store I went for some more yellow paint.  This went on better, but it still wasn't covering great, so I added some baking soda to it and it covered like a champ.  I really wanted to paint some daisies on it, but I am the worst artist ever.  Then my husband said either daisies or sunflowers would look good.  Bing, light bulb on!  I had saved a sunflower seed sack from last year thinking I would do something with it.  You see we go through probably 300 lbs of sunflower seeds a year, yep we have really hungry birds in the northwest.  So out came the exacto  knife and Mod Podge, finished with a outdoor poly, and finally this lady is done.  She is loaded up and off to the store today.  I hope somebody likes her.

Joining in the parties at:

beyond the picket fence
the shabby creek cottage
funky junk interiors