But you know something, I've been thinking. I've accumulated enough shelter photos from the Interwebs to realize I seem to like the look of inlaid bone and mother of pearl furniture and accessories. This mirror from Wisteria might be my personal favorite of the bunch:
Here are a few more examples, three out of four appear via a great post on the subject by Jenny at Little Green Notebook:
What I don't like so much is the fact that these pieces are made from...well, bone. And mollusk shells, respectively. Which led me to ponder how I might somehow mimic the look without (a) the by-products and (b) the hefty pricetag that normally accompanies such pieces.
I'm generally not opposed to the idea of hard work in the name of craftiness, so I'm thinking of trying an experiment. I believe perhaps a similar, although not as intricate bone-like effect could be achieved through decoupage using cutouts of iridescent paper, such as the quartz color sold at Blue Dot Paper Shop — $12.99 for 50 sheets. Similar things are no doubt available by the single sheet, but at this point I'm not sure how many paper cutouts it would take to cover say, a side table. It would require patience but to put it in perspective, if you've ever done mosaic this wouldn't be nearly as messy.
I admit that hand-cutting a bazillion of those things would probably get pretty tedious, so I propose the solution of paper punches available in leaf and flowery type shapes from your local craft store. I bet you'd only need about three shapes to create a motif.
There's also pearlescent paint out there. This company sells stuff that was made for painting cars. It's a powder you can mix with paint and it's $9.99 a bag. Could be tricky to work with initially, but I'm trying to think creatively here.
So what do you think? Is this just extreme fatigue playing tricks on my brain, or is it possible that with enough effort I could make this $15 coffee table for sale on my local CraigsList...
...into something not entirely dissimilar to this?
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment