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Wednesday 17 August 2011

Shabby Chic, Ms. August's Challenge

Milo Lilja, Ms.August, has challenged us to use Bombshell stamps to create a Shabby Chic project using primarily white and lace!

Here's the Wikipedia description of Shabby Chic.



Shabby chic
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Shabby chic is a form of interior design where furniture and furnishings are either chosen for their age and signs of wear and tear or new items are distressed to achieve the appearance of an antique. At the same time, a soft, minimalistic, and feminine feel is emphasized to differentiate it from regular vintage decor; hence the "chic" in the name. [1]
Contents:
1 Description
2 History
3 Origin of term

Description
Shabby chic items are often heavily painted through the years, with many layers showing through obviously time-worn areas. The style is imitated in faux painting using glaze or by painting then rubbing and sanding away the top coat to show the wood or base coats. Fabrics tend to be cottons and linens, with linen being particularly popular, inspired by old French linens. Whites and worn or bleached out pastels are favorite colours. Fabric is often stained with tea to give it the look of old fabric. Bleached and faded are terms often applied to the style.

The essence of today's shabby chic style is vintage and antique furniture with the original aged paint, or painted white (or another soft pastel color) and distressed at the corners by sanding. Antique pieces such as pie safes and jelly cupboards are popular in shabby chic décor.[2]

Popular decor items are pillows made of vintage barkcloth fabric, vintage linens, chenille bedspreads, vintage chandeliers, and anything with roses on it. It is a soft, relaxed feminine romantic way of decorating that looks comfortable and inviting. Also called cottage style.

History
The style started in Great Britain and evokes the type of decoration found in large country houses where there are worn and faded old chintz sofas and curtains, old paintwork and unassuming 'good' taste. The end result of shabby chic is to achieve an elegant overall effect, as opposed to the sentimentally cute Pop-Victorian. Recycling old furniture and fabrics is an important aspect of the look and was especially popular with modern Bohemians and artisans that made up a sidelined counter-culture movement during the 1980s when expensive quality decor became very fashionable with the upper middle classes. The original shabby chic interiors were usually considered in themselves works of art.

The early forms of shabby chic were rather grand but the style has evolved taking inspiration from many forms of decoration. These range from 18th century Swedish painted decoration, the French Chateau as well as the American Shakers where simplicity and plainness was essential.


Origin of term

The term was coined by The World of Interiors magazine in the 1980s and became extremely popular in the US in the '90s with a certain eclectic surge of decorating styles with paints and effects, notably in metropolitan cultural centres on the West Coast of America, such as LA and San Francisco, with heavy influences from Mediterranean cultures such as Provence, Tuscany and Greece.

Shabby chic is also a general term which can be used to refer to a person who is stylish rather than fashionable, where their style reflects quality as opposed to newness.[3] [4]
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Here's what the Bombshell Girls and Pin-ups have done for this challenge!




Alaine has colored Rose up and has used multiple layers of white and bling to create this card.








Mary Anne has used the Retro Cowgirl and created a shaped card










Kathi's take, using Rose's Portrait set.





Please play along by adding a perma-link to the Inlinkz below. You can enter more than once and each time you share here, on the forum, or at the Bombshell Forum at Paper Crafts planet, you'll earn one more chance to win a your choice of a free set.










3 comments:

  1. i hope mine counts, i didn't see the white part until now. love all the dt's pieces! wonderful job ladies

    ReplyDelete
  2. Course it counts. Its a great card.

    ReplyDelete