A favorite.

I moved to Calgary straight outta college in...1999. Thank you Prince for helping me remember that year clearly. I got a job at a pub downtown and to this day....13 years later, I still cherish  those friendships. We were all the same age and situations..away from home and living on our own for the first time...our only responsibility was our rent and our first priority was making friends with the bartender at other pubs down the street so we could get mispoured-in-our-favor drinks on our split shifts...When we all werent working, we were all hanging out and it was a normal day when I woke up to find 6 of my co-workers crashed in my living room with 4 ringin my doorbell and 2 more in the kitchen making breakfast. Every week we celebrated something..Halloween, St. Patricks Day, A Tuesday, Payday...*smile* It was a tight circle and I always look back with a big smile on my face...

Char was there..All of my memories have Char in them...

*Ahhh...20.*

So, when Char recently asked if I would revive a cedar chest she has..ummm..of course I would! And when she recently asked me if I wanted to join a bookclub with her and once a month we could do wine and food and visits.....ummm..of course I would.

I LOVED working on this..I was given free reign..She told me her bedroom walls were eggplant purple and that was about it..I did spend a couple weeks painting it in a completly different direction, but once I was at the topcoat point, I hummed and hawed and grabbed the paint stripper. I started 100% over..It wasnt right...it wasnt "Char" and I didnt love it...So, round 2 and a plan B got it right.

I tried to wait for a better light stream in my living room for a picture day...this was it...sorry.

Char had told me that one of her favorite piece of mine was the silver-screen-starlet. So I pulled this design out of retirement (its now back there forever, never to used again) I used a soft grey, metallic silver, a deep yellow gold, cream AND highlights in eggplant purple. I loved painting with the lid open...cedar smells so damn goooood.

I used metallic silver paint and silver metal leaf on the flower stems and buds..

and silver metal leaf on the wooden ring details

I waxed the whole thing instead of poly..I find it more durable and forgiving. Char and her husband have some babies so thats what the new priority is. We all know...babies love to climb and sit and stand and jump and bang on cedar chests exactly like this one.. *grin*

and because Char is more computer savy than me...she sumed it up better than me...in fewer words: