Fresh Paint!: New Looks for Unfinished Furniture 45 Fun & Festive Projects

Rating:
Summary: This book demands attention with all of it's great ideas
Review: I thumb through furniture painting books when I'm at the library - Usually, I can tell right away if there's something in it that will capture my attention. When I first thumbed through this book, I was amazed at how every single feature jumped out at me. The colors used on these pieces of furniture are striking and the designs are beautiful and unique. This book offers something different than all of the rest - it does two things: first, all of the fabulous ideas get you excited and motivated. It makes you want to run right out and find something to paint. Second, each piece of furniture is so uniquely done, you cannot help but want to use your imagination and create your own works of art. Have you ever considered decoupaging tissue paper onto a table? How about napkins? It sounds unusual, but these designs work beautifully. I would purchase this book in an instant - it is one of the best out there, in my opinion.

Rating:
Summary: This book demands attention with all of it's great ideas
Review: I thumb through furniture painting books when I'm at the library - Usually, I can tell right away if there's something in it that will capture my attention. When I first thumbed through this book, I was amazed at how every single feature jumped out at me. The colors used on these pieces of furniture are striking and the designs are beautiful and unique. This book offers something different than all of the rest - it does two things: first, all of the fabulous ideas get you excited and motivated. It makes you want to run right out and find something to paint. Second, each piece of furniture is so uniquely done, you cannot help but want to use your imagination and create your own works of art. Have you ever considered decoupaging tissue paper onto a table? How about napkins? It sounds unusual, but these designs work beautifully. I would purchase this book in an instant - it is one of the best out there, in my opinion.

Rating:
Summary: Not as helpful as I thought
Review: While all the projects in this book were nice, it did not help me at all. I did not realize until I got the book and opened it that the projects were very specific--not just techniques, but patterns for specific designs. Like silhouettes of birds eating berries; a frog on a plant, etc. They were all very loud and colorful--too much so for my purposes at the moment.Even the ones with checks or squares were very design-specific. I thought that the book was going to show more different techniques to use on furniture instead of definite designs. And like I said, the designs were pretty and unique but if you're not very artistically inclined (as I am not), then it would be hard to adapt them or change them to create new ones for your project. Don't get me wrong, this is not a bad book at all--it is just not useful if you are not looking for odd, very loudly colored patterns for painting furniture. It shows no dragging, flogging, etc. techniques or how to layer colors or anything like that. I didn't use one thing out of the book, so it was a waste of money for me.

Rating:
Summary: Love at first site
Review: Wow! Every now and then an artist (or group of artists) comes up with a great artistic book and it actually gets published and has great photography and writing staff. But it's no wonder; the book was done in Asheville, NC, (USA) a mountain tourist town filled with great boutiques, galleries, artsy stores and many talented artists. I borrowed this book from my local library and had no idea I would fall in love so much so that; I had no choice but to purchase my own copy! I am a professional artist and believe me; most books of this kind have prooved to be totally useless to me; but this book was so inspirational, delightful and colorful; I am coming up with numerous designs of my own as a result of the great artists that put together this book. I hope I get to meet these people some day; so I can personnally thank them for their great work!!!!