Color & Craft at Boho Upcycle

Thank you Boho Upcycle for inviting me to try out a craft class at your amazing shop in Atwater Village. All opinions and photos are my own.

Many years ago I had I idea in my head to open a shop exactly like this one. I wanted to take my love of vintage, antiques, and crafting and combine it with my background in interior design to be able to repurpose furnishings and accessories and resell them. Obviously, that idea never came to fruition, but I was over-the-moon happy to see that Krissy Arora’s dream actually DID come true.

I love this store. I love the colors, the paint, the creativity that comes out of this tiny shop on Glendale Blvd. in Atwater Village. A mix of vintage, boho chic, coffee shops, book stores, this is a great area to chill and let your imagination run wild. Krissy opened her store in November of 2013 and has an always changing inventory of unique furnishings that she has re-purposed for sale. Using two different types of painting techniques (Chalk Paint and Milk Paint) she can create all types of colors and finishes… and she’ll teach you how to do it yourself.

I met a group of bloggers there on a Sunday to learn about the different types of paint and to experience one of her classes. We walked in and had a bunch of glass mason jars in front of us.

I was so excited to get started. At Boho Upcycle, Krissy uses two different types of paint. I am no painting expert, but I found all this to be really fascinating. The chalk paint Krissy uses and sells in the shop is CeCe Caldwell Paint. This is actually a natural clay paint that has no odor, no VOC’s (volatile organic compounds), is non-toxic, has no acrylic co-polymers, solvents, formaldehyde, ammonia, ethylene glycol or toxic heavy metals. Phew… that’s a mouthful. Basically… there isn’t any crap in this paint. The clay is blended with chalk to make a water-based solution. That’s it!

The milk paint is Miss Mustard Seed’s and is also sold at Boho Upcycle. It comes in pouches in powder form and is easily  mixed with water. Milk paint sounds so fabulous and it is really does contain milk protein (casein) as well as limestone, clay, chalk and natural pigments. It is naturally mold resistant so it’s great for using outdoors. Like the chalk paint, it is non-toxic, contains no VOC’s. It also doesn’t have an odor.

Both paints work really well on all different kinds of surfaces: wood, glass, plastic, metal. I love how mine came out. The only problem is that now I am on a kick to re-paint everything in my house. I have a bookshelf I’m looking at as I write this that could use some TLC. Luckily, I know I can get help from Krissy at Boho Upcycle. Go visit her store and tell her you heard about her from me… because she is super cute and super nice.

So what do you think? Pretty cool, huh? Both pieces were also finished with sealing wax to prevent chipping… although, you can leave off the wax if you want that extra chippy look. There are also a wide selection of added color waxes to use, like black, gold and metallic. (I used the black on top of my sealing wax to bring out the wording on the mason jars.

Check out Boho Upcycle for a listing of their Sunday classes. And huge thanks to Krissy and her sister, Cindy, for putting this special class together for us.

You can follow Boho Upcycle on Twitter and Facebook. And check out their Pinterest page for some amazing ideas.