Knickknack Shelf ala Miss Mustard Seed

This is my first attempt at refinishing a piece in Miss Mustard Seed style.  I found her blog a few months ago and I really admire her work.  I have repainted and stripped furniture before, but I had never done distressing or glazing so I wanted to give it a try.

Here is the before...

I got this little knickknack shelf off of Craigslist for $25.  It needed a little bit of repair, in fact, I ended up tearing the whole thing apart and gluing all of the spindles with gorilla glue (best stuff ever).

Here are the after pictures...

First I repainted it with an antique white that we had laying around from when we painted the trim on the outside of the house.  I did 2 coats of that to hide the bright white that was originally on the piece.  Then I covered it with a sample pot of Glidden from Home Depot.  I like those little sample sizes because you don't have to wait for them to mix them, they are cheap, and they work great for little projects.  One little sample pot would not have been enough except that I knew I was going to distress and glaze so I wasn't concerned that I didn't get complete coverage everywhere.

After the blue dried, I distressed it with some sandpaper.  I didn't go too crazy.  Just a little bit on the spindles and the front edges.  Then I glazed it using some dark walnut stain.  The stain totally changed the tone of the blue.  It now looks much more blue-green.

I placed it in our office/playroom to take these pictures as this room gets a lot of natural light.  I will be moving it upstairs later.  We have a little nook at the end of the hallway upstairs that needs dressing up, but it is fairly dark in that spot so I knew I wouldn't get any good pictures up there to show you.  The hallway is painted in a shell white so the blue-green of the shelf will really stand out nicely.

Can you tell I have been playing around in Picasa?

I think it looks good in the pictures and from a distance, but up close I am not sure that I like the glazing.  It kind of makes it look a little dirty and sloppy, of course, it could just be my technique.  I think the distressing is nice although my husband does not get the distressing and glazing thing at all (why I ask his opinion I don't know since I am just going to do what I want anyways).  He doesn't understand messing up a perfectly good paint job.  He thinks then it just looks like it needs to be painted again.  For now it is going to stay this way as I think I may come to appreciate it more over time.

What do you guys think?  Glaze or no glaze?

I linked up to the party. 

~ Gold Shoe Girl ~

p.s.  I forgot to tell you that the original feet on the bottom were rotten so I had to remove them and throw them out.  I had intended to hit the home depot to get replacements but I didn't get around to it.  When I went to take pictures today, it looked weird just putting the bottom shelf directly on the floor.  So I stuck some cans of tuna under the bottom.  Yep, tuna.  And they are the perfect height so I think I may just gorilla glue them there for now because you can't really see them, and I am all about the easy breezy solution:)