q is for quandie

what happened to junk bonanza?

Published on March 31, 2026March 30, 2026 by Quandie15 Comments

My friend opK and I are waiting with baited breath for garage sale season to begin here in Minnesota. We have several weeks yet to go. There are a handful of neighborhood sales in late April, but our season really kicks off the first weekend in May.

In the meantime, we’ve been trying to find things to do until then like visiting thrift shops and the occasional estate sale. We aren’t finding much these days though.

So last week we decided to head to Junk Bonanza.

If you aren’t familiar, this is an indoor vintage market held in Shakopee, MN. It has been around for a little over 20 years. It was started by Ki Nassauer, but I am assuming she is no longer associated with it (if any of you know differently, leave a comment and let me know).

Back in 2014, I shared a booth at Junk Bonanza with my friend Lori who used to own a shop in Anoka.

Lori has amazing style, and our stuff blended together really well.

I mainly brought painted furniture such as the Union Jack piece above.

I also had quite a few painted and stenciled books.

And Lori always had amazing stuff both in her shop and at Junk Bonanza.

But I did only participate the one time. I still had my day job back then, so I had to take several vacation days off at work to be there. I also had to rent a truck in order to get all of my merch there during the allotted set up time.

Also, if I remember right, the booth fee wasn’t exactly cheap. So in the end, it just wasn’t worth it for me.

All of that being said, the event itself was amazing. There were so many fabulous vendors with really awesome vintage goods. At that time vendors were only allowed to sell vintage items, nothing new or reproduction.

Well, apparently things have changed. This year there were booths selling spices, hot sauce, cosmetics, candles, bath salts, honey, crystals, and bundt cakes.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love Nothing Bundt Cakes (have you tried them? the lemon one is my favorite).

I had to give that particular booth a wide berth to avoid binging on bundt cakes!

But I don’t think I should have to pay a $10 entrance fee to buy them.

Also, Junk Bonanza used to be huge with multiple spaces on two floors. But this time there was just one room.

Now, it wasn’t all bad. There were several booths that were fantastic like this one.

And this one.

But there just weren’t enough of them to justify the drive to Shakopee, or the $10 entrance fee.

That being said, I’ve heard that the fall Junk Bonanza is much better than the spring version. Will I go back and give it one more try … well, to be honest, probably not.

How about any of you locals? Do you still attend Junk Bonanza? As for the rest of you, do you have a similar indoor vintage market where you are? And is it still going strong? Leave some comments and let me know!

adding a little bling.

Published on March 26, 2026March 21, 2026 by Quandie12 Comments

Last week I shared the first completed room in the Christmas Cottage and I’m calling it the craft room.

And in that post I gave you a little, bitty sneak peek into the next completed room.

The room is just through that doorway on the right, and I decided to make it a bathroom.

I started with the walls, painting them in the same Pink Champagne that I used in the craft room. Then I pulled out some scraps of subway tile ‘wallpaper’ that were left over from the kitchen in my last miniature project …

I had enough left over to do a half wall in this bathroom.

I also used the same inexpensive ($3.49 per 11″ x 17″ sheet) black and white flooring from Hobby Lobby.

Next up I decided to add some inexpensive fixtures that I found at Michael’s.

I needed to add a little bling to give them some life, so I applied some of Dixie Belle’s gold gilding wax to the faucets. The gold will tie in with a couple of other pieces in the room too.

I also painted the toilet seat with Dixie Belle’s Caviar.

They are small details, but I really think they make the fixtures look slightly more upscale.

After putting the fixtures in place, I had enough room to add the blanket cabinet that I painted up last year in Dixie Belle’s Cottage Door. It has a little more of that gold bling in the form of the I.O.D. Étiquettes gilded transfer on the doors.

Finally I added just a couple more details like a mirror over the sink and a framed floral print. The mirror is one of the few pieces that came with the house.

With that, I’m calling that bathroom completed.

You’ll notice that I didn’t really come up with anything Christmas related for this room, but then not everyone decorates their bathroom for the holidays right?

I think I’ll move on to the 2nd floor next week, so be sure to stay tuned. In the meantime, leave a comment and let me know what you think of the bathroom.

traveling back in time.

Published on March 23, 2026March 21, 2026 by Quandie16 Comments

My friend opK and I did a bit of time traveling last Friday.

It was a gorgeous, sunny spring day with temps near 60° F., so we headed slightly further afield than normal to an estate sale.

After first checking out a small shed and an even smaller little horse barn where we found plenty of spider webs, but not much else, we headed to the house.

Walking into the house felt a bit like going through some sort of magic portal and ending up back in 1976.

It was one of those places with multiple levels where the basement, a.k.a. the rec room, was on the lowest level.

The living room was half a floor up, and the kitchen and dining room were on yet another level. Then there were three bedrooms and a bathroom on the uppermost level. As you were coming up that last set of stairs and the floor was at about eye level, it was impossible to look away from the bright blue and green shag carpeting that was straight ahead.

That is, until you then spotted the wallpaper paired with the quintessential avocado green shag in the room next door.

It really felt surreal. And by the way, is it just me or does that off-center basement style window above the bed seem really out of place?

No 1970’s boy’s bedroom was complete without orange and avocado football player wallpaper.

And I don’t know, but was a carpeted bathroom de rigueur in the 70’s?

Ew.

To really set the scene, I should also note that the former occupants of the home were very obviously smokers and everything was coated in a yellow haze of tobacco. Yikes.

While the house itself was caught in a time warp, the prices were not.

You can always tell when someone has been looking up prices on the internet.

I did some quick research and was able to find that exact dresser on 1st Dibs for $1,500, but most of us know that the prices are 1st Dibs are always unrealistically high.

I did think these mid-mod pieces were pretty cool.

But there was a fairly deep scratch down the front of the low dresser that will be difficult to repair.

And the bigger problem really, as any of us furniture refinishers (or former furniture refinishers) know, is that it will be nearly impossible to eliminate the cigarette smell.

But hey, what do I know? Maybe someone will be happy to shell out $2,100 for the complete set. What do you think? Would you buy it at that price?

As for me, I did find some things to buy and luckily the items I purchased aren’t going to be found on 1st Dibs so I got all three at rock bottom prices.

I brought home three metal boxes; a toolbox, a lunchbox and a small galvanized box, all for $10 total. Not bad.

the right pink.

Published on March 19, 2026March 18, 2026 by Quandie16 Comments

I had a feeling that once I took that first step of getting started on the Christmas Cottage refurb, everything would just start to fall into place.

And sometimes that just takes the right pink.

In this case, it’s Dixie Belle’s Pink Champagne.

It’s a really lovely pale pink, much more subtle than the brighter pinks that the house came with …

Those were more of a Pepto Bismol.

I’ve started on the third floor, and I painted both of those two rooms facing the back (there is a 3rd room on that floor, but you access it from the front of the house) in Pink Champagne. Once dry, I decided to try a technique that I learned from Julie Warren on YouTube. I’m not going to give you step by step instructions here, if you want that please check out her video tutorial here.

But basically, you piece together plain paper to create a template for your wallpaper.

This allows you make cuts and adjustments without wrecking your pricey wallpaper. Then you pull that template off and use it to cut out your wallpaper to fit your wall precisely.

It worked beautifully!

As you can sort of see, I had to cut around some weird stuff on the left side of the ceiling. Plus, it took two sheets of wallpaper to go all the way across, and I was able to get the repeat to work before I cut out the paper. There are a few rooms with funky angles in this house, and now I feel much more confident about wallpapering those rooms too.

I will point out here that the repeat on the wallpaper is not exactly right, by which I mean that you can’t put two sheets of this paper side by side and have the repeat work. You have to move the 2nd sheet up about 2″. That could potentially be an issue if the paper is just tall enough for your room. Just something to keep in mind if you are wallpaper in full size or in 1:12 scale.

Once the wallpaper was in place, I moved on to the flooring. Once again I used the pine wood flooring from Hobby Lobby. It comes in an 11″ x 17″ sheet for $7.49. Fortunately, I ordered half a dozen sheets of this flooring a few months back knowing I would need it for this project because now it’s out of stock online, FYI.

Once again I used the Sweet Pickins Dark Oil Wax to ‘stain’ the floor.

Next up, I decided to add some wainscoting to the lower, vertical portion of that back wall. I used the Mayberry Street wainscoting, also from Hobby Lobby.

It comes in 12″ x 3 1/4″ sheets for $2.49.

Since I wanted my boards to run vertically, I cut two sheets into 3″ tall sections. Then I needed to choose a paint color.

I was pretty sure I wanted white, and you’d think that would be simple, right? But no, I tried out my favorite Drop Cloth first and initially I didn’t think it worked well with the cleaner shade of pink on the walls. So I tested out three other shades of white plus Dixie Belle’s Wicklow Glen, a muted green, just to see if I would like it.

But in the end, I still went with Drop Cloth. I guess I’m just not a fan of brighter shades of white.

Once I had my sheets of wainscoting painted, I realized I had a little bit of an installation predicament. If I just glued them straight to the wall, it would be difficult to get them to line up perfectly and hide any seams. I also needed to add a bit of trim across the top to finish them off, and I thought that would be harder to do in place.

So I ended up cutting a piece of foam core board to fit that back section of wall. Then I constructed that whole wall of wainscoting by gluing everything to the foam core board. It was easy to add the trim and clamp it in place. I also used some of Dixie Belle’s Mud in white to camouflage the seams between each section.

After then adding a final coat of Drop Cloth, it was easy to just pop the whole thing into place.

To add one more fun touch to the room I decided to use a barn style sliding door that I painted up a while back. I shared this door with you a year or so ago in this little vignette …

I hadn’t really found a permanent home for it, so I pulled it out to try in this room and it worked perfectly

I gave the hardware its verdigris look using Dixie Belle’s Patina Paint in Copper with the blue activating spray.

After giving some thought to what the purpose of this attic space might be and how I wanted to stage it, I landed on it being a craft room. And since this is a Christmas Cottage, one might use their large craft table to wrap Christmas presents, right?

I purchased some downloadable mini gift wrap on Etsy, printed it out and then rolled it up into rolls and wrapped a couple of small packages.

The table is one that I already had on hand, but also never found a home for. Since I liked how that Wicklow Glen color worked with the wallpaper, I decided to use it on the base of the table.

The top of the table already had a Drop Cloth wash on it.

The rug and chair were also pieces that I already had on hand.

And with that, I’m calling the first room complete.

I realize that the room looks a little bit bare, but that’s because I definitely do not plan to keep this dollhouse for myself. Hopefully a future owner can expand upon the theme and create a full-on craft room … or whatever else they might want this room to be.

In the meantime, what do you think? Leave a comment and let me know!

back in the groove.

Published on March 16, 2026March 15, 2026 by Quandie8 Comments

Gosh you guys, I am really struggling to get back to creating/blogging/painting/etc.

I’ve moved the Christmas Cottage to the workbench, a.k.a. on top of my baby grand piano. I had intended to start with the exterior, but I just wasn’t feeling inspired by that so I moved on to the interior.

So far I have given the entire interior one coat of Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth to create a blank canvas.

As a reminder, the house came to me with a rainbow of interior colors.

And now they are all off white.

Some rooms are definitely going to need a 2nd coat (like the pink room), but some rooms are going to be wallpapered so I think one coat is enough for those.

But now … well, I’m rather rather stuck again. I think it’s because this house has so little detail inside, unlike my Victorian dollhouse …

Things like floors, cove ceilings, wainscoting, doors and fancy trim work. So I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed by my options. I need to just pick a room and get started, I’m sure things will start to fall in place.

Meanwhile, in an attempt to feel inspired, I went thrifting with my friend opK last week hoping to find some fun pieces. But I came home with this paltry pile of goodies.

Seriously you guys, how sad is that?

And I should also point out that the tackle box in the back isn’t even really from the thrifting itself, it’s one that opK found for me and brought over that day.

The French bottle drying rack would be really cool if it was actually vintage.

Unfortunately it isn’t. But I plan to try to give it a more aged look, possibly using the Dixie Belle patina paint. Stay tuned for that down the road.

The glass canister is just one of the ones you can find new at Target for about $12.

But it was only $4 at the Goodwill so I snatched it up.

I use these canisters to store my craft supplies, so I can always use one more.

Last up, you’re probably wondering why in the world I purchased a simple sweater in a color that quite honestly would probably make me look like death warmed over.

Well, that’s because I saw the easiest idea for creating a mini knit throw using the sleeve of an old jumper. I’m saying ‘jumper’ rather than ‘sweater’ because I got this idea from a U.K. vlogger called Jess Mason, so of course she calls it a ‘jumper’. She is also refurbishing a Tudor style dollhouse and you can check out the post where she shared this idea here.

All I did was cut off about 5″ of the sleeve, fold it over a couple of times and place it on the bed in my Victorian dollhouse.

Honestly, this couldn’t have been more simple, and I think it looks great.

I could also make about 20 more of them from this one jumper that was $6.99, so it was extremely cost effective.

On that note, I just watched a video on how to wallpaper a dollhouse so I’m going to see if I can get at least one room wallpapered. Wish me luck!

the Christmas cottage.

Published on March 10, 2026March 9, 2026 by Quandie22 Comments

Well shoot you guys, once again I managed to catch a virus on my recent trip. How utterly frustrating and annoying. I’ve gotten sick on nearly every trip I’ve taken over the last year or so. I’m not sure where I’m going wrong.

First of all, I almost never get sick at home, only when I travel. Second of all, I do all of the things while traveling. I wash my hands frequently, I wipe down my airplane seat with a Chlorox wipe, I get plenty of rest, I exercise regularly, I eat right (OK, well, most of the time), I get the flu shot. I did skip the Covid vaccine this year, mainly because as you’ll remember I got Covid on our Canada cruise in September so then you have to wait 3 months to get the vaccine, yada, yada, yada.

I do have a working theory. About this time last year we signed up for an Am Ex card that gives us access to the Skymiles airport lounges where they have a ‘free’ buffet. So for all of my recent trips (except Mexico), I’ve been treating myself to that buffet before a flight. And I’ve gotten sick on all of my trips, except Mexico. Coincidence? Or is a germ ridden buffet to blame?

Well, I have another trip to my mom’s coming up in April so I think I’ll put my theory to the test and skip the lounge. We’ll see how that goes.

All of this is to explain why I’ve been rather absent from the blog for the last week or so. But I’m mostly recovered now and ready to get started on my next miniature project, the Christmas Cottage.

As I mentioned previously, my friend Sue gave me this dollhouse when no one in her family wanted it. It even came with a deed showing that it was built in 1990. Two lucky girls named Kristi and Dawn received it for Christmas.

It was built from a Greenleaf kit. I googled it and it looks like Greenleaf is still in business. In fact, they list this particular dollhouse, The Harrison, for $195 although it is ‘out of stock’. I may end up purchasing some replacement roof shingles from them if I can’t find any that matches first.

My plan is to start by sprucing up the exterior. There are a few repairs needed, some missing trim needs replacing …

and quite a few broken shingles do as well.

I also plan to remove the faded, and somewhat oversized silk flowers from the window boxes.

Not only are they a bit oversized, but they are all wrong for a Christmas cottage!

Once I’ve got the exterior in hand, I’ll move on to the interior.

It’s currently a bit sherbet-y with its Easter egg colored rooms. I’m thinking that I’ll just paint all of the rooms in a neutral off-white to create a blank canvas and then go from there.

The house has 8 rooms, so it’s quite spacious. In addition to the 7 rooms that are visible from the back, there is a fun little attic room that you can access through the roof.

Um, that green furry carpet is going to have to go though. I hope that doesn’t end up being too much of a production.

It definitely looks like I’ve got my work cut out for me, so I think I’d better get started!

Stay tuned to see what I come up with for this dollhouse makeover.

the herbier box.

Published on March 3, 2026February 24, 2026 by Quandie7 Comments

I’ve got another box makeover for you today, and once again I forgot to take a ‘before’ photo.

Well, no worries, it was basically just a dark brown stained wood before I gave it its new look.

This box definitely appears to be homemade, maybe some sort of high school shop project?

See those grooves that have been cut in to either side of the box in front? I think they were meant to be decorative, they are on all four sides. But they are pretty wonky.

Anyway, as you can already see, after my usual prep of cleaning, scuff sanding and a coat of Dixie Belle’s Bonding Boss, I painted the outside of the box in their Drop Cloth.

After sanding to distress the edges, I applied some of the florals from the new I.O.D. Flora Greca all the way around the box.

I’m calling this the front …

but you could just as easily call this the front …

As for the box top, I dug deep into my transfer stash and pulled out my old favorite, the I.O.D. Label Ephemera transfer.

As most of you know, it was retired years ago. At this point, I buy one whenever I find it at a reasonable price, but they are getting harder and harder to find.

Now, I have to first apologize to any French speakers out there. I re-arranged the layout of a few of the lines of text to get them to fit nicely on the box top. I suspect they may not make a lot of sense now. I hope it’s not too crazy.

As you can see, the top of the box is not hinged, it comes right off.

That brings me to the inside of the box.

It’s painted in Dixie Belle’s Blueberry with a top coat of their flat clear coat.

Along with the Madeleine lunchbox that I shared last week, I think this little box would make a super sweet Easter basket if you filled it with some chocolate bunnies and candy easter eggs.

What do you think? Leave a comment and let me know.

This box is for sale locally, you can find all of those details here.

the box.

Published on February 27, 2026February 24, 2026 by Quandie16 Comments

Well shucks. I could have sworn that I took a ‘before’ photo of today’s project. But if I did, I have no idea where I stored it.

Suffice to say that one of the shop owners at Reclaiming Beautiful gave this box to me because she thought it was a good candidate for a makeover (thanks again for that Monique).

It’s started out as just a simple wood box. Monique had tried to strip it with mixed results. I think in the end she just figured it wasn’t worth putzing with, so she gave it to me.

After removing the latch, I gave the box a quick scuff sanding and then a coat of Dixie Belle’s Bonding Boss inside and out. The wood definitely looked a bit red, ie. it would probably bleed through my paint. The Bonding Boss will prevent that.

Then, well, the box sat for a while. I wasn’t exactly sure how I wanted to finish it. That gave the Bonding Boss plenty of time to cure. Technically you are supposed to wait 24 hours before painting over it. I find that it works best for preventing bleed through if you follow those instruction.

But I pulled the box back out a week or so ago and gave the interior a couple of coats of Dixie Belle’s Cactus.

Next up I painted the exterior in their French Villa.

Both of these colors are from their Silk All-In-One Mineral Paint line. I tend to prefer using their chalk paint line usually, but every now and then it is nice to use a paint that doesn’t require a topcoat. Well, technically it also has a built in primer so I’m not sure I really needed the Bonding Boss. However, I hadn’t chosen my paint colors yet when I started with that step.

Next I brought out one of the new transfers from I.O.D., By Any Other Name. There are four different images of white roses in that set.

I used all four on top of the box with the excess draping down on the sides.

I added some typography from the I.O.D. Saint Ouen transfer to the front of the box.

I then added a few insects here and there, also from the By Any Other Name transfer. As a final touch I also added the “Tag No. 9757” which is from Tim Holtz.

OK, that takes me to the “latch” which really isn’t a functioning latch. I didn’t really think it through when I decided to add that. Somehow I thought it would work to actually keep the box closed, but of course it doesn’t.

But I liked the look of it so much that I kept it anyway.

That isn’t an original finish on it, I created that look using the Dixie Belle Patina Paint. The latch started out in shiny brass, so I began by giving it a coat of the Bonding Boss to help my paint stick. Then I gave it a quick coat of Dixie Belle’s Coffee Bean paint. Once that was dry I dabbed on some of the Iron paint and some of the Bronze paint. While the paint was still wet, I added the Green activating spray.

I just love the results you can get with the Patina Paint.

Now, although the paint doesn’t require a topcoat, the transfers do. So I added a coat of clear wax over the outside of the box.

I have to admit, I wasn’t initially sure where I was going with this box. However, in the end I quite like how it has turned out.

What do you think? Leave a comment and let me know.

It is available for local sale, so check out the details here if you are interested.

As always, thank you to Dixie Belle Paint Co for providing their products used in this makeover.

the madeleine lunchbox.

Published on February 24, 2026February 21, 2026 by Quandie8 Comments

Last week I showed you the vintage lunchbox that I picked up while out thrifting.

It definitely was not very exciting ‘as is’. So I knew it would benefit from a paint job.

After my usual prep of cleaning, lightly sanding and adding a coat of Dixie Belle’s Bonding Boss to make sure my paint would adhere nicely, I painted the interior in Dixie Belle’s Secret Path and then sealed it with their flat clear coat.

As someone who once openly admitted that I don’t like purple, it’s funny how often I pull out this color.

In this case, I knew it would pair beautifully with the gorgeous florals from the new I.O.D. Madeleine transfer.

But before we get to that, I painted the exterior of the lunchbox in Dixie Belle’s Ecru.

After allowing that to dry and then distressing it with a light sanding, I started cutting up the Madeleine transfer and figuring out the placement on the lunchbox.

This transfer comes with several symmetrical elements.

But I didn’t want an entirely symmetrical look. So I cut things up and moved them around to create the look I wanted.

I also wrapped a few of the florals around the sides, and added in some bees and butterflies here and there.

One comment that I have about the Madeleine transfer, and indeed all of the spring release florals from I.O.D., is that they are all somewhat small in scale. That makes them great for working on smaller items like this lunchbox, but I think I’d struggle to use them on a large piece of furniture (or the ginormous toolbox that I found while thrifting a week or so ago).

Is it just me, or do you also see the trend moving away from transfers for use on furniture and focusing instead on smalls? Leave a comment and let me know what you think about that.

Once all of the florals were in place, I chose a section of typography from the I.O.D. Saint Ouen transfer to add to the front of the lunchbox.

It was perfect for that space in the middle.

For one final touch, although my original plan was to leave the handle in its original chrome, I decided to paint it using Dixie Belle’s Cactus.

I then finished off the outside of the lunchbox using Dixie Belle’s clear wax.

Last week one of my readers, Sheri, suggested that my floral toolboxes would make awesome Easter baskets. I thought that was a fantastic idea, and wouldn’t this lunchbox be perfect for that as well?

Who wouldn’t love to receive this filled with Easter goodies?

This lunchbox is available for sale locally, so be sure to check out the details here.

However, I should note that I am heading off to visit my mom later today and will be gone for a week so you may have to wait to pick it up. The forecast for Henderson, Nevada (where my mom lives) this week calls for temps in the upper 70’s to low 80’s. Yay! Unlike my recent trip to Florida, I’ll truly be getting away from winter weather this time around.

Also, I’m leaving plenty of room in my suitcase just in case I find any goodies at the Goodwill that’s around the corner from my mom’s place. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

pretty spring florals.

Published on February 19, 2026February 14, 2026 by Quandie8 Comments

I don’t know about you, but I am ready for some pretty spring florals.

Especially if they’re on a toolbox (I bet you don’t hear that said very often!).

This is another toolbox that I brought home from the Habitat for Humanity ReStore.

Full disclosure, I actually finished this project before I left for Florida but I didn’t have time to photograph it to share with you guys.

Suffice to say, I gave this my usual prep treatment; I scrubbed it with Dawn, gave it a light scuff sanding, and followed that up with a coat of Dixie Belle’s Bonding Boss.

Next up I painted the inside in Dixie Belle’s Apricot, followed by a coat of their flat clear coat.

I followed that up with two coats of Dixie Belle’s Caviar on the outside.

I then added some florals from the I.O.D. Saint Germain transfer and the gold typography from the Queen’s Glory transfer from re.design with prima.

Once the florals were in place, I added a coat of Dixie Belle’s clear wax to protect them.

Now, you might be feeling a bit of déjà vu right now. That’s because this is almost exactly the same as another toolbox that I painted back in October.

Except that one had an interior painted in Dixie Belle’s Cottage Door, and I did flip the florals upside down too. That first one ended up selling at my fall occasional sale, so I never brought it into the shop.

Since I had more of the same transfers that I used on that first one, I decided to go ahead and recreate the look once more.

This time it did make it into the shop, so if any of you locals are in need of a toolbox be sure to head into Reclaiming Beautiful in Stillwater this weekend (the shop is open Thursday – Saturday).