I’ve posted before about the Trash to Treasure day hosted by a neighboring town, White Bear Lake. Basically the home owners in WBL can put things that they want to discard at the curb, and the rest of us can drive around and take anything that catches our fancy.
I’ve found a few fun things there over the years including my concrete Japanese lantern.
I gave it a bronze metal makeover last year, and it still looks great in my garden.
I often even find a couple of decent pieces of furniture. I brought this washstand home for a makeover back in 2021.
I did check out this year’s Trash to Treasure day back in April, and I brought home a small pile of goodies. However, I didn’t get a photo of my haul because it was raining for most of the day. So I tucked it all away in the carriage house thinking I’d pull it out later and get a photo.
Yeah, that didn’t happen.
But as time goes by, and I give the items some much needed makeovers, I’ll be sure to share them here on the blog starting with today’s project.
This large wooden tote was sitting at the curb filled with plastic pots and other junk. It was half full of rain and quite bedraggled. But I sensed some potential.
After bringing it home, I gave it a good scrubbing with some hot soapy water and then hosed it down. I left it out in the sunshine to dry out. Once dry, I gave it two coats of Dixie Belle’s Caviar. Once the paint was dry, I sanded the entire piece to distress it.
Next up I pulled out my Garden Herbs stencil. I first stenciled ‘Garden Herbs’ and the herb names in DB’s Dried Sage. Then I shifted my stencil up and over just a tiny bit and stenciled ‘Garden Herbs’ again in DB’s Drop Cloth, thus creating a bit of a shadow behind those words.
I finished it all off with a topcoat of Dixie Belle’s Big Mama’s Butta which really brings out the deep rich color of the Caviar.
The tote is quite large at 24″ by 18″, and it’s also a bit heavy. So it wouldn’t be practical to use for actually toting things around the garden.
But wouldn’t it be fab for your potting shed? You could fill it with gardening books, or magazines, or just empty clay pots and vintage garden tools.
Of course, you could also fill it with potted herbs and put it outside, but since it’s made of plywood, it wouldn’t hold up forever. But then again, who needs it to last forever? Isn’t it kind of fun to have pieces like this that last for two or three years and then you move on to something else? Or is that just me? I would recommend drilling some drainage holes in the bottom if you were going to go that route.
This tote is headed to the pile of merch that I’m accumulating for my upcoming sale. Locals, don’t forget, save the date for June 21 and 22!
Thank you to Dixie Belle Paint Co. for supplying the paint and topcoat for this makeover.