Month: February 2016

Do any of you remember my post about the dresser that my friend Terri gave me?  I titled the post “another one bites the dust” and then went on to tell about how her uncle had died and left a house full of vintage goodies behind.  The title of the post referred to one of my Christmas ornaments that rolled off the dresser while I was taking pictures and bit the dust.  It never even occurred to me as I was writing the post that it might seem like the title referred to Terri’s uncle!

Duh!  Sometimes I’m a little dense that way.  But a number of you noticed it and commented.  Luckily Terri saw the comedy in the situation and didn’t take it the wrong way.

This is especially lucky because when she came to my hatbox party this past weekend she gifted me with a few more goodies from her uncle’s house including a haunted typewriter!

Why haunted?  This fabulous little blue Royal typewriter came in a case.  When Terri opened the case she found that there was a piece of paper in the typewriter and here is what it said …

(insert creepy soundtrack music here)

No lie people!  I think Uncle Don left us a message from the grave.

But I don’t care if this baby is the veritable Ouija board of typewriters …

it’s perfect in my eyes.

This is actually typewriter no. 2 from the uncle’s house.  You’ve already seen the first one, this sweet little ivory colored Remington …

The Remington also came in a case and when Terri first told me about it she said she thought it was blue.  I swooned a little when she said that because as you may know pale 50’s aqua blue is ‘my color’.  When I opened the case and found the ivory typewriter I’ll admit that I was a little disappointed.  The feeling didn’t last long though, because this is a pretty sweet typewriter in its own right.

So when Terri showed up on Saturday with another typewriter from Uncle Don’s house, and this time it really was blue, well, I couldn’t have been more tickled.

And then to make it even more fabulous, she also gave me Uncle Don’s old camera!

The Spartus Full-Vue will join his brethren in my non-collection of vintage cameras.

Uncle Don may be ‘gone’, but his fabulous things will live on under my care.  Thanks a million Terri!

Check back on Wednesday for a synopsis of the hatbox party, which was great fun.  I’m also nearly done with a fab antique dresser, so I hope to be posting about that at the end of the week.  Stay tuned!

It seemed like an appropriate choice to celebrate Mr. Q’s birthday at the Minnesota History Center’s Suburbia exhibit this year along with my sister and my niece.  After all, this exhibit begins with an exploration of the post-WWII building boom and the birth of the suburb.  OK, that era pre-dates Mr. Q just a tad, but he and I (and my sister as well of course) are not far behind that at the tail end of the baby boomers.  We didn’t find the first segment of the exhibit all that exciting, it was slightly interesting in a school history lesson sort of way.  But the next section of the exhibit, Living in Suburbia, was more fun for us.  Well, most of us.  I think my niece was bored throughout the entire thing.  But since the rest of us grew up in the 60’s and 70’s, many of the articles on display here really spoke to us.

Like this ranch style kitchen …

Both my sister and I spotted these chrome cannisters straight off.  Not only did my mom have a set of these, but she passed it on to my sister who has them still.

In fact, wait a minute … I have photographic evidence.  Here is my mom circa 1961 (I’m pretty sure she is pregnant with my sister in this photo) and there are her canisters.  At first glance it appears as though she had quite a few more than the History Center’s set, but I think that’s just a reflection in the matching chrome bread box (where obviously we kept the Wonder Bread!).

And here is Debbie now, channeling her inner Vanna White …

Do any of the rest of you remember when freezers where this size and you had to defrost them regularly?  I know new neighbor Karen does, because for her it was just two months ago (she’s almost done with a major kitchen remodel).

I loved this display of vintage bar-ware.

Have you ever heard of a wall mounted refrigerator?

Yep, that’s a fridge.  I guess they never became popular, but I bet there were plenty of people who just had to have them at the time.

This display totally cracked me up …

Do you know what this bowl of keys refers to?  Here’s a hint …

I’m fairly certain that my parents never participated in any “key” parties, but then again, who knows?  Do you think I should ask my mom now?

Leaving the ranch style home exhibit we were able to hop into the station wagon and head over the the last section of the exhibit.

Honestly just sitting in this car was a blast from the past.  Cars without seat belts?  A bench seat?  Windows that had to be rolled up and down?

Shopping in Suburbia, the last segment of the exhibit, focused on the advent of the shopping mall.  For those of you that are not from around here, did you know that the first fully enclosed shopping center was right here in Minnesota?  It makes complete sense considering our climate, right?  This was a no-brainer.  Southdale Shopping Center opened in 1956 and was developed by the Dayton Company.  I bet I’m not the only Minnesotan who still misses Dayton’s Jubilee Sale, am I?  Also, did you know that the Dayton’s also opened the first Target store in Roseville in 1962?  Target was intended to be the ‘discount version’ of Dayton’s.

When was the last time you saw a woman dressed up like this for shopping at the mall?

The coolest part of this exhibit for us was the drag and drop multi-media table.  It featured aerial photos of six shopping malls in the Twin Cities area dating from when they were first developed to the present day.  You could zoom in, zoom out, move sideways, all while also moving the timeline from then until now.  What made this especially interesting for us is that our house isn’t all that far from Maplewood Mall, which was one of the six shopping centers included.  We were able to manipulate the images to show our house from way back in the early 1900’s up until now.  In the earliest photos our house is the only one standing.  For those of you who don’t already know this, Mr. Q and I live in a 1904 farmhouse that has since been swallowed up by suburbia.  Now our neighborhood consists of 50’s and 60’s ranch style houses with a few 70’s split levels thrown in for good measure, plus our 1904 farmhouse.

I thought this display as you’re leaving the exhibit was terribly clever.

What a great way to raise extra funds.  I think there might be just a few more no’s than yes’s.  What’s your answer?  Is suburbia your American dream?

By the way, the Suburbia exhibit is just one of many exhibits at the History Center.  While there, I had to make sure that my niece experienced the tornado in the weather exhibit, which is one of the permanent exhibits.  The tornado alarm goes off and everyone heads to the ‘basement’ which has been recreated based on a typical 1960’s home.  You hunker down in the basement and listen to news reports of the oncoming storm.  You watch the sky turn orange and then green through one of those tiny basement windows typical of back then.  The wind picks up, the power goes out, a tree falls outside the window, you can hear things crashing around upstairs and the whole room vibrates with the power of the tornado.  Once the storm passes the vintage TV comes back on and shows actual footage from a series of tornadoes that struck in Fridley, MN in 1965.  It’s really well done and a good reminder of how dangerous nature can be.

My sister was fascinated by the small exhibit on the collapse of the 35W bridge in 2007.  I am sure that every single Minnesotan remembers that day, and I bet that each one of us had at least one (if not more) friend or family member that we knew commuted across that bridge that time of day.  For me it was my bff, Vonda.  I was so relieved when I called her and she told me she hadn’t been on the bridge at that time.  Ironically, in 2007 my sister still lived in New Jersey of course, and she was the one who called me about the bridge collapse.  I was out in the driveway washing my car.  I still remember her calling and asking me if I had heard about it.  I hadn’t, so she’d learned of it before me!

If you are local, you should consider a trip to the History Center.  Just for the record, I am not affiliated with the History Center in any way and I am not being compensated for this post.  I paid my $12 to get in just like everyone else (except members, who get in for free I believe).

Well, that’s enough history for today.  Let’s look forward to what’s coming up soon here on q is for quandie.

My hatbox party is tomorrow!  I’ve been cranking out hatboxes right and left.  I wanted to be sure that I had a good handle on how the Fusion transfer gel works so I made up a few more hatboxes.  Sure enough, it worked great on light colors.  I even got better results with my Paris opera graphic on this one.

I wish I could tell you that it worked on the black hatboxes too, but I could not get it to work using pale grey printed graphics.  I tried it 4 times and each one was a fail.  Maybe I’m doing it wrong.  Maybe the graphic I chose doesn’t work with pale ink?  I even tried it on both black chalkboard paint and Fusion’s black paint.  I’m not really sure what the deal is, but FYI, I couldn’t get it to work.

Also, I discovered that the Graphics Fairy has a whole bunch of mirror image graphics that are perfect for the hatboxes (or any other transfer image projects).  If you don’t already know about the Graphics Fairy, be sure to check that out here.  This fab graphic is from her site …

As is the one on the front of this box.

Meanwhile, even though I haven’t been painting any furniture lately, I’ve been picking up furniture right and left.  I plan to get started painting some on Sunday.  I’m going to begin with the piece that I picked out for the Rachel Ashwell Shabby Chic paint and the vintage wallpaper from Hannah’s Treasures.

I have gone around and around on this project.  I felt like I needed to have just the right piece for this paint.  Not because the paint isn’t versatile, but because I wanted the piece to be worthy of THE Rachel Ashwell paint.  I was originally going to paint the armoire in my own bedroom, but in the end I just wasn’t feeling it.

Then I brought home another gorgeous dresser that I was sure would get the Rachel paint.  But in the end I decided that milk paint would be better for that one.

But now I have the perfect piece.  A lovely linen press that Mr. Q picked up for me.  I paid a little more than usual for it, but I think it will have been worth it.  The planned treatment for it is very similar to this linen press that I painted way back in June 2014 …

So stay tuned, I hope to have it posted here soon!

If you’ve read my blog for any length of time you might know that I tend to insist that I am not a ‘collector’, which frankly is total crap.  The true story is that I am in denial.

I do have one basic rule about collecting though, which is that I never spend a lot of money on my ‘collectibles’.  OK, no, I don’t always stick to the rule either.  But I have been around the block enough times to know that I will grow tired of my collection at some point and by then no one else will really want it either.  It’s highly unlikely that I will ever get any money back out of it.

Case in point, my chintzware collection.  Vintage chintzware saw a resurgence in the 80’s and 90’s.  I loved it at the time and I purchased it whenever I found it.  But over the past several years I’ve moved away from the flowery-ness of it.  So now I’ve sold most of it.

Even though many of my pieces had been purchased at garage sales, there were a few that I paid top dollar for at shops or online.  I know I didn’t get my money back out of those and that taught me a valuable lesson; collectibles go out of style and lose their value.  Usually right about the same time that you get tired of them, everyone else does too.

Or maybe that’s just me?  What can I say, I am highly influenced by trends.

So when I collect things it’s just because I love them, not because I think they’ll be valuable one day.  Which brings me to my latest collection, vintage suitcases.

I just added a new one.  I recently stopped into La Garage on my lunch hour and purchased this for $23.50.

I loved the camel color leather trim and handle.  Plus the fact that it’s called the “Travel Joy” doesn’t hurt either!

I’ve mentioned La Garage before, it’s a shop just a few blocks away from me (in No St Paul) that buys out estates.  So it’s like an estate sale in a shop.  Their furniture is always priced too high for me to buy it, paint it, and resell it ($269 for a dresser).  But the pieces they have are all in great shape and don’t appear to need repairs or refinishing.  If you like unpainted vintage pieces, La Garage might be a great resource for you.

Although it’s lower than what you might pay in a vintage shop, the $23.50 is a bit on the high end of what I normally pay for a vintage suitcase.  For example, sometimes I get really lucky and find a stash of vintage cases at a garage sale for $2 to $3 each.

In the past several people have asked me where I find all of my vintage suitcases.  In addition to La Garage and garage sales, I’ve also found a few nice ones at occasional sales like this pair that I purchased for $12 each last summer.

Currently I am stacking all of my vintage cases next to the Welsh cupboard in my dining room.  The stack is growing!

So, in case you are keeping track, although I’m not really a collector, besides vintage suitcases I also don’t really collect ironstone …

tiny dressers …

vintage alarm clocks …

vintage cameras …

blue bird china …

oh, and let’s not forget the vintage Christmas ornaments …

Good grief!  Maybe I need a 12-step program after all.

How about you, do you ‘not really’ collect anything?

So, here it is Friday and I got nothin’ to blog about.  Yikes!  Usually I am overflowing with stuff to post about.  But somehow, despite the fact that I had a four day weekend last weekend, I haven’t managed to actually complete a project (aside from my squarely modern chair) and get pictures of it in time for today’s post.  I didn’t want to leave you all hanging on a Friday though, so I thought I’d share some pictures of the hatbox kits that are all ready to be popped in the mail for the two lucky winners, Wendy & Lori.

They will each get a hatbox, instructions for how to dress it up and a selection of reverse images to transfer.

They’ll get the two colors of Fusion paint, plus a jar of Fusion’s Transfer Gel …

While I was picking up the hatboxes at Hobby Lobby I came across these funky mounted deer heads and I couldn’t resist them.  So I threw one in each kit.

Wendy and Lori can paint them however they like.

By the way, if you are considering making a hatbox of your own, they are on sale through tomorrow at Hobby Lobby for 50% off.  It’s a great time to stock up!  If you would like a copy of my instructions, leave me a comment and I will email them to you.

Since hatboxes were on sale, I bought a few extra myself and tried a couple of different looks.

I had seen a black hatbox on pinterest that I really liked, so I painted one in black chalkboard paint.  I added the wording using stencils.  I’m not sure whether or not the transfer method would work on black.  Maybe if you printed something in a pale grey ink?  I may have to experiment with that a little.

If you look closely at the smaller hatbox (which is painted in Fusion’s Cathedral Taupe by the way) you can see that my transfer didn’t work so well towards the bottom.  That was my fault, I scrubbed a little too hard while removing the paper and ended up removing ink as well.  This can happen, especially with a more detailed/delicate graphic, so use caution if you are trying this yourself.  Personally I like a distressed look, so I’m OK with it.

While I had my paint out, I painted up a bunch of tiny boxes for my upcoming party.  I’ll go ahead and finish these through letting the transfers dry and then my guests can practice removing the paper.

I’ve got a lot on my plate this weekend including a trip to the Minnesota History Center with my sister and niece to see their Suburbia exhibit.

We’ll also be celebrating Mr. Q’s birthday!

So I’m just warning you, I may not have anything worthwhile to post next week either.  But stay tuned, I have a couple of great pieces of furniture coming up soon!

Before I get on with today’s post, I want to congratulate Wendy and Lori, the winners of the hatbox kits.  I have sent them both emails and will be sending out their hatbox kits later this week.

Now, let’s talk craigslist.  Usually I am just looking for furniture on craigslist, but lately there have been slim ‘pickins.  The pieces that I like are priced too high, and the pieces at decent prices are just not worthy of a makeover.  So in a moment of desperation last week I decided to troll the ‘antiques’ section.  I usually avoid that category because I find that most people who have ‘antiques’ want big bucks for them.

I was just quickly scrolling through the ads when a photo of this caught my eye.

It’s a little ironstone covered soap dish.  I have been looking for one of these for more than a year now!  I’ve wanted one to store my Miss Mustard Seed brush soap next to my kitchen sink.  You know you clean a lot of paintbrushes when you need to keep your brush soap this handy.  And when I say “looking for”, what I really mean is that I keep an eye out for them when I happen to be in an antique store or vintage shop, and I would snatch it up if I happened to see it at a garage sale (obviously this hasn’t happened).  It also means that I’ve looked at them on Etsy, where they tend to be priced around $50 plus shipping.  In other words, way out of my price range.

This one was $12.  I should point out that it does not have the strainer inside for keeping the soap dry, which can bump up the price.  I saw a really lovely one with a strainer on Etsy for $68.  Yikes!

So clearly I was super excited when I saw it and immediately made arrangements to pick it up.  The seller was located in the Bryn Mawr neighborhood of Minneapolis, one of my favorite garage sale neighborhoods.  For even more fun, he said he had a few other pieces for sale as well.

Mr. Q and I drove out last Friday evening and when all was said and done, I came home with all of this (plus one more item I’m saving for last).

The most expensive piece was the little covered casserole in the back at $36.  But isn’t it sweet?

I couldn’t resist it.  It has such beautiful details on the handles and the shape is unique.  Speaking of beautiful details …

This brown transferware teapot was a super bargain at a mere $5.  But, there was a reason for that, it has a large crack in it.

This poor teapot will never hold water again.  There is a trick to using pieces like this as vases though, just put a smaller watertight container inside.  It’s also suitable for display of course.  And I just happened to already have the matching creamer …

The gentleman who was selling these was very knowledgeable about antique china.  He said that he acquired his first ironstone platter when he was 5 years old!  He had some really lovely antiques in his home as well.  I was seriously coveting some beautiful small oil paintings that he had on the walls, and Mr. Q really enjoyed seeing an amazing antique clock that had all wooden parts except for one brass gear.

As we were getting ready to leave, he showed us a couple of other transferware pieces that he had in his dining room.  While standing there, a piece that he had in his china cabinet totally caught my eye.  Those of you who know me by now won’t be at all surprised when you see what is was!

A teeny tiny soup tureen.  Complete with a teeny tiny ladle.  Good grief, that thing was calling my name.  So based on my ‘it never hurts to ask’ philosophy I asked if he would consider selling it.  Sure enough, he was game!

And it looks right at home on one of my tiny dressers, don’t you think?  The thing is only about 4″ tall.

So, all in all I ended up with some pretty fab finds from that craigslist ad.  How about you?  What’s the most fab thing you’ve ever purchased on craigslist?

Sometimes I find inspiration in the most unexpected places.  This time it struck while watching a movie.  Cuba starring Sean Connery came out in 1979, but it’s set in the late 50’s.

There is a scene in the movie where one of the characters fills a suitcase with money in anticipation of fleeing the country after the fall of the Batista regime.  Ding, ding, ding!  Fabulous black and white vintage suitcase!  My eye went straight for it.

I just love the graphic punch of black and white, as evidenced by my front porch floor.

Or this mid-mod bureau that I painted last summer …

Seeing that black and white suitcase in the movie reminded me that I’ve had a couple of hard sided vintage suitcases lying around for a while.  One of them is Uncle Leon’s suitcase that I picked up at the Nokomis neighborhood garage sales last summer.

The other is a thrift store find.

There are a lot of vintage suitcases that I wouldn’t dream of painting, but I’m not a big fan of these marble-ish finishes.

So I pulled out some chalk paint in black (Cece Caldwell’s Beckley Coal) and white (Annie Sloan’s Old White), some frog tape and some stencils and got to work.

I have no idea what the material is that this particular style of suitcase is made out of (do any of you know?), they certainly aren’t leather or cardboard.  I’m fairly sure the edges are some sort of rubber or plastic maybe.  Despite not knowing what this material is, I still follow my usual m.o. for painting them.  I sand them down a bit to rough up the surface so paint will adhere better, then I wipe them down with TSP substitute to remove surface grime and oils.  I have painted this type of suitcase with milk paint and with Fusion paint, both of which worked great.  This time I used chalk paint.  If you’re going to use tape to make a clean line (like I did on these) I would say stick with either Fusion or chalk paint.  The milk paint is going to be a bit too thin for a crisp line, and your tape is going to pull paint off.  I used the yellow frog tape for these (the one meant for delicate surfaces).  I removed it carefully shortly after painting the second coat of paint and I had no problems with paint lifting off.

The first case I worked on most closely resembles the suitcase in the movie (it was black with a wide white stripe down the middle).  I painted this one black first, then measured off my white stripe, taped it off and painted three coats of white.

I added a subtle extra detail with some stencils.

I changed up the stencil on the reverse side of the suitcase.

I used the wet paper towel method of distressing on the edges, handles and hardware.  Have you tried that with chalk paint?  Rather then using sandpaper and getting a rough effect on those rubber/plastic/whatever they are edges, I used a damp paper towel and just rubbed paint off.  It worked great on these!

The fact that you can wipe the paint right off with a damp paper towel suggests that you really do need a top coat over the chalk paint.  I used clear wax on these, and I have to admit it got a little tricky.  The wax picks up some of the paint, so I had to be very careful not to get black paint onto my white areas.  I used separate rags for waxing the black and white areas.

Just to be clear, I never intend for these suitcase to be functional as suitcases.  They are really just for decor purposes only.  Despite a wax top coat, if you tried to send one of these through the baggage system at your local airport it would come out much worse for the wear. They will get dinged up.

The second case got a little different black and white treatment, and I used my new Jardin de Fleurs stencil on it (by the way, are you keeping track?  This is the 3rd use of the stencil so far).

I really can’t decide which suitcase I like best, can you?

I love that Jardin de Fleurs stencil, but I also think the striped suitcase looks more authentically vintage.

They kind of make a great pair.  Don’t they?

These guys need to find a new home, so if you are local (sorry, no shipping available) and interested in purchasing them just leave a comment and I’ll get back to you with the details.

Each year St. Paul hosts a winter carnival.  I’m pretty sure it was started just to prove that Minnesotans are tough and that we laugh in the face of winter.  The carnival has been taking place since 1886 and is the oldest winter festival in the United States.

Back in the early days they built amazing ice palaces as part of the festivities such as this one from 1888.

Even as late as 1941 the palaces were pretty extravagant.

Unfortunately they no longer make anything like this.  The last time we had a decently sized ice palace was 2004.

It was large, but certainly not as elaborate as some of those earlier models (I’m betting that there are more safety regulations these days!).  Mr. Q and I did go see it that year along with about a bazillion other people.

This year since my sister and my niece are new to Minnesota they decided it would be fun to visit the winter carnival.  So last Saturday we headed into St. Paul to check it out.

To be honest, this year’s ‘mini ice palace’ was looking pretty sad by the time we saw it.  I didn’t even take any photos it was so pathetic.  I did get a couple of photos of some ice sculptures though.

As a special bonus, we got to see a marriage proposal taking place in front of one of the ice sculptures.  It was pretty sweet.

There is a fake legend that goes along with the winter carnival (you can read the full story here).  The legend says that on the last day of the festivities Vulcanus Rex and his Krewe storm the ice palace and force King Boreas to give up his icy hold over his winter capital.  Thus there is a Vulcan Victory Torchlight Parade on the final day.

Back in the day the Vulcan Krewe would kiss the girls along the parade route leaving smears of black grease paint on their face, but that custom has been toned down.  These days they just use a grease paint crayon to leave their mark.  I warned my niece Kris that pretty girls were obvious targets!

Hail the Vulc!

By the way, are you wondering what appropriate attire is for a winter carnival?

Down parkas of course!

Here’s hoping the Vulc’s have done their job properly and booted King Boreas off his throne!  I am ready for a little less winter, how about you?