cut and carry.

Published on by Quandie

Last summer I was at an estate sale and found a whole pile of old hand saws for sale.

Apparently I am just drawn to anything with a chippy painted finish, including old hand tools, because that red handled saw just jumped out at me.

My initial thought was “I bet that I could paint the other handles to look just as old as that red one using milk paint,”  sort of setting a little challenge for myself.  In my humble opinion, the greatest quality of milk paint is its ability to create an authentically aged looking finish.

Plus the price was right, so I bought them.

Next I dug out some Miss Mustard Seed milk paint in Boxwood (green), Tricycle (red) and Typewriter (black).  I mixed up just about a tablespoon of each color and I painted each handle a different color.  The Typewriter covered in one coat, but I needed two coats of the other colors.

Once dry, I sanded to distress them and then added a little bit of hemp oil as a top coat.

Now, you be the judge.  Here is the original finish on the red handled saw …

And here is the Boxwood milk paint finish …

Well, what do you think?  Does it look legit?

So now I’ve proven what you can do with milk paint, so what in the world am I going to do with old saws with Christmas colored handles?  Add stencils of course!

I used a stencil that I purchased from Etsy.  The entire stencil didn’t fit perfectly on each saw blade so I just used bits and pieces and fit them where they looked good.

I added some 3M Command Strips to the back of each saw so that they could be hung on the wall …

or perhaps attached to an outdoor window box?

The black handled saw ended up being my favorite, and it would have looked great in my black & white Christmas display.  But I ended up deciding to take them all in to Reclaiming Beautiful so see if anyone else wanted a Cut & Carry saw!

40 thoughts on “cut and carry.”

  2. As I started reading this morning’s blog, I asked myself what in the world you could possibly do with the saws. Ha! You are a genius. I wish I had your ability to see the what could be’s and your talent to make everything you do beautiful. Great job! I love the saws!

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  3. See? As I stated in my previous comment (I rarely leave comments), I always look forward to what’s in your blog post, because you come up with so many cool ideas, and this is a perfect example. Bet these will all sell quickly because they are so unique and so much fun! Love your creativity! Now I’ve got old saws on my mental list of what to pick up at garage sales…

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    1. So, funny story that I didn’t mention in the post, I had already passed up a selection of old handsaws a week earlier at another garage sale before I purchased these. I’d looked at them at the first sale and admired their pretty wooden handles and thought, whatever am I going to do with those? And I walked away from them. Then I was perusing pinterest a few days later and saw a saw (ha, saw a saw) that was painted in a similar fashion and thought, dang! I should have bought those saws after all. Sure enough, the following week I came across another pile of them at a sale. So, that’s the long way of saying yes, put them on your mental garage sale shopping list!

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  4. Wonderful use of something that easily could be tossed away without your vision. Love the saws and they make a great sign. Thanks for another inspiration you creative person you.

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    1. I get most of my creative ideas from other sources, pinterest, blogs, magazines, books, creative friends, etc, etc. The trick is to store them away in the back of your mind to use one day, and then actually remember them later 😉

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  6. Hi Quandie!

    Love the old saws! The milk paint is so legit! I can never find anything like that here. I believe when people move here (AZ) from your neck of the woods, they liquidate before the move and you get to scoop up the great finds!

    Love all your posts. J in AZ

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    1. Yes! The milk paint is legit! As for the rest of your comment, I think you’re absolutely right about people liquidating before they move to Arizona. Same with Las Vegas. My mom lives in Vegas, and I once tried garage saling when I was out there for a visit and it was slim pickin’s indeed. You can read about that experience here.

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  10. You are such a clever gal! These are darling. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a saw handle with carvings like those
    very interesting.

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  14. Gah, these are great! I love how even utilitarian pieces used to have beautiful details, something that is missing in the mass market. We cut our tree down every year, this would be a perfect way to pay tribute!

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    1. I believe that those beautiful details were all added by hand, and some of my research even showed that people custom made the handles to properly fit their own hand. Cool, right?

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  16. Love them ! I have a couple of old saws in the shed so guess what I’m going to do!! I don’t know if you are familiar with a designer here in the uk called Sarah Moore ? She is a lover of everything vintage, she also has tv show called Money for nothing where she upcycles discarded goods from the local tip and sells them. You can google her and she is on Pinterest as well. She recently found some saws and turned then into cheese boards and although they sound strange they were actually quite nice. X

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    1. I have not heard of Sarah Moore, but I’ll definitely check her out. I’m intrigued by the idea of saws turned into cheese boards! And I basically love UK television of any kind. Currently Mr. Q and I are binge watching MI-5, which I believe was called Spooks over there.

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  18. CUTE!!! Would be sweet on the side of my potting shed with a stack of wood near by or a cut tree leaning against the shed along with the saw. It does remind me of spoon carving! Great idea!
    Blessings

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