It seems hard to believe that just a couple of weeks ago we had blizzard conditions. But then spring seemingly arrived overnight, which is typical here in Minnesota.
And that means my other two favorite seasons have finally arrived as well.
Gardening season and neighborhood garage sale season!
This weekend my sister and I are heading to both the Tangletown neighborhood sales and one of my favorites, Bryn Mawr. Keep your fingers crossed that we find lots of goodies.
But first, to get in the spirit of things I pulled out a couple of garden themed garage sale finds from last summer to give them a quick makeover.
Normally I don’t paint my galvanized watering cans, but this one had a bunch of orange paint spilled on it that was not very attractive. And the tall metal flower bucket was just not quite doing it for me in a dry brushed red.
The flower bucket got three coats of Miss Mustard Seed milk paint in Linen. Once dry, I sanded it to distress and then added one of the Iron Orchid Designs ‘French Pots V’ transfers. Once that was in place I very lightly waxed the entire thing with Miss Mustard Seed clear furniture wax.
Although I did wash both the bucket and the watering can with soapy water, I did not sand them at all prior to painting. I find that milk paint tends to adhere well to galvanized metal pieces liked these that have a dull finish.
The watering can got two coats of Miss Mustard Seed milk paint in Flow Blue. Then I also sanded it to distress and added a coat of Miss Mustard Seed clear wax to bring out the richness of that gorgeous blue.
By the way, I went with Flow Blue because I had a bit of it left over from painting the desk I shared on Monday.
Remember I said that all I bought at Junk Bonanza were some magazines?
One of them was the new Flea Market Style gardens issue.
If you enjoy adding junk-tastic finds to your gardens, you should be sure to pick up this issue. It’s pretty fab.
It’s still too early to actually start planting here in Minnesota, and not much is up in the garden yet. However, I have plenty of scilla in my gardens. Scilla is a tiny bulb and it’s always one of the first things to come up and start blooming here. It will even fight its way through the snow if necessary. It multiplies rapidly, deer and other critters won’t eat it, and it can withstand very cold winters.
However, as with all things, there are two camps of thought on that. What sound like great qualities to me are exactly the qualities that others say are bad. They consider scilla to be a invasive pest, taking over areas where native wildflowers once flourished and becoming impossible to control.
I’m kind of bummed that I even came across that info online, because I love seeing the scilla come up every spring as the first sign of life in the garden. Now I’ll just feel a little bit guilty about enjoying it every year.
By the way, I added that graphic to the clay pot using Fusion’s transfer gel. I don’t think I ever blogged about that, or if I did I can’t find it now (which is why that ‘how to’ page is going to be so handy!)
So, how about you? Are you excited about gardening/garage sale season? Got any great neighborhood sales near you this weekend?
q is for quandie 
Such pretty photos, so well styled. Your blog is definitely my favorite shelter mag.
I really like the Scilla. How long have you have yours? I have a fondness for blue and purple flowers.
I am missing the garage sales. We are currently at Fripp Island for 3 weeks while my husband works on a beach house. I am looking forward to gardening once we return.
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I have two colors of the scilla, the white was actually in the garden when we bought our house (29 years ago!), I planted the blue probably 6 or 7 years ago. I wonder how well it grows in your climate, maybe it would take over like Kudzu! Fripp Island for 3 weeks sounds pretty fab. Worth giving up gardening for 😉
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I love gardening and I am an avid gardener! I love this time of year when everything begins to bloom. I used Some of the IOD small transfers last year on some clay pots and they turned out FAB! I didn’t realize that milk paint adhered so well to metal. another fun project for this summer. I would love to know how you transferred with Fusion. I guess I had better go to the “How To,” page. Thanks Linda for all of the great info. I am praying that you find some awesome pieces to shared with all of us. 😊
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As long as it’s not a shiny, glossy metal then yes, milk paint does adhere well. And I’ll be sure to get a how to on using Fusion to transfer graphics onto my ‘how to’ page asap 🙂
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Enjoying your pretty pictures with my morning coffee. Thank you! Thanks also for all the tips on the transfers / where to buy, etc. Scrapbook.com was a great resource and I bought some pot transfers, as well, to practice on before trying on a larger piece. Just need to get to the nursery to pick up some lavender to fill them. Happy treasure hunting!
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It’s the perfect idea to try out the transfers on some pots first!
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I love the color combination in this arrangement. Is the stool also Flow Blue?
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It is. I painted that stool shortly after I came back from my trip to Norway last year. I was inspired by all of the beautiful shades of blue I saw there! Thanks Goedele 🙂
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We were going to do some traveling this summer, so I thought I would not plant my planters this year. But, God had other plans and now we will be staying home for treatments for a medical condition my husband has. It’s always something, right? But you have inspired me to jump in with both feet…back to gardening and painting garage sale finds. I love that blue watering can you painted! Incredibly cute.
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I hear that Sugar! Mr. Q and I were hoping to do another big trip this year. We have the money built up in the travel fund for one, so we started looking. We picked out an amazing trip to England and Ireland and were seconds away from booking it when we realized Mr. Q had some weddings scheduled during that time frame. From there we went through four more potential trips and each one fell through for one reason or another. After strike 5 we decided maybe it just wasn’t meant to be this year. So I’m consoling myself with focusing on gardening this summer! I’m putting a little more effort into my planters and maybe will do a couple of other outside projects too. I say let’s enjoy the gardening and a summer at home, and I hope your husband does well with his treatments!
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