As my sister and I headed to Excelsior last Friday, I had to put blinders on in order to ignore all of the garage sale signs I passed along the way.

I know exactly what was happening.  People were looking at the weather forecast (sunny and a high of 83), and then looking at the calendar (the last weekend in September) and thinking ‘crap, this might be my last chance to have that garage sale I was planning for this summer’.

I can relate, can you?  I have a long list of things I meant to get to this summer.  Like washing the windows.  Still haven’t checked that one off the list, and here it is October already.

There was no time to stop on Friday though, so I ignored all of the signs.  But when I woke up early on Saturday, I texted my sister on an impulse and asked if she wanted to check out some random sales.  Luckily my sister is pretty much game for anything, even when I wake her up with a text a 7 a.m. on a Saturday.

So we headed out.  And I managed to fill up her SUV not just once, but twice.  The first couple of sales were just a block or two away from my house, so it was easy to come back and unload.

It was lucky we’d made space in the car, because when we headed back out again I found this fabulous mid-century dresser …

Honestly, I think it’s rather ugly right now, but it’s going to look great with a paint job.

I also found this fun bar cart …

and these two never would have fit in the car with all of that other stuff.

I’ve already done a makeover on the bucket I purchased in that first load.

That just involved giving it a good cleaning, and then adding a portion of the IOD Label Ephemera transfer.

And while I was at it, I had a couple other buckets I picked up recently, so they got the same treatment.

I’ve also made over the little egg crate …

Somehow I just wasn’t digging the color combo of the original red and black design, so I taped it off and painted it solid black using Dixie Belle’s Midnight Sky.

Then I pulled out some mini-stencils I ordered recently from Jami Ray Vintage.

I thought these would be fun to use on a variety of smaller projects.  I used Dixie Belle’s Putty to stencil just part of the Kroger stencil over the Midnight Sky.

These stencils are pretty adorable.  My only complaint is that they are a little thick at 15 ml.  I know it seems like thicker = better quality, but I find it easier to get a crisp finish with a thinner stencil.  Especially when the design itself is really small, like on the line that says ’98 lbs. when packed’.  It was hard to get paint in there without it getting blotchy.  The stencils from Maison de Stencils are 10 ml and I prefer working with that thickness.

That being said, I’m still sure I’ll get a lot of use out of these mini-stencils!

I also painted the handle on the box in Midnight Sky.  Isn’t it funny how such a simple change can make such a big difference?

And lastly, I lined the inside of the box with re.design with prima decoupage tissue in a pattern called Grid.

The black and white grid pattern worked perfectly.

Next week I’ll be sharing the makeovers on the bird cage, the bar cart and the mid-mod dresser, so be sure to stay tuned.  And in the meantime, have a great weekend!