I’m pretty sure that ‘never say never’ should be my motto.

Having just celebrated my 60th birthday (good lord, how is that possible?), one thing that I know about myself is that I almost always change my mind about things over time.  I suddenly find myself liking something that I once thought would never appeal to me.

And that brings me to today’s project, another pair of ice skates.

This is not the pair that I asked you guys whether or not I should paint, this is another 80’s-ish pair of skates that my friend Sue found for me (probably at a garage sale, but I’m not 100% sure).  Sidebar; I decided not to paint that pair since I’m using them outside as winter decor (you’ll probably see them when I share some of my own holiday decorating in December).

Anyway, today’s skates were another pair that were a no-brainer for paint.  They were quite blah to begin with.

First up I pulled out the laces and tossed them.  They were pretty stained and I didn’t want to salvage them.  Next I cleaned up the skates with a damp cloth and then gave them a coat of Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth.

I knew I was going to use the holly and red berries from the Dixie Belle Evergreen and Holly transfer …

But I also decided to use up some bits and pieces from my scrap pile for the rest.

I just happened to have a couple of lines of script in gold in my stash, so I added those to the upper part of the skates next.  I also had the ‘$10’ and ‘$4’ in gold left over from re.design with prima’s Flower Collector transfer in gold.

I still had a little bit of empty space towards the front of the skates, so I pulled out an old re.design with prima transfer called Gilded Home & Nature which is just a bunch of random things in gold.

I was able to piecemeal a few things to add to the skates including some scrolly bits and the word ‘ROYAL’.

After all of the transfers were in place, I protected everything with a coat of clear wax.

Lastly, I originally intended to add some red velvet laces.  The skates have a fabulous red fabric lining, and I also wanted to play off those red berries.

But the red velvet ribbon I had on hand was too thick to fit through the grommets.

Then I remembered a pair of gold laces that I had removed from a pair of skates last year.

I really didn’t care for the sparkly gold look on that pair of skates.  I swapped them out for some alphabet twill ribbon, which worked much better.

And I very nearly threw those gold laces into the trash.

But at the last minute I decided to keep them because … well … never say never!

You just never know when you might really wish you had a pair of gold laces.

Having the gold transfers on the skates makes the gold laces really work here.

So if you’re someone who likes a bit of sparkle in your holiday decor, these are perfect.

I am tempted to say that the moral to this story is never throw anything away.  But I don’t really support that plan.  No one wants piles and piles of cast off bits and pieces everywhere.  But use your best judgement, you may find a use for those random scraps of gold lettering or that pair of gold laces.

I took this pair of skates into the shop, so if any of you locals are interested you could head in to Reclaiming Beautiful in Stillwater today to check them out.  As an added bonus, they are serving free mimosas this morning from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.  You gotta love a free mimosa!