the flowering roots toolbox.

Published on by Quandie

Speaking of yellow flowers (which I did in this past Sunday’s garden post), not only do I not typically plant them in my garden, I also don’t usually gravitate towards them for my toolbox makeovers.

One exception was the tackle box I did back in May using just the yellow roses from I.O.D.’s Botanical Roses.

In all honesty, I only did that because at the time I only had a bunch of yellow roses left over and I wanted to use them on something.

Another exception would be the Fresh as a Daisy lockbox that I did back in 2024.

Usually I lean more towards pretty pink florals though.

But I recently ordered the I.O.D. Sarah Featon’s Botanicals transfer, and as it turns out it features quite a few flowers with yellow in them, so once again I found myself using yellow flowers.

Let’s start with a before photo of the toolbox in question.

This was one of my finds at the South St. Paul city wide garage sales.

It was in pretty rough shape with plenty of dirt and some rust.  I began by using a razor blade to remove that “Craftsman’ label which was basically just a decal.  I then gave it a good scrub with some Dawn dish soap.  After using a hammer to pound out a couple of dents, I used 150 grit sandpaper and my Mouse sander to give it a good once over.  I then rinsed it off with the garden hose and left it to dry.

Once dry I gave it two coats of Rust-Oleum’s spray satin sealer.  This seems to work just as well as the Dixie Belle Bonding Boss that I usually use, but it’s much quicker.  Plus, I accidentally bought three cans of the stuff in the satin sheen by mistake (I meant to buy the matte version) and I was too lazy to return them.  So now I want to use them up.

Next up, I painted the interior in Dixie Belle’s Holy Guacamole.

This color is the perfect 70’s avocado green and I tend to use it a lot inside my toolboxes.

Next I painted the exterior of the toolbox in Dixie Belle’s Ecru.  This color is from their new Southern Roots collection and is a lovely very warm, nearly beige, white.

Then I pulled out that Sarah Featon’s Botanicals transfer and started adding florals.

I started with a couple of the larger ones, and then used smaller ones to fill in.

The transfer set does have flowers in other colors, but I chose to stick with mainly yellow and white, with just a little bit of pink.

Finally I pulled out the typography from an old re.design with prima transfer called Seeds.  One of my readers sent this to me a while back, thanks again for that Monica.

It just happened to fit perfectly across the toolbox.

As one final touch, I added a butterfly from the I.O.D. Saint Germain transfer.

He had the perfect coloring to work with the Sarah Featon’s Botanicals.

I finished off the exterior of the toolbox with some of Dixie Belle’s clear wax, and I used their flat clear coat to protect the Holy Guacamole interior.

This toolbox is for sale locally, so be sure to check my ‘available for local sale‘ page for more details.

20 thoughts on “the flowering roots toolbox.”

  1. I never tire of your toolbox makeovers!! I made 2 of them so far and am in the process of creating a third one. Your creativity is amazing and you inspire me to use my IOD products.

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  5. I love this box!! I love the color inside and the IOD transfer is awesome. The butterfly is beautiful ❤️ Wish I was closer!

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  6. Greetings from Duluth ! I love to see your toolbox rehabs. I’ve only done one, this past Christmas, but have a stack in my garage now. And one beautiful yellow tackle box—I couldn’t drill the rivets of the inner trays out no matter how much I tried but my neighbor did it very quickly for me. We can call him “Northern Ken.”

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    1. LOL, yay! I’m glad you found a Northern Ken to get those out for you. I don’t know what I’ll do if my Ken ever moves away (he keeps threatening to do so this summer, he’s tired of doing yard work). I may have to come up to Duluth 😉

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  7. They’re all gorgeous! Yellow isn’t a color I use anywhere very often, but these prove that I need to start. I have another toolbox and two wooden boxes to do….at least one will be getting a yellow touch. Thank you for the inspiration to do so!

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  8. I love the wording “flowering roots” and the actual botanical look that the roots of the flowers give this toolbox makeover. I am not a big fan of daisies or yellow, but the overall combination works really well here. and I like the ecru color of the box. Thanks for verbalizing all the reasoning you use for various products because it helps when I am trying to decide what to use!

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