Earlier this summer I picked up this black toolbox at a garage sale.

While giving it a good cleaning, I noticed that there was a pretty blue/green/grey color underneath that black paint.

So that inspired me to use one of the new Dixie Belle colors on the inside, Oxford Fog.  Since this color is from their Silk paint line and thus has a built in primer, I thought I could get away with skipping my usual Bonding Boss.

But I was wrong.  If you look closely in the photo above, you can see little pin points of rust bleeding through the paint.  See them?

So that’s just a heads up for you if you like to paint rusty metal, you’ll want to use the Bonding Boss to prevent that rust from bleeding through your paint, even when using the Silk paint with its built-in primer.

All is not lost at this point, I went back and applied a coat of the Bonding Boss over the Oxford Fog.  Keep this in mind if you ever run into a similar problem, you can apply Bonding Boss over a coat of paint, you’ll just have to add another coat of paint over it.

So I could have then added another coat of Oxford Fog over the Bonding Boss, but instead I decided to pivot.  I realized that this particular toolbox wax almost identical to one that I painted back in 2022.

Remember this one?

It’s one of my all-time favorites, and in fact I even kept it for myself and have since used it to display my vintage glass Christmas tree toppers.

I also found that I could still order both of the transfers that I used on it, the I.O.D. Cosette transfer for the wording and the Dixie Belle Evergreen and Holly transfer.  Both are older transfers, but I was easily able to find them online.

So I decided to simply copy my own work and make another one just like it.

It’s not an exact duplicate.  This toolbox has two latches rather than a single centered one like the first toolbox.  But otherwise they are pretty much the same.

I also switched up a couple of other elements.  The older toolbox was painted in Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth, this newer one is painted in Ecru.  The Drop Cloth definitely has more of a yellowish cast to it and you can really see that with them side by side.

I also opted for a different color on the inside.  The original toolbox has Dixie Belle’s Honky Tonk Red on the inside, and I painted over that Oxford Fog with Barn Red on the new one.

It’s a subtle difference, but the Honky Tonk Red (top toolbox) is a bit brighter than the Barn Red.

By the way, I’m not sure that you can really see it in this next photo, but the Bonding Boss did do its job and prevented the rust from bleeding thru that Barn Red.

For those of you who may not be familiar with this product, it’s a combination of two of Dixie Belle’s original products, Slick Stick and B.O.S.S.  The Slick Stick was a product that improved adhesion over slick surfaces, and the B.O.S.S. ‘blocks odors and stops stains’.  Now one product does all of that, the Bonding Boss.

There is one other significant difference between the two toolboxes, the first one had a tray that I painted up.

This newer one also came with a tray, but I didn’t bother with painting it.

That’s because I’m planning to keep this 2nd toolbox now.  Since I always used the previous one for those glass toppers, I didn’t have a use for the tray.  I suppose I could have come up with some sort of use for it, but I never did.  It really was just something I had to store somewhere while the rest of the toolbox was in use.

So now I plan to sell the original with the tray, and keep the 2nd one with no tray for myself.  I will definitely be pulling it out again this Christmas to display my toppers.

By the way, I fully realize that this is WAY too early to be sharing Christmas decor.  However, I plan to have some holiday merch at my upcoming occasional sale which is precisely one month away (Saturday, October 4).  So I am getting cracking on some things for that and I hope you’ll forgive me for the early holiday post.  But then again, this gives you guys plenty of time to order these transfers for yourself and make your own Christmas toolbox, so maybe early isn’t such a bad thing.

What do you think?