Author: Quandie

the farmer’s market island.

Published on by Quandie33 Comments

Late last winter I shared the story of the three pieces of furniture that I purchased from one of my readers, Mary.  I finished the first two pieces earlier this year but the third piece was hanging out in my carriage house waiting for some more significant repairs.

Specifically, one of the legs had broken off the dresser and a big chunk of it was missing.  I thought I had taken a great photo of the dresser in its initial ‘before’ state, but I can’t seem to find it anywhere.  Drat!

I did manage to get a photo of the repaired leg before I painted it though.

I have to tell you guys, when I first asked my handyman/neighbor Ken to take a look at this leg he gave me one of those looks.  You know the one, the look that says you’ve got to be kidding me.  But I had total faith that he could fix it and make it look like it was never even broken.

And I was right.  Basically Ken cut away the broken portion of the leg.  The he cut down and carved a new section of wood to match the shape of the original leg and glued it in place.  The man is basically a miracle worker.

Next I realized that a piece from the side of one of the lower drawers was cracked and had broken off.  We could have tried gluing that back together, but I don’t think it would have held up very well.  So I came up with plan B, remove the lower two drawers and add a shelf to the bottom instead.  Then the future owner could use baskets on that shelf instead of having drawers.

This involved another consultation with Ken, and a bit more work on his part, and here’s what I ended up with.

Ken removed the framework that was between the two bottom drawers, and he added a sturdier bottom ‘shelf’ made from the old bead boards from a ceiling that nnK tore out of her breezeway.  Try to imagine that there are two smaller drawers still in place at the top because those are going back in.

The next task was to strip the top using Citristrip.  That was easy enough.

Once I got that far, I was a little stumped about what color to paint the piece.  It had to be something that would work with the wood top and wood bottom shelf because I was leaving both of those unpainted.  I also wanted to use a contrasting color inside the bottom section.  I debated using green, or maybe aqua, or even just white.  But none of those choices felt right.

That’s when I decided to just go with what has become my favorite black, Dixie Belle’s Caviar.

And to brighten up the inside of the lower section, I painted it in Fusion’s Plaster.  I also painted the insides of the upper two drawers in the same color.

Then, while I had the Plaster out, I went ahead and used it to stencil ‘Farmers Market’ across the top two drawers.

It really wasn’t until this moment that I decided this piece would make an amazing kitchen island.  But for that it needed to have some sturdier updated casters so that it could be moved around in a kitchen.  The dresser had come with old wooden casters, but a couple of them no longer had the wooden wheel, just the metal framing for the caster.

So I removed all of them, but was unfortunately left with holes that were larger than the size of the new casters that I purchased at my local DIY store.

Once again, I called on Ken for assistance.  He filled the old holes using a dowel stick and lots of glue.  Once the dowel stick was in place, he cut it off even with the bottom of each leg.

Once the glue was dry, he drilled new holes of the correct size for the new casters.

Next I realized that I also needed to paint the back of the dresser if it was going to be used as an island floating in the middle of someone’s kitchen.  So I gave that a couple of coats of Dixie Belle’s Caviar too.

Finally I used Dixie Belle’s Easy Peasy spray on wax as a top coat over the paint.  I used Miss Mustard Seed hemp oil to freshen up the bead board lower shelf.  And I used Miss Mustard Seed Antiquing Wax on the dresser top.

You might now be rolling your eyes and asking yourself ‘why oh why does she use so many products?  couldn’t she have gotten by with just one?’  And the answer is yes, I could have.  I could have used the Antiquing wax for the entire piece.  It would have worked beautifully over the black paint, and it also would have freshened up the bead board nicely.  However, it would have required more elbow grease for both of those than the products I did use and I’m a fan of saving myself extra labor whenever possible.  So, three different topcoats it was.

So after many starts and stops and decisions along the way, the Farmers Market Island is finished!

And I absolutely love it!

My sister loved it too and is inspired to create a similar piece for her own kitchen.  I’ll be sure to share her project when she gets going on it.

In the meantime, if you are local and need a Farmers Market island be sure to check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page for more details!

P.S.  Be sure to let me know what you think of the results on this one Mary!

 

a quick Sunday post.

Published on by Quandie18 Comments

Hello everyone!  I hope you’re enjoying a lovely Sunday where you are.  Unfortunately it’s raining here in Minnesota, but I’m hoping it will clear up later because we’re headed out to a wienie roast for Mr. Q’s mom’s birthday.

You may remember that Mr. Q’s mom and step-dad’s workshop burned down back in February.  Well, I’m happy to report that they were able to replace it with a new pole barn.  It’s not going to have the same charm as the original workshop, but it will be just as functional if not more so.

Naomi and Tom are the type of people who always see the glass as half full, so they have pointed out that the new building is all on one floor which will make more sense for them as they get older.  The stairs in the old workshop were fairly steep and Naomi was already finding them challenging.

The new pole barn is nearing completion, so I’m looking forward to checking it out later today.

I’d like to take this opportunity to again thank all of you who helped support them during that difficult time with either a financial donation or just your thoughts and prayers.  It meant a lot to them, and they were able to use the money to replace some of Tom’s tools.  Although insurance did provide enough money to put up the pole barn, it will never pay to replace all of the tools that Tom lost.  So thank you for that!

In other news, I have drawn the names of all of the winners of the Prima Marketing transfers from my posts last week.  They are Cherie, Debbie, Jacqueline, Jill, Toia, Laura and Carolyn.  I’ve sent an email to each of the winners and all but one have gotten back to me.  So if you didn’t get an email, I’m sorry to say that you did not win.

Thank you so much for all of your comments on those posts!  I’m sorry I wasn’t able to respond personally to each one (and I also wish each one of you could have been a winner), but I did read and enjoy every single comment.  I also took the time to check out some of the blogs that you guys recommended on Friday.  There were a few that I already follow, and there were a few that were new to me and I’m looking forward to giving them a closer look.

A couple of people mentioned in comments that they didn’t receive an email notifying them of last Friday’s blog post until after the midnight deadline for the drawing.  That can be the result of the settings that they chose when they signed up to follow my blog via email.  If you are following via email you can choose to be notified about new posts immediately, daily or weekly.  If you want to change those settings you can do so by clicking on the word ‘manage’ in parentheses over on the right under ‘you are following this blog’. Next look for my blog listed under ‘followed sites’ and click on ‘settings’. You should be able to change that setting there.

Just for fun I thought I’d share where the garden beds from last Monday’s post ended up.  Susan, the buyer, was kind enough to share a photo of them in their new home with us!

I love that the room has a garden theme with the watering can and pots up on that shelf!

One last thing before I leave you today.  I don’t know if all of you know that I also produce a blog for Reclaiming Beautiful, the shop where I sell on consignment.

I usually only post once a month there, but during the month of June I posted every week to share a gorgeous wedding venue called Redeemed Farm.

This place was simply stunning.

If you haven’t seen those posts and you have some time on your hands you should head over to the Reclaiming Beautiful blog and check it out!

In the meantime, enjoy your Sunday.  I’ll be back tomorrow with another furniture makeover!

 

cupboard door upcycle.

Published on by Quandie72 Comments

One of my favorite things to do is to re-purpose an item that someone cast off.  It’s not the same as taking an old piece of furniture and fixing it up, making it prettier with paint so that someone can continue to use it as a dresser (although obviously I enjoy doing that too).  I’m talking about true upcycling, where you give something a new purpose (like turning a door into a Market sign for example).  There is just something really satisfying about it.

After purchasing this pair of old cupboard doors at the Tangletown garage sales, I decided to do just that.

I started by painting one of the doors with Fusion’s Algonquin.

I love this color.  It’s a rich deep taupe.  But I mainly chose it because I thought it would work well with one of the new transfers from Prima Marketing’s re.design line (thank you to Prima Marketing for providing me with the transfer).

One thing that is different about this transfer versus others that I’ve used so far is that it has a background color.  That sort of parchment look behind the black words and flowers is part of the transfer.

I wasn’t sure how that was going to work when it came to actually applying the transfer.  I thought it might make it more difficult, but in reality it made it much, much easier.  I didn’t have to worry about little bitty tails on letters that might not be stuck down properly.  I really just rubbed over the whole thing fairly quickly with the applicator stick that is provided with the transfer, and when I carefully pulled up the backing sheet … voila!  Perfect!

Although there is a background to this transfer that has some color to it, it is also fairly sheer.  So the color that you choose to put under it is going to make a difference in how the transfer looks.  I went with the Algonquin because I wanted my transfer to blend a bit with the background.  A white background would provide more contrast.

After the transfer was in place, I sanded the door to distress the paint.  I did not sand over the transfer, just the painted areas of the door.  Then I added some wax to get a consistent sheen over the entire piece.

Finally, I found some discarded wooden dresser knobs in my stash of rejected hardware and added them in a row at the bottom of the door.

The original wood stain on the knobs worked beautifully with the Algonquin and the colors in the transfer.

Thus the cupboard door becomes a kitchen towel holder.  Or a place to hang your bathrobe.  Or a pretty spot to hang some necklaces.

The people at Prima Marketing were kind enough to send a couple extra of this style transfer so that I could give some away today thus rounding out my week of of Prima Marketing transfer giveaways.

To be eligible to win one of these transfers all you have to do is leave a comment on this blog post by tonight (Friday, June 29) at midnight (U.S. central).  I’ll draw two names at random and each winner will get one transfer.

To spice up the comments today I thought I would ask you guys to tell me who your second favorite blogger is (ha, I’m being sarcastic, of course I’m not really assuming I am your favorite).  But seriously, share another blog that you enjoy in your comment.  Maybe a few of us (including me) will discover some new blogs to love today!

The fine print: no purchase necessary, you must be 18 years of age or older to win, void where prohibited by law, the number of eligible entries received determines the odds of winning, approximate retail value of prize is $25, if the prize is not claimed by Friday, July 6, 2018 another name will be drawn at random to win, blah, blah, blah.

public service message.

Published on by Quandie11 Comments

This is a rare evening post here on q is for quandie and its only purpose is to alert my local readers to some great sales taking place starting tomorrow.

First off is the Reclaiming Beautiful Annual Backroom Garage Sale.

I’ve never actually been to this event because I happen to have a day job.  Ugh.  I can’t tell you how many amazing shopping opportunities I miss out on because they take place during the week.

Basically this is Reclaiming Beautiful’s opportunity to clean out their back room and they promise ‘garage sale’ prices.  So hopefully some of you can head to the sale and score some bargains!

Reclaiming Beautiful is located at 216 Myrtle Street W in Stillwater, MN.

Next up is the Stone Hill Farm and Friends Vintage Barn Sale.

You may remember that I posted about the Barn Chic Vintage Sale last year around this time.

Well, they have re-branded with a new name and some new vendors, but the same fabulous location in Kim’s barn.  They’ve been sharing lots of photos on Facebook and it looks like they have some amazing stuff this year.

They are also open starting tomorrow (Thursday, June 28) and will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Thursday through Saturday.  They are located at 2946 Oakgreen Avenue in Stillwater, MN.

Both of the sales have a Stillwater address and they are about 10 minutes apart so it’s a great opportunity for a two-fer!  Although don’t be thrown off by the Stone Hill Farm location which is on the southern outskirts of town not far from the Lake Elmo Park Reserve, not in downtown Stillwater.

Happy shopping!

the market sign.

Published on by Quandie75 Comments

I’m pretty much in love with using signs as décor.  I have a few in my own home, but let’s not add up how many because it might sound excessive.  OK?  Let’s just call it another non-collection.

That being said, genuine vintage signs are pretty pricey.  And these days even buying a newly made sign in a shop can be a bit expensive.  Especially if you want something with a bit of size to it.

So I recommend a DIY approach.

There are lots of different methods out there for achieving this including; using stencils (which aren’t cost effective if you want to make just one item with the stencil, their value lies in repetitive use), hand lettering (which never really looks good for me), transferring a graphic using a gel (which involves printing a graphic the size of your sign, so unless you use a printing service then size is limited) or using a cutting machine like a Cricut or Silhouette to cut vinyl and apply it like a sign (the machines are expensive, there is a bit of a learning curve for using them, and again size is an issue).

All of these methods have their place, but they all have their limitations too.

That brings me to the fab new transfers available from Prima Marketing’s re.design line.  There are several that are perfect for making your own large sign.  I tried it out myself using their Market transfer (transfer provided by Prima Marketing).

This is a large transfer.  I want to point out here that the dimensions listed on the packaging are off.  They say 27.5″ x 24″.  I have no idea what those dimensions are meant to represent, but the actual size of the word ‘MARKET’ is 10″ tall by 47″ wide.  It does come in two separate pieces, one with ‘MAR’ and one with ‘KET’.  Still, those dimensions on the packaging make little sense.  The tube itself is only 13″ tall.

Nonetheless, I had the perfect piece to turn into a sign with this large transfer.  It’s an old closet door!  You might recognize it because I posted about it once before.  Who remembers the door to nowhere?

I thought it turned out pretty fab and would look great just leaning on the wall in someone’s home.  But apparently no one agreed with me on that because it sat unsold at Reclaiming Beautiful.  So a while back I decided to go back to the drawing board on this one.  I brought it home from the shop and realized it would be the perfect size to turn into a jumbo sign using the Market transfer.

But first, the door had suffered a bit of damage over time and I wanted to eliminate the stenciled “1918” because that wouldn’t work for my sign.  So I sanded the door down and added two coats of Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth, a lovely warm white.

This next step could not have been any easier, and it was definitely faster than most of the other options for making your own sign.

I simply placed the transfer sheet onto my door where I wanted it, taped it in place and then rubbed over the design using the little black wooden stick they supply with the transfer.

Carefully peel the shiny plastic off and ta da!

One large Market sign.

As you can see it just barely fit in my photo cottage (and yes, those are roses from Arlene’s garden).  The sign (ie. door) itself is 77″ wide and 16″ tall.

Of course I realize that not everyone happens to have a vintage door that is exactly the right size for a Market sign, but as I reminded you on Monday these transfers can also be applied directly to the wall.

Try to think of a creative way that you could use one of these in your home.  I can see it applied vertically directly to a pantry door.  It would also look cool applied across the front of a sideboard or buffet.

For those of you wondering where you can purchase the Prima Marketing re.design products, check out their “Where To Buy” page.

But now it’s your chance to win one of three Prima Marketing re.design transfers that would make great signs; Farmers Market, Market and Farm Fresh.

To be eligible to win one of these transfers all you have to do is leave a comment on this blog post by Friday, June 29, 2018 at midnight (U.S. central).  I’ll draw three names at random and each winner will get one transfer.

The fine print: no purchase necessary, you must be 18 years of age or older to win, void where prohibited by law, the number of eligible entries received determines the odds of winning, approximate retail value of prize is $25, if the prize is not claimed by Friday, July 6, 2018 another name will be drawn at random to win, blah, blah, blah.

And by the way, my Market sign is also for sale locally.  If you live near the Twin Cities and happen to need a large sign to hang in your house, be sure to check out my ‘available for local sale’ page.

I beg your pardon.

Published on by Quandie25 Comments

I never promised you a rose garden.

Nonetheless, if you are one of my local readers I am offering you a rose garden today.

This is the view from our back yard.

That is our neighbor Arlene’s rose garden.  Arlene is married to Ken, my handyman neighbor who does all (or most anyway) of my furniture repairs.  They live right next door to us and although we both have fences on the outside edges of our properties, there is no fence down the middle between us.

I’ve admired this lovely view for the past nearly 30 years, why would I want to block it?  And I certainly wouldn’t want to hinder Ken’s ability to walk back and forth from his workshop to my workshop!

As you can see, Ken and Arlene take immaculate care of their yard and garden.  Unfortunately they are starting to find that the roses are just a bit too much maintenance for them now that they are in their 80’s.

As the song goes, along with the sunshine there has to be a little rain sometimes.  So Arlene has decided that this will be the last year for her rose garden.

Both nnK and I offered to help her with the necessary gardening tasks that would allow her to keep the roses for a few more years, but Arlene is having none of it.  If she can’t do it herself, she doesn’t want to rely on others to do it for her.  I also suspect that she realizes that although our hearts are in the right place, it’s doubtful that nnK and I would maintain the roses to her exacting specifications.

So the roses have to go.

She’ll be keeping the rest of her perennial beds, but just digging out the roses and planting grass in that area.

I’m definitely going to miss them.

Arlene has always been very generous with her roses and I’ve used them in many furniture photo shoots.

This is where you come in.  If you are a local reader and you would like to try your hand at growing roses, or if you know someone who would, Arlene’s roses are up for grabs.  Free to a good home.  She plans to start digging them out this week, and hopefully finish up next week.  If you want one, or two, or a dozen, please send me an email at qisforquandie@gmail.com and we can make arrangements for you to pick some up.  If there are no takers we’ll likely put them on Craigslist where they are sure to go quickly.

So smile for a while and let’s be jolly
Love shouldn’t be so melancholy
Come along and share the good times (or at least the roses) while we can.

 

 

the garden beds.

Published on by Quandie101 Comments

A couple of you have suggested that I share a tour of my gardens, and based on that title you might be thinking that this is it.  But no.  I am working on a garden post, but I’ve also got lots of furniture posts coming up so I’m not sure if I’ll get to it and I’m not making any promises.  Plus, that would require at bit more weeding than I’ve been doing lately.

As for today’s post, ‘garden beds’ is just a play on words.

You might remember this pair of twin beds that I purchased at the Roseville City Wide Garage Sales.

I simply couldn’t resist a matched pair of vintage twin beds.  That’s just not something that I see very often.

Because they have some nice flat expanses on both the headboards and the foot boards, I thought they would be wonderful candidates for some Prima Marketing transfers.  I was running this idea past my friend Sue and trying to decide between the Seeds transfer and the Catalogue transfer when she suggested that it would be fun to use the Seeds transfer and call them Garden Beds!

I started by prepping the beds with a little light sanding and a good cleaning with TSP Substitute.  Next I painted them with two coats of Fusion’s Limestone.  This is my favorite of the Fusion whites because I like a warm creamy white rather than a crisp, bright white.

The reason I chose Fusion paint for this project was simple.  I wanted to avoid having to both paint and add a top coat.  It was a lot of painting, and I went through almost an entire jar of the Limestone on these beds.  But don’t forget I was painting two headboards, both the front and back of two foot boards plus four side rails.

Once the paint was dry, I sanded the edges to distress them.

Next I pulled out two of the large Seeds transfers (there is also a smaller version of this transfer available) and rolled one out to decide on the placement that I thought would work the best on the beds.

This transfer really is quite large and that’s one of the things that I love about it.  You get a lot of bang for your buck with this one (you can find it online as low as $17.99, so google it and shop around).  Well, actually that’s true with all of the large Prima Marketing transfers.  Believe it or not I wasn’t even able to use the entire thing between both the headboard and the foot board of each bed.  I cut off the top line, plus another line that was under “flowering roots”.

And that made them perfect.

In addition to the fun of calling them ‘garden beds’, I thought the Seeds transfer was also a good match for the flower detail on the beds.

By the way, these transfers went on easy peasy.  It’s hard to take photos of the process while you are doing it so I’ve never done a full on tutorial on how to apply them.  I’ll have to add that to my to-do list right after ‘weed the garden’.

I really couldn’t be any happier with how these beds turned out.

I think they’d be perfect for a lakeside cabin guest room, or for a girl’s room.

I wish I had a spot for them at my house, but there is no room at the inn.  They will be for sale while they last and for now I hope to sell them together as a set.  I suppose if they don’t sell I’ll have to re-visit that plan, but I’m hoping someone will keep them together.  If you are local and in need of some twin beds, be sure to check out my ‘available for local sale’ page for more details.

When I decided that the Seeds transfer would be the right choice for these beds, I contacted my friends at Prima Marketing and asked if they would like to sponsor this project as well as a giveaway for my readers.  They responded very enthusiastically and sent me not only several Seeds transfers in both small and large, but also several more transfers to give away.  Not only that, but they also sent a bunch of their Metallique waxes and I’ll be giving those away later next month.

But for today I am giving away these two transfers from Prima Marketing’s new re.design line.

Both of them are large transfers that are perfect for applying to furniture, but you can also apply them directly to the wall like I did in my guest room.

To be eligible to win one of these transfers all you have to do is leave a comment on this blog post by Friday, June 29 at midnight (U.S. central).  I’ll draw two names at random and each winner will get one transfer.

The fine print: no purchase necessary, you must be 18 years of age or older to win, void where prohibited by law, the number of eligible entries received determines the odds of winning, approximate retail value of prize is $25, if the prize is not claimed by Friday, July 6, 2018 another name will be drawn at random to win, blah, blah, blah.

Be sure to stay tuned this week for more transfer giveaways!

the adriatic.

Published on by Quandie31 Comments

Before I continue on with the rest of today’s post I wanted to make a short public service announcement.  I’ve got some amazing giveaways sponsored by Prima Marketing scheduled for next week.  They’ve sent me a fantastic selection of their gorgeous transfers and I’ll be sharing some projects I’ve finished using the them.  I’ll also be giving away a bunch of them with all three (or maybe more?) of my posts next week, so be sure to stay tuned.

Now, on with today’s entirely unrelated post.

A while back I shared the fact that Mr. Q and I were striking out when it came to planning a trip for this year.  We tried booking five different selections and were denied for each and every one.  It was so frustrating that we decided to quit looking for a while and possibly nix the idea of taking a trip in 2018.  Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be.

Mr. Q and I were discussing this and he brought up the fact that in 2019 we will be celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary, so maybe it would make sense to skip a trip this year and plan something really amazing for our 30th.

We looked at the possibility of something a little further afield than Europe, maybe Japan or Thailand.  We were seriously considering this idea and had narrowed things down to a cruise from Bangkok to Bali with an extension to see Angkor Wat (which has always been on my bucket list).  But there were a few things about this trip that made us hesitate.  First, the 20+ hour flight to Bangkok.  Yikes!  That’s a really long time on a plane.  Second, the weather in that part of the world.  It’s basically just a question of varying degrees of hot and humid.  Ugh, my least favorite weather conditions.  Third, the crowds.  I’ve seen beautiful photos of Angkor Wat looking so tranquil, but the reality is that over 2 million people visit annually.  The crowds have become an issue and we’re just not good with crowds.  Finally, the cost.  It was going to be a fairly expensive proposition.

While we were doing all of this research we came across another option that made more sense for us, a cruise on the Adriatic Sea.  We’ve been on the Adriatic before, but this itinerary mainly features ports that we haven’t been to like Valletta (Malta) and Kotor (Montenegro).  Plus a couple of favorites that we are happy to return to, Venice and Monte Carlo.

The day in Venice also just happens to be my birthday.  Who wouldn’t want to spend their birthday in Venice?

This trip is during the off-season (November) and is also on a very small ship, only 670 passengers rather than the 2,500+ on the bigger ships.  So not as many crowds (both on the ship and off), and definitely cooler weather.  Hopefully those things will work in our favor.  Not to mention, travel is cheaper in the off-season.  Our airline tickets were half the price of our previous trips to Europe.

Here are the ports we will visit.

Genoa, Italy where we plan to visit the aquarium.

Monte Carlo, Monaco where we’ve booked a side trip to Eze, France.

Naples, Italy where we’ll visit Herculaneum.

Messina, Italy  where we might do a wine tasting excursion, or possibly a Godfather themed tour.  We’re still contemplating that one.

In Malta we’ve hired a private guide for the entire day.  It looks like such a fascinating place and we really want to see it all.  We had such an amazing time with the private guide we hired in Scotland, so we’re going to splurge this time as well.

We’ll see the famous balconies of Valletta …

Hagar Qim, a megalithic temple complex dating to 3,600 – 3,200 B.C.  How in the world did they move those huge stones back then?  I hope we’ll learn more about that …

Marsaxlokk, a small fishing village known for its colorful boats …

And Mdina, a medieval fortified city.

Mr. Q is looking forward to Kotor, Montenegro where we plan to just explore on our own.

Split, Croatia is another spot that will be easy to navigate on our own.

Ravenna, Italy is famous for its Byzantine mosaics so we plan to take a look at them.  Just look at those beautiful colors!

And finally, our cruise ends in Venice, Italy.  We spent a few days in Venice several years ago with my bff and her husband, so we’ve seen all of the major sites.  This time I want to do something special, plus since it’s my birthday I get to choose what we do!  So we’re hiring another private guide who will take us to some unique spots in Venice that are off the beaten path.

We’re still working out the exact details of our day in Venice, so you’ll have to wait to hear more about that one!

We are really looking forward to this trip, but I’m trying not to wish the summer away hoping that November gets here sooner!  I also have to laugh at myself.  The last time I went to Europe in November I vowed never again.  But we’ll be a bit further south this time so fingers crossed that the entire two weeks aren’t dreary and cold.  And as I like to say, never say never!

In the meantime, be sure to check back next week for the Prima Marketing giveaways!

how to polish your copper.

Published on by Quandie16 Comments

After I brought home the pretty little copper watering can from the Roseville garage sales, I decided that I should try polishing it up.

I’m not usually a polish-er.  I prefer my silver tarnished rather than freshly polished, for example.  But I wanted to see what this piece would look like all spruced up.

So I googled how to polish copper and discovered that you can just use a lemon and some coarse salt, no need to use harsh chemicals.

And you don’t specifically need Kosher salt, but it’s what I happened to have on hand at the moment.

The process is simple.  Cut your lemon in half, dredge the cut side in the salt and then use it to scrub the copper.

It took a little elbow grease, but not much.  As an added bonus the lemon smells fantastic, and your hands get a bit of spa treatment at the same time.

I found it a little hard to get into tight crevices, and it didn’t turn out perfect, but not bad for just using a lemon and some salt.

Since I had a watering can, and my gardens are looking quite fab at the moment, it seemed like I should take some photos in the garden.  Let’s all keep our fingers crossed that we don’t have a repeat of last year’s hail storm that shredded all of my hostas.

‘Cuz right now they are looking pretty fine.

On the bright side, that means none of the damage from last year was permanent.  But they never really did ever look good again last season.

Knock on wood.

Now go find some copper, lemons and salt and get polishing!

 

another rainy Saturday.

Published on by Quandie12 Comments

Two of my favorite garage sales took place this past week.

First there was the ‘breakfast meeting’ garage sale.  My friend/co-worker Sue and I go to this sale every year.  We both pass the sign for it on our way in to work, so when we see it we know that we need to head back out for our annual ‘breakfast meeting’.  Shhhhh, don’t tell anyone.  This is our little secret.

I always find some great stuff.  Here is last year’s haul.

Seeing this photo reminded me that I did some fun stuff with a few of those items.

I kept the bucket ‘as is’ and I even used it as a prop in last Friday’s blog post after filling it up with peonies.

The little stool under the bucket was revived with some of Miss Mustard Seed’s Flow Blue milk paint and I’ve kept that so far too.

And in fact, the little watering can in that last photo was also from the ‘breakfast meeting’ sale last year and it got a coat of Flow Blue as well.  I brought that in to Reclaiming Beautiful to sell.  I figure my non-collection of 10 watering cans is sufficient and I don’t need to add to it.

The plain plywood box in that photo went from drab to fab with a paint job and an IOD transfer applied to it.  So far I have it in my giant English cupboard holding all of my photography supplies like extra lenses and so forth.

I still have the chair that’s in the photo.  I’m saving it to pair up with a desk sometime down the road.

The rest of the stuff I purchased that day was sold as is.

At this year’s sale I found another little pile of fun goodies like this pretty pair of pyrex dishes.

And this set of McCoy nesting bowls.

Isn’t this ‘cottage’ doorstop adorable?

With a house as old as mine there is always a need for doorstops.  My doors all have a mind of their own.

I also nabbed this pretty quilt to use in my guest room.

In addition to the ‘breakfast meeting’ sale, the Nokomis neighborhood sales were on Saturday.  My sister and I love to go to those because that’s the neighborhood where our parents grew up.  We always drive by our grandparent’s old houses.

Once again though, this past Saturday was rainy.  If you’re keeping track, this was our third Saturday in a row with rainy weather for garage saling.  As we headed into Minneapolis there was thunder, lightening and a heavy downpour of rain.  But we were not to be deterred.  And this time we had my niece with us, which is a rarity, so we really were hoping to find some great stuff.

We really didn’t have much luck though.  Even though there were around 100 sales listed on the map, most of them did not open due to the weather.  I’m sure many of them planned to have their sales out in the yard, and that just wasn’t going to happen.  I always feel so bad for people when they’ve gone to all of the trouble to get ready for a garage sale, and then the weather doesn’t cooperate at all.

I did find some fun things though, like a bag full of mid-century modern drawer pulls for only a quarter.

You never know when I might run across a mid-century piece that needs hardware.  For a quarter, this was definitely a good investment.

I also came home with some more mid-mod barware.  This set is in pristine condition and has six glasses plus the ice bowl and tongs.

It wasn’t all mid-century though.  I also purchased this ginormous scale.

I really should have taken a ‘before’ photo so you could see the transformation.  This was probably the most disgustingly grimy thing I’ve ever purchased at a garage sale (and that is definitely saying something).  The entire thing was covered in a thick layer of greasy dirt.  It also had quite a few paint splatters on it.  But it cleaned up beautifully with just some Dawn dish washing soap and a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser.

By the way, if any of my local readers are lucky enough to have a large kitchen with space for displaying something like this (which would look great with a plant on it, or maybe a couple of ironstone pitchers) this scale is going to be for sale, so be sure to leave a comment if interested.

We finally gave up on the sales at around 11 a.m.  We were driving around in circles at that point and not finding very many sales that were actually open.

So we did what any normal people would do, we drove over to Minnehaha Falls to do some sightseeing and to admire the amount of water going over the falls.

And then despite the fact that we looked like drowned rats, we stopped off for lunch on the way home.  We may not have scored many bargains, but we still had a great rainy Saturday!