Author: Quandie

the fairy garden, 2024.

Published on by Quandie6 Comments

 Good morning from the garden!

This morning I thought I would share my 2024 fairy garden.  But first, let’s take a look at its history.

My fairy garden started out in an old cracked concrete birdbath.  The crack allowed for drainage, so that made it perfect for planting in.

It was sweet, although a bit on the small side.

But back in late 2022 the crack became fatal, the bowl broke into 3 pieces.

I debated trying to somehow glue it back together, but ultimately decided that it probably wouldn’t hold up to the elements over time.

Later that year my sister gifted me with a fairy house for Christmas.

So I knew it was time to expand.

I happened to have an old rusted out wheelbarrow on hand, and that seemed like the perfect container for a fairy garden.

So after getting some help from my handyman Ken to shore it up a bit, I nestled it in a bed of variegated vinca and planted it up.

I have to admit, although it looked quite nice when first planted last year, quite a lot of the plants grew like gangbusters and everything became quite shaggy by the end of the season despite several pruning sessions.

Also, even though I protected it with a mound of leaves and a burlap covering for what was a relatively mild winter for us, the only plants that came back this spring were the Dwarf Alberta Spruce, one mini Feather Boa hosta, and the creeping thyme.

Sadly the mini barberry shrub, the mini betony and the Mighty Mouse hosta all died.  I was especially bummed about that dwarf betony, or stachys minima.  I was really hoping to see that bloom this year.

This year I decided to take a more minimalistic approach to the fairy garden.  I had traditionally planted a small wire vine on the arbor, but it always took over.  So this year I opted to not plant anything that would grow over it.  Instead I added a small evergreen to one side, and a mini caladium to the other.

Although the Golddust Mecardonia bloomed all summer last year, and the flowers were the perfect scale for a fairy garden, it was a bit too prolific for the space.  It totally took over.  So this year I opted to plant another variety of creeping thyme in those spots instead.

After pulling out the dead barberry shrub next to the fairy house, I replaced it with a miniature Japanese maple.

To be honest, I think there is little chance it will survive next winter in the wheelbarrow so I plan to pull it out in the fall, pot it up and then try to overwinter it on my unheated three-season porch.  We’ll see how that goes.

My neighbor, nnK, shared a couple of divisions from her miniature hostas with me.

I don’t know the name of that one, but it’s doing well under that pergola.  Hopefully it will survive the winter and return next year.

This year the fairies moved their meditation garden out back under the Japanese maple.

They also opted for a little gnome in the front of the garden instead of the angel statue they had last year.

My sister and I found these at a garage sale earlier this year and we each bought one.

The fairy garden is definitely requiring a little less maintenance this year, so I’m happy with the choices I’ve made.  I do wish I could find more miniature plants to include though.  I was really hoping to replace that dwarf betony, but I couldn’t find it this year.  If any of you have resources for mini plants be sure to leave a comment and let me know.

the queen of procrastination.

Published on by Quandie14 Comments

I’ve noticed that wallpaper is making a big comeback.  I get it, wallpaper can be gorgeous.  It can add so much interest to a room, and it also can hide a multitude of sins on 100 year old plaster walls.

I was a new homeowner the last time wallpaper was ‘in’, and I pretty much wallpapered every. single. room. in our house.  I even wallpapered the ceiling in our bathroom (never again).

But in the decades since then, I’ve also stripped all of that wallpaper back off.  And that was no fun.  Well … except the time my bff, her daughter and her daughter’s bff helped me strip the three layers of wallpaper in our master bedroom.  We did actually have fun, and that job would have taken forever on my own.

The last bit of wallpaper we had in our house was in our dining room.  There are two squares of wall in that room on either side of the windows, the rest of the walls (and ceiling for that matter) are clad in reclaimed barn wood.

The wallpaper was pretty subtle.  It was a beige-ish color with slightly darker colored writing on it.

A while back (and by a while back, I mean in 2017) I decided that I wanted to remove it and paint those squares white to bring a little more light into the room.  At the time I was really hoping this would be an easy removal job.  After all, those square aren’t that big, it’s not like I had an entire room to do.

Sometimes wallpaper comes off really easily, just start tugging at a corner and you can pull it away in practically full sized sheets.  And sometimes it doesn’t.  This wallpaper was in the latter camp.  It seemed to have a vinyl layer with the design on it, and a paper layer underneath.  When I tugged, the vinyl layer came off leaving the paper layer still glued to the wall.

I still had my full time job at that time, plus the blog, and honestly, I just didn’t want to deal with stripping that wallpaper.  But now I had a big chunk of that upper layer of the wallpaper torn off.  So I decided to cover it up with vintage paper player piano music rolls instead.

  That was back in September 2017 (you can read all about it here).

That was supposed to be a temporary measure, just until I could get around to a full fledged strip job.  Uh, yeah, six years went by with those rolls on the wall.  How did that happen?  Clearly I am just really good at procrastinating!

The winter before last I decided that I would focus on getting some projects done inside the house.  Surely that would be a great way to get through the winter while we’re stuck inside anyway.  I could finally get this wallpaper down.  And maybe our front stairwell painted.  Or maybe the baseboards upstairs.  I definitely need to repaint inside all of our closets, and our kitchen cupboards.

Yet that entire winter went by  and I hadn’t done a single one of the projects on that list.  Somehow I always managed to find something else I’d rather do.

But one rainy day in March 2023 I decided enough was enough with the procrastinating.  That player piano music, and the wallpaper under it, was coming down!

After removing the player piano music, and all of the many staples that held it in place, I then peeled off all of the outer vinyl layer of the wallpaper.  Then I had to go back and wet down the paper backing layer and scrape it off.

  None of it came off in big chunks, but bit by bit I got it all off.

You might be inclined to think that I then jumped right into giving those walls a fresh coat of paint, but no.  I managed to procrastinate on that for another entire year!

What was I waiting for?  Well, to be honest, I was trying to come up with a fabulous wall treatment for those two squares.  Something exciting that would be ‘blog worthy’.  Maybe a hand-painted mural a la Miss Mustard Seed.

Or possibly an all-over stencil of some kind.

But in the end those sort of treatments just didn’t feel quite right for this room with its rustic barnwood cladding.

So I spent another rainy (seriously, it just won’t quit) morning a few weeks back just painting those bits of wall white.

I say ‘morning’, but it literally only took about an hour or so, not even a full morning.

So yeah, they’re just plain white, nothing terribly exciting, but at least they are presentable now.  Maybe the white will be the perfect blank canvas for something more exciting down the road.  Then again, maybe these walls will just stay white.

How about you?  Do you have projects that you’ve procrastinated on for years?  Surely I’m not the only queen of procrastination around here, am I?

a succulent experiment.

Published on by Quandie8 Comments

Good morning from the garden!

Remember the antique newspaper roller that I turned into a succulent planter last year?

It did really well out on my deck over that summer.

I brought it inside to overwinter it, but by spring it was starting to look a bit rough.

The succulents had all gotten either quite leggy or too big for the container.

Initially thought I would just pull everything out and start over.

So I picked up some fast-draining potting mix and a few new succulents.  But just as I was about to pull out the leggy succulents I thought, gee, this is a waste.  I really should try reviving some of them.

Now, I’m definitely no expert, so if you’re looking for the best advice on this process you may want to look further.  But I thought I’d go ahead and share the results of my efforts here anyway.

After a bit of online research, I discovered that succulents are theoretically really easy to propagate.  There are different methods, but I went with what looked the easiest to me.  That was simply cutting them off and then setting the cuttings aside for a few days to let the cut ends dry out.

That felt entirely bizarre to me.  Who would think that you can let a cutting just sit there for days without water or soil?  But after three days, they still looked perfect fine.

So I filled up some small plastic pots with the soil I’d purchased and simply pushed the cuttings into the soil.

I’m not sure where I went wrong with this process, but ultimately those two big succulents were the only ones that survived this method.  All of the smaller ones ended up with rotted stems.  It’s likely that was the result of too much water.  As I’ve mentioned (ad nauseum), we’ve had a lot of rain so far this summer and I had left these outside.

As a sidebar, I also planted five Amstel Netja Dark begonias this spring and every single one of them ended up rotting at the base as well.  That was despite zero watering on my part and pots with good drainage.  We just had so much rain!

Anyway, back to the succulents.  Although those cuttings didn’t make it, I did leave some of the cut off stems in the container.  And lo and behold, some of those sent out new plants.

I also left the bright lime green drapey succulent (sorry, I don’t know the name of this one) in place, even though it was looking a bit shabby, and it has bounced back beautifully.

I also added a few new succulents to the mix including this funky one …

I also wanted to add something dark to balance out that bright lime green.

And I had to add these next two just because I thought they were so sculptural.

In the end, I guess I was following that rule I talked about a couple of weeks ago of having each of the four colors of green, yellow, blue and red represented.

I really love how this succulent planter has turned out again this year, but I can’t seem to find the perfect spot for it in my garden.

For that reason, I put a price tag on it at my recent occasional sale.  It didn’t sell though.  Perhaps because I marked it $40 (after all I have at least that much into it, if not more).

So, I still have it.  In fact, I just pulled it inside because as I’m writing this post on Saturday there is a big thunderstorm rolling in.  More rain.  I’m trying not to drown this bunch of succulents.

I’ll keep carrying it around my garden looking for a spot that is worthy of it, but in the meantime I’m also listing on it on my ‘available for local sale‘ page just in case one of you locals has the perfect spot for an antique newspaper roller turned succulent planter.

Now, how about you?  Have you had luck propagating succulents?  What was your method?  Leave a comment and let me know.

an updated mid-century bed.

Published on by Quandie6 Comments

Earlier this year I mentioned the White Bear Lake Trash to Treasure Day.  This is a day when the residents of White Bear Lake can put their cast offs at the curb, and people like me can drive around and take whatever strikes our fancy.

I had fairly good luck this year, and I even brought home a mid-century bed frame.

It was a bit dirty, and a bit dinged up.  And the spindles on the footboard were coming loose.

It was easy enough to add some glue to those spindles and clamp them in place while it dried.  Then after a good clean, I scuff sanded the entire piece including the two side rails which aren’t pictured above.

Next up I pulled out the Dixie Belle Smoky Mountains paint.  This is the same paint that I used on the bookcase that I refurbished a month or so ago.  I just love this blue-green-grey color, it reminds me of the color of ‘blue’ hostas.

I also love the fact that this color is from Dixie Belle’s Silk line, which means it has a built in primer and top coat.  So after two coats of paint, it’s done.

I think the clean lines of the spindles on the footboard are really appealing.

It’s not at all frilly, while still having some style.

Normally I would be tempted to do something inside the frame on that headboard, but I don’t think that would be appropriate for this mid-century modern sort of look, do you?

This bed was missing the slats that go from side to side and sit on the ledge of the side rails, but it was easy enough to find a trio of boards that would work.  I snapped a quick photo with just two of them in place while I waited for Ken to cut a 3rd one to size.

And with that, this makeover was complete.

What do you think?

This bed is for sale, check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page for all of the details.

Thank you to Dixie Belle Paint Co for providing the paint used in this makeover.

a rainy garden tour.

Published on by Quandie2 Comments

Good morning from the garden!

We’re not in my garden this morning, instead I’m sharing the Munsinger and Clemens Gardens in St. Cloud, MN.

These are two distinctly separate gardens that are across the street from one another.

The Munsinger Gardens are shady, informal gardens located right on the bank of the Mississippi River.

These gardens are filled with some lovely examples of things you can grow in the shade like hostas, coleus, begonias …

and that trendy favorite from last year, Sun King Aralia (or Golden Japanese Spikenard).

They also have a fairy garden in a wheelbarrow (sounds familiar!).

The Munsinger Gardens were created in the 1930’s using labor from the WPA.

As you may have already noticed by these photos, it was raining the day my sister, niece and I drove up to St. Cloud.

It was also super buggy.  All of the rain we’ve been having has meant bumper crops of mosquitoes.

Fortunately we were armed with umbrellas (after a quick stop at Target because I forgot mine) and bug spray.  Plus, I happen to think that most gardens look prettier in the rain than they do in blinding sunshine (lucky thing since we also visited de Hortus in Amsterdam in the rain!).

Across the street from the Munsinger Gardens are the Clemens Gardens.

These gardens were developed in the 1990’s by Bill Clemens in honor of his wife, Virginia.

They are much more formal and include some really beautiful fountains like the Renaissance Fountain with Cranes …

and the Windsor Court Fountain.

There are also some gorgeous examples of ironwork including some lovely benches …

and a beautiful arbor.

The quadrants surrounding the arbor are each devoted to a monochromatic scheme.

There is a yellow garden.

Although I’ve never been a big fan of yellow flowers, I defer back to my motto, never say never.  Lately I’ve been really enjoying the yellow in my garden starting with yellow daffodils in spring, then my yellow bearded iris, followed by evening primrose.  I even added a yellow Baptisia this year.

But that being said, I’m still not sure I like a monochromatic yellow garden.  To me it just looks a little bit sickly.

The red garden was full of Astilbe while we were visiting.

Unfortunately I somehow managed to miss getting photos of the blue and the purple quadrants, aside from this photo of the gorgeous variegated foliage on what I am guessing is an iris.

There is also a formal rose garden, and all of the roses are labeled.

  So if you’re into roses, you can pick out some that you want to try in your own garden.

If I grew roses, I’d be tempted by this one called Pop Art.

But the Japanese beetles in our area make a mess of roses, so I’ve mostly quit growing them.  I have one shrub rose left and that’s it.

I do prefer the look of a slightly wild, less formal shrub rose in the garden also.

Unfortunately, aside from the roses, I didn’t see many other plants with identification tags.  So I can’t tell you what variety of clematis this is …

but it sure was pretty.

As were the delphiniums that were in full bloom.

It may have been rainy, but it was still fun to visit both of these gardens.

Do you have any fabulous gardens near you that are worth a visit?  If so, leave a comment and let me know.  I’d love to hear about them.

a patriotic lunchbox.

Published on by Quandie5 Comments

Some time ago I came into possession of this vintage blue lunchbox.

I rather liked it ‘as is’.  The blue was perfect, and it had just the right amount of authentic wear.

But I thought I should give it a good clean and that’s where things went a little wrong.  I started to wipe it down with a damp rag and some Dawn dish soap and the blue paint was coming off on the rag.  So then I thought I should just give it a quick coat of Dixie Belle’s flat clear coat to seal it in.

Unfortunately, the flat clear coat looked a bit filmy over that blue.  That can happen sometimes when you use the flat version over a dark color.

So back to the workshop it went.  Since I loved that blue so much, I decided to stick with it and give the lunchbox a quick couple of coats of Dixie Belle’s Bunker Hill Blue.

It was a pretty good match for that original color.

I sanded the edges to try and bring back that distressed look.

After wiping away the dust, I added a white transfer from I.O.D.’s Traditional Pots.

I followed that up with a coat of Dixie Belle’s clear wax.

I love the little stars on the sides of the lunchbox.

It wasn’t until I was editing the photos for this post that I realized I really needed to put some sort of decorative paper in that label holder.

I ended up going with a simple red gingham after determining that my October Afternoon Farm Girl labels were too big.

Bummer, they would have been so perfect if they were the right size.

While I was at it, I also lined the inside of the lunchbox with some of that gingham paper.

This lunchbox would make an adorable decoration for a 4th of July table if you left the lid open and placed a couple of small potted red geraniums in it.

Despite not actually being able to save the original blue paint on the lunchbox, I think I did a pretty good job replicating it.

What do you think?

Although this lunchbox was available at my sale, it did not go.  So it’s still available if any of you locals happen to need a fun 4th of July table decoration!  Check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page for more details.

I’m off to spend this rainy 4th of July morning finishing up the clean up out in the carriage house.  Hopefully I’ll be able to get some projects going out there despite the forecast of rain, rain, and then probably some more rain.  I hope some of you are getting the perfect day for a BBQ!

the carriage house sale recap.

Published on by Quandie12 Comments

Well, the carriage house sale is over.  I thought some of you may be interested in hearing how it went.

But before we get to that, one quick thing.  One of our very first customers at the sale on Thursday evening purchased this metal exit sign …

Unfortunately, my sister wrapped it in newspaper and then set it down on the table.  It never made it into the customer’s bag (or maybe it was a box).  In other words, someone purchased this sign, but it didn’t go home with them.  If it was you, please reach out to me by either leaving a comment here on the blog or emailing me at qisforquandie@gmail.com so that we can get this to you.

Now, on with the sale recap.

First up, the weather.  It was not great.  Thursday evening was cloudy, humid and a bit drizzly at times.  Luckily we had tents to help keep things dry, and there wasn’t any severe weather.  Friday was cloudy, humid, wet from overnight rain and rather chilly.  Once again, tents were a necessity.  We finally saw some sun on Saturday, but it was quite breezy and still chilly.  I ended up having to find a jacket to put on!

Next up, the attendance.  We had a great turn out on Thursday evening.  It was fun to see so many familiar faces, and to meet some new ones.  Friday was quite a bit slower, but sales were still decent.  We blamed the lack of attendance on the gloomy weather.  However, Saturday (the nicest day weather-wise) was nearly a complete bust.  We literally had $26 in sales on Saturday and probably under a dozen shoppers stopped by, although I did meet a couple of my blog readers which was lovely.

I had a bit of a mix of merchandise for the sale.  Naturally I had all kinds of projects that I’d shared here on the blog the past year or two, like my cupboard door signs and painted buckets.

As you can imagine, these items were priced on the higher end for a ‘garage sale’, but certainly not high in general.  For example, that bucket was priced at $28.

Unfortunately, not very many of these sorts of items sold.  I’m telling myself that it was the higher prices that held them back, not a lack of talent on my part.  I hope.

I did sell the North Pole Bed & Breakfast sign …

But not many other signs.

Surprisingly, my furniture sold well.  In the past that wasn’t usually the case.

I sold the bookcase …

and the washstand.

And a huge thank you to Shelly who drove 2 hours to come to the sale, and then did it again the next day to come back for the green legged table.

That pair of white folding chairs also sold.

I do still have my rooster cupboard though, and I have to admit I’m not sad about that.

Not much sold from the ‘science-y’ area.  I was surprised that the really cool beaker didn’t sell.

It would make a fun vase.

However, the Naturalist’s Box did sell.

As did my daisy lockbox.

Not much of our Christmas stuff sold.  That’s not terribly surprising though is it?  No one is thinking about Christmas decorations in June.

But what did sell really well was anything garden related.

It wasn’t surprising that the adorable cement dog was one of the first things to go.

As was rusty St. Francis.

All in all, despite bad weather and a really low turnout on Saturday, I’m going to call the 2024 Carriage House Sale a success.  In all I sold 243 items (what?!  how did I possibly sell that much, and yet still have so much left?).

So the question is, will we do it again?  I can’t make any promises, but I’m definitely thinking about it.  I’m considering focusing on a garden themed sale next year, maybe even including some plants.  I also think it would be better to have it earlier in the season, perhaps the first weekend in June?  Lots to think about between now and then.

In the meantime, I’m going to take a bit of a blog holiday over the next week.  I need to take some time to pull my workshop back together, and I’ll also be enjoying the 4th of July up at Lake Pop-a-gasket (a.k.a. Lake Wapogasset).

Thanks again to all of the locals (and even not so locals) who stopped by!

day two.

Published on by Quandie1 Comment

A huge thank you to everyone who came out last night for the Carriage House Sale.

We had a great turn out, and it was such fun to see so many familiar faces!

Today is day 2 and we are open from 9 a.m. until noon, rain or shine.  And it looks to be mostly rain.  I was awake at 4 a.m. listening to it just come down!

Most of the merchandise is staying dry inside, but I probably won’t be able to say the same for the Carriage House staff!

But we won’t melt, and neither will you!

And we still have lots of great stuff left like the fabulous black watering can …

And the Garden Herbs tote.

I still have both of my larger metal boxes, this one …

and this one.

Nobody has snatched up this painted bucket yet …

or either of these buckets.

The Flora Parisiensis suitcase is still available.

I still have the simple white framed mirror.

and the cut flowers chair.

There is still plenty of fabulous merch left for sale, so if you’re local, come on by.

the carriage house sale.

Published on by Quandie4 Comments

As promised, here are the details for the Carriage House Sale.

This time around we will be open rain or shine!

We will be accepting cash and/or Venmo only.  No credit cards or checks.

We will have a holding area for items that you know you want to purchase, but don’t want to carry around as you shop.  Please do not place items in the holding area unless you are sure you want to purchase them.

The sale will open promptly at 5 pm on Thursday, no early shoppers allowed 🙂

Hope to see you there!

christmas in june?

Published on by Quandie5 Comments

We’re exactly halfway to Christmas!

OK, I don’t normally post about Christmas in June, but we do have a holiday section at our upcoming Carriage House Sale.

It will be a bit of an experiment to see if Christmas stuff sells in June, so I’ll try to keep you posted on that.

I have a few items left over from last year’s holiday season that will be included such as the Bed & Breakfast sign.

And this North Pole sign.

I have a pair of ice skates.

And a tacklebox.

And some bottle brush trees in vintage silver.

But I also have some projects that I just completed including this adorable little lantern.

And this much larger lantern.

I haven’t permanently attached the trees or the silver deer just in case the future owner wants to switch the lantern up for the various seasons.

Instead I used some Stick-Um candle adhesive to hold them in place.

I also painted up a bucket in Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth and added a design from the I.O.D. Noel paint inlay to it.

This was my 2nd use of this particular inlay, and as you can see it turned out fairly faint.

If you want to read more about the results when using a paint inlay for the 2nd time, check out this post.

I did also paint up a sled for the sale.

We’ll also have a couple of sleds that aren’t painted.

And finally, I want to share these lovely vintage Christmas tablecloths that Sue is selling.

Perfect for your vintage holiday table.

We will be holding our sale this week rain or shine.  As of writing this post they are forecasting the possibility of rain for both Thursday evening and Friday.  Good grief.  It seems that we can’t go a day or two without rain so far this summer.  On the bright side, the hostas are getting ginormous.  They are loving all of the rain.

So … we’ll have tents and we’ll do our best to keep everything dry for the sale.

We will be accepting cash and Venmo only (no credit cards or checks).

I’ll post my address tomorrow here on the blog and also on Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist.

If you’re local, I hope to see you there!