Category: happy holidays.

winter window boxes.

Published on by Quandie13 Comments

Good morning from the garden!

You may remember that a couple of years ago I made the mistake of not cutting and drying any of my hydrangeas before they turned brown.

Well, I definitely did not make the same mistake this year.  I had bushels and bushels of hydrangeas drying in the carriage house and in the potting shed.

  I also dried more allium and astilbe flowers this year.

So a week or so ago when we had an unseasonably gorgeous day, sunny and a high of 70°, I took advantage of the beautiful weather and put together my winter window box arrangements.

Honestly, it’s lucky that I have so much dried material to work with because I have a lot of containers to fill outside.  I usually put arrangements in both of my galvanized boiler ‘window boxes’, my two rusty planters at the back door, one or two rusty planters in the shade garden, and my ginormous window box on the front of the house.  If I had to buy everything to fill all of those each winter it would cost a fortune.

I started with the galvanized boiler window box on the carriage house.  I had done a fall arrangement in that one right before my sale, and although the mum I used had totally bit the dust, the ornamental kale and heuchera still looked pretty good.  So I decided to leave them in place.

The kale can handle temps down to around 5°, so hopefully they will last through Christmas.  In case you are new here, I garden in zone 5a in a suburb of St. Paul, MN.  So yes, we’ll definitely get colder than 5° over the course of the winter.  Eventually they will start to look pretty sad.  As for the heuchera (dark purple foliage at bottom left), so far it seems to handle a bit of freezing weather as well (we have had lows in the 20’s already).

Since I was keeping those deep purple shades, I decided to use the Vanilla Strawberry dried hydrangeas because they dried to nearly that same color this year.

In case you aren’t familiar, the flowers on this variety start out white and then slowly turn  more and more pink as they age.  I waited longer to harvest them this year, so they were pretty dark when I cut them.

After filling in the back of the planter with the Vanilla Strawberry, I used some of my dried Little Lime  flowers in the front.

I then decided to embellish it all with some touches of gold including that bunch of gold bells that I picked up at last year’s Bachman’s after-Christmas sale.

The sprigs of gold balls that I used were initially way too bright for my arrangement, so I sprayed them with some of the Rust-Oleum metallic paint that I had on hand.

I also sprayed a few of my Quick Fire Fab dried hydrangeas and popped them in here and there.  You can see the gold on the hydrangeas much better in person than you can in photos though.

You may remember that I did that last year for my front window box too.

They didn’t hold up all winter, but they did make it through Christmas.

I kept the front window box super basic this year.  I started with a base layer of faux evergreen garland and my twig lights

Then after adding some spruce tips from Home Depot, I just filled in with dried hydrangeas, astilbe, and allium.

I also found that my verbena bonariensis dried quite nicely on its own, so I cut some and used it too.

This is definitely a more subdued look than some I’ve tried in the past, but I like it.

I did use some more traditional holiday colors on our deck.

Now all we need is a little snow to brighten things up a bit!

How about you?  Do you decorate outside for winter?  Or do you try to hibernate as much as possible?  Leave a comment and let me know!

the north pole suitcase.

Published on by Quandie4 Comments

I worked on a couple of Christmas projects for the shop earlier this week, so I thought I’d share them with you today.

First up is this vintage suitcase.

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure if I liked this one, but I it was only $3 at a garage sale.  So I figured if it didn’t turn out, I was only out three bucks.

I didn’t even open it up before I got it home, but when I did I was awash in a sea of cobalt blue.

Isn’t that pretty?

Whenever I share a vintage suitcase project, I’m inevitably asked how I combat odors inside them.  I’ve tried any number of things with moderate success.

no 1 – fill the suitcase with crumpled newspaper and close it back up for a week or so.  The newspaper will absorb some of the odor.  Repeat several times with fresh newspaper if necessary.

no 2 – throw a scented dryer sheet inside.  Maybe pick a nice lavender scented variety.

no 3 – spray with Febreeze.

no 4 – give the suitcase its day in the sun.  Open it up and set it outside in a sunny spot to air out.

no 5 – throw a scented votive candle or bar of soap inside.

I’ve tried all of these options … and I often employ several of them in combination.  But, I still haven’t found a 100% fool-proof way of totally removing that musty old suitcase smell.  Once the suitcase goes back to sitting around closed up all the time, it will likely return.  For that reason, I use my own vintage suitcases to store things that won’t pick up odors like my glass tree toppers and other Christmas ornaments.

Initially I thought I would paint the outside entirely first, and then add a stencil.  That’s my usual M.O., like on this one …

But lately I’ve been experimenting more with just adding a stencil over the existing surface, like I did with this one last year …

So I pulled out my North Pole Trading Co stencil (from Wallcutz) and gave it a go.

I used my usual technique to add a shadow behind the words “north pole” by first stenciling them in Dixie Belle’s Caviar, then moving my stencil slightly up and over and stenciling the entire design in DB’s Ecru.

The texture of the case is not entirely smooth, so I was a little worried that I wouldn’t get a clean look with a stencil, but for the most part it turned out fine.

And personally, I like that I was able to keep the slightly beat up look of the original surface.

If you’re wondering what one would do with a Christmas suitcase, I suggest placing it in your foyer to greet your holiday guests.  Or, style it on top of a cupboard, or tucked under a sideboard.  And of course, it would be perfect for housing your vintage Christmas ornament non-collection in the off-season.

When styling photos of the suitcase for the blog, I added in my Christmas tuba.

What?  You’ve never heard of a Christmas tuba?

If I remember correctly, my neighbor nnK’s dad found this tuba in the trash at their storage facility.  Someone must have been cleaning out their unit and tossed it.  After he gave it to me, I thought it would make a unique bit of Christmas decor with the addition of some greens and some this fabulous wide vintage velvet ribbon from my stash.

I’ve been hoarding this ribbon for years, using it in the occasional photo shoot, but never wanting to ‘waste’ it.  It’s about time I started using it on things.

I guess both of my projects today are a bit on the more unusual side.  A Christmas suitcase and a Christmas tuba.  Why not?

What do you think?  Would you decorate with either of these items?  Leave a comment and let me know.

Meanwhile, if any of you locals are in need of a Christmas suitcase, or a Christmas tuba, I brought both of these items into the shop last night so be sure to swing by Stillwater this weekend to check them out!

more altered books.

Published on by Quandie16 Comments

Remember all of my painted books from last summer?

They all sold, so I figured it would be worthwhile to try some with a more wintery/holiday look.

I started by purchasing some of the old Readers Digest books at a garage sale figuring I would paint them.  But these books have such pretty patterns on their covers.

In the end I couldn’t bring myself to cover that up with paint.

So then I thought, why not try adding some transfers to them ‘as is’.  I started with just adding some small images to the spines.

They’d be perfect to just pop into a bookcase just like that.  What a fun and easy way to add a little holiday cheer to some old books.

I have a lot of Christmas transfers though, many of which ended up being too small to use on my other holiday projects.  So why not add some to the covers of these books as well?

One of the green books was perfect for a Santa from the I.O.D. Santa’s Hollow set.

And this brown book was perfect for an adorable squirrel from one of the older I.O.D. holiday transfers called Yuletide.

But I didn’t completely forgo doing any painted books.  My neighbor nnK has a bit of a stash of slightly outdated hardcover books, so she gave me a few to paint.

This time around I painted all of the books in Dixie Belle’s Ecru, and then added some of the I.O.D. Clementine transfers to the spines.

After adding the transfer, I filled in the empty space at the tops and bottom using the I.O.D. Ephemeral Type stamps and some VersaFine Clair ink in Pinecone.

After giving the ink some time to dry (an hour or so), I applied Dixie Belle’s clear wax over the books.  I followed that up with applying some of their Dixie Dirt in a color called Earth around the edges to add some age.

I made two sets of these painted books.

That Clementine transfer is so pretty.

I have one last set of altered books to share today.

One of the Reclaiming Beautiful shop owners gave me these coverless books.  They had been in the shop for quite a while and weren’t selling so she thought maybe I could do something with them.

Personally, I really like the deconstructed book trend.  But since they weren’t selling ‘as is’, I decided to take some inspiration from the spine lining on my 1852 Swedish bible (thanks to Paula C who pointed me in the direction of some interesting info on spine linings in old books, now I know what it’s called).

Initially I was going to just add some typography, but once I started looking at all of my transfer options I went in a little different direction.

To be honest, I wasn’t at all sure how this was going to go.  I didn’t know whether or not the transfers would adhere to those exposed book spines.  But as it turned out, with a little patience they went on fairly easily.

I started by creating the background using the Dixie Belle Vintage Post transfer.  Then I added some color with various bits of holly from some of the I.O.D. holiday transfers.

Before I began adding transfers, I noticed that a couple of the books were hymnals.  So I moved one of those to the front/top of the stack and added a transfer to the first page.

I tied them all up with some of that same velvet ribbon I used as laces for my altered ice skates this year.

Now all that remains is to see whether or not they sell better with a little embellishment.

I took the the reader’s digest books and the painted books into the shop a few weeks back, and I’ll be bringing this last set of altered books in this week.  So we’ll see how that goes.

In the meantime, which of these altered books is your favorite?  Leave a comment and let me know.

christmas in tinseltown.

Published on by Quandie9 Comments

Well, it’s taken me a few days to recover from my latest trip.  Not because we walked more than 20,000 steps every day for 9 days straight, although that was exhausting.  But because this time I ended up with food poisoning on our last day (getting sick on trips seems to be my thing lately).

I won’t go into detail, but let’s just say that I’m impressed with how much those airsick bags on planes can hold (sorry, probably TMI).  Yuck!

That was definitely not an experience that I ever want to repeat.  But, I’m home now and I’m finally feeling good, and luckily I had scheduled a few blog posts for earlier this week so they were already ready to go and I had a few extra days to recover.

When we left Florida it was sunny with temps in the 80’s, and we arrived home to 29° with gloomy skies.  Talk about an abrupt start to winter.

Speaking of winter, we did return in time to see the amazing Northern Lights that were visible across much of the U.S. earlier this week (although I did read that they were even visible in parts of Florida, so maybe we would have seen them from there too?).

I took that picture from my backyard, it was quite the show.

We also experienced an abrupt start to the holiday season while away.  We arrived at Disneyworld on October 31, which was the final night of their Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween party (an extra cost event that we did not attend).  So for our first morning in the park on November 1, there weren’t any holiday decorations around the Magic Kingdom.

But Christmas decorations appeared overnight and by day 2 things were suddenly looking very festive.

Even the Dapper Dans had their holiday outfits on.

My sister was thrilled to get a serenade and a dance from one of the Dan’s.

I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned it here, but my sister is definitely the extrovert of the family while my niece and I are both introverts.  We’d rather poke our eyes out with a sharp stick than be singled out in a crowd, but my sister loved it.

Anyway, I’m not going to bore you with a bunch of details about our time in Disneyworld, but I thought that some of you might enjoy seeing the vintage-style holiday decor that was up in one of the four Disney parks in particular, Hollywood Studios.

Hollywood Studios was modeled after Hollywood, a.k.a. Tinseltown, of the 1930’s and 40’s (I’m talking about the original parts of the park, not the newer Toy Story Land and Galaxy’s Edge).  So obviously it includes plenty of tinsel!

Many of the facades were designed based on actual buildings in Hollywood, California (allears.net has an interesting blog post about that here).

There is a definitely a retro vibe!

And that applies to the holiday decorations as well.

Most of these could have come right out of my grandma’s box of Christmas decorations.

Well … except grandma’s stuff would have been a bit smaller.

Pink poodles for Christmas?

Why not?

There were wreaths and garland everywhere, most of it very tinsel-y.

While my sister and niece did some souvenir shopping along Sunset Boulevard, I walked around and studied the details in the decorations.

I loved their use of non-traditional colors like the aqua and gold combo in this next garland …

or the cobalt blue and purple in this next one.

I think my favorite of the many wreaths I saw were these …

Who would have thought that matte black ornaments were suitable for Christmas, but they are perfect paired with the gold and aqua in a silver wreath.  And I just love those golden deer in the middle.

These poodle wreaths were a close runner up for most-favorite.

I wasn’t able to get a good shot of them since they were hung fairly high, but that is a sparkly poodle in the middle.  How fun is that?

If you’re a fan of retro holiday decor, Hollywood Studios in November is definitely the place for you!

Switching gears slightly, I just had to share one last photo from my trip.  Look what I found in the gift shop of the Norway pavilion in Epcot!

I had to do a double-take!  Have they secretly been studying my blog?  If I didn’t know better I’d almost think I painted that.  You may remember my Norske toolbox …

I think I might have to paint a Norske sled now!

Of course, I’ve already painted all of my sleds for this year, so it will have to wait until another one comes along, but I’m definitely tucking this idea away for later.  This sled could be displayed all winter unlike my holiday versions that I take down after Christmas.

Anyway, I’m back from Florida and I have a few more holiday projects up my sleeve.  I’m also planning a fun giveaway for my upcoming blogiversary.  So be sure to stay tuned!

this year’s sleds.

Published on by Quandie11 Comments

I briefly shared the vintage sleds that I’ve painted up this year in my post about my Carriage House Sale back in early October.

But today I thought I’d give a little more detail, starting with a ‘before’ photo.

That is my stash of sleds that either I picked up a various garage sales throughout the summer, or that a friend found for me.

It seems that I always manage to come up with 3 or 4 sleds each year.

I only buy them when I find them cheap … like $10 or less.  Once in a blue moon I will splurge and pay up to $15, but not often.  So I actually pass up a lot of sleds that are priced much higher.  The thing is, I have to buy them cheap, because I like to keep my final price low too.

This year I painted 4 of them, starting with this one.

It’s pretty similar to one I did last year when I discovered that I really prefer using Dixie Belle’s Barn Red rather than the Honky Tonk Red that I used to use for Christmas items.

Never underestimate how much definition a shadow will add to your stencil.

In this case, I stenciled the top two lines of text using Dixie Belle’s Caviar (black), then moved my stencil slightly up and over and stenciled again using DB’s Drop Cloth.  You’d barely notice it if I didn’t point it out, but it gives the lettering an almost three dimensional feel.  I do find that it’s more difficult to do on smaller fonts like that bottom line of text, so I usually skip the shadow on those.

The 2nd red sled has a bit of a space age feel with all of its chrome.

If atomic ranch is your jam, this is the perfect sled for you.

Once again I used Dixie Belle’s Barn Red, Caviar and Drop Cloth on that one.

I decided to go a little less red on sled no. 3.

This one is painted in Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth with just a little of their Barn Red in the wording.  I really liked the patina on the wood that I left unpainted.  I gave it a coat of Dixie Belle’s clear wax to breathe a little new life into it and to add some protection going forward.  In fact, I gave all of these sleds a final coat of clear wax, including the metal runners.

I hung the sled sideways on the potting shed to show you how that looks.

With all of these sleds you could either hang them horizontally, or lean them somewhere vertically.

Sled no. 4 goes even more neutral with Dixie Belle’s Dried Sage as the background color and stenciling in Caviar and Drop Cloth.

Although I almost always paint the sleds that I find, this year I did leave one untouched.

I felt like that original chippy red paint was perfect ‘as is’.  I still haven’t decided whether I’ll sell this one, or keep it myself.  I’ll probably take it to the shop and if it sells, great, and if it doesn’t it can come home to live with me.

Sleds make fantastic Christmas decor both inside and out.

I sometimes lean one next to a small bench on the deck …

and sometimes I hang one on the potting shed.

My personal favorite is the one I painted up last year that I hang inside over my bed bench.

I paid a little extra for that sled because its solid seat made it perfect for adding a stencil.

What would you do with one of these sleds?  And do you have a favorite from this year’s sleds?  Be sure to leave a comment and let me know.

I brought all of these in to Reclaiming Beautiful before I left for Florida, so if you’re local and would like to add a sled to your holiday decor be sure to head to Stillwater to see if there are any left.

As always, thank you to Dixie Belle Paint Co for all of their products used on my sled makeovers.

an unmatched pair.

Published on by Quandie10 Comments

A short while ago my friend Jackie gave me some toolboxes.

I’m not sure what those two shallow red boxes in the front were meant for, maybe just to hold a few screwdrivers and a hammer or two?

Regardless, I decided to give them both a makeover for Christmas.  I started by removing the labels and then giving each one a coat of Dixie Belle’s Bonding Boss inside and out.

Next I gave the inside of the first one a quick coat of DB’s Barn Red.  It really just required one careful coat since I was painting red over red.

The outside, however, required two coats of DB’s Ecru to cover up the red.

Before the final coat was dry, I added one of I.O.D.’s Twelfth Night paint inlays to the top.

After spraying that with some matte spray sealer to keep it from smudging, I applied some holly from Dixie Belle’s Evergreen and Holly transfer on either side of the inlay.

The little bit of holly just under the handle is from one of the I.O.D. Christmas transfers.

Now it’s perfectly Christmas-y.

The 2nd toolbox got a coat of Dixie Belle’s Rusty Nail on the inside.

As the name implies, this is more of a rusty or brick red.

I chose it because it worked beautifully with this row of sweet little birds from the I.O.D. Yuletide transfers.

I believe the Yuletide transfer was from the 2024 holiday collection and was then retired, but you can still find it online.

And by the way, I did paint the outside of this toolbox in Ecru as well.

I went back to my old favorite I.O.D. Label Ephemera for some of the wording on the front and top.

Then I also added some numbers and more wording from the Tim Holtz Eccentric Remnant Rubs transfer.

As for the handle, it was a rather pitted chrome so I gave it a new golden glow using Dixie Belle’s Gilding Wax in Antique Gold.

After adding a coat of Dixie Belle’s clear wax over the paint and transfers for protection, I decided to add a little more depth using a product that is new to me, DIY’s Decrepit Dust in Warm.

This is very similar to Dixie Belle’s Dixie Dirt …

except the Dixie Dirt doesn’t come in a rusty color.

I used a small artist’s brush to apply some of the dust around the latch immediately after adding the clear wax.  The dust will stick to the wax, and I just use the brush to blend it in a little.

It’s a subtle detail, but I think it adds a lot more depth and helps ‘age’ a newly painted item.

I have to confess that I personally prefer the toolbox with the birds on it, but the first one is a bit more Christmas-y.

Which one do you like best?  And what would you keep inside it?  Leave a comment and let me know.

Meanwhile, I brought both of these toolboxes in to Reclaiming Beautiful along with many more holiday items.  They are hosting their Holiday Open House this Thursday, November 6, 2025 from noon to 7 p.m. (while I’m away in Florida).  If you’re local, be sure to stop in!

finest in the world.

Published on by Quandie28 Comments

As soon as my sale was over back on October 4, I jumped right in to Christmas mode.  So I’ve been busy creating Christmas decor for the shop for a few weeks now.  My main goal when creating for Christmas is to give typical vintage items a unique twist.

At the end of this post, you can let me know whether or not you think I’ve succeeded with these ice skates.

And what could be more Christmas-y than vintage ice skates?

Earlier this summer I came across an estate sale where they had an entire storage closet full of old ice skates.  I came home with three pair (and a few other finds).

They were all in pretty rough shape, and looked to be quite old.  I wasn’t entirely sure I could work with them (spoiler alert:  I could, and probably should have bought more!).

I didn’t do much with the men’s skates.  I cleaned them with a damp rag and then gave them a coat of wax.

I also replaced the laces with some brown velvet ribbon and then tucked some old book pages inside.

The addition of that velvet ribbon really elevates the look, don’t you think?

These would be fantastic in a dark academia sort of setting, or a room with that men’s sporting club sort of vibe.

As for the ladies skates, after cleaning them all, I decided that one pair of them needed a coat of Bonding Boss.

This particular pair had some sort of weird pink staining that I thought might bleed thru my coat of paint.

After the Bonding Boss was dry, I painted all of the white skates in Dixie Belle’s Ecru, which I think is the perfect ‘aged’ white.

Then came the fun part, pulling out all of my various transfers and deciding what to use on each pair.

I started with adding some of the I.O.D. Clementine transfers to the first pair.

The Clementine transfers aren’t overtly Christmas-y,

But with the addition of some pinecones and sprigs of holly from a couple of other I.O.D. transfers, they definitely look the part.

I swapped out the laces for some red velvet ribbon, and I tucked some faux greenery into the top of each skate.

This next pair were in the worst shape of them all.

I wondered if I would be able to give them enough of a spruce up to appeal to a future buyer.

The Ecru paint job went a long way towards breathing some new life into them.  Then I used some segments from the Dixie Belle Vintage Post transfer to create a black and white background.  Next I layered some bits of holly here and there over the Vintage Post.

The “Factory No 1896” wording is from the Tim Holtz Eccentric Remnant Rubs transfer.

I think my photos make the ribbon look a bit more orange than it is in real life.  It’s more of an orangey-red, and it works perfectly with the berries on the holly.

For my 4th pair of skates, I decided to push the envelope a little on what qualifies as Christmas-y with some of the I.O.D. Saint Germain transfer.  I think we’ve established that florals are in season all year ’round.

I also added some bling with the I.O.D. Figgy & Flourish transfer, which is one of their gilded transfers.

I used some gold velvet ribbon for the laces on this pair.

And finally I tucked some off-white faux evergreen into the top of each one.

This pair doesn’t scream Christmas, but instead they would work well all winter long.

Secretly, they might be my favorite pair.

For the last pair, I decided to go with some birds and butterflies from the Winter Botanist transfer from I.O.D.  Again, not overtly Christmas, but a bit wintery with the holly and red berries.

I also added in a few small snippets of typography from that Tim Holtz Eccentric Remnant Rub, including the “Finest in the World” wording shown below.

I have to admit to a little inside joke with that choice.  You see, when I went to clean up this particular pair of skates I found a handwritten note tucked inside one of them.  It was addressed to Mary Alice and basically said that this pair of skates were worn by a competitive ice skater and the blades alone cost $100 (and who knows how long ago that was).  It went on to say that “If some child wants them – fine, but someone may want to check at a skate exchange and see if they are worth some money”.

Clearly that never happened, and instead the skates went into the skate closet to die a slow death.

Until I rescued them that is.  Now, perhaps once again they could be considered the ‘finest in the world’ 😉

Now tell me, which is your favorite pair?  The one with the red laces, orange laces, green laces or gold laces?

Oh wait, I didn’t even include the men’s skates in that collage … and maybe they were your favorite?

Leave a comment and let me know.

I will be taking the skates in to the shop later this week (Reclaiming Beautiful in Stillwater, MN), just before I head off to Florida with my sister and niece on Friday.  The Reclaiming Beautiful Holiday Open House will be taking place while I’m out of town, so I want to get a bunch of my holiday merch in before I leave.

So if you’re looking for some gorgeous ice skates to use as winter decor, be sure to head in to the shop soon!

hello fall.

Published on by Quandie8 Comments

Although fall doesn’t technically start for another week or so, it started feeling like fall here in Minnesota right after Labor Day.  I had to cave in and turn on the heat back on September 5 when the overnight lows were already in the 40’s.  So for me, fall is already here!

I’d like to say that fall is my favorite season, but the truth is, I can’t really pick a season that I like the best.

I love the first snow of winter, it’s always so magical watching those big fluffy flakes slowly falling.

But I also love spring when the snow has all finally melted, the days are getting longer, and I’m starting to see life in the garden again.

And of course I love summer.  Mornings spent in the garden, afternoons spent floating in the pool, and the garage sales!

But I have to admit, by the time fall gets here I am ready for a break.  I’m pretty much done with weeding, watering, fertilizing, pruning, deadheading, and otherwise caring for the garden.  I’m also done with heat and humidity.  And bugs, I’m definitely done with bugs.

I’m ready to close the windows, put on some cozy sweatpants that have definitely seen better days, and not feel guilty about watching old movies all afternoon.

I also love the apples.

There’s nothing better than a crisp, juicy Honeycrisp apple that was locally grown.

Fall is definitely one of the prettiest seasons in our area too.

It doesn’t stick around long, but it’s an amazing show while it lasts.

Because it is such a fleeting season, I don’t tend to do much decorating for fall.  Mostly I just add some mums and pumpkins outside.  And I also flip the cupboard door sign on our deck from ‘summer’ …

to ‘fall’ …

Our fall tends to go from this …

to this …

in the blink of an eye.

Since fall is so short, and also since I usually have to start working on Christmas decor really early on in order to get it to the shop by early November, I don’t tend to work on too many fall decor projects.  Also, since Mr. Q and I are taking that trip to Canada this year, I probably won’t have many fall projects to share this year.

So today I thought I’d share a few of my favorites from previous years, starting with the rusty pumpkins from last year.

If you click on the link to that post, you’ll also see some of my other painted pumpkins too.

Another of my favorite fall creations was this toolbox with it’s lovely fall color palette …

This ‘hello fall’ banner goes way back to 2019 …

You can find a tutorial for making one here if you want one yourself.

I do create the occasional bit of Halloween decor too, like the Black Hat Society sign that I shared a couple of weeks ago.

Then there was the Notice of Decommission sign that I shared back in 2019.

I hope you have the time to work on a few fall projects yourself this year, and maybe you’ve gotten some inspiration from the ones I’ve shared today.

Also, if you’re local, don’t forget to mark your calendar for my upcoming Carriage House Sale!

I hope to see some of you there!

seeing double.

Published on by Quandie7 Comments

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?

the black hat society.

Published on by Quandie6 Comments

If you’ve followed me for long, you probably know that I’ve taken quite a few cast off cupboard doors and turned them into ‘signs’ using stencils.

I’ve done a few signs with garden themes, and lots of signs for Christmas.

But I’m noticing that sales on these have kind of slowed down.  I had quite a few of them at my sale back in June that did not go.

So I’m taking a step back from producing quite so many.

That being said, I did pick up an awesome pair of old cupboard doors at a garage sale earlier this summer.

And I certainly didn’t want them to go to waste.

So I pulled out the smaller one a week or so ago and after giving it a good cleaning, I decided to give it a Halloween look.  Now that September is officially here, I think it’s OK to start transitioning to autumn, right?

I just happened to have a stencil on hand that fit perfectly.

Rather than painting the door first, I decided to keep the original finish.  I just simply added the stencil using Dixie Belle chalk style paint in Ecru.

I usually like to add a shadow behind the larger wording on stencils.  For example, you can see that on the Bed & Breakfast sign below …

I do that by first stenciling the words in a darker color, and then moving the stencil slightly up and over and stenciling again in my final color.

But the wording on this particular stencil was just a bit too fine for that to work.  So instead I added a little bit of shading using Dixie Belle’s French Villa from their new Countryside Collection.

It’s definitely subtle, but I think it adds just a little bit more dimension.

Once the paint was dry, I sanded over everything with 220 grit sandpaper and then I followed that up with Dixie Belle’s Big Mama’s Butta.

The original wood finish really need a bit of a refresh, and the Butta was perfect for that.

Last up, I added a little metal ’13’ to the lower part of the door.

I left all of the original hardware in place because I thought it provided some nice vintage charm.

I put a sawtooth hanger on the back so that it could be hung on the wall, but I rather like it just leaning … maybe on a mantle or at the back of a bookshelf.

Unfortunately, I didn’t seem to have any ‘witchy’ sort of items to use for staging my photos so I made do with a beaker, some bottles and a stack of old books.

I think this particular cupboard door sign would be a unique bit of Halloween decor, how about you?

I plan to hang onto it for my upcoming occasional sale.  I’m planning to have the sale on Saturday, October 4, rain or shine (fingers crossed that it’s both sunny and relatively warm), so if you’re local, be sure to mark your calendar!