Category: just stuff.

Although I tend to complain now and then about winter, the truth is, I rather look forward to it.  Mainly because it gives me a chance to slow down a bit.  I can spend a Saturday afternoon watching movies on the sofa without feeling like I really should be outside weeding the garden, or refinishing the deck, or painting furniture assembly line style out in my carriage house workshop.

There is also something really peaceful about the quietness of winter.  The windows are all sealed up, so outside noises don’t invade my space.  A nice layer of snow also tends to muffle sound nicely.

I also think winter is one of the most beautiful seasons.  Especially when there is a layer of freshly fallen snow, or a coating of hoarfrost on everything.

I have to admit though, it took me years to learn to appreciate this season and one of the tricks that helped is to find ways to get outside.

Mr. Q and I walk in our local park almost every day throughout the winter, although I admit we took a pass yesterday when the temp was below zero even at noon.  But for the most part we have had a very mild winter this year, which is lucky because it has felt more important than ever to get outside with this whole COVID thing still going on.

Another way I got outside (well, sort of) recently was to head to the Drive Thru Ice & Snow Sculpture Park that was part of the St. Paul Winter Carnival this year.

Typically this is not a drive-thru event, but to keep everyone safe from COVID this year you were able to remain in the heated comfort of your vehicle as you drove through the St. Paul fairgrounds and admired the sculptures.

I much preferred the snow sculptures over the ice sculptures, I think because you could see more detail on them from the car.

Mr. Q opted to stay home, so I was with my sister and niece.  However, as a huge Lord of the Rings fan, he would have really liked this one called “You Shall Not Pass” …

And I think my bff would have loved this one …

I probably should choose this next one as my favorite, you know … because it’s furniture …

But no, I absolutely loved this next one.

It totally brings to mind Georges Méliès Le Voyage dans la Lune.

In hindsight, I think we probably would have been better off going at night when the sculptures are all lit up with colored lights (and the lights and all of their electrical lines running everywhere wouldn’t have been so obvious).

For you locals, I’m sorry to say this event ended last weekend.  But even if I had posted sooner, the tickets (yes, it was a ticketed event) sold out early.  Maybe they’ll do it again next year!  I’m not sure whether to hope for that or not since the drive-thru feature was specifically a result of COVID.

This coming weekend is going to be another tough one.  Our highs are going to be in the negative digits, and that’s the high.  I’m afraid to even look a what the lows will be, let alone the wind chill.  It might be a great weekend to do some of that guilt-free movie watching on the sofa!

In case you didn’t notice, I’ve changed up my look.  Not personally (although that is well overdue also), but the look of my blog page.

Recently my friend/picker/co-worker/garage sale mentor Sue gently suggested that my blog header needed a makeover.  And she was right, the one I was using was rather dated and didn’t really reflect my most recent work.

I’d added it back in 2016.  Holy cow!  Can you believe it?!  That was nearly five years ago.  Man, time flies.

Here’s the one from before that …

Not terribly different.  Same color palette.  I really loved that buffet painted in Miss Mustard Seed’s Kitchen Scale.

In the very beginning, I used this one.

Once upon a time I changed up my header for the holiday season too.

Hmmm.  Definitely not loving that font/logo.  Ugh.

This past frigid February weekend seemed like the ideal time to sit down and come up with some changes.

This was the first collage I tried.

It features some of my most recent pieces, along with my renewed love of painting things white.  I wasn’t super happy with that center photo though, for some reason it kept ending up blurry looking (even though the original photo on its own is not blurry at all).

So next I switched it up for this …

I like that this one represents the variety of things I do here on q is for quandie.  I’m not just about painted furniture these days.  I was going to stick with this one, but then I thought … hey … maybe I should put one of my painted toolboxes in the mix.

So I came up with this one.

Done.

Next up was changing the background.  I felt like my old aqua and white background didn’t work at all with my new photo collage, so I switched it up for simple, chippy, white painted wood.

At that point, my original logo looked totally out of place with its aqua and coral.

I’d paid someone to design that logo for me way back in the beginning.  Not only did I have the colorful one above, but I also had a black one (and a white one) that I used to watermark my photos for a while.

I gave up doing that because I felt like the logo was hard to read as a watermark.  Here’s an example of a photo with this watermark.

For me, the purpose of watermarking my photos is to help people find my blog (not to mark my territory), so I quit using that watermark and just started adding my blog name in a simple, clean, easy to read font to my photos.

Still, I’d paid good money for those logos so I thought maybe I should try using the black one on my blog header.  Nope, it really just wasn’t working.

So I played around on PicMonkey and came up with a couple of different options to try.

First up was this one …

Again, kind of blurry … or maybe it’s just my aging eyesight.

Next I tried this one …

Ah, a bit clearer.  I love the font and it was simple enough to mesh well with the other elements of my header.

But in the end I went with this one …

Really, mainly because it feels really similar to my original font, so I thought it would be a smoother transition to my new look.  But I admit I’m a little on the fence on this one and may end up using one of those first two down the road.

So everybody, what do you think of the new look?  Was it about time?  Should I switch out the logo to one of those non-cursive fonts?  Leave me a comment a let me know.

First up, congrats to Jill O. I drew her name and will be sending her the paint blending giveaway from last week.  Second thing, the toolbox from Wednesday went super fast and I had about 4 more people who wanted it.  Clearly I need to be on the lookout for more toolboxes to paint!

In the meantime, remember a while back when I painted these faux bamboo picture frames?

I have to confess that in the end, the paint was just a little bit too flat.  It didn’t bring out the bamboo-ish-ness of the frames at all.

So when Dixie Belle sent me some of their new gilding waxes to try I decided to dress them back up again.

The gilding waxes come in six colors; gold, copper, silver, bronze, black and zinc and they have a metallic look to them.

Although these are just little bitty pots of wax, a little bit goes a long way with them.  I suspect one pot will last a long time unless you are gilding an entire piece of furniture or something.

Dixie Belle also sent some of their iridescent wax called Chameleon Wax.

The first step was to test out all of the waxes to see how they looked, so I pulled out an old painted board and used a q tip to add a swatch of each wax.

My favorites are the gold (seriously, isn’t that gold amazing?) and the copper, and I really can’t wait to find something to use the zinc on.  You can really see the iridescence of the Chameleon waxes on my sample board too.

The black doesn’t look like much in my photo, but it does have a bit of a metallic look to it in person and reminds me quite a lot of the wax I used on this piece.

All of these Dixie Belle waxes would work brilliantly when applied with a stencil like I did on that buffet.

But for my frames I ended up deciding to go with the bronze.

I used a small artists brush to apply the wax, but you could use your finger, a cloth, or a q tip.  In my case I wanted to wax the frame without removing the glass (pure laziness on my part), so I needed to be precise and the brush worked perfectly for that.

After applying the wax you can wipe it back immediately if you want to remove some of the product (and I did do that).  You need to do that right away, the wax will dry in 30 to 60 minutes and then you won’t be able to wipe it back.  Once the wax has dried for 12 hours, you can buff it to bring out more shine.

I tried to get a good photo of the difference once you buff it (above), but I’m not sure you can really see it.  The frame on top is not buffed, the one underneath is.  It does add quite a bit of shine if you buff it after 12 hours.

Just a couple of q tips on these waxes.  Keep in mind that they are not VOC free like so many of the products I use, so be sure to use them in a well ventilated area.  Also, they are an oil based product, so you’ll have to clean your brush (if you choose to use one) using mineral spirits.  Although in my case I used the Fusion brush cleaner and that seemed to work perfectly fine.

I had debated whether to use the gold or the bronze, but in the end I chose the more subtle look of the bronze.  The warmth of the bronze color works well with my collages of old family photos and ephemera.

Then again, if I change my mind later I could always add the gold over the bronze because these gilding waxes can be layered …

In fact, as I’m writing this I’m thinking maybe I should try that.  Just add a little touch of gold here and there.  Maybe I’ll just go do that real quick …

OK, I added just a dab of the gold here and there, mostly at the joints of the faux bamboo.  It really brightened things up, didn’t it?

If you’ve never tried any of these metallic waxes, I highly recommend giving them a try.  They are perfect for use on old metal hardware, or in this case on old picture frames.

What do you think?  Would you have left the frames in the flat black paint, or left them with just the bronze wax added?  Or do you like the brighter look with the gold added?

Thank you to Dixie Belle for providing me with the gilding wax used on today’s project.

 

Well, you guys spoke and I listened.  When I posted the little wooden recipe box that I thrifted recently, I asked you guys if I should paint it or not.

I have to confess, I was rather surprised that almost all of you said don’t paint it.

Well, OK then, I’m willing to give it a shot.

What isn’t super apparent in that ‘before’ photo is that the box was filthy dirty.  Like … totally gross really.  So the first step was to clean it well.  I used my spray Dawn dish soap for that.  I scrubbed it with one of those plastic scrubby pads and the soap, and rinsed it with warm water.  You should have seen the dirt that came off it!

Once clean, I let it air dry.  Here’s how it looked after that cleaning.

Definitely not an improvement, right?

But don’t be put off by this step, this box is still salvageable without totally refinishing it.

Next I sanded it lightly all over (except over that Recipes label) with 220 grit sandpaper.  I followed that up with some of Dixie Belle’s Big Mama’s Butta.

Ahhhh, so much better.  Isn’t it fantastic what that stuff does for old, dried out wood?

Several of you also suggested that I paint just the inside of the box, so I took that advice as well.  I painted it in Dixie Belle’s Gravel Road and then I added a little bit of the decoupage tissue paper from re.design with prima.

I love the way the dark grey works with the wood tone on the outside.

I just happened to have a set of index cards that fit the box perfectly.

I don’t suppose one typically uses alphabet index cards for recipes though, do they?  You’d probably more likely find cards that say ‘salads’, ‘appetizers’, and things like that in a recipe box.

Well, personally, if I was keeping this box I think I’d use it as a scrapbook instead of using it for recipes.  You may remember that I have done that before …

So I’m going to leave the alphabet index cards with the box and see if it inspires anyone to do something similar.

At this point, it just remains to be seen whether or not the box will sell.  I’m going to price it at $18 and see what happens.  I’ll keep you posted!

A bit before Christmas, my sister and I stopped in at Hobby Lobby.  While we were browsing around, I mentioned that I needed a bigger vessel for holding my colored pencils.  So I wanted to look at their galvanized containers.

I found just what I wanted, but unfortunately the storage & organizing pieces weren’t 50% off that day.  I think we all know by now that you should only buy things at Hobby Lobby when they are half off (or with a 40% off coupon).  Otherwise, they are simply 100% overpriced.

As luck would have it, neither of us had thought to bring a 40% off coupon with us either.

I was about to put the item back on the shelf when my sister took from me and said “I need one more thing to get you for Christmas.”  I tried to talk her out of it.  It just made me cringe to see her spend twice as much as she had to for it.  But she brushed me off, pointing out that she wasn’t too worried about the extra $12.50 (the container’s full price was $25).

Here it is …

Yep, definitely overpriced at $25.  But from the start I planned to add a little something to make it my own.

I started by painted the wooden parts of the handle black using Dixie Belle’s Midnight Sky.  Prior to being painted, the upper part of the handle was a cheap looking wood tone, and the lower part was a bronze color.  I knew black would be more my style.

I distressed the black and then added a clear wax finish.

Next I added a Classic Vintage Label from re.design with prima to the front.

It has so much more personality now, right?

This container is divided into 4 sections, so it’s perfect for organizing my pencils by color.

I was always searching for the different shades of a color with my last storage system, which was basically everything thrown together in a mish mash.

Coloring is entirely a winter hobby for me.  In the summer I’m usually busy out in my workshop in the evening, but this time of year I can’t be out there.  Plus, it’s dark and cold and I really just want to put on some fleecy pajama pants and watch TV on the sofa after working all day.  Unfortunately, that kind of behavior also leads to excessive snacking.  But I find that if I keep my hands busy with something, I’m not as tempted to snack.

The one downside to this plan is that it’s difficult to watch anything in a foreign language (and we do tend to watch a fair amount of foreign stuff).  You can’t really read subtitles and color at the same time.

My favorite coloring books are those by Johanna Basford.  Her World of Flowers book is probably my most favorite.

My niece gave me her Christmas book for my birthday this year, so it’s been fun working on some seasonal designs lately as well.

Now that I have my colored pencils organized properly, I’m sure I’ll be able to crank out a few more pages before spring.

And speaking of making things over in my style, this amazing antique bed is the next project I’ll be tackling.

So be sure to stay tuned to see how it turns out!

In my 2020 recap post I mentioned that you guys were going to see more signs made out of old cupboard doors this year.  Now that I know how easy they are to come by at the ReStore, I’ll probably be painting these up when I don’t have any other projects going on.

I picked up 4 cupboard doors that are approx. 13″ x 28″ the last time I was at the ReStore.

You’ve already seen one of them …

I painted up two more of them over the long holiday weekends.  One white, and one black.

The white one is painted in Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth.

I stenciled it with another Wallcutz stencil (I have the 9″ x 20″ size).

Here’s a little tidbit I learned while googling to find that photo of the stencil.  The stencil from Wallcutz (shown above) has a border.  I had to tape that off to get the stencil to fit on my cupboard door.  But guess what, this exact same design is also available from Stencil Revolution, and their version does not have the border.

Interesting.

I’m curious about these two different companies offering what is nearly an identical design.  They obviously don’t create the designs themselves.  Do they buy them somewhere?  Are they using non-copyrighted images that are available to anyone?  I wonder.

Here’s some quick comparisons for you.  The similarly sized version from Stencil Revolution (8″ x 18″) is $18.99.  My Wallcutz stencil was $13.95.  Wallcutz offers free shipping if you spend over $50, Stencil Revolution offers free shipping if you spend over $35.

The Stencil Revolution version has more ‘bridges’ in the letters.  Take a close look at the “G” in each stencil.  The Wallcutz version doesn’t have any bridges, the Stencil Revolution version has three.

It’s a small detail, but if you aren’t a fan of that ‘stenciled’ look, or if (like me) you tend to fill in those bridges with a small paint brush after you’ve stenciled … well, you’ll be doing a lot more of that with the Stencil Revolution version.  Just sayin’.

I’m not affiliated in any way with either of these brands, I’m just sharing the info as I found it.  And I can say that I’m quite happy with the Wallcutz version that I purchased.

For the Drop Cloth sign, I added a small shadow to the words “GENERAL STORE” using Dixie Belle’s Hurricane Grey.  The black is their Midnight Sky.

Much like with the Christmas signs I did in November, I added a couple of wooden knobs along the bottom of the sign so that one could hang something from them.  This time I used the little piggy knobs that I painted up way back in August 2018.

  The transfers on the knobs are from the Farmhouse Delight set from re.design with prima.

Gosh, time flies!  I’ve had these knobs sitting around for 2 1/2 years just waiting for the right project to come along.  For those of you who have followed me that long, can you believe it was so long ago?  In some ways it seems like just yesterday.

I think they worked out rather well on the sign.

I painted a second cupboard door in Midnight Sky.  The stenciling is done with a Hurricane Gray shadow with Drop Cloth over it.

I think the pig knobs worked nicely with the black as well.

I’ll likely end up taking both of these in to Reclaiming Beautiful to sell (and until then they are available locally).

In the meantime, while at the ReStore picking up these cupboard doors I also purchased this …

Ken and I have been hard at work on this one and I hope to be ready to share it with you next week.  So be sure to stay tuned!

As always, thank you to Dixie Belle Paint Co for supplying the paint used on today’s signs.

I don’t know about you, but I feel like 2020 is going to be remembered as the year that wasn’t.  So many things were just ‘on hold’ for nearly the entire year, things like travel, neighborhood garage sales, social gatherings, dining in restaurants, and festivals of all kinds.

I think most of us will be happy to see 2020 in the rearview mirror.  So long 2020, don’t let the door hit ya in the ass on your way out.

But then again, as I’m looking back over my blog posts for 2020, I see that it wasn’t all bad.  Once again I managed to crank out a few projects here and there, so let’s review, shall we?

One thing that jumped out at me for 2020 was all of the things I painted white.  Not only do I find that white pieces sell more quickly, but white pieces just really appeal to me.  So I found myself reaching for the white paint quite a lot in 2020.

My current favorite white is Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth (on the bench lower right and the serpentine cabinet with the gold transfers shown above upper left) followed closely by their Sawmill Gravy (on the other two pieces).

Another trend for me in 2020 was working on smaller items rather than larger furniture pieces.  I tend to find the bulk of my furniture pieces on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace, but I found myself avoiding interacting with too many strangers in 2020.  To be honest, it doesn’t really make any sense.  I probably encountered more strangers at garage sales than I would have buying furniture online.

None the less, that led to a lot of smalls.  And again, with lots of white!

I didn’t entirely abandon my other favorite color to work with in 2020, black.

And I did also use some color in 2020.

I may have had to dig deep into the archives to find it though.

I also shared quite a few do-overs in 2020.

I was trying to work on things that I already had on hand, and that included a few pieces that hadn’t sold in their original look like the bench and the dresser).  Both of those pieces sold quickly after a do-over.  I also took advantage of the time and made over a couple of my own pieces like my Welsh cupboard and that little folding chair that is now hanging on the wall in my living room.

Then there was also the bench flip that I shared on Monday.

So over all, 2020 wasn’t all that bad.  My storage areas are pretty well cleaned out now, so that means I have a clean slate for starting 2021.

Here’s what I know you’ll see a lot more of from me in 2021 …

Black and white.  Because let’s face it, they are classic and never go out of style.

Signs made out of old cupboard doors.  Now that I know how easy these are to find at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore, I’m pretty sure I’m going to keep making lots of them.

Stenciling on unpainted wood.  This was an experiment for me recently, but I really love how it turned out.  I think you’ll see more of this look from me in 2021.

Thrifted items given new life with paint, stencils and/or transfers.  I just love taking a worn out item and giving it a fresh new life.  It’s so satisfying!

And here’s what I dearly hope you’ll see more of from me in 2021 …

Great hauls from neighborhood garage sales.  Because surely the awesome neighborhood sales will be back in business for 2021, right?

Travel posts.  Please, please, please let there be travel in 2021.

Garden posts.  Even if the world opens back up again, I still hope to keep up on my gardening.

Home tours.  Because everybody enjoys an awesome home tour.

So, let’s all raise a glass and ring in 2021.  It has to be an improvement over 2020, right?!

Happy New Year!

My sister and I headed over to our local Habitat for Humanity ReStore the other day.  I wanted to pick up a few more cupboard doors to use to make signs.  I found 4 good sized doors for $4 each, but before heading out we took a quick look around and I also found this fabulous little primitive cupboard.

I knew this would be a fun project to work on, and that a little paint and a transfer would really make it shine.

I started by sanding it lightly, then giving it a good cleaning.  Then I painted the inside in Dixie Belle’s Gravel Road and the outside in their Sawmill Gravy.

Once the paint was dry, I sanded heavily because I wanted a lot of distressing on this one.

Next I pulled out an old IOD transfer called Specimens and applied it to the front of the cupboard.

I only used the bottom half of the transfer, and that was perfect.

Next I added clear wax to the entire thing.  I also added some heavy duty D-rings to the back so that it could be hung on the wall.

This cupboard has a clever little latching mechanism for keeping the door shut (it totally reminded me of the one on the washstand I shared a while back).

I’m always a sucker for these sort of primitive details, how about you?

I was channeling my inner Nina Hartmann when staging this one.

Are any of you familiar with her work?  I’ve mentioned her a few times here before.  I have several of her books, and they can be hard to come by here in the U.S.  I ordered the latest one, Living with Swedish Antiques, directly from her website (to order click on webshop, then books).  Don’t be totally freaked out by the price, it is shown in Swedish krona.  That being said, her books aren’t cheap.  After converting krona to dollars, I ended up paying around $80 for this one, including shipping.

The book on the bottom of the stack, among vintage & friends, is also totally fabulous.  Here’s a page from that one …

I think you can probably see why it appeals to me.

But I think my favorite book of hers is My home with vintage & antiques.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any tips on how to acquire either of these older two books.  They are out of print and priced exorbitantly if you can even find them online.  So I apologize for telling you all about how amazing they are, and then following it up with ‘and by the way, you can’t get them anywhere.’  But you can get her newest book, so you may want to jump on that.

The primitive look of this cupboard, the color of the Sawmill Gravy (white with a hint of grey), the crackled ironstone and the mostly bare evergreen are all inspired by Nina’s style.

I love how this little cupboard turned out.  Once again, I’m tempted to keep this one.  Or maybe swap it out for some other piece I already have.

But then again, maybe I’ll just be happy to see it go to a good home.  So if any of my local readers are interested, be sure to check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page for more details.

So, how about you guys, are any of you already fans of Nina Hartmann?  or just simply fans of pale, painted wood pieces with lots of character?

As always, thanks to Dixie Belle Paint Co for supplying the paint used on this cupboard.

First up, I want to say congratulations to Ruth H for winning my blogiversary giveaway.

I drew her name at random to win a few of my favorite Dixie Belle paint colors and a couple of other things.  Mr. Q has shipped off her prize and I hope she gets it in time to whip up a few things for the holidays.

What I didn’t mention in my original post about the giveaway was that I also had another complete package of all the same stuff to give to someone.  But rather than drawing a name at random for the 2nd set, I decided to give it to the person who left the most comments on my blog to date in 2020.  So I pulled up my blog stats and quite honestly I wasn’t at all surprised to find that that person was M. Constance Colvin.

Connie is a regular commenter, and she always sends the most lovely little messages, like this one …

“Well now……this post captures the essence of quandification (-: A pretty makeover of something that already looked great! “

and this one …

“A Quandie a day keeps the blog blahs away!!!”

Her comments always make me chuckle …

“Miss Quandie! Only TWO BUCKETS to share today? What a slacker!!!”

I’m super grateful to Connie for taking the time to leave comments.  They always make my day!

But speaking of being a slacker, I feel a bit like one this week.

Now that we are approaching the shortest day of the year, it’s dark when I leave for work in the morning and dark when I get home in the evening.  That means that if I want to photograph a project to share here on the blog I have to do it on the weekend.  If it’s not done by Sunday afternoon, then I am s.o.l.

Last weekend I spent some time finishing up my Christmas shopping, did my Christmas wrapping, and just enjoyed some down time.

I didn’t get a single thing painted.

Let’s hope I do better this weekend!