Category: just stuff.

Happy St. Pat’s!  Are you wearing the green?  I haven’t got an Irish bone in my body, but I do love green stuff.

My friend Meggan and I were thrifting again a couple of weeks ago, and for some reason I was finding lots of it.  I came home with this little pile of goodies.

I passed on a lovely mid-century decanter set in green glass with gold details.  I should have grabbed it, but didn’t.  Shoulda, coulda, woulda, right?

I had an idea that the green metal box would make a fantastically junkalicious medicine cabinet, so I decided to try the gel medium transfer method on it.  I found an awesome french graphic on Graphics Fairy, and followed the same method I used last time on the hat box.  I was so excited, and sure that this was going to be amazing.

Um, hmmmm, not so much.

What went wrong?  I’m really not sure, but the gel medium didn’t stick to the metal.  Picture putting some Elmer’s glue on something, and then being able to sort of peel it right off once dry.  That’s what happened here.  It peeled.  And the more I tried to salvage it, the worse it got.  Eventually I realized that the entire design was just going to peel off.  Did I apply the gel medium too thickly?  Should I have prepped the surface better prior to application?  Or was my idea doomed from the start because the gel medium just won’t work on painted metal?  Or perhaps it would have all been OK if I had added a coat of mod podge on top.  Unfortunately, I don’t have any answers for you.  Just a warning that sometimes the gel medium transfer is not all it’s cracked up to be.

In the end, I was able to remove the whole thing quite easily by scraping it off with a razor blade.  Then I started over with a stencil and some paint.  A much better choice for this piece.

I don’t love this design as much as the first one from Graphics Fairy, but it still adds a cool vibe to the box.  I had Ken put some holes in the back so I could hang it on the wall as a cabinet.

Meggan spotted the glass that is tucked inside the cabinet for me, isn’t it fab?  It came home from the thrift store the same day.

In addition to the fab green cabinet and the little french glass, I also purchased the green frame that is in the back of my first photo.  I just loved the patina on the frame, and the green color.  I knew it would be perfect for some Paris in Color postcards in green.  Are you guys familiar with Paris in Color?  It’s a book of photography by Nichole Robertson.  Check her out if you haven’t seen her work.

The postcards fit perfectly in the existing mat, and they are so much better than the 80’s tulip prints that were there originally.

I hope you enjoyed this little touch of green, now go out and drink some green beer and beware of bad leprechauns!

I’m painting more metal boxes.  It’s so quick and easy, and I love the results.  I picked up a couple of them while thrifting recently.

I painted the larger one in Annie Sloan’s Duck Egg, and the smaller in her Florence.

Then I doctored them up with some more rub-ons.  The numbers are Tim Holtz, and the faux vintage labels are 7 Gypsies.  I just adore the one I used on the top of the smaller box.

And I added some pretty October Afternoon scrapbook paper inside.

And the French labels on the bigger box are kind of fab as well.

I doctored up the top of the bigger box also.

I don’t know about you, but I prefer storing things in pretty containers.  These boxes would be perfect for storing all kinds of things; craft supplies, tax records (gack!), your make up, old photos.  Both of these boxes have keys, so you could always lock up your most precious belongings, whatever they might be.

Here are some tips for you if you plan to paint some metal boxes of your own.  First of all, sand lightly before you paint.  I know that chalk paint aficionado’s say you don’t have to, but it just takes a minute and it helps remove any residues that might affect the paint.  Next, water your chalk paint down.  Way down.  You won’t get the brush strokes if your paint is really thinned out.  Take a closer look at my photos.  I watered down the Florence, but didn’t water down the Duck Egg.  You can see brush strokes in the Duck Egg, but none in the Florence.  That did mean that I needed two coats of Florence, and only one of Duck Egg, but I think it’s worth it to get rid of those brush strokes.  Especially on metal.  Next time I’ll be sure to water down all of my colors.

I finished by sanding and then adding clear wax.  I followed the clear wax with some dark wax on the smaller box.  Then I added the rub-ons.

Makes for a simple project you can handle in an afternoon.  But if you don’t want to tackle it yourself, these lovely boxes will be available at my sale in June unless someone snaps them up sooner.

Every time I go into a thrift store, I check the luggage aisle.  I’m looking for fabulous vintage luggage, but usually I find tacky 80’s and 90’s luggage instead.  I’ve heard mythical stories from those who have found great vintage luggage at Goodwill or other thrift stores, but it has never happened for me.

Then, it happened.  A vintage Samsonite.  Right there in the luggage aisle.  Not only that, but it was half-off day!  I grabbed that suitcase and proudly hauled it over to the cart I was sharing with my friend Meggan with a huge grin on my face.  “Look!”, I proclaimed, “it’s a miracle!” and she said “It’s a thrift store unicorn!”

I also picked up a few other goodies that day.  Another metal box to paint, some MCM glassware, a cute vintage watering can, a cast iron door stop and more.  I always grab decent lampshades when I see them.  This one was in great shape and only 75 cents.  How do you pass that up?

The next day Meggan emailed me.  She had spotted a pair of vintage suitcases on Craigslist.  Not only that, but they were in my neighborhood and in the right price range!  It was like a unicorn trifecta.

Mr. Q and I promptly ran over and picked them up.

And then, a couple of days later, Meggan texted me from Goodwill.  She had spotted yet another thrift store unicorn!  A vintage Samsonite, and she was willing to nab it for me.  Woo hoo!  She is now a bonafide unicorn hunter.

My collection of vintage suitcases is growing.  Some vintage suitcases are totally meant to be left alone.  Like these three.

I use these as props in my furniture photos, and also just as decoration in my home.

Meggan has this stack of vintage luggage at her house, and these are also perfect as is.

But the suitcases that I have been stockpiling are destined to be painted.  Potentially even by you!

Stay tuned later in the week when I announce my upcoming Painted Suitcase class!

Way back on my birthday last November, my friend Terri gave me a galvanized cake stand that she purchased from Decor Steals.  She knew it was so ‘me’, and that I love pretty much all things galvanized.  Yet, still, it sat around for all of this time because I was struggling with how to use it.  Obviously, I’m not going to be using it for cakes.  I’m one of those people who has to dust my stove, remember?

I finally decided that I would use it as a centerpiece on my dining room table.

And I pulled out some of my vintage pieces in my favorite shade of aqua to put on top of it, the flour sifter that I picked up recently while thrifting and a little clock that I purchased at Oronoco Gold Rush.

I also added my favorite aqua clock and some aqua flower frogs, along with another of my ’22’ tickets.

I love how it looks on my table.  I may change out the cyclamen plant with something in bloom, but for now I like the patterns on the leaves.

I like changing up little things like this in my house.  It gives me an opportunity to see things with a fresh eye, and it doesn’t cost anything.  You should give it a try.  Move some of your things around and display them in a different room, or in a different way, just for fun!

Are any of you watching Fixer Upper on HGTV?  I had 4 different friends tell me that I just had to see this show.  If 4 people who know me well think this show is right up my alley, it must be!  Luckily, I found Season 1 in its entirety on Comcast on Demand.  So last weekend I had a Fixer Upper marathon.  My friend Meggan suggested a drinking game to go along with the show.  Every time Chip says “bucks” you have to take a drink.  Had I been playing the game, I would have been sloshed after just one episode!  And I watched about 10 of them.  Once you start listening for “bucks”, it’s hard to watch the show without giggling every time he says it.  Go ahead, just try it!

Aside from that, I have to say that I love Joanna Gaines’ style.

 Check out more pictures of the Magnolia farmhouse here.  If you aren’t watching the show, you should be!  And go ahead and add Meggan’s drinking game and let me know how that works out for you!

But meanwhile, I have a little fixer upper of my own to share with you today.  I purchased this industrial stool from my friend Sue at my own Carriage House sale.  No one else bought it (which is just plain crazy, it was $12), so I did!

Some people might have just left this stool as is.  But since I pretty much paint anything that isn’t nailed down (and even a lot of stuff that is), I decided to give it a little makeover.

I painted the entire stool with some custom mixed milk paint, the same paint I used on the Wintergreen dresser.  So, now it looks like this.

It has a metal base and a wooden seat.  From everything official that you read about milk paint, you wouldn’t think it would stick to metal without using the bonding agent.  However, I have found that isn’t always the case.  I’ve painted a couple of other metal pieces and not used bonding agent, so I decided to give it a try on this one too.  Worst case scenario, my paint would all flake off and I’d start over.  Instead I got some very nice chipping, but not too much chipping.  Here is a close up of the metal legs so you can see the end result.

In addition, the mixed milk paint I used was close to 4 weeks old.  Mixed milk paint isn’t supposed to last more than 5 to 7 days.  I’ll admit, it was a little stronger smelling than usual.  But other than that, I didn’t see any problem with using it.  Once I gave it a good stir, it wasn’t lumpy at all.  It had thickened up a little, but that worked in my favor on this piece.

I’m not advocating painting with milk paint that is past it’s due date, or counting on it sticking to metal.  However, sometimes breaking the rules works out just fine.

Last year when I shared a booth at Junk Bonanza with my friend Lori, she purchased some absolutely gorgeous vintage hat boxes from Belgium from another vendor.  I absolutely loved them, but they were priced way out of my price range.  Since my typical price range for such things is probably around $12, I guess that isn’t saying much, but let’s just say they were quite a bit more than $12.

I don’t have pictures of the exact boxes that she purchased, but they were similar to this.

I’ve always had an idea in the back of my head to create my own similar hat box, but recently when some of my co-workers introduced me to transferring graphics using gel medium I realized that I really should give it a try.

So I pulled out a hatbox that I happened to have on hand.  Before I started, it looked like this.

First I added a base coat of chalk paint in French Linen (a greige color), then I added two coats of white.  While that dried, I found a graphic that I liked from the Graphics Fairy and printed a reverse image of it on my regular old laserjet printer.

Once the paint was dry, I painted a coat of the gel medium onto the hatbox where I wanted the label to go, and then placed my printed image face down on top of that.  I smoothed out any bubbles and made sure it was nice and flat.  Then I left it to dry for a couple of hours.

Once it was good and dry, I used a wet cloth to wet the paper.  Then I gently rubbed the paper off, leaving the image behind.  I had to use a lot of caution because I was working on top of chalk paint.  As you may know, chalk paint can be distressed (or wiped off) using a damp cloth, so I had to work cautiously to make sure I wasn’t rubbing off any paint.  I did find that the gel medium protected the paint fairly well, but if I rubbed outside the area with the gel medium I did remove some paint.

Once all of the paper was removed, I added a coat of wax to the entire box.

And voila!

You can see that I had a little trouble with the upper right corner.  I think I didn’t have as thick a layer of gel medium in that spot.  I’m OK with that though, because I think it helps the box look aged.

I could have added a little dark wax to give it a little more weathered look as well, but for now I like the whiteness of it.

The alabaster lamp is one that I picked up at a garage sale last year.  I just re-wired it, which is super simple.  If you’ve never tried it, don’t be afraid to do so, it really is easy.  Do you recognize the skeleton lamp shade?  It’s the small white shade that I picked up on my thrifty field trip with its cover ripped off.  I just clipped on a vintage wedding photo instead.

So what do you think of my faux french hat box?  Do you think it comes close to passing for the real McCoy?  I can tell you that it cost way less than $12 to make, so it was right in my price range.

Update:  bad blogger alert!  I’ve been a bad blogger and not given you the ‘official directions’ for this project, which say to let the gel medium dry for at least 8 hours.  Also, if you’re wondering, the product I used was Liquitex acrylic gel medium.  If you want to try this at home, here is a much better step by step tutorial on how to do it yourself.

Linking up with:

My Salvaged Treasures and French Country Cottage

Remember my pile of goodies from my thrift store field trip?

You can’t see it very well, but the lampshade is sitting on top of a white metal shelf.  I think these vintage shelves were typically intended for the bathroom.  This one didn’t have much going for it, but I wanted to give it a colorful makeover.

So, I painted it with Cece Caldwell’s Santa Fe Turquoise, added some vintage wallpaper to the shelves, touched up the gold trim with some Rub ‘n Buff and added another Tim Holtz rub-on to the front.  So now, it looks like this …

I love using pretty containers for utilitarian supplies; a little crystal bowl for your cotton wipes, and a vintage pink elephant shot glass for your q-tips.

A while back I purchased a set of state trivia cards at a garage sale.  They are the perfect color for me, and I thought they would be fun for scrapbooking.  You might have noticed it clipped to the ladder in the q branch, but I borrowed it for this photo shoot to hide a nail hole in the wall.  Plus it plays into my “state of mind” theme perfectly, get it?

So, I happen to have a whole bunch of these cards for different states that I don’t really need.  If any of you are from a different state and would like your state card, leave me a comment and let me know what state you would like and I will pop it in the mail for you  (not available:  Nevada, Florida & New Jersey … and obviously Minnesota).  I don’t think I have every state, but I have quite a few.  First come, first served.

I’m not the only one who believes that lucky is a state of mind, right?

Update:  as of Sunday morning, I still have Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Hampshire, North and South Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Vermont.  Anyone?

In the past I’ve had a few people ask me whether or not I teach classes on painting.  Last year I taught a couple of classes that focused on milk paint at the Round Barn, but other than that I really haven’t done any classes.  But I’ve thought about it, and wondered if I could pull it off at my own house.  So when a gal I knew from a craigslist purchase mentioned that she’d love to take a class, I suggested that she and a friend be my guinea pigs.  After all, I have a lot of knowledge learned on the fly, and I am more than happy to share what I know with others.

The one big thing that I can offer in a class of my own is a complete lack of bias or focus on a particular product.  In other words, my class encompasses all of the various products out there, along with when, why and how to use them.  Since I am not selling any products here, I don’t need to be promoting a particular brand.  I firmly believe that both milk paint and chalk paint have their place.  Not all projects are good for milk paint, and vice versa.  I also have a couple of money saving tips, such as when you can substitute a much cheaper product, and when you can’t.

So on a recent sunny Saturday afternoon my guinea pigs, Emily and her friend Jess, came over for a class.  They each brought something from home to paint.  Emily brought some simple wood storage cubes, and Jess brought a toy box that she saved from the dumpster.  Someone she knew was going to toss it!  So she grabbed it and brought it along to paint.  I am kicking myself now because I didn’t get ‘before’ pics!  Darn!  But suffice to say, the cubes were already painted in pastel colors, and the toy box was painted black.  We assumed that all of them were painted in a latex satin or semi-gloss paint.

Emily and Jess learned how to decide which product is right for your piece, how to prep your piece before painting, painting with chalk paint, mixing and painting with milk paint, stenciling, distressing and finishing with either wax or hemp oil.

They used both chalk paint and milk paint on their pieces.  Here is Emily putting a coat of MMS Artissimo milk paint on one of her cubes, after having already painted the inside with chalk paint in Duck Egg.

And Jess went with an undercoat of Cece Caldwell Vintage White chalk paint followed by MMS milk paint in Apron Strings for the toy box.

We experimented with a hemp oil resist, and also with blow drying.  Here is Jess blow drying her toy chest (boy, that just somehow sounds wrong, doesn’t it?)

Originally Jess was going to stencil a number on the toy box, but once I showed her this french stencil, she knew it was perfect.

“sweet dreams my child, good night”

The Apron Strings was a great color choice for this piece as well.  Jess really liked the variations in this color ranging from pink to coral.  It really worked well for her, and it was a great way for me to show them this quality of milk paint (which can be good or bad, depending on what look you are going for).

Our class lasted just a tad over 4 hours, and both Emily and Jess went home with finished pieces.

It was really fun, and I enjoyed sharing my knowledge.   I think I learned a couple of things about how to make it go more smoothly next time (like actually have some handouts ready to pass out, oops).  I wasn’t sure we’d be able to fully complete our projects in that time span, so I was glad to learn that yes, it can be done.

I’ve got some ideas floating around in my head for future classes.  One idea is to have a class where each person paints a vintage cupboard door to turn into a ‘sign’, like my French Market sign.

Another possibility is a class where everyone goes home with a painted suitcase (but first I have to get my hands on some suitcases!).

But I also would be willing to just host some more classes where people bring their own item to paint.

So, if any of you locals might be interested in a class, please leave a comment or drop me an email at oakdalecarriagehouse@gmail.com

I’d love to hear from you!

As my new friend Meggan showed me around her house a couple of weeks ago, pointing out all of her fantastic thrift store finds, I thought to myself “hmmm, what is her secret?”  I’ve never had much luck at thrift stores.  I find the occasional gem, but most of the time I leave empty handed.

So when Meggan offered to let me tag along on a visit to her favorite thrift store, I jumped at the chance.

It’s actually not far from my house, but I had only been there once or twice, and that was quite some time ago.  So the other night, Meggan picked me up and we ran over there.  Time just flew by while we were browsing around, and Meggan showed me the ropes; the color coding system on the tags, and how that night anything with a green tag was half off.  We filled our cart to overflowing, and were shocked when they announced over the loud speaker that they were closing in 15 minutes.

I came home with all of this, plus a few more items that didn’t make it into the photo.

Now, you may be thinking, ‘huh?  what was she thinking?’, but trust me.  I’m going to transform most of these items into something fab.

In fact, I’ve already begun the process with that little set of 4 plates.

I cleaned them up, and added some of my favorite Tim Holtz rub-ons.

They aren’t food safe, but they would make a great dish for holding your spare change or some jewelry on your dressing table.  They would also be sweet hung on the wall.

You will have to stay tuned to see what I do with the rest of my haul.  I’m really anxious to get started on this.

You’ll just have to trust me on this one!

Meanwhile, check back on Friday for the full reveal of my craft room makeover.  See you then!