Category: just stuff.

just stuff that is cool.

big projects and little projects.

Published on by Quandie10 Comments

You may have noticed that I didn’t have a blog post on Monday, or on Wednesday (maybe someone noticed?).  As it turned out, for the last week or so I had a number of irons in the fire, but nothing that was both completed and felt blog-worthy.

The first big project was fixing/replacing a section of our very rickety privacy fence.

Last winter the 24′ section that was 3′ tall behind my fern bed toppled over.  It was pretty well disguised by the ferns that grow tall enough to hide it, but here’s a photo that will give you just a hint of what it looked like.

Those ferns tend to die back early, so it was time for some sort of solution.  We debated just pulling out that section and going fenceless there.  That option seemed pretty reasonable when looking at the area in summer when the ferns are taller than the fence was anyway.

But that’s only good for about 3 months out of the year, for the rest of the year we needed something to block the multiple vehicles in the neighbor’s driveway.  Luckily I have some really awesome neighbors who are good at DIY, and have lots of tools, and access to cheap labor (high school kids who need a little cash).  So all of that added up to replacing that 3′ tall section of fence with a 6′ tall section instead.

It was still a big job and took about two days to complete.

The other big job I’m working on is painting that hutch that I purchased a few weeks back at a garage sale.

I have it mostly painted, but I’m waiting on some supplies for finishing it up, so it’s kind of at a standstill for now.

Meanwhile, I did squeeze in a couple of smaller projects in between the bigger ones, such as this cutting board.

It was a fun little project, but there is really only so much you can say about painting a cutting board, so it didn’t seem worthy of its own blog post.

I painted it in Dixie Belle’s Dried Sage, then I added the artichokes from I.O.D.’s Melange paint inlay.  Then I felt like it needed just a little something more, so I added the ‘Albert Ruoff’ and the ‘1842.’ from one of the 8″ German Grain Sack stencils from ellen j goods.

Another small project I completed this week was this pair of shoe forms.

I purchased these at a garage sale quite some time ago … dare I say several years ago?

If these had a really cool original patina, I would have left them alone.  But I thought they could be improved with a paint job.  So sometime last year I painted one of them in Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth and one of them their Midnight Sky.  Then I attempted to add some transfers, but instead of the transfer sticking to the paint, the paint stuck to the transfers and pulled right off.  I suspect that these forms had been ‘spruced up’ with some kind of oil or wax before I purchased them, thus causing adherence problems.

So I ending up pushing them to the back of the shelf where they sat for the last year or so.

But I pulled them out recently and gave them both a good sanding.  I thought the one that was originally painted in Drop Cloth looked pretty good, so I simply added a crown and some small wording from a Tim Holtz transfer.

Wouldn’t it have been more fun if that transfer said ‘non-collector’??  LOL.

I decided to paint up the 2nd one in a similar way.  So I gave it two coats of Drop Cloth, and then sanded heavily to distress.  I followed that up with another crown and some wording.

I also added a little number to the heel.

And there you have it.  Two big projects, and two small projects.

Hopefully I’ll have a few more fun things to share with you guys next week, so be sure to stay tuned!

it won’t hold water.

Published on by Quandie18 Comments

I purchased this galvanized bucket at my friend Lisa’s occasional sale.

I was mainly drawn to it because of its unique oval shape.

But I pretty much love old galvanized buckets in general, regardless of shape, and have several myself.

Back in the beginning, let’s call it b.f., ‘before transfers’, I used to stencil on them.

I still have one of those French Market buckets serving as the trashcan in our bathroom.

Sometimes they were painted first, and then stenciled.

And then I discovered transfers.

Most of the buckets I’ve kept have wordy transfers added to them, like this one …

I use them for flower arranging, or for containing a small Christmas tree.

However, it seems that when I leave them unpainted and just add words they don’t sell very quickly.  So perhaps it’s just me that likes them that way?

The painted ones, on the other hand, tend to fly off the shelves.  This one originally just had some wording and it never did sell, so I painted it and added a transfer and it sold quickly …

So I decided to go ahead and paint the oval bucket in Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth.  Then, rather than adding a transfer, I thought it would be fun to try an I.O.D. paint inlay this time around.

I added a section from the Melange inlay that has three wildflowers in a row, at least I think they are wildflowers.

Wait a minute, upon review, no they are not wildflowers …

That one seems to be a hyacinth, so let’s go with just ‘flowers’.

Some previous owner of this bucket added drainage holes to the bottom so that it could be used as a planter.

So it definitely won’t hold water.

But I added several coats of spray sealer so that it could be potted up with plants and used outside or in.  Wouldn’t it look great filled with herbs?  Or even just simple geraniums?

I went ahead and filled it with whisk brooms for my photo shoot, because, well, why not?

You wouldn’t have to use it for plants.

I’ll be bringing this one into the shop, so we’ll just see how well it sells with a paint job.

What do you think?  Do you prefer the painted buckets over those with just words over the galvanized metal?  Leave a comment and let me know.

up a creek.

Published on by Quandie23 Comments

Remember the oars that I found at the MacGrove garage sales?

Well, if you read the comments on my blog posts, you may have noticed that a neighbor of mine mentioned that she’d be willing to trade me some toolboxes for the oars.

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do with all of those oars.  I just couldn’t pass them up at only $2 each and I figured I’d come up with something.

But would I rather have some toolboxes?  Yes I would!

So I loaded up the oars and headed over to Karen’s house (not nnK, my neighbor across the street, another Karen, I may have to start calling her onK, or ‘other neighbor Karen’).

Turns out, this was an excellent decision.  As it happens, Karen is a bit of an oar (or paddle) artist.

The one shown above is still in progress, but isn’t that a cool design?

Karen does some very precise work, and she starts by drawing out her pattern on paper.

Then she even tries out her color selections on paper before painting the actual paddle.

Such a great way to make sure your colors are going to work together.

I really like the abstract fish design that she’s adding to this one …

As you can see in the upper right of that photo, Karen uses regular ol’ latex paint.  She gets the sample size jars and has them mixed up in whatever colors she wants to use.  It’s pretty cost effective, and she doesn’t need much of each color of paint.

Here’s another design that she has just started working on.

I don’t believe she ever does the same design more than once.

She created the Canadian flag version below for her husband who is originally from Canada.

Karen displays a number of her paddles around the perimeter of her sun room (which happens to have really cool wood clad walls and a corrugated metal ceiling).

I think it’s fair to say that Karen will never be up a creek without a paddle!

I’m so glad that the oars went to someone who is going to do something like this with them.  I would never have come up with anything as special for them.

Unfortunately, Karen doesn’t have any sort of social media presence so I can’t send you anywhere to look at her work.  But I’m sure she’ll be reading this blog post so be sure to leave a comment and let her know what you think of her gorgeous paddles and oars!

stretching your transfers.

Published on by Quandie15 Comments

I’m sure that many of you saw that I.O.D. came out with a new summer release recently.  It included a couple of really pretty transfers.  Even though I’m trying not to buy new transfers, and instead use up the ones that I have, I just couldn’t resist this one called Elysium.

This transfer costs around $30 (plus shipping in most cases), so adding it to a smaller item, like a toolbox for example, that I am planning to sell for less than $50 doesn’t seem like a smart plan.

But I figured I could break it up and get at least 4 smaller projects out of just this one transfer, and suddenly the cost seems a lot more realistic.

So far I’ve used it on two pieces, so I thought I’d share those together today.

First up is the rustic box that’s underneath the wood tote in this photo …

It may once have looked pretty cool with that paper label on the front, but there wasn’t enough left of the label to salvage.  So I cleaned the box first, then sanded off most of that label.  As I was working with the box, I realized that it was pretty much falling apart.  So I did a little gluing and nailing too.

Finally it was ready for paint.  I first painted the interior in Dixie Belle’s Kudzu.

Other than paint, I left the inside quite plain.

I kept the pretty stuff on the outside.

After painting the exterior of the box in Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth and sanding it well to distress the edges, I added just one sheet of the Elysium transfer to the top (this transfer comes in 4 pieces).

One thing to note with this transfer is that there is some typography in the background.  It’s subtle, but it’s there.  So you want to be careful to not place it with the words upside down.

 Next I layered on some wording from the I.O.D. Label Ephemera transfer.

Once I had those in place, I decided that the box needed some rustic hardware, so I added this old rusty handle that I had in my stash.

And voila, a fun box that would be perfect for housing your stash of Jeanne d’Arc Living magazines (or any sort of magazine really).

The 2nd project using just one sheet of the Elysium transfer is this tackle box.

I picked this out of a ‘free’ pile on the curb in my neighborhood.  Mr. Q and I were passing by on our daily walk and there it was, so I grabbed it.

It didn’t look too terrible on the outside, but the inside was a gunky mess.

I actually ended up discarding the tray because I didn’t think it was worth the effort to save.  But for the rest of the interior I first soaked it in soapy water and then scraped off as much gunk as I could.  Then once dry, I sanded it down until it was mostly smooth.

Then I applied a coat of Dixie Belle’s B.O.S.S. to prevent any kind of bleed thru problems in the future.  I followed that up with two coats of DB’s Holy Guacamole.

Then I sealed it with two coats of DB’s flat clear coat.  My main goal here is to make the inside of the box suitable for use, whether that use is containing art supplies, storing old photos or holding your makeup.

I painted the outside in two coats of Drop Cloth, and then I added the Elysium transfer.

Once I had the floral in place, I again added some wording from the I.O.D. Label Ephemera transfer to the top.

With this section of the transfer, it would be much more apparent if the background typography was upside down.

So there you go, two projects down and I still have two more sections of the transfer to use on a couple more things.

Both of these items are for sale, so be sure to check my ‘available for local sale‘ page for more details if interested.

As always, thank you to Dixie Belle Paint Co for supplying their products used in these makeovers.

an altered recipe box.

Published on by Quandie15 Comments

Have you made yourself a recipe box scrapbook yet?

I shared this idea a few years back when I made one for our Adriatic cruise.

That cruise went to some of the most beautiful ports I’ve seen; Venice, Ravenna, Kotor, Split and Valletta.  If you’re considering a European cruise, I highly recommend looking for one that visits those ports of call.

But, I digress.  This isn’t supposed to be a travel post.  This is a post about a makeover for this recipe box.

I found it the last time I went thrifting with my friend Sue.  It’s a nice, big one which would make it perfect for photos.

After sanding the box down, I painted it with one coat of Dixie Belle’s Sea Glass.  Once that first coat was dry, I blended more Sea Glass with some of DB’s Juniper around the edges (FYI, I believe Juniper is no longer available, it was a seasonal color back in 2021).

I’m still practicing my blending skills, I do like the way a little blending adds some depth to a piece.

Once painted I added some I.O.D. transfers from the Brocante and Label Ephemera sets.

The floral and the butterfly are from Brocante, the wording is of course from Label Ephemera.

I didn’t paint the inside of the box, but I did line it with some scrapbook paper.

Unfortunately, the previous owner of this box had defaced most of the alphabet index cards.

I have only A thru J in their original state.

The tabs for the rest of the alphabet have been obscured with white out.

Still, someone creative could work with those cards.  Especially if they happen to have any of the October Afternoon word stickers.  They all have index tabs on them, like the “Family History” one below.

You can still find some of the word stickers on Etsy, but October Afternoon has been out of business for several years.

I decided to go ahead and paint over the white with some of Dixie Belle’s Mint Julep to make it a little less obvious.

I used my cute little Savoy camera to stage these photos.

This is one of the few items I’ve ever purchased at a legit antique shop.  It was $30, but I fell in love with the colors, which happen to work beautifully with the colors in the October Afternoon supplies I’ve used on my index cards.

You might be thinking that I plan to save this one for myself, but actually I am going to sell it (without the photos).  If I do eventually decide to make one for my old family photos, I’ll likely theme the outside to something more ‘family like’.  But it was fun to break out the scrapbook supplies and show you what you could do with this box.

So tell me, have I encouraged you to create your own recipe box scrapbook yet?

adding a little age.

Published on by Quandie16 Comments

Hey everybody!  I’m back from visiting my mom, but haven’t had a spare moment yet to sit down and respond to comments.  I’m going to get to that this morning, but in the meantime, here’s a quick project to enjoy with your morning coffee.

You may remember that I picked up this wooden tote while thrifting a few weeks ago.

It pretty much looked freshly constructed out of new wood.  The one downside was that it was made out of fairly rough sawn wood.

So a week or two ago when I was looking for a quick project to fill some spare time, I pulled this out of the pile to see if I could age it up a bit.

I started by sanding down that rough wood a bit.  I didn’t get it totally smooth, but now you can handle it without getting a splinter.  Next I gave it a base coat of Dixie Belle’s French Linen.  Once that first coat was dry, I added a little bit of Dixie Belle’s Sea Spray (a texture additive for paint) into the French Linen and stippled it on randomly.  Adding some texture to the paint helped further disguise that rough sawn wood.

I think the key to aging a piece is to have several layers of different colored paint, so I then added some of DB’s Bunker Hill Blue here and there.  Once that dried, I painted the entire outside of the tote in DB’s Drop Cloth.

Next up came sanding with 120 grit paper to both smooth out the Sea Spray a bit, and to reveal some of those layers of colors.

I’d recently used one of the Lovely Labels Middy transfers from re.design with prima on a bucket, so I knew there were a couple of segments in that transfer set that would work perfectly on this tote.

I put the ‘Paris 1878’ section on one side, and the ‘blessed’ section on the other side.

Once I had them both applied, I top-coated everything with some of Dixie Belle’s Easy Peasy spray wax.

And yes, that is snow on the window behind the tote, but I took these pics after our April Fool’s Day snow storm.  I returned home from my mom’s to see that all of our snow has melted.  It’s always kind of amazing how fast those big snow banks will melt away in the spring.

I hope you enjoyed this quickie tote makeover.  Leave me a comment and let me know!

Lula and Collette.

Published on by Quandie23 Comments

Last week I mentioned the dress form that I saw at Acme Junk Co with a price tag of $475.

It was very cool, but you know me, I’d never spend $475 on something like that.

So I thought this might be a fun time to re-visit the stories behind my ‘dress forms’.  One that I made myself out of a Styrofoam mannequin torso, a lamp table base and a door knob, and one that I purchased at a garage sale.

I shared the story of my first ‘dress form’ once before here on the blog, back in 2013.  Yowza, have I really been blogging that long?!

You’ve maybe seen it being used to stage a piece of furniture here and there over the years.

  But lots of you probably don’t know the story behind Lula.

I named her after one of my favorite great aunts.  She was my grandmother’s sister and she and her husband lived on a farm in South Dakota.  As children, my brother, sister and I would stay with them for a week or two in the summer.

That’s a photo of Lula and her first husband, whom I never met.  He passed away and she then married my Uncle Homer.

The mannequin torso that I used to create Lula was rescued from the old Oakdale Mall (for any of you locals who may remember it) by one of the city’s public works superintendents.  The mall was being torn down and the property cleared for new development (it’s now a HyVee grocery store).  He brought it over to City Hall and asked if I wanted it (this, of course, was back when I worked there).

To be honest, I wasn’t quite so sure about a yellow Styrofoam torso, but I took it.

I knew I needed to come up with some sort of a base for it, so when I came across one of those mid-century lamp tables in the free pile at a garage sale I grabbed it.

You remember those lamp tables that were popular in the 50’s and 60’s right?

Mine didn’t look quite like that, and of course it was in pretty rough shape.  But you get the idea.  The base ended up being perfect for my mannequin.

Naturally, I asked for my handyman Ken’s help in attaching the mannequin to the table base.  To this day I’m still not sure exactly how he did it, but they are firmly attached.

It was a long time ago, but I’m pretty sure I painted the table base in black latex paint.  I was totally unfamiliar with chalk paint back then.  However, I painted the Styrofoam torso in Rust-Oleum black chalkboard paint.

I knew I needed to do something to cap off the neck of my mannequin, so I ended up deciding to use an old black enamel door knob.

It’s just pinned to the Styrofoam, but it mostly stays in place.  Same for the metal no. 1 plate.

All of the photos so far in this post are showing Lula decorated with a white chalk pen, but a few years ago I gave the torso a fresh coat of black chalk paint, and then added some gold re.design with prima transfers to her instead.

The crown and the swag on her chest are from their Gilded Home & Nature set, and the wording at the base is from their Somewhere in France set.

My second dress form, Collette, start out life looking like this …

It was covered in an ugly grey jersey knit fabric that had definitely seen better days.

I purchased it at a garage sale, and unfortunately I don’t remember exactly how much I paid, but I know it was less than $100.

It was fairly simple to rip all of that fabric off to reveal the cardboard form underneath.

The metal collar at the neck was still just a bit too new and shiny looking for my taste, so after first painting it with a coat of Dixie Belle’s Caviar, I gave it a coat of Prima Marketing’s Metallique wax in Bronze Age.

Then I changed out the original finial for this painted one …

For the final pièce de résistance, I added bits and pieces from the Prima Marketing Catalogue transfer to it.

By the way, in case any of you are wondering, I did not top coat the transfers on either one of these dress forms and they are still holding up perfectly.  Of course, they are indoors and not handled frequently so that may be a factor.

I totally love how this one turned out.

So much so that I still have it.  In fact, both of these dress forms are in the corner in our bedroom.

I haul them out for the occasional photo shoot, but otherwise they just hang out there holding all of my vintage necklaces.

So let’s see, Lula was mostly free.  The torso was free, the table lamp base was free, the door knob came out of my stash, so that just leaves paint and transfers.  And actually, I was a content creator for re.design with prima at the time, so the transfers were free too.

I don’t remember precisely what I paid for Collette, but I know it was less than $100.  Probably significantly less.  The finial I added was in my stash, and again, the transfer was a freebie at the time.

So, for significantly less than $475 each, I have two pretty cool dress forms.  It just goes to show what you can come up with if you use a little imagination!

the fresh flower market case.

Published on by Quandie23 Comments

Sometime last summer I came across this wooden case at a garage sale.

I have to admit, I walked away from it at first thinking it was too big and cumbersome, and it felt a bit too utilitarian for my tastes.  But then I realized that of course I could change that last part with some paint, and maybe a stencil or some transfers.  So I went back and grabbed it.

Here’s what the inside looked like initially.

The whole thing looks very much homemade.  I do wonder what it was made for, a ventriloquist’s dummy?  an accordion?  a secret stash of gold bouillon?  Hopefully it wasn’t anything creepy, like that time I accidentally bought an embalming table at an auction.  It’s made out of solid wood, so it is rather heavy for toting things around.  Any of you have any ideas about its original purpose?

After scuff sanding and cleaning the case inside and out, I painted the inside in Dixie Belle’s Collard Greens, and the outside in their Drop Cloth.  Next I added some sections from the I.O.D. Wall Flower transfer to the inside lid.

I think the florals in this transfer have that look of old 1940’s wallpaper.

I also added some pieces of the Wall Flower transfer to the front of the case, and then I pulled out a new stencil from Wallcutz called Fresh Flower Market.

I couldn’t quite fit the entire thing on my case, so I masked off those trim lines around the outside as well as the bottom line of wording using painters tape.  I then stenciled the word “MARKET” in Dixie Belle’s Collard Greens, and the rest of the wording in their Holy Guacamole.

I used a small artist’s brush to fill in the bridges on my stencil, and I think that really made the cursive font of ‘fresh flower’ work better.

For a final little touch, I added one of the bees from the I.O.D. Brocante transfer near the handle of the case.

You can’t have a flower market without bees, right?

With it’s fresh new interior, this wooden case could be used to store all kinds of things.  Maybe your spare linens, or your heavy winter sweaters?  Or even your ventriloquist’s dummy.

Or, you could just simply use it as décor.

It would be sweet just hanging out in your foyer, or on a protected porch.  It would also be perfect in your potting shed …

assuming you can get to it.

Earlier this year when I was planning for this project, I thought I’d be able to photograph the finished case out in the potting shed.  But then we got a lot of snow, and then we got a lot more snow, and then earlier this week we got another 7″ more.  I basically can’t get to the potting shed at this point.

Well … I could if I was willing to trudge through a couple feet of snow, and then shovel away the giant pile that fell off the roof and is now blocking the door.  But I’m not.

This was a bit of a tactical error on my part since most of my garden themed photo props are out there too.  I sure do hope spring is just around the corner.

In the meantime … an indoor photo shoot it is.

What do you think?  What would you use this case for?

The fresh flower market case is for sale, check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page for more details.

Thank you to Dixie Belle Paint Co for providing the paint, and to Wallcutz for providing the stencil used for this project and sponsoring this blog post.

another library book review.

Published on by Quandie16 Comments

It’s time for another installment of ‘book reviews from mom’s library’!

If you’ve followed me for long, you may remember that last year I borrowed a bunch of decorating books from my mom’s library while I was out visiting her.  Then when I got home I reviewed them all in a blog post.

I was a little sad when I looked back at that photo from February 2022.  See that bougainvillea in the background?  This year it was killed by freezing temps.  Yep, Las Vegas has had a cold winter this year.

But anyway, back to the books.

When I came home from mom’s place last year, I was all fired up to renew my library card and check out the books that were available at my own local library.  As it turned out, the selection wasn’t nearly as good.  I’m guessing that my mom’s library has much better funding than mine and thus is able to purchase new books more often.

Sure enough, I found another nice pile of decorating books at mom’s library last month.

My sister was willing to play along and hold them up while I snapped some photos of them with Lake Mead in the background.  She’s really pretty good about humoring me when it comes to this sort of thing.

Let’s just start at the top of the pile and work our way down.

Rather than being strictly a decorating book, Rescue, Restore, Redecorate by Amy Howard is a ‘how-to’ book with lots of practical step by step instructions for using various products.  It was published in 2018, so it’s semi-recent.

I’m sure many of you are familiar with the Amy Howard brand of chalk paint and other products.  I have to admit, I was surprised to find that she never seemed to mention her own specific products throughout the book.  She mentions them in a generic sort of way, and they are shown in photos, but she never specifically tells you about them.  I wonder why that is?

She includes a lot of info on gold leafing.

I’ve never tried gold leafing, have you?  Lately I’ve been thinking about what new skills I could add to my repertoire, and I think I’m going to give gold leafing a try.  Coincidentally, Dixie Belle has just come out with their own gold, silver and copper leafing-ish product.

I’m not at all sure how it works, so I ordered some of the gold and silver so I can test it out and then share the results with you guys.  Be sure to stay tuned for that.

Amy Howard also has a project using a zinc antiquing solution in her book that is pretty cool.

She takes brand new looking metal and turns it into this …

I will note that I looked this product up on her website and the fine print says it only works on unfinished/uncoated galvanized sheet metal so that would be something to keep in mind if you are thinking about giving this a try.

The item that stole the show for me in this book was this painted stereo cabinet.

I absolutely loved that lime green!  If I’m brave enough, I may have to try that on something.

The next book in the pile is Rediscovered Treasures by Ellen Dyrop and Hanna Kristinsdóttir.

This is a translation of a book originally published in Norway in 2009, so it did feel a bit dated to me.  There were quite a few doilies.

They had a lot of small projects using vintage items though, which I always appreciate.

The next book in the pile is a Country Living book called Simple Sustainable Style and was published in 2012.

It’s written by the same authors as Restore, Recycle, Repurpose, the Country Living book that I reviewed after last year’s visit to my mom’s library.

Let me start by saying that I pretty much love every Country Living book that I’ve ever picked up.  My only complaint about them is that if you also get the magazine, you’ll likely have seen most of what is included in their books.  I especially ran into that with their Christmas at Home (published in 2018).

Although Simple Sustainable Style is somewhat dated, as evidenced by the wall mounted T.V. in this shot …

I think their style is fairly timeless.

And anyone who uses old toolboxes as décor gets a gold star from me!

The books seem to be getting newer as I near the bottom of the pile.  Home Stories by Kim Leggett was published in 2020.  Kim Leggett was also the author of City Farmhouse Style which a lot of you may be familiar with.

In a nutshell, I think ‘city farmhouse’ says it all about her style.  She uses farmhouse style vintage pieces, but pairs them with more modern pieces for an updated look.

Obviously anyone with a stack of vintage suitcases has me at hello, but see how she has added that modern round, black vase?  Just that small touch makes this feel more current to me.  I have to admit though, I really want to paint that dresser, how about you?

She’s got a touch of that ‘dark academia’ look that we’re hearing so much about lately too.

She also uses a mix of painted and un-painted pieces, and some fabulously chippy pieces too!

And who says chalkboards are passé?

There is also a seasonal section at the back of the book that I enjoyed.

I have to say, if I was going to purchase any of these books it would be this one.  This would be a good one to study for ways to update your vintage style.  In fact, I think I might just go ahead and order this one today!

The final book I’m reviewing today is Down to Earth by Lauren Liess, published in 2019.

This one also has an interesting mix of mid-mod and older vintage pieces.  It’s organized into sections by styles such as ‘cozy bohemian’, ‘timeless-ness’ and ‘vintage revival’ with tips for each on how to achieve the look.

There were some very interesting combinations of vintage and modern.

Much like with Kim Leggett’s book, I’m really vibing on this idea of using antiques in a more modern context.

One review I read of this book called it ‘elevated, yet accessible’, but I have to slightly disagree.  In fact, my one complaint about this book is that it didn’t feel accessible at all to me.

As much as I appreciate the stunning beauty of that room, I’m never going to have anything like that.  I felt that way about most of the interiors that were featured.

That being said, there were some ideas I could take away from some of the smaller vignettes like this one.

I don’t think I would spend the money to own this particular book, but it was a good one to check out from the library.

I hope you enjoyed this library book review, and you were able to take away some ideas from today’s post.  Leave me a comment and let me know if any of these books are favorites of yours!

mistakes were made.

Published on by Quandie42 Comments

I picked up a pair of wooden boxes while thrifting a week or so ago.

After sanding and cleaning them, I painted them with Dixie Belle’s Endless Shore, which is from their Silk paint line (ie. an acrylic paint with a built in primer and top coat).

I pulled out I.O.D.’s Floral Anthology transfer to decorate box no. 1.

After applying the florals, I added some French wording from the I.O.D. Label Ephemera transfer.

Full disclosure, I have only the vaguest idea of what these words mean so it could be total nonsense.  But it looks good to an English speaker.

After decorating the first box, I was about to do something similar with box no. 2.  But then I remembered a customer who once told me that she wished I didn’t put French words on everything!  So, I decided to go in a slightly different direction on the second box.

I first added some grain sack stripes using Dixie Belle’s French Linen.  Then I added the sheep from the I.O.D. Brocante transfer.  The little “No. 1120” and the date in the corners are from a Tim Holtz transfer.

I also added a farm name to the side of the box from the Everyday Farmhouse transfer from re.design with prima.

Finally, I applied one of the re.design with prima knob transfers to the top of the box.

I didn’t paint the insides of either box for a couple of reasons.  First of all, they aren’t real roomy inside and getting in there with a brush would have been a pain.  Second, they are clean inside, so they didn’t really need to be painted.

So far, so good, right?

But this is where I made my mistake.  As you can see in the photos, I distressed the edges of my boxes quite a bit.  Although the Silk paint has that built in topcoat, the transfer still needs some sort of sealer.  In addition, because I sanded the edges down to the bare wood, the Silk paint finish is compromised and will benefit from some protection on those edges as well.  Unfortunately, I decided to topcoat with Dixie Belle’s flat clear coat.  As I’ve learned in the past, sometimes a water based sealer will draw tannins out of the wood.

Honestly, I should have known better.  Look back at that ‘before’ photo, this wood was very orange-y red.  The Silk paint has a built-in stain blocking primer, and it was working quite well up until I added that flat clear coat.  All of the preceding photos were taken before the clear coat was added.

But about 24 hours after adding that clear coat, the boxes started to show bleed thru.

It’s much more obvious on the back of the boxes, but if you’re familiar with the look of bleed thru you can see it on the front as well.  Especially in the area I’ve circled below.

Also, FYI, the bleed thru continued to worsen over time.  Be forewarned, that can happen with bleed thru.  It has been about two weeks since I finished these and they seem to have stopped getting worse now.

If I could go back and start over I would opt to give these boxes a coat of Dixie Belle’s B.O.S.S., followed by their chalk style paint in Drop Cloth, and then a top coat of clear wax after applying the transfers.

But I can’t go back in time, so now what?

If these were pieces of furniture there is no way I would feel good about selling them ‘as is’, but these boxes?  Maybe?  I don’t know, what would you do?  Leave a comment and let me know!