Category: mini’s

My picker, Sue, knows me so well.  I’m sure as soon as she saw this tiny dresser she snatched it up for me.

Especially when she saw the price tag, which was $1.50.

I’m sure that there are some vintage lovers out there who would have preferred that I left it in its original yellow paint job (and P.S., that photo does not do the color justice, it was a bright yellow).  And I do agree that it has a certain aged charm about it.

But I tend to paint stuff.  In case you haven’t noticed.

So I cleaned it up, gave it a quick sand and then painted the insides of the drawers using a dark charcoal grey spray paint (because it’s quick and easy).  Then I painted the exterior in two coats of Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth.

To dress it up I added some wording from re.design with prima’s Paris Valley transfer.

I had to move things around a bit to avoid the knobs.  Seeing as I don’t actually speak French, I don’t know if the order I’ve put things in makes any sense at all.  French speakers everywhere are probably rolling their eyes.

But I think it’s pretty darn adorable.

I lined the drawers with some more October Afternoon scrapbook paper.  As I’ve mentioned in the past, October Afternoon was a local company here in the Twin Cities and they have been out of business for a while now.  You can sometimes still find inventory left over from various online retailers though.

I used to stock up at their annual warehouse sales, so I have a lot of their paper on hand still.  Since I rarely scrapbook anymore, I’m always happy to find other uses for it.  This particular design is from their 9 to 5 collection.

I staged this one up simply with my mini camera, a small photo and a little book.

That little book is a birthday reminder book.  It is inscribed to my grandmother from her grandmother on January 2, 1912.  My grandmother was born in 1898, so she would have been 13 at the time.

I’m fairly sure it must be in Norwegian, since that particular great, great, grandmother of mine was from Norway.

My grandmother must not have kept up the book, because I’m not listed on November 22.  For that matter, my mother isn’t listed on her birthday either.  Maybe my grandma didn’t need to be reminded of those 😉

This little dresser could be used to house all sorts of tiny treasures; jewelry, a coin collection, scrapbook supplies, mending supplies, etc, etc.

After all, good things come in small packages.

For now I think I’m going to add this little charmer to my own collection (or should I say non-collection?) of mini furniture.  I just need to find a spot for it somewhere!

As you know, I have a fondness for tiny pieces of ‘furniture’.  I purchased this little cupboard at a garage sale quite a few years ago.  It was actually the first piece I ever painted in Miss Mustard Seeds milk paint.

That color is Eulalie’s Sky.

But then a little over a year ago I decided to unify all of my tiny pieces by painting them all white using Homestead House milk paint in Limestone.

I managed to break the glass in the door when I did that, so I replaced it with window screening.  I have to say that I kinda prefer the screening.

Then recently I swapped out the metal knobs on this one for some small glass knobs from D Lawless.  More for practical reasons than anything else, those metal knobs were sort of cobbled on with glue and they kept falling off.  I keep my chalk in the upper drawer of this little cupboard, so I need the drawer to be functional.

So that brings us to ‘before no. 2’.

Then recently I became slightly obsessed with one of the Iron Orchid Designs (IOD) transfers called Le Petit Rosier.

For those of you who are confused when it comes to IOD transfers, here’s the scoop.  Originally IOD partnered with Prima Marketing to design some transfers such as my absolute favorite, the Seeds transfer …

So there is an entire line of Prima Marketing transfers that were designed by IOD.  But then IOD branched out on their own and now have a line of transfers that are not from Prima Marketing.  Le Petit Rosier is one of them.  When you are searching for a place to buy IOD transfers, make sure you specify if you are looking for the older Prima Marketing line designed by IOD, or the newer IOD line of transfers.

After trying to resist buying any of the new IOD transfers (because I have a backlog of Prima Marketing transfers to work with), I finally caved a couple of weeks ago and ordered a few online.  La Petit Rosier comes in two sizes, so I ordered two of the smaller ones and one of the bigger ones.  Then I did this goofy thing that I tend to do, I ‘saved’ them for ‘just the right project’.  I call it goofy because obviously I could always order more when ‘just the right project’ comes along if I’ve already used these.  It’s not like I can’t ever get any more of them.

So rather than wait for just the right project to show up, I wandered around my house looking for something I could put one of these transfers on.  That led me to my tiny cupboard.

Only about half of the smaller sized transfer fit on the front (which explains why I originally felt it wasn’t quite ‘the perfect project’ for it).

But dang!  It’s adorable!  And I can always use the bottom half of the transfer on something else.

I love how the glass knobs allow the transfer to be the star of the show.

I did have some floral scrapbook paper lining the inside of the cupboard and the drawers before, but I switched that out for some French papers.  My friend Terri gave me this set of French ephemera for my birthday a few years ago.

Once again, I was ‘saving’ it for the perfect project when I could have been using it for any number of things.  What is wrong with me?

When I went through the things included in the packet of ephemera I found this French religious medal, so I hung that from the cupboard door.

After adding some little pieces of ironstone on the shelves, my tiny camera added the perfect final touch.

For now this little cupboard is on the shelf over the radiator at the foot of the stairs where I can admire it every time I go up or down.

I absolutely LOVE how it turned out.  Not that I didn’t love it before, but sometimes it’s fun to switch things up.

What do you think?