Category: quick and easy.

I think I’ve already established here that I’m absorbing ideas all the time, and I’m sure the rest of you are as well.  Whether by looking at design books or magazines, surfing Instagram or Pinterest, or following my favorite bloggers, I am regularly seeing pictures of things that inspire me.

Sometimes I pretty much copy them outright.  I see something and think “oh, I can do that!”, and that’s the case with today’s project.

I saw a table runner in Liz Galvan’s new book that I just loved.  Here’s a photo of the photo in her book …

How simple, right?  Just paint a Swiss cross in white on a drop cloth table runner.  Easy, peasy.

First I needed drop cloth that wasn’t splattered with paint, all of the ones I had on hand are well used.  So I picked up a new one at my local Menards.

  I went with the medium weight canvas in 4′ x 15′.  I ended up cutting it in half lengthwise to make a 2′ wide runner (and I’ll likely make the other half into a runner as well), and I also cut it down to the length that fit my dining room table.

Speaking of, Mr. Q made our dining room table and it’s a bit oversized.  Which means that the few times I have tried to purchase a ready-made table runner, they have always been too short.

First things first though, I washed and dried the drop cloth before I cut it, just in case it did any shrinking.  Then, after cutting it down to the width and length I wanted, I measured and taped off my cross.

Next I pulled out my favorite Dixie Belle off white shade, Drop Cloth, and a large stencil brush and started stippling on the paint.  I was surprised to realize that the Drop Cloth totally blended in with the color of the … well … duh! … drop cloth.

I don’t know why that surprised me!  In my mind, I thought the Drop Cloth paint was a little bit lighter than that.  So I switched gears and brought out Dixie Belle’s Cotton instead, which is their purest shade of white.

Ahhhh, much better.

It took about three coats of paint to get this level of coverage.  Mainly because I was stippling it on with a stencil brush, not painting it on directly with a regular brush.  I did three light coats rather than one or two heavy coats.

I was a little worried that I wouldn’t get crisp lines because the tape I used didn’t stick to the fabric that well.  In hindsight, this project would probably work better with regular painters tape rather than this yellow Frog tape that is meant for delicate surfaces.

But when I pulled away the tape, my lines were just fine, so it worked out alright in the end.

I ended up making my swiss cross a little bit larger than the one in the inspiration photo.  I’m not sure whether I like it my way, or if I’d prefer the inspiration version.

I opted to photograph it out on my front porch because it was fairly gloomy outside and I couldn’t get good light in my dining room.  But size-wise, obviously the table runner is more suited to a much larger table than this one.

Although I have to say, I am rather liking it on this table as well, so maybe it’s more versatile than I thought.

Measuring and taping off the cross was a bit putzy, but otherwise this little project couldn’t have been any simpler.  Or cheaper, for that matter.  For less than $20, I’ll get two runners and still have some additional drop cloth fabric left over.

You may have noticed that I didn’t bother to hem the raw edges of my runner.  Mostly because I don’t sew.  And because I’m keeping it for myself and I’m never as picky about such details when I’m keeping something.  I will note, however, that this runner probably would not wash up well as it is.  It would fray quite a bit at that raw edge, and the paint would wash out a bit as well.  One way to set the paint would be to tumble the runner in your clothes dryer on high heat, and another would be to iron it from the back with high heat and no steam.  And of course, you could hem the drop cloth to help prevent fraying.  I think using a serger to do the hem would give the best look (hmmm, pretty sure I have a friend or two with sergers, I may have to seek them out).

So, what do you think?  Kind of fun for a quick and easy project, right?  Will you whip one up for yourself?

Believe it or not, one of the things I’m going to miss most about the day job is celebrating my birthday there.  That might sound a bit odd, I know a lot of people prefer to take their birthday off work.  But my co-workers have always been so generous about bringing in birthday treats, or planning a special lunch.

I’ll never forget my 40th birthday when my co-workers arranged to have me pulled over on the road just outside City Hall where I was presented with a ‘ticket’ for going 40 birthdays over the limit.

Gosh I have some fond memories of those days, it was always so fun to be at work on my birthday (right up until this year when it was just awkward since I’d given my notice by then and management wasn’t speaking to me.)

Another of my favorite things about celebrating my birthday at work was getting some fabulous gifts from my co-workers, especially the one from my co-worker/picker Sue.  She always finds the coolest vintage things.  But really it’s her presentation that is so special.

Remember last year?

This year was no exception.  She presented me with an old galvanized bucket full of a few of my favorites things like some ironstone platters, and some old books.

Aren’t the colors on these books fabulous?

She also included a salt cellar this year.

I’ve always wanted one of these.  Somehow it makes one feel so much more chef-like to grab a pinch of salt from a salt cellar instead of using a shaker, or even just the container the salt came in from the store.

Anyone who knows me at all, knows that I’m about as far from chef-like as one can get.  But still, I love the idea of a salt cellar.

Of course, that plain wooden lid was crying out for some quandification.  So I sanded it down a bit, and then painted it in my favorite off white, Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth.  I sanded the paint to distress the edges and added a Classic Vintage Label transfer from re.design with prima.

Easy peasy.

I filled it up with the salt that Sue also gave me, and voila!

I’m practically a real chef!

OK, really, not even close.  But it looks great on my kitchen counter.  And I’m going to feel like a real chef every time I need to salt my scrambled eggs.

If you’ve been reading my blog for long, you know I am a big fan of Disney.  Not necessarily Disney movies, but the Disney parks.  My sister and I have been to three of them, Disneyland, Disney World and Disneyland Paris.  I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that we passed up a visit to the Louvre to go to Disneyland Paris instead.  That was probably a bad call, especially since the park was pretty disappointing.  The crowds were insane (considering that at the time everyone said putting a Disneyland in France was a mistake and no one would go).  We literally stood in line for 30 minutes just to use the bathroom.  Next time I’ll definitely choose the Louvre.  But I’d love to get the chance to visit Tokyo Disney one of these days!

But I digress.  Currently my sister and I are planning a trip to Disneyland at the end of September.  For us, Disneyland is the OG park.  It opened in 1955, and our first visit there was way back in 1969.  Here’s photographic evidence.

That’s me on the right and my sister on the left with my brother in the middle.

Anyway, we typically go to Disney World these days, but on a complete whim we decided to combine a trip out to visit to our mom with a trip down memory lane to Disneyland this fall.  We have been suffering from some serious travel withdrawal during this COVID business and we both have some travel dollars burning a hole in our pockets.

So what in the world does any of this have to do with today’s blog post?

Well, my sister and I have been watching the Behind the Attraction show on Disney+ in anticipation of our trip and one recurring theme for all of the rides (and really everything) in the Disney parks is that they all have a back story.  It may not smack you in the face, but even the décor in the queue is weaving a tale around you while you patiently wait to get on a ride.

And that had me thinking.

Maybe I need to come up with some back stories for my pieces, like this one.

That’s an old seed bin door from the Perry Seed Store in Syracuse, NY.    You know, one of those bins where the door is hinged at the bottom and you pull it down to access the seed.

Perry Seed Store has been around since 1898, selling seeds, bulbs, hardware, implements and bird supplies.

The proprietor, F.H. Ebeling, immigrated to New York from Austria in 1914.  Upon his arrival in Syracuse, he quickly found a clerk position in the Perry Seed Store selling all of the farming accoutrements needed for new settlers coming to America.  In 1918 the Spanish Flu broke out in Syracuse, but luckily Franz was a very diligent mask wearer and he was unaffected.  The original founder of the shop, Matthew Perry (a distant ancestor of the actor of Friends fame), was not so lucky.  He died tragically from the Spanish Flu in 1919 and his only heir, his son Joseph, had joined the circus as a sword swallower two years earlier.  Thus Franz was able to acquire the store at a bargain price.

The store contained a giant wall of seed bins and when you pulled open each of the 100 doors you could find anything from seed corn to tulip bulbs.  In order to make the shop feel more like his own, Franz hired his cousin Albin Egger-Lienz, a painter from Vienna, to add customized advertisements to all of the seed bin doors.

Handily enough, the shop was just opposite the post office so it was quite convenient for both Franz and Albin to send regular letters to the folks back home in Austria.

What do you think?  Are you buying my back story?  In case it’s not already obvious, I absolutely made all of it up.

Here’s the real story behind this piece.  This is another of the new cupboard doors that one of my readers shared with me recently.  Once again, I gave it some layers of age using Dixie Belle’s Sea Spray paint additive and three colors of paint, Mint Julep, Rebel Yellow and Drop Cloth.

Next I pulled out the Vintage Seeds transfers from re.design with prima and picked this section to use on the cupboard door.

As you can see, the transfer was just a tad bit bigger than the raised panel in the center of the door.  But, no problem.  I cut apart the ‘seeds and bulbs.’ and the ‘wholesale and retail.’ sections and placed them below, and I didn’t worry about the fact that the “P” and the “E” from Perry Seed Store fall off the edge a little bit.

Once the transfers were applied, I distressed the entire piece by sanding it well.  That was followed by a top coat of clear wax.  Finally, I pulled this old beat up cup pull out of my stash and added it to the top of the door.

I’ve had that thing for literally years just waiting for the right piece to use it on and I finally found it.

And ta da, a vintage seed bin door is born.  What do you think?

As always, thank you to Dixie Belle Paint Co and re.design with prima for providing the products used in this cupboard door makeover.

Remember that I told you my neighbor, nnK, brought me some suitcases?  They were from her uncle’s estate sale in Iowa.

One of them was a simple (i.e. inexpensive) cardboard-ish suitcase with a plastic handle.  I’m not really sure how these were constructed, but they seem to be paper applied over a wood and cardboard sort of frame.

Anyway, here’s the before …

Technically that’s not a true ‘before’ shot because I had already cleaned it up before taking it.  But you get the idea, just picture it a bit dirtier.

After cleaning it up, I decide I really quite liked the look of the beat up paper surface and I didn’t want to paint this one.  So I decided to just play around with some new IOD transfers that I purchased recently.

So I pulled out the Floral Anthology transfer.

Sorry, I stole that image off the web and it doesn’t even come close to doing justice to these transfers.  But hopefully you get the idea.  With the Floral Anthology set you get 4 sheets of transfers and they can be combined any way your heart desires.  In my case, I just started cutting the different elements apart and then placing them on my suitcase to create a sort of floral border.

Once I had the floral pieces in place, I added the wording from the IOD Label Ephemera transfer.

The sort of faded look of the Floral Anthology transfer was just perfect over the beat up suitcase.

I struggled just a little bit with getting the transfer to stick to the flaking paper suitcase in some spots.  The paper would come up with the transfer, rather than the transfer sticking to the suitcase.  But I figured out that if I put down a coat of flat clear sealer from Dixie Belle, let that dry, and then tried again in those spots it worked like a charm.

So, in hindsight, I realize it would have worked better to seal the suitcase with the flat clear coat first and then add the transfer.  I’m going to try to remember that for next time.  You know, should I ever happen to be adding a transfer to an old cardboard-ish suitcase again.

But even though there might technically be a flaw here and there, overall it turned out fabulous.

I really don’t think anyone would even notice that it’s not precisely perfect.

This really is just meant as a decorative piece.  You could place it on top of a cupboard, on the floor at the foot of your bed, or just in front of your dress forms.  You could easily use it to store some of your off-season shoes, or maybe your Christmas decorations (that’s what I do with my vintage suitcases).

This was really just a super satisfying project to work on.  It just took adding a few transfers to really make this suitcase feel like something special.

As much as I’m tempted to keep this one, I’m going to be selling it.  If any of you locals are interested, be sure to check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page for more details.

T.G.I.F. everybody!

It has been another crazy week for me at the day job, to the point where I almost didn’t have a post again today.  But I managed to crank out this one little project to share with you guys.

This sign was the result of experimenting with a couple of different products.

But let’s start at the beginning.  One of my regular readers contacted me recently and offered me a whole bunch of old cupboard doors.  She was cleaning out her house and workshop in preparation for a move and decided she wasn’t ever going to get around to turning them into signs herself so she brought a bunch over for me.

Now I’m fully stocked for creating some more signs for the holiday season this year.  But the thing about these cupboard doors (and most of the ones that I find at the ReStore) is that they are usually new.  And that tends to make them just a little bit too pristine for my taste.  So I wanted to experiment with aging them up a bit.

Unfortunately, I totally neglected to take any photos of the process.  But perhaps I can explain what I did.  I started out mixing some of Dixie Belle’s Mint Julep paint with some of their Sea Spray additive.  The purpose of the Sea Spray is simply to add some texture to your paint.  Once I had mixed those to a brownie batter like consistency, I used a cheap chip brush to apply it to my door in a few spots.  I did not put it all over, just dabbed it on here and there.  Once that was dry, I added some swipes of Dixie Belle’s Rebel Yellow here and there (without Sea Spray).  Once that dried, I painted a couple of quick coats of Drop Cloth over everything.  Finally, again once dry, I sanded over the entire thing.

As you sand, that Mint Julep with Sea Spray texture really comes through the top coat of Drop Cloth.  You can also see bits of the Rebel Yellow here and there.

Next up I pulled out some leftover scraps from the Cosmic Roses transfer from re.design with prima and added them to the door.

Finally I pulled out the Laundry & Co stencil from Maison de Stencils.  I originally thought it would look great to just add the stencil in a dark blue paint color.  However, after I had it stenciled, it really just looked flat and one dimensional.

So I grabbed my Dixie Belle Gemstone Mousse in Golden Gem.

Then I used my trick of placing the stencil just up and to the left a tad so that a slight shadow would be left behind by the dark blue paint.  I used a stencil brush to add the Gemstone Mousse right over the dark blue.

The mousse was the perfect consistency for stenciling and the metallic Golden Gem color helps tie in the gold wording from the transfer.

Once the stencil paint was dry, I added a quick coat of clear wax over everything.

This was such a fun project to work on.  I tested out a couple of techniques that I’ve been wanting to try, using the Sea Spray and the Gemstone Mousse.  I’m definitely going to continue using that Sea Spray to add some texture, a.k.a. some faux age, to pieces going forward.  And I’m also sure to get lots of use out of that fabulous gold.

How about you?  Have you tried any of these products?  If so, how did you like them?  And what do you think of my sign?  Be sure to leave me a comment and let me know.

As for you locals, this laundry co sign is for sale.  Be sure to check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page to see more details.

While out garage saling a little while back I purchased this wicker picnic basket.

It’s definitely not a fabulously vintage picnic basket, but it was in great condition and I loved the shape of it, and the slatted lid.  Plus it was priced right, so I grabbed it.  I thought it would be fun to try and give it an update.

Have you ever painted wicker?  It can be a real pain.  If you spray paint it (which seems like the logical solution), you have to do a lot of spraying to get in all the cracks and crevices.  You have to come at it from all angles to make sure you haven’t missed any spots.  And I usually end up using most of an entire can of spray paint.

It can also be a test of one’s patience to paint it with a brush.

So I decided to try whitewashing it (or in this case, greywashing?) it instead.

All you need for this technique is your paint, some water, a brush, your container of choice (I went with the classic red solo cup) and some paper towels.

I used Dixie Belle’s French Linen paint, a chalk style paint like this one works beautifully for creating a wash.  This pale, warm grey was the perfect color for this technique too.

First up, water your paint down alot.  I probably had about 2/3 water to 1/3 paint in my cup.  Then just ‘wash’ this mixture onto your piece with a brush and quickly wipe away the excess with the paper towel.  You’ll want to act fairly quickly and not give the paint a chance to dry before you wipe it away.  In other words, you do this in sections.  You can’t paint the entire basket and then start wiping.

There are two big benefits to whitewashing on wicker.  First the paint is really liquid-y so it tends to settle into those cracks and crevices without any extra effort.  Second, the end result is a semi-transparent look so it doesn’t really matter if you missed some spots because you aren’t aiming for 100% coverage.

I went with just one coat of whitewashing to keep the look quite sheer.  If you want a more solid look you could add a second coat.

Once the paint was dry, I decided to add a little extra something to the basket with a transfer.

This is the French Ceramics transfer from re.design with prima.

It’s such a lovely transfer.  I used it on the interior drawers of this linen press dresser …

The only downside was that it took two sets of the transfer to cover all of those drawers and that can be a pricey proposition for most people.  Although, that being said, I do think it would be worth it!

Anyway, back to my basket.

The top of the basket only took one of the three sheets that come with the French Ceramics transfer, so I have two sheets left to use another day.

To apply the transfer between those cross pieces, I took some measurements and then cut my transfer into three strips before removing the backing paper.

Once applied, I sanded the edges of the basket top to distress and then I ran my fingernail down the transfer between all of those vertical slats to give them more definition.

Finally, I added a very light coat of clear wax over everything.  When I say a light coat of wax, I basically put a little wax on a cloth and then wipe it gently over the surface, focusing a little extra on the handles for better durability where the basket is likely to get worn.

And that’s it.  A little white greywashed wicker basket.

What do you think?  Would you give this technique a try yourself?

As always, thanks to Dixie Belle for supplying the very teeny tiny amount of paint that it took to greywash this basket!

The other day my sister stopped by with some flour sack dish towels.

She had a pack of 10 for me, and a pack of 10 for herself.  We ended up going shopping and doing some other things that day, and I never did get around to asking her what her intentions were for these towels.  But she did leave them all with me, so I was guessing that she wanted me to dress them up a bit … both hers and mine.

It seemed like a no-brainer to use my mini-stencils from Jami Ray Vintage on them.

I really wasn’t sure how well paint would withstand the frequent use and washing that dish towels experience.

But what the heck?  My sister bought them, so no loss to me if it didn’t work (I’m smirking as I’m writing that, sorry sis).

I decided to use acrylic craft paint for this project rather than chalk paint.  Since chalk paint doesn’t have any sort of built-in top coat, I felt fairly sure that it would mostly wash out of the fabric.  As you may remember, I have used chalk paint to dye fabric and quite a lot of the color did wash out (although setting it with heat helped with that).  I suppose the ideal medium to use would be fabric paint, but I didn’t have any on hand.

I started out with washing the dish towels in hot water first, then drying them in the dryer.  If they were going to shrink (and since they are 100% cotton I was guessing they would), might as well get that over with before painting them.

I chose a navy blue paint and the more ‘American’ of the stencil designs for my sister’s towels …

And I used grey paint and the ‘French’ stencil designs for myself.

They looked fantastic freshly stenciled, but that’s not saying much is it?  The real test is whether or not they’ll hold up to washing.

Before washing them, I decided to heat set the paint in the dryer.  When I did that with my dyed linens it made a huge difference.  However, my online research says you don’t have to heat set acrylic paint.  Well … I did it anyway.  Better safe than sorry, right?

So I ran them through the dryer on a high heat setting, then I threw them in the wash on a medium heat cycle and dried them on high again.

As you can see, the dark blue (left above) fared better than the grey (right above).  So the lesson learned here, stick with dark paint colors for stenciling flour sack towels.

Of course, I suspect the designs will continue to fade away over time with multiple washings, but these weren’t expensive towels to begin with and they definitely won’t last forever anyway.

Let’s face it, nothing can beat the quality of vintage flour sack towels, they just don’t make ’em like they used to.

But still, this was a fun craft project for a January afternoon and I’d definitely do it again.  In fact, I’m going to do it again.  I saved 10 of the towels to experiment on with the new Dixie Belle Silk paint that is coming out soon so be sure to stay tuned for that.

One last thing I want to mention before ending this post, if you are struggling to perfect your stenciling skills I highly recommend stenciling on fabric to practice.  Because fabric is very … what should I call it? … rough? textured? toothy?  None of those words seem exactly right, but basically fabric is not as slippery a surface as painted wood, so you can easily get a clean, crisp result stenciling over it.  So give it a try if you want to work on improving your stenciling technique!