It was quite the transition to go from 100°+ degree days while visiting my mom a week or so ago, straight into working on Christmas projects. However, the holiday open house at Reclaiming Beautiful was just a few weeks away. I had to get crackin’.
Luckily I’d made a good start on quite a few holiday projects before I headed out of town. Now I just need to add finishing touches to them.
So although it feels really early to me, I’m going to share some of those projects with you today. I used a couple of the new Dixie Belle holiday transfers and I want you all to have some time to order them if you want to use them on your own holiday decor.
First up is a pair of boxes; a tackle box and a Lane miniature cedar box. Let’s start with the tackle box. Here’s how it looked when I brought it home.
I kind of loved that original color and I really debated just cleaning it up and keeping it that way. But it looks better in that photo than it did in person. It was really quite gross and it didn’t clean up well. Plus, I have found that my painted versions sell much more easily than the ones that I leave in their original paint.
So after cleaning it and giving it a coat of Dixie Belle’s Bonding Boss inside and out, I then painted the inside in their Fiery Sky.
That is one of the colors from the Dixie Belle Silk paint line, so it has a built in top coat that is extra durable which is great for an interior that is going to be used (for jewelry, craft supplies, etc, probably not for fishing lures).
Next up I painted the outside in DB’s Drop Cloth. Once dry, I sanded to distress the edges and then started applying the new Yuletide Hearth transfer from Dixie Belle.
This is such a lovely Christmas floral, however I do wish the transfer had run vertically on the carrier sheet rather than horizontally. I’m sure there was some logical reason for this placement, but it also means having to line up a seam every 6″ rather than every 12″.
So going around my tackle box meant that I had a lot of seams.
But my bigger problem is that there is no beginning and/or end to the design. Wherever you stop ends up with a very obvious straight edge.
That would be fine if you plan to run the transfer all the way across the front of something for example, or in this case, all the way around my tackle box (although it wouldn’t meet up perfectly in the back). It’s also fine if your item is less than 6″ wide, and you’ll see an example of that in the last project I’m sharing today.
I ended up trimming a piece for either end to try and make it look a bit more natural.
As you can see, I also struggled a bit with lining up the seams. But that is towards the back and isn’t nearly as noticeable on the front, so I decided it would do.
But aside from all that, this is a very pretty transfer. I just wish it was a little bit more user friendly for use on tool/tackle boxes.
As you can see above, I didn’t stop with the Dixie Belle transfer. I also pulled out that I.O.D. Étiquettes gilded transfer that I purchased a while back. You may remember that I didn’t love the results that I got with this one initially. I think that was partly because I was applying the shiny gold transfer over black paint and the contrast showed every flaw in my application.
I think it works much better layered over something else rather than just on its own.
I also added some of the Étiquettes gilded transfer to the top of the tackle box.
I have to say it’s still not my favorite. But that being said, I.O.D. did come out with a holiday themed gilded transfer and that might be fun to use on future holiday projects. So that’s something to consider if you like the look of shiny gold for Christmas.
Next up is the Lane box. I first painted this box last April.
You may remember that there was a flaw in that I.O.D. transfer (go back to read that post here if you want more details). I mentioned in that post that I might end up sanding it down and starting over, and sure enough that is what I did.
I sanded the transfer off, then repainted the box in Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth. Once the paint was dry, I decided to attempt to use the I.O.D. Ephemeral Type stamp on it. I still have very mixed results with stamping, but I’m working on it.
I’ll be honest, I had to repaint and restamp twice before getting a result I was happy with. That’s why I started with the stamping rather than the transfers, I had a feeling I’d have some do-overs. But it’s easy enough to paint back over the stamp and try again without having transfers to work around.
Once the stamp looked fairly good (I’m still not 100% happy with it, the curse of being a perfectionist), I added some of the Dixie Belle Caroling Cardinals transfers to it.
I found it much easier to play around with placement using this transfer.
I think this one is much more versatile when working with smaller projects like these. I wrapped the poinsettia and evergreen garland around the sides, and added some individual pine cones and poinsettias to the top.
I love the pretty little red berries.
All in all, if you are trying to choose between Yuletide Hearth and Caroling Cardinals, you may want to consider how you will need to lay out the transfer before making your choice.
But both are lovely Christmas florals!
I also painted up another pair of ice skates this year.
The Yuletide Hearth transfer worked much better for me on these. I was able to position them so that they didn’t leave a harsh straight edge anywhere.
I also added more of the I.O.D. Étiquettes gilded transfer to the skates.
If you were to scrutinize them closely, you’d see where I once again struggled to get the entire design transferred cleanly. But I don’t think it really matters so much when it’s layered over the holly, it just looks worn and distressed … in a good way.
The original laces for this pair of skates were pretty worn out, so I removed them and added some gold ribbon instead.
If you want to check on any of my previous year’s painted skates you can find them here.
And as I mentioned in that previous post, I often struggle with the question of whether or not to paint items. Sometimes it’s an easy decision, like with this particular pair of skates. They weren’t anything special, and not even particularly vintage.
But then there are these two pairs of skates.
These came my way via one of Mr. Q’s coffee shop friends, and I think they are the most adorable skates I’ve ever seen. I especially love that the lining of the little white pair is almost the same exact coral/pink of Dixie Belle’s Cottage Door paint.
Just in case you can’t judge the size when photographed on their own, here’s a shot showing the smallest pair next to some full sized (although still not nearly as big as my size 11 feet!) skates.
Clearly they start kids on ice skates pretty young around here.
But these have such an awesome vintage patina, so I decided not to paint them. Instead I removed the laces and soaked them in some OxyClean to clean them up. While they were soaking, I gave the skates a coat of Dixie Belle’s clear wax. That serves to both clean up the leather a bit, and to make it a bit more supple again. It will also protect them from the elements a bit if they are hung up outside.
All of these items will be making their way into the holiday merch pile that I’m accumulating. My local readers (Twin Cities, MN area) will have a couple of options for purchasing some of my stuff this year. I will have some things at Reclaiming Beautiful, the shop where I sell on consignment in Stillwater.
In addition, my friend opK is letting me have a bit of space in her booth at the Stillwater Craft & Vendor Show at the Stillwater Armory on November 9.
However, if you see anything you are interested in prior to November 6, you can always email me at qisforquandie@gmail.com for more details to purchase it in advance.
Although I struggled a bit with several of the products I was using for these projects, I did end up getting lovely results.
Which item is your favorite? Leave a comment and let me know.
As always, thank you to Dixie Belle Paint Co for providing their products used in these makeovers!
q is for quandie 