hello fall book page banner.

Published on by Quandie77 Comments

Fall officially arrives today, and I don’t know about you but I love this time of year.  As much as I enjoy summer, I don’t enjoy frizzy hair on humid days, the way my upper arms jiggle in sleeveless shirts or how the weeds take over my garden in what feels like a day!

Ironically it’s going to be 90 and humid today in the Twin Cities, so frizzy hair and jiggly arms it is for at least one more day.  But I’m looking forward to long sleeves, good hair days and not feeling guilty about reading a book on the sofa instead of weeding the garden.  Oh, and a trip to Disney World.  Yep, my sister, niece and I are going to Disney World for Halloween.  Mr. Q will stay home and man the fort.  I think he’d rather poke his eye out with a sharp stick than go to Disney World.  Anyway …

Last year I made some petite book page banners to say hello to fall for my occasional sale.

I thought they were pretty adorable.  At least a couple of other people must have thought so as well because the items I added them to sold really quickly.

So I made some more to sell at Reclaiming Beautiful this year, and while I was at it I thought I would do a tutorial for you guys.  Be sure to read all the way to the end of this post even if you don’t want to know how I made them because I’m giving a couple away.

step 1.  Print your message on vintage book paper.

I use pages from some old atlases for my banners.

The pages are a little bit bigger than 8” x 10”, so I trim them down to size.  Then I use the manual feed option on my printer and print directly onto the book page.  Click this link to open the word document that I used to make my banners:  hello fall

Q-tip:  you can play around with fonts and sizes as much as you want to, but be sure to leave enough spacing to cut your letters into flag shapes.  I recommend practicing on plain paper until you have the spacing just right so you don’t waste any of your book pages.

My doc will fit on an 8” x 10” page, and the end result will be 2” x 3” ‘flags’ for each letter.

step 2.  Cut out your flags.

For a uniform look to your banner, remember that you want your flags to all be the same size and you want the letter centered on each one.  I use my larger paper cutter at first to cut each strip of letters to 3″ tall ….

Then I switch over to my smaller Creative Memories paper cutter to cut them down into 2” wide pieces.

Finally I just free-hand the notch out of the bottom to give them a flag shape.

step 3.  Add string.

Use a hole punch to add holes to the top of each flag, string them on some pretty striped baker’s twine and you’re done!

Now all you have to do is find the perfect spot for your banner.  I have mine draped across an old window screen that is just hanging on the wall .

But it also looked great on my chalkboard door.

So many options.

And speaking of options, you have some options for getting your own ‘hello fall’ book page banner.

Option 1, make your own.

Option 2, if you’re local, go buy one of mine at Reclaiming Beautiful ($12 each, while supplies last).

Option 3, win one!  I have a couple of extras, so I’ll be drawing the names of two winners from comments left on this blog post by Saturday (September 23, 2017) at midnight (central time).  So leave a comment to be in the running to win, best of luck!

living with it.

Published on by Quandie46 Comments

Mr. Q and I invited my sister over for dinner one Friday evening a while back, but it was all part of a secret ruse to get some help moving my giant English cupboard into the house.

We followed the advice that Marilee gave me and removed the doors from the cabinet to both lighten it up and make it easier to grab onto (thanks so much for that piece of advice Marilee, it made this so much easier).  Of course we also took all of the shelves out.  Even so, this cupboard is still big, bulky and heavy.  We used some moving straps to lift it, Mr. Q on one end, my sister and me on the other.

It actually went more smoothly than any of us thought it would.  I gotta tell you, in person the size of this cupboard is pretty intimidating.

I’d asked all of you to give your opinion as to whether I should paint the cupboard, or leave it ‘as is’.  I totally expected the majority to say I should paint it.  After all, painting furniture is what I do and also I assume why most of you enjoy my blog.  In the end I only got two votes for painting it, one of them from my sister which really surprised me (after all, I’m pretty sure she reads this blog because she’s my very supportive sister, not because she loves painted furniture).  On the other hand, several of my fellow furniture painters voted for leaving it ‘as is’ which also really surprised me.  But the really unexpected result was how many of you suggested I consider adding a lime wax finish.  Eureka!  I hadn’t even considered that, and what a great idea.

But for the moment, the advice I decided to follow is to live with the cupboard for a while ‘as is’ and see how it feels.  At a minimum I wanted to at least bring it into the room to see how it looked in place.

So far, so good.  It fits perfectly into this space and I absolutely love it.  I still have the blue rooster cupboard directly across from it next to my desk.

I was worried the room was going to look a bit cupboard-heavy with two large cupboards, but I don’t think it does in person.

Of course, the inherent danger with this ‘live with it for a while’ plan is that I’ll grow complacent.  Now that the cupboard is in place, it will be a little bit more trouble to refinish it and I won’t be as motivated to get it done.  Will I end up just leaving it ‘as is’ because it’s the easiest option?  Or will it truly be because I love it ‘as is’?  We’ll just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, I’ve decided to fill ‘er up and see how well it functions for storing my many craft supplies.

Since I was transitioning from a dresser with drawers to a cupboard with shelves, I had to come up with containers for holding things.  In other words, I didn’t want to just pile my glue guns, craft paints, greeting cards and colored pencils in a jumble on the shelves.

Fortunately I already kept quite a few of my craft supplies in cool vintage tool boxes.

My glue guns and extra glue fit perfectly into the rusty aqua toolbox my co-worker Jodie gave me for my birthday last year (the same aqua toolbox that’s pictured in Vintage Holiday!).

And although they aren’t here yet, the green box and possibly one or two of the toolboxes I brought home from those lunchtime garage sales last week will probably make their way into this cupboard as well.

My unopened bags of milk paint can just line up on the shelves along with an ironstone pitcher full of wax brushes and some glass canisters full of knobs (I keep my opened bags of milk paint in an air tight rubbermaid bin to extend their shelf life, exposure to too much moisture can ruin the powder).

I’m still thinking about that lime wax that so many of you suggested, but for the moment I’m just happy to have this giant storage piece in my Q branch.  It holds so much stuff, and I know I’m going to get some great use out of it.

 

 

the farmers market ladder.

Published on by Quandie46 Comments

My niece Kris salvaged several of these ladders for me from a shop she worked in briefly.  They aren’t old, and they were never meant to actually function as ladders.  They were used for display only.

I decided to paint this one to give it a little more personality and since I seem to be on a green kick this week, I dug out one of my favorite shades of green milk paint, In A Pickle from Sweet Pickins.  It only took one coat of paint to cover the ladder.  Once dry, I added some farmers market stencils in an off-white craft paint.

Then I sanded to distress and added a top coat of Miss Mustard Seed hemp oil.  I brushed on the oil with a cheap chip brush and then wiped off the excess with an old black t-shirt (I didn’t want to leave any white fluff behind).

Hemp oil adds a bit more richness and depth to darker milk paint colors than wax does.  You can really see that with this shade of green.

But here’s a tip for you, although the hemp oil changes the color of the milk paint quite a bit, it does not change the color of the acrylic craft paint.  So keep that in mind when choosing your colors on a project like this.

By the way, how do you like the ‘q-tip’?  It was Mr. Q’s idea and I thought it was pretty clever.  From now on I’ll try to remember to give you a q-tip every now and then.

I added a basket to the ladder and put a potted lavender plant inside along with some vintage gardening tools.

Totally off-season for September I know.  I’m supposed to be sharing fall themed stuff now, right?

Well, one last hurrah for summer?  We’ve got two more official days of summer left, so I say let’s make the most of them.

I brought this ladder to Reclaiming Beautiful last week and it sold within days, so there must be some other green lover out there!

I still had one last ladder, so I painted it in Miss Mustard Seed’s Flow Blue and added the same farmers market stencils.  My sister was thinking she’d like to have this one for her house, but she really couldn’t come up with a spot for it, so I’ll most likely take it into Reclaiming Beautiful as well.

I think the ladders make great magazine racks, especially when one of the magazines displayed happens to be one that I am in!

Wait, what?!  Did you read that right?  Yep.  There is a story about my non-collection of vintage ornaments in the Fall 2017 issue of Vintage Holiday magazine!

Somehow we’ve gone straight from summer to winter today.

But seriously, my preview copy of the magazine just arrived yesterday and I couldn’t wait to share it with you guys.  I’m super excited and flattered to have my work in a real magazine.  The irony that it’s an article about my vintage ornament collection, despite the fact that I try so hard to deny being a collector of anything, is not lost on me.

The magazine is full of great vintage holiday decor, so be sure to watch for it on newsstands near you and pick up a copy.

 

vintage greens.

Published on by Quandie25 Comments

In addition to all of the fab stuff I found at the Lynnhurst sales on Saturday, I also found time to check out a few sales during my lunch hour last week.

I wasn’t specifically trying to find things that were green, but somehow I ended up with several items in that perfectly vintage shade of green.

First of all was this lovely little box.  I was drawn to the original painted finish.

This is the kind of chippy, distressed patina that I am trying to replicate every time I use milk paint.  I want to study the wear patterns on this box and make my next piece of furniture look just like this.  But really, although you can do amazing things with milk paint, it’s hard to beat the real deal.

I also love the fact that the box looks very homemade.  Even the handle looks like it was just cobbled together from some bent wire and bits of scrap sheet metal.

I’m not sure what I’m going to store in this box, but clearly it needs to be something special.  But for now it even looks fab with some green books.

This amazing little green birdhouse came from the same sale.

When I got it home I immediately replaced the scrapbook paper that was lining the bottom with some pages from an old German book that I purchased at Carver Junk Co.

It also has an amazing patina.  Wouldn’t it be adorable with a little plant inside?  Or filled with vintage books.

I also found a couple of old green toolboxes.

I actually came home with 4 old toolboxes, 3 of them from one sale.  The other two aren’t green though, so they didn’t make the cut for this blog post.  Although sometimes the original color and patina should be left alone, oftentimes I paint them like this …

You can see what I’ve done with other toolboxes in the past here, here, here and here.

I’m still working on finding the perfect spot in my house for a touch of green, but I’m determined to find it.

In the meantime, I’m just having fun playing around with my vintage greens.

lynnhurst 2017.

Published on by Quandie21 Comments

Fall garage sale season is in full swing.  My sister and I have plans to hit the neighborhood sales every Saturday for the rest of this month.  So far, we’ve been finding lots of great stuff.  This past Saturday we went to another Minneapolis neighborhood, Lynnhurst, for their neighborhood sales.

Once again, we filled up my sister’s SUV.  As it turns out, people in Lynnhurst price their stuff to sell!

My sister and I each had one specific item we were looking for.

Debbie wanted some pretty dishtowels to put in a bowl that was going back to her neighbor.  I don’t think I mentioned this here, but a week ago Debbie had a house warming party at her new place and a neighbor brought over a bowl of watermelon.  Debbie follows the rule that you never return a container empty, you put a thoughtful little ‘thank you’ gift inside.

Sure enough, she found a set of pretty blue and white dishtowels.

You might think it’s … well … icky to buy linens like these at a garage sale, but these have obviously not been used.  Often times people have been given stuff like this as a gift and it’s not the right color for them, or for whatever reason they just never used them.  So they sell them.

The one item on my list was a globe.  Not for me actually, but for my co-worker Jodie.  She mentioned that she was looking for a globe to turn into something.  I’m not entirely sure what, but she is very crafty.

Sure enough, we found a globe too.

Granted, it doesn’t always work out this way, but you’d be surprised how much luck we often have finding just what we need at garage sales!

I also came home with a glass canister and a bunch of old blocks.

As well as some more vintage graters to turn into photo holders.

I also found this adorable whisk broom with an embroidered cover.

Have you ever seen anything like this before?  I hadn’t.  I just couldn’t resist it.  I’m going to try soaking the cover in some OxyClean and see if I can clean it up a bit.

My sister added to her Disney ornament collection.  She likes that they are Disney, I like that they are vintage.

She also came home with a fab mid-century ice bucket.

I found a pretty little side table that I’ve already begun to make over, here is the before photo.

But the find of the day was definitely this oak washstand (or as some like to call them, commode).

The drawer pulls on this piece are gorgeous.  I think I would have purchased it for the hardware alone.  But it’s also quite lovely overall.  And look what I found when I opened the top drawer …

It looks hand drawn to me.  Only the top drawer has this liner.  I’m debating whether or not to leave it.  Unfortunately it has some water damage spots.

Do I rip it out?  Or do I leave it and let whomever buys it decide?

Also, I won’t be putting the mirror back on.  These pieces make perfect nightstands, but not with a mirror, because a mirror would be weird on a nightstand, right?  I know it seems like a bit of a shame, but they are both just far more versatile on their own.

The mirror and the harp that held it on the washstand are really pretty though, and in great condition ‘as is’.  I think they would look amazing hung on the wall over the sink in a bathroom.  Especially since it has that towel bar.

I added some hangers to it and hung it in my photo cottage just to give you an idea of what that would look like.  I wish I had a fabulous pedestal sink to use as a prop, but no such luck.  Instead, I’ll share this photo from pinterest to inspire you.  I love the look of the darker wood with the white ship lap behind it.

So if any of you locals happen to have the perfect spot for a mirror over your sink, be sure to check my ‘available for local sale’ page for details.

We didn’t come across the washstand until one of our last stops.  The SUV was fairly full at that point, but I was determined to fit it in.  So there we were once again, unloading the contents of our vehicle onto the curb and packing it all back in around the washstand.  Debbie’s girl scout camping trip packing skills come to our rescue yet again!

Currently I’ve got three furniture makeovers underway out in the carriage house.  Each one is taking much longer than I anticipated.  So let’s all keep our fingers crossed that I manage to get at least one of them finished this week to share with you, but in the meantime I think I still might be able to eke out another five post week.  Be sure to stay tuned!

 

the société dresser.

Published on by Quandie34 Comments

I’m pretty sure Mr. Q and I purchased this dresser via Craigslist way back in early spring and it has been hanging out in my carriage house ever since.

It was in quite good shape.  At some point someone refinished it complete with a shiny poly topcoat.  If you know me at all, you know I’m not a fan of shiny and I’m not a big fan of the heavy grain of oak either.

I was in the mood to work with Fusion paint when I started this dresser, so I prepped the piece by scuff sanding it lightly, and then cleaned it with some TSP substitute before painting on two coats of Fusion’s Limestone.  Limestone is the warmest of the Fusion whites.

Once dry, I sanded the edges to distress.  Here is a close up of the mirror to give you a better idea of what that looks like.

To feed my current addiction, I added an Iron Orchid Designs transfer to the drawer fronts and the mirror frame.

In hindsight this dresser would have been pretty with sparkly glass knobs, but I opted to keep the hardware that came with it since I had all of the pieces.

This dresser has pin and cove dovetailing.

I’ve talked about this kind of dovetailing before.  Pin and cove dovetails were only used for a short time, from around 1870 to 1890 or so, and they were only used in the U.S. and Canada.  They never caught on in Europe.  Although I’m sure that the dresser itself dates back that far, I don’t think the hardware does.  I think this is reproduction hardware because it’s very flimsy and light.  Older drawer pulls like these were much heavier and thicker.

You may have noticed in the past that I often split up mirrors and dressers.  I find that dressers tend to be a little more versatile without a mirror.  You can use it as a changing table, or as a TV stand, or as a buffet.  But this time I kept the mirror.  The dresser just has so much more personality with the mirror in place.  It even looks amazing without any staging at all.

But since it’s way more fun to add some fab vintage props, I added my apron strings chair from Tuesday as well as the other ‘apron strings’ colored items.  I also added a few of my Limelight hydrangeas which are starting to turn a little pink for fall.

And I set it all up in the driveway for a photo shoot.

Sometimes I wonder if people driving by my house notice that I always seems to have furniture in the driveway.

Here’s the official ‘before & after’, what do you think?

This dresser is for sale locally.  If interested, please check my ‘available for local sale’ tab for more details.

dinner music.

Published on by Quandie21 Comments

Where do you get your inspiration?  I’m hoping at least some of you get some inspiration right here!  I get a lot of my ideas from other bloggers, pinterest, magazines, books, and from touring other people’s homes.

Sometimes my ideas take a bit of time to come together.  When I came across a big box full of player piano music at a local antique shop last fall I remembered seeing this photo on pinterest …

I loved the way Alison at the Modern Cottage Co wove the strips of player piano music to create a background, and I especially loved the discarded rolls on the floor under the buffet.  So I was inspired to purchase a few rolls.

But then I didn’t want to just copy that exact idea for a furniture photo shoot.  That just felt … well … like copying.

So I ended up using one roll of the paper to wrap Christmas gifts last year …

And I used a single roll here and there in furniture photos …

Then my friend Meggan and I were talking about my dining room makeover, which still wasn’t completed after more than a year, and she suggested that I use the rolls on my dining room wall.  If you’ll remember way back to our tour of Meggan’s house in January 2015 she ‘wallpapered’ her study in book pages from an old dictionary.  So why not do the same with player piano rolls?

Initially we were thinking this would work well on the barn board wall.  I pulled a roll out and discovered it was exactly the right width to fit between the battens.  But I really didn’t like the way that looked, it was too stripe-y with the barnwood batten between each vertical strip of paper.  Instead, I decided to use the paper on the walls on either side of my window.  Then it only took me another 9 months or so to actually execute the idea!

I was finally spurred into action by finding some additional rolls of music at Oronoco Gold Rush.  It was my sister who pointed out one that was titled ‘Dinner Music’.  How perfect for the dining room!

I really just totally went with the easiest way I could think of to adhere the paper.  Staples.

I stapled each strip at the top, a couple of times down the sides and at the bottom.  I left a bit of the paper rolled up at the top of each strip.  It will be super simple to remove when I grow tired of it, but in the meantime I’m kind of loving it.

By the way, see that ‘Charles Strand’ sign above the giant clock?  That is the original sign from Mr. Q’s great-grandfather’s store in Marine on the St. Croix, MN.  I did a little research on the Minnesota Historical Society’s website recently and found a photo from 1910 that includes the sign.

Seriously, how cool is that?

On the opposite side of the window I hung an old military photo that we saved from Mr. Q’s dad’s house and an old banjo that we saved from my dad’s things (both of our fathers have passed away) above the Belgian bench.

 So what do you think of my player piano music walls, are you inspired to cover any of your walls?  Or maybe you’d like to stock up on some rolls for future present wrapping?  I had quite a few rolls left over so I’m sending some to Reclaiming Beautiful today to sell for $4 each, so if you are local be sure to swing by there this weekend to check them out!

 

taking a box from drab to fab.

Published on by Quandie14 Comments

I found this simple plywood hinged box at a garage sale this summer.

You might just see an ugly plywood box, but I see a blank canvas.

I knew that adding a little paint and some fun accents would dress this box up perfectly.

I started out by painting the box inside and out with a base coat of Fusion’s Algonquin.  The reason I did a base coat of Fusion paint was because I wanted to ultimately paint this with white milk paint.  If I painted over the bare wood with milk paint, the paint would absorb into the wood and be quite permanent, and not chippy at all.  That is definitely one of the great qualities of milk paint, but not necessarily what I wanted here.  Also, it would likely take quite a few coats to disguise that plywood texture since I’m using white.  I also like layering paint in this way because it adds a sense of age to the piece.

After the Algonquin was dry I added a little bit of Homestead House Salad Bowl Finish around the edges of the box to encourage chipping.  Since I’d recently been using both Homestead House’s Champlain and Sturbridge White milk paints and I had a little of each left over, I mixed them together for this box.  I painted two coats of the milk paint on the outside of the box only (I left the inside in Algonquin).

Once the paint was dry I sanded the box lightly all over which serves two purposes.  First it smooths out the milk paint surface.  You’d be amazed how much softer and smoother a milk painted surface feels with just a little light hand sanding with 220 grit sandpaper.  Second, it wore away the milk paint in the areas that had beeswax on them to reveal the base color.

Next I added the bottom portion of an IOD transfer.  This was left over after I used the upper portion on the foot board shelf I shared last month.

I love the bird on one side and the rat on the other side.  Did you notice them at first?

Once the transfer was rubbed on, I went over it ever so lightly with some 220 grit sandpaper.  The ladies at Iron Orchid Designs shared this tip with me for reducing the faint ‘halo’ that comes with the transfer.  After wiping it clean with a dry cloth, I used my new favorite top coat, Dead Flat Finishing Cream from the Real Milk Paint Co.  I applied that ever so quickly with a brush.  I feel like it also helps further diminish the look of that halo, mainly because it gives everything a consistent sheen.  In other words, the transfer is no longer shinier than the very flat milk paint.  They are both ‘dead flat’.

But wait, I’m not done yet!

I also added a really cool old door knob plate to the front of the box.

I have a stash of old hardware bits and pieces like this, so I went through it trying to find the perfect addition to the box.

Just so I wouldn’t see white box behind the openings in the door knob plate, I put an old Swedish bible book page behind it.  It’s a tiny detail that most people probably won’t even notice, but I will.

This box makes the perfect storage container for my old Jeanne d’Arc Living magazines.

This was such a fun project to work on.  Although there were a few steps, each one only took five or ten minutes.  I just worked on it a little bit each evening after work and by the end of the week it was done.

So the next time you see a plain and simple box, don’t pass it by.  Take it home and then take it from drab to fab!

apron strings.

Published on by Quandie22 Comments

Last Friday I shared the beginnings of my guest room makeover with you.  I didn’t really purposely ‘choose’ a color scheme for the room, it came about rather by chance.  As I mentioned, the cupboard painted in Homestead House’s Laurentien milk paint was something I painted months ago not intending to keep.  I added my mom’s little crocheted dress to the mix, and then realized that these two colors worked beautifully with a couple of vintage books I had and thus a color scheme was born.

At that point I couldn’t help thinking that the dress and that Tom Sawyer book were both similar in color to Miss Mustard Seed’s Apron Strings milk paint.

It’s not quite a pink, more of a coral, but a pink-ish coral.  Hard to describe, but coincidentally all of these items are this same shade.

Since I happened to have some Apron Strings on hand, I decided to keep an eye out for some small accent piece to paint for my guest room.  So when I brought these chairs home on Saturday, I was inspired to paint one in Apron Strings.

I’ve seen some pieces painted in Apron Strings on pinterest where the pigments show a fair amount of variation, like this gorgeous dresser from All Dolled Up.

You can see that the paint has a little more yellow on the upper drawers, but is a little more pink on the lowers.  Certain color pigments don’t always dissolve as well as others, especially the yellow.  I actually love that look on the dresser above.  I think it gives it a gorgeous, almost water color, sort of effect.  I was hoping to get some of that color variation on my chair, but I really didn’t.  I think I may have mixed my paint a little too well.

I also thought I might get bleed through from the original dark stain, but there was none.  I worried it might end up taking at least 3 coats of paint to get good coverage over that dark color (this was the darkest of the three chairs), but no, it just took two.  I was also was prepared to get too much chipping because I didn’t prep the chair much at all.  I just wiped it down with a damp rag.  But again, no problem at all.  In the long run, painting this chair could not have been any easier.  Keep in mind that the existing finish was very worn and dried out.  If the finish had been more recent, more shiny, more impervious, I would have either sanded it down more thoroughly before painting, or used a base coat of Fusion paint followed by the milk paint.

Since I didn’t get much natural chipping I ‘created’ some with my masking tape method.  I basically press some tape into the paint and then sort of rip it back off quickly.  I use the yellow Frog tape (for delicate surfaces) for this.  If you want more chipping you could try a stronger tape like regular masking tape.

So to recap; very little prep, no primer, no pre-sanding, two coats of milk paint, some post-sanding, a little frog tape and then I added a final coat of hemp oil.

I recovered the seat using some white chenille that I already had on hand.  The chenille tones down the formality of the chair a bit.

I’d initially thought the chair would work next to the cupboard, until I put it there and it looked like a miniature.

OK, that photo is a bit misleading, it’s not really that small, but the cupboard is quite tall and the chair is a little on the petite side.

So I’ve moved it over to the corner next to the radiator, a much better fit.

By the way, I almost nabbed a Jenny Lind bed for my guest room at the garage sales last Saturday.  There was one for sale for $5.  But then I noticed it was missing a spindle.  And it didn’t have side rails, just a headboard and foot board.  Still … I debated grabbing it and using the foot board (which had all of its spindles) as a headboard.  In the end I walked away though.  I’m still holding out for the perfect find, but eventually this room is going to come together.

 

 

the day for chairs.

Published on by Quandie19 Comments

This year has pretty much been a bust for me for garage sale finds.  I missed most of the early summer sales while gone on my trip and while helping my sister move into her new house.  I went to a few random sales in July and August, but didn’t find much.  But all is not lost.  There are a handful of good neighborhood sales in early fall so I might not have to write off the entire 2017 garage sale season.

This past Saturday was the 6th Annual East Isles Super Sale with about 40 sales and as an added bonus the neighborhood just north of them, Lowry Hill, added their own neighborhood sale with about 25 additional homes participating.  My sister picked me up bright and early and we headed off to hit the sales.

If you aren’t familiar with Minneapolis neighborhoods, both of these are stunners.  They are situated along the eastern shore of Lake of the Isles and they are filled with gorgeous historic homes.  My sister and I play a fun game while driving around the neighborhoods called ‘which house would you buy if you won the lottery’ (I know, not a very clever name).

The day started out slow.  We didn’t buy a single thing at the first 5 sales we stopped at.  But then things picked up.  I found two adorable kid sized chairs.

I love painting these little chairs so I pick them up whenever I see them at a good price.

Next, I spotted a trio of gorgeous old chairs that I knew would be fantastic painted, so those went in the back of the SUV too.

I also found some ornaments to add to my growing non-collection.

At that same sale, Debbie picked up a stash of these adorable vintage candy molds.

I hadn’t really looked at them closely until I pulled them out to take photos.  Each one is different and quite a few animals are represented, including a cat, a rooster, a pelican, a frog, a horse and a fish.

Debbie recently put up some open shelves in her kitchen and has displayed some blue canning jars on them.  She’s looking for fun things to put in the jars, and that’s where these will go.

By the time we ended up at the sale with these awesome bar stools, the back of the vehicle was already pretty full.

But I just couldn’t pass them up.  So we unloaded everything onto the curb and then reloaded more carefully so that we could fit them in.  We had to remove the headrests from the car seats to get it all situated, but we were determined.  I had to spend the rest of the morning with big rusty metal planter on my lap (and I forgot to get a photo of it) because there wasn’t another inch of room in that vehicle.

One of the sales we stopped at was donating all of their proceeds to hurricane victims.  Although we didn’t buy anything, we did make a donation and get a free homemade cinnamon roll which was delicious.  Our thoughts were with the people in Florida as we were enjoying the perfectly gorgeous day here in Minnesota.  One of Debbie’s good friends from high school (we both went to high school in Boca Raton, Florida) still lives in Boca and was on the road for hours on Friday evacuating from her home.  We were both happy to hear that she had arrived safely at her destination late Friday night and I hope that everyone else in Florida stayed safe during the storm.

Meanwhile, back here in Minnesota, it’s always fun coming home with a haul, and it definitely was the day for chairs!

Be sure to check back tomorrow (yes, I said tomorrow, I think it’s going to be another five post week!) to see what I did with one of them already!