how to create a miniature rug.

Published on by Quandie3 Comments

Today I’m sharing a ‘how-to’ post on creating your own rugs for a dollhouse or other miniature display.

I’ve already shared my mini rugs eureka moment, when I figured out that you can purchase printable canvas and create your own rugs using downloaded .pdf files.

I found my canvas sheets on Amazon, but I’m sure you can find them in other places as well.

I’ve purchased several different downloadable .pdf files for printing rugs via Etsy.

So far this one in shades of lavender remains my favorite.

I purchased that from MinatureMoo.  The rug in shades of blue in this next photo is also a .pdf purchase from Miniature Moo.  Unfortunately, apparently this shop is no longer selling on Etsy.  I guess I’m glad I got these .pdf’s when I did.

I think downloading printable rugs is the easiest option, and purchasing the file is generally fairly cheap.  I paid $5.37 for each of those files.

Another option would be to find a good quality image of a rug online, re-size the image to suit your needs, and then print it out.  I haven’t actually tried this approach, so I can’t really give you any advice on how to go about it.

Once I realized that these canvas sheets worked really well for printing rugs, I thought that perhaps I could also use some stamps to create a unique rug as well.  You saw my version of that in the dollhouse kitchen reveal.

To create that rug I used an I.O.D. Ephemeral Type stamp with some VersaFine Clair ink in a color called Morning Mist to stamp the canvas.  Then I glued some cotton twine around the edge to finish it off.

I had created another rug using that same stamp set for my U.K. hallway.

You can’t see it terribly well in that photo, but in case you didn’t notice, the writing is in French.  And somehow, it just seemed wrong for my U.K. hallway to have a French rug.  Right?

Then at about 3 a.m. one night, a light bulb went off in my head.  I have a small Union Jack stencil that I got ages ago from Maison de Stencils (no longer in business as far as I know).  Perhaps I could stencil my own Union Jack rug!

I started by cutting a piece of that printable canvas to the size I wanted.  Then I taped off a narrow border around the edges and gave it a base coat of Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth.  Once dry I centered my stencil and painted it in a mix of Drop Cloth and Dried Sage.

Once that dried, I went back over just the triangles with straight up Dried Sage.

Although I liked the way the stencil worked on the rug, I felt like the Union Jack needed to be bigger for this size of rug … and this is the size of rug that I needed in the U.K. hallway.

So it was back to the drawing board.

For my 2nd attempt, I decided to just draw the design on the rug using a ruler, lots of measuring and a pencil and then paint it in free-hand.

This time I went with an even more subtle selection of colors using just Drop Cloth, and that custom mix of Drop Cloth and Dried Sage.  Rather than painting the full background, I just painted the stripes.  So those triangles are unpainted.

One important note if you are going to paint on the printable canvas, the paint will cause the canvas to curl up a bit.  I solved that problem by ironing the ‘rug’ flat again once the paint had dried.  I also anchor the four corners of the rug to the floor using some double sided tape.

I hope this post has given some of you some ideas for creating your own miniature rugs.  Be sure to leave a comment if you have any other methods that you like to use.

shoo fly, don’t bother me.

Published on by Quandie19 Comments

Remember this little box that I picked up at the Goodwill near my mom’s house?

It’s nothing special, just a little box with a curved lid.  But I thought it would make a fun painting project.

After getting it home, I gave it a good cleaning and then got right into painting.

I painted the inside in one of Dixie Belle’s newest colors called Thicket.

Then I painted the outside of the box in another new color, Ecru.

Once dry, I sanded the edges to distress and then started adding transfers.

The black and white floral is from the I.O.D. Brocante transfer, and the color florals are from their Floral Anthology transfer.

The little bit of typography on the front of the lid is from an old re.design with prima transfer called Paris Valley.

And the “specimen no. 9” on the bottom corner is from a Tim Holtz rub-on.

Last but not least, how about those flies?  I put one on the top of the box …

and one on the front.

The flies are from one of the newer I.O.D. transfers called Wilde Bloemen.

Looking at those little flies on the box I can’t help but think of the Portrait of a Woman of the Hofer Family that was painted around 1470 by an unknown artist.  Are you familiar with it?  It belongs to the National Gallery in London.

If you look closely you’ll notice that this woman was painted with a fly on her headdress.

Not only does no one know who painted this or who the subject is, we also don’t know why she was painted with a fly on her head.  Some think that the purpose of the fly is simply to show how good the artist was at creating a very realistic painting.  Another possibility is that the fly was some sort of little trick, to make viewers attempt to shoo it away.  The subject is also holding a sprig of Forget-Me-Not’s, so perhaps the fly is symbolic.  The fly is often associated with death, so maybe this was a posthumous painting of this woman so that she would be remembered.  Again, no one really knows.

But for my part, I can imagine this woman constantly having to shoo a fly away while sitting for her portrait.   Eventually she gave a little smile and said to the artist ‘you might as well put it in the painting’ as her own little joke, and he did.

But now I wonder, why did I choose to put a pair of flies on my box?  They aren’t exactly pretty.  I do like the realistic feel they add though.  They give the box a ‘dark academia’ sort of vibe, like it belongs in a entomologist’s study.

I will admit that when I first saw those flies in the Wilde Bloemen transfer I wasn’t sure if I would ever use them, but now I kind of love what they added to this box.

What do you think?  Would you add a fly to one of your masterpieces?  And why do you think the unknown artist painted a fly on his subject’s headdress?  Leave a comment and let me know.

garage sale season is here.

Published on by Quandie10 Comments

Yay!  Garage sale season has finally arrived!

Here Minnesota we tend to have about six months between garage sale seasons.  We can sometimes find one or two sales in October, and last year we even got lucky and found a sale in early November.  But that was a fluke.  We then don’t see any more garage sales until the season kicks off the last weekend in April.

In other words, we have a long, dry season with little to no garage sales.

But when it finally rains, it pours.

There were no fewer than 37 neighborhood/city-side sales to choose from this past weekend including the 100 Mile Garage Sale that runs along The Great River Road.

So my friend opK and I stocked up on small bills (no one wants to make change for a $20 when you’re only spending $3), and planned a garage sale marathon.

We started off on Thursday when our city plus the two adjacent cities were all having city-wide sales sponsored by the Lions Club.  There were 3 or 4 garage sale signs on every street corner.

This area can be hit or miss.  Last year we didn’t find much at all.  But this year I came home with a decent haul.

I couldn’t pass up the vintage camp stools.  They’d be perfect for a cabin.

As would the minnow buckets.

They would make cute vintage planters for out on the dock.

The title of this book alone made it worth the 25 cents I paid for it …

and I’m looking forward to giving the wood tote a makeover.

The guy I purchased the vintage lumber yard apron from said that this particular shop was under the Earl Street Bridge in St. Paul and that it was torn down some time ago.

I also found a sled that was within my price range, so that will go in the pile for a Christmas makeover.

I picked up this rather cool looking birdbath.  I don’t think my photo does it justice.

I’m planning to have a garden theme for my upcoming occasional sale at the end of May, so once I clean this up a bit it will be added to my inventory for the sale.

Those of you who are local should pencil it in if you haven’t already.

Day 2 of our garage sale marathon was a bit of a bust.  I’m blaming it on the weather.  It was only in the 40’s and a bit overcast, drizzly and breezy.  Not a good combination.

We started out in what is typically one of my favorite neighborhoods, Tangletown.

I must give them a lot of credit for putting together a fantastic map of their sale locations.  Their map clearly showed the name of each street, each sale location and whether or not it was open on Friday (some were only open on Saturday).

It was super easy to make our way around to each sale location.  Unfortunately, a few of the sales that were supposed to be open weren’t actually open.  I’m sure the proprietors took one look at the weather and thought ‘nope, I’m not going to sit out there all morning in that!’ and I can’t blame them.

Here is the rather sad look at what I found in Tangletown.

We’d made it to all of the available sales by 10 a.m. so we moved on to another city-wide sale north of Minneapolis.  Sadly, it wasn’t much better.

We ended up at one sale that promised ‘vintage’ items.  And she did have vintage items.

Quite a lot of them as a matter of fact.

But she definitely didn’t have garage sale prices.

This cookbook may be listed somewhere on eBay for $80, but it’s also listed at AbeBooks.com for $13.60 and on Etsy for $15.  I’d be willing to bet that no one was willing to pay $50 for it at a garage sale.

We also stopped at an ‘estate sale’ that pretty clearly wasn’t an estate sale, but just a regular ol’ garage sale.  I did find something to buy there though, this figurine.

She’s a bit stark in her coat of bright white (does anyone else immediately think of My Big Fat Greek Wedding here?) but I plan to give her a rusty patina using Dixie Belle’s Iron Patina Paint (you can see how I did that once before here).

Day 3 of our garage sale extravaganza dawned beautifully sunny.  At 8:30 a.m. it was already warmer than it had been all day the previous day.  We had two classic Minneapolis neighborhood sales to choose from, Linden Hills and Bryn Mawr.

We ended up in Linden Hills simply because they had more sales listed than Bryn Mawr.

I wouldn’t say it was the best garage sale haul ever, but I found a few fun things.

I picked up several pairs of vintage ice skates that I’ll put away to work on for next Christmas.

I’d noticed a significant shortage of furniture on the first two days, so it was fun to actually find a piece of furniture that I wanted to work on.

That pretty curved door on the front will be the perfect canvas for a transfer of some kind.  I’m looking forward to giving this a new look.

I scored some lovely vintage linens on day three too.

And lastly, I picked up this metal banker’s box.

I’m calling it the find of the day simply because I love these metal boxes.  I aspire to one day have a row of them in stacks like this example in Kabinett & Kammer by Sean Scherer.

I’ve got three of them now, so we’ll see if I ever get there.

It was awesome to be out hitting the garage sales again.  I’m looking forward to doing a lot more of it this coming summer, how about you?

you win some, you lose some.

Published on by Quandie4 Comments

Good morning from the garden!

My gardens are slowly but surely starting to wake up for spring, but while I wait for that to happen I thought I’d report back on some of my over-wintering experiments starting with those gorgeous rex begonias.

You may remember that I planted two different varieties of rex begonia in my front window box last year.  I think you can get a feel for how small they were when I purchased them in this next photo from last May.

I really wasn’t sure whether or not they would do well for me in that north facing window box, but as it turned out they loved it there.

Last fall I decided that they were too fabulous to just discard, so I potted them up to see if I could save them indoors over the winter.

I also took some cuttings to root in water.

Both cuttings developed nice roots within a couple of weeks, and ultimately I potted them on for winter.

In the end, one of them dried up once it was in the soil, but the other one continued to live.  I wouldn’t exactly say it thrived over the winter though.  It was basically a single leaf sticking out of a pot of soil for the bulk of the winter and I did not have high hopes for it.  But then, earlier this spring, I noticed that there was some growth sprouting out of the base of that single leaf.

And then a week or so later I noticed that there was also new growth coming from the soil too.

Eureka!  It lives!

Now I kinda wish I’d started more new plants from cuttings.  But that being said, the two original plants also did well over the winter.

I may have lost a little bit of bulk, but I’m sure that as soon as I get them outside they are going to take off again this year.

I think I will give both of these a little hair cut and see if I can root up a few more cutting before planting these out in mid-May.

Since I typically spend around $200 on annuals to fill that front window box, it would be nice to save some of that money by keeping rex begonias going from year to year.

That brings me to my 2nd overwintering experiment, the succulents.

As you may remember, I planted an antique newspaper roller with succulents two years ago.

I overwintered them in the roller the first winter, but it took up quite a bit of space in my window sill, and it leaked all over when I watered it.  That’s OK for an outside planter, but not so great on a window sill.

So last fall I decided to pull the succulents out of the newspaper roller and put them all in a pot together.

I placed the pot in a south facing window for the winter, and here is how it looks now.

As you can see, not everything made it.  Particularly that lime green sedum in the front, and that one succulent on the right.  But other things really thrived, like that rather spindly sort of succulent in the back right.

I don’t plan to put these back in the newspaper roller this year.  I never really did have a good spot for displaying it.  We’ll see what I can come up with for a unique succulent planter this year.

Finally, that brings me to my massive over-winter gardening failure, the bulb lasagna.

If you’ll remember, I found some half price bulbs at Home Depot quite late in the season last year.  Too late to plant them outside really, so I decided to try planting a bulb lasagna.

I filled two pots with a couple of layers of different spring blooming bulbs.

After watering them in, I placed the pots on my front three-season porch and I wrapped them in blankets.  I set a reminder on my calendar to give them just a little water once a month so they didn’t dry out completely.  Then as the weather started warming up this spring I uncovered them and set them in a sunny spot indoors.

And …

Nothing.

So I waited.  One week.  Two weeks.  Three weeks.  Still, nothing.

So I thought maybe they had to be outside at this point and I put them on the deck.

Still nothing.

So I decided to dig into the soil to see if I could find the bulbs and sure enough I found a bunch of rotted bulbs.

In hindsight, the porch must not have been a suitable location for them.  It probably got far too cold even though I’d protected them with blankets.  Or maybe I gave them too much water (although I really did only give them a very small amount).

Regardless, it was rather disappointing to get zero results.  Maybe a bulb lasagna just isn’t for me.

How about you?  Have you tried growing bulbs in pots?  Did you have success?  Have you got any tips to share?  If so, be sure to leave a comment.

the teal tackle box.

Published on by Quandie12 Comments

My friend Sue gifted me with this old tackle box for my birthday last year.

Of course, she filled it with some other fun vintage items using the tackle box as a sort of ‘gift box’.  How perfect!

Sue knows me well and obviously knew I would appreciate a rusty, crusty old tacklebox!

And that I would obviously give it a makeover.

I started by having my handyman/neighbor Ken drill out the pop-up trays from inside.

I do sometimes leave these trays in place (check out this example), but it makes it quite a bit more difficult to paint the interior.  I tend to resort to using spray paint when I leave the trays inside.

In this case, I decided to remove them.

After giving the tackle box a good cleaning, followed by a good sanding, I realized that I quite liked the original color.  So I decided to work with it.  I first applied a coat of Dixie Belle’s Bonding Boss to keep any rust from bleeding through my paint.  Then I applied just one quick coat of their Antebellum Blue both inside and out.

This color matched almost perfectly, which meant that I really only needed one coat to get the coverage that I wanted.  Bonus!

After sanding to distress a bit, I pulled out the IOD Brocante transfer.  It happens to have two images of white roses in it, and I thought the white would really pop over the Antebellum Blue.

That being said, I had planned to put some typography from the IOD Label Ephemera transfer on the box, but after adding a small bee and some script to the handle area, I realized that black typography was not going to show up as well as I’d like it to on this color.

So, since that Label Ephemera transfer is getting harder and harder to find at a reasonable price, I decided to forgo that.  I finished it off with a coat of Dixie Belle’s flat clear coat on the inside, and a coat of their clear wax on the outside.

I don’t think this tackle box really needed anything more.

I think it’s pretty enough as is.

What do you think?

Once again, this tackle box is for sale locally so check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page if you’re interested in more details.

the red rose toolbox.

Published on by Quandie9 Comments

Today I’m sharing my makeover of the toolbox that I picked up recently at River Revival Thrift.

First I gave it my usual prep.  I washed it with Dawn dish soap and hot water, then I sanded away any flaking paint or built up rust.  Then, after another cleaning, I gave it a coat of Dixie Belle’s Bonding Boss both inside and out.  This will both help discourage any remaining rust from bleeding through my paint, and help my paint stick to the smooth metal surface.

I decided to embrace the red of this toolbox by painting the inside in Dixie Belle’s Barn Red.

Then I painted the exterior in DB’s Drop Cloth.

After sanding the edges to distress them, I continued on my quest to use up old transfers.  So I pulled out the IOD Redoute 4 transfer.

This is an old one, the last time I used it was in 2020, so I’ve had it for nearly 5 years.  So it was good that I was able to use up the remainder of it on this project before it got much older.  I find that the transfers tend to start drying out over time and then become more difficult to apply.  I definitely noticed that with this one.

If you look closely at the image above, you’ll notice that this particular transfer has a rather distressed look to it already complete with scratches and worn areas.  I rather love that, but if ‘distressed’ isn’t your cup of tea you might not like it.

Although this one is long retired, I did find several places still selling it online.  So if you like it, you can still buy it.  But personally I think the I.O.D. Rose Botanical is a better value.

I only had the two clumps of red roses on the left side of the sheet remaining, so I applied them both to my toolbox.

Then I applied some typography from the IOD Label Ephemera transfer.

I have a sneaking suspicion that whatever this says in French, it may not make sense to have it on a toolbox.  But hopefully no one will care.

I’m planning to take this one into the shop to sell, so if any of you local readers are interested in it please check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page for more details.

So, do you like the pre-distressed look of this transfer?  Or are you more of a purist?  Leave a comment and let me know.

desert gardens.

Published on by Quandie5 Comments

Good morning from the garden!

I’m so happy that gardening season is nearly upon us.  Here in Minnesota there is only so much we can do this early in the season, but I’ve pruned my hydrangeas and I’ve top dressed my gardens with some Espoma Plant Tone.  Now I just have to wait until after our last average frost date to start planting my annuals which is usually around mid-May.

My scilla are up and blooming …

but that’s about it.

But to tide my garden loving readers over until spring has truly sprung for us, I thought I’d share a couple of gardens that I saw on my recent visit to Las Vegas starting with the Ethel M Botanical Cactus Garden.

If you aren’t familiar, Ethel M Chocolates has a factory in Henderson, Nevada (which is the suburb that my mom lives in).  It’s around 10 miles away from the Las Vegas strip, so if you are visiting Las Vegas without a car, it won’t be practical to get to.

But if you do have a car, it’s definitely worth a visit.  Especially if you’re planning to drive out to Hoover Dam since it wouldn’t be too far out of your way to stop here too.

I recommend visiting in the spring when quite a few of the cacti are blooming, but it is pretty all year ’round.

I used to think that desert landscapes were boring, but spending so much time out visiting my mom since I’ve retired is helping me gain a new appreciation for them.

Entrance to the gardens is free, as is entrance into the factory where you can see how they make their chocolates.  You can also purchase chocolates in their gift shop, but I’ll warn you, they aren’t cheap.  A box of 24 chocolates will run you around $55.

I’m not a huge chocolate lover, give me a bakery item over a chocolate any day, so I tend to not buy anything when we visit.  The garden is well worth a visit whether you love chocolate or not though.

One of the most unique things in the garden are the saguaro skeletons.

Have you heard of these?  They are the dried out ‘ribs’ of the saguaro cactus that remain after it has died.  They are highly valued for their unique sculptural look.  I think they are a little bit spooky, but still quite beautiful.

Now for a completely different look, let’s head to garden number two.

As I mentioned last week, we stayed one night at the Bellagio on the strip last week.  I mainly picked this hotel and casino because I wanted to visit its conservatory.

Now, you don’t have to stay at the Bellagio to see the Conservatory, anyone can walk in.  That being said, it was massively crowded from about 10 a.m. onward.  By the afternoon it was literally wall to wall people.  But I got up at 6 a.m. to pop down there and see it before the crowds descended.

It certainly is a beautiful display, but it was fairly obvious that not all of the ‘flowers’ are real.  Certainly that purple vine was artificial.

It reminded me quite a bit of the Flower & Garden Festival at Disney’s EPCOT where they also add artificial plants to create specific looks that would be next to impossible to maintain with real plants.

That being said, there are quite a lot of real flowers to admire as well including lots of spring blooming bulbs like these hyacinths …

and plenty of tulips.

They completely change up the display with the seasons, and it takes them about a week to switch it up during which time the conservatory is closed.  So if you’re planning a trip to Vegas, be sure to check the Bellagio website for the dates the conservatory will be closed.  For this year those dates are 5/18/2025 thru 5/23/2025, 8/24/2025 thru 8/29/2025 and 11/9/2025 thru 11/14/2025.

The Bellagio Conservatory is definitely worth a visit if you’re going to be on the strip anyway, but I’d definitely try to time your visit for the very early morning.  I’m not sure it would be worth battling the crowds later in the day.

It will probably be several weeks before I have anything of interest to share from my own gardens, but not to worry, Mr. Q and I are heading out east in a week or two and I’ll be visiting both Longwood Gardens and Chanticleer Garden.  I’m looking forward to sharing both of those with you soon so be sure to stay tuned!

worth the wait.

Published on by Quandie12 Comments

Sometimes things are absolutely worth the wait.

And in this case it felt like a rather long wait.  I placed my order for the items that you’ll see in a minute on February 17 through Etsy, and they arrived on March 27.  So yeah, a bit of a wait.  But well worth it.

I’m talking about some miniatures that I ordered from Twelve Times More Teeny.  She is located in Oviedo, Spain, and her items are made to order.  Hence the wait.

This wasn’t like the time I ordered a paint can and roller from Sweden without realizing it.  I’ve learned my lesson since then and I always check to see where items are coming from now.

So even though I realized that this shop was in Spain, I just had to give it a go.

But I bet you want to see what I’m talking about.

Well, I ordered some miniature china.

First up, a set of cannisters.

Aren’t they awesome?  I have found that they don’t quite fit where I wanted to put them though, which is on the shelves of the hutch in the kitchen.  The shelves on that piece are so narrow!

So I’ll have to put them on the work surface instead.

For now I’ve added some inexpensive white plates that I purchased at Hobby Lobby to the shelves.

Next up, I ordered a set of cheese plates …

I’ve hung them on the wall in the dining room.

I may move those to hang over that kitchen door though instead of beside it, we’ll see.

Finally, I just had to have these Union Jack plates for my U.K. hallway.

Again, these are also going on the wall.

By the way, in case you are wondering, none of the plates I got from Twelve Times More Teeny will fit on the kitchen hutch shelves.  But hmmm, I may just have to order some smaller ones!

Also in case you are wondering, I use tacky wax to stick things in place in my dollhouse.

I unexpectedly came across this Department 56 version at the Bachman’s After-Christmas sale last year.  It was considered Christmas merch, don’t know why, and thus was 75% off.  Miniature Crush carries a couple of versions of tacky wax as well.

In the end I was so pleased with my china from Spain that I ordered some more.  This time I ordered a set of floral dishes for the dining room table.  You’ll have to stay tuned to see those, since it will probably be another month before they arrive!

some late April thrifting.

Published on by Quandie12 Comments

After the rather poor results from my garage saling and thrifting forays in Las Vegas, I had to get a fix as soon as I returned home from the trip I took out to my mom’s last week.

Luckily, I came home last Wednesday and my friend opK is always up for a little thrifting on Thursdays.  So I was able to jump right in for some good upper mid-west thrifting.

We decided to head a little further afield this time, across the border into Wisconsin.  My hairdresser had recently told me that her favorite thrift store is River Revival in Star Prairie, so we decided to check it out.

As soon as we walked in the door we knew we were in a well done thrift store.  You know they’ve taken some time with their displays when you are greeted by this sight.

How cool is that?

Their prices were really good, and they had quite a few nice pieces of furniture.  I found a few goodies to bring home.

I couldn’t resist the little blue and white creamer.  I think it will make the perfect vase for smaller flowers such as the scilla that is currently blooming in my garden.

Lily of the Valley will be pretty in it as well.

The price on these salt & pepper shakers made them too good to pass up.

For now I’ll be adding them to my own non-collection …

But to be honest, I’ve been considering pricing all of these up for my next sale and moving on.  Then again … maybe I’ll keep them 😉

I was inspired to grab the coffee cannister by Ginger Chick Rehab.

She has done quite a few fun projects with these, usually adding floral foam and then a variety of fillers like bottle brush trees, vintage ornaments, and such.  Check out her YouTube channel for more details and inspiration.

At only .99 for the tin, I knew I had to give it a whirl.  The fact that the lid was missing was a bonus, because this way I don’t have to feel guilty about removing and discarding a lid.

I also grabbed a wooden recipe box.

I’ve been keeping an eye out for these while thrifting over the winter, and I haven’t been finding any of them.  Which is a bit odd since I used to see them all the time.

This one needed just a quick repair with some glue and clamps.

Once repaired, I gave it a quick scuff sanding and after wiping it with a damp cloth, I added a coat of Dixie Belle’s Bonding Boss.  There was a distinct possibility that the existing finish would bleed through my paint, so better safe than sorry.  The Bonding Boss will prevent that bleed thru.

I then gave it a couple of coats of Dixie Belle’s Cottage Door on the inside.

That was followed by a couple of coats of Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth on the outside.

Next I decided to once again try my hand at stamping.  I pulled out the I.O.D. Ephemeral Type stamps and my VersaFine Clair ink in Pinecone and applied a stamp to the top of the box.  Then, like a complete novice, I decided it would be OK to apply transfers to the sides of the box while I waited for the ink to dry.  Of course, I then handled the top of the box without thinking and smeared the freshly stamped image.  Duh.  So, I painted back over it and tried again.  That is definitely a bonus with the stamps over transfers.  If you mess one up, you can reapply over and over if necessary.

The 2nd time around I waited for the stamp to fully dry before adding my transfers.  Dry time will depend upon your environment.  If it’s humid it will take longer.

Finally I added some florals from a three different I.O.D. transfers, Rose Botanical, Wilde Bloemen, and Catharina.

I finished it all off with a coat of Dixie Belle’s clear wax on the outside and their flat clear coat on the inside.

Finally, I also picked up another toolbox at River Revival.

It was within my designated price range ($10 or less), so I snatched it up.  I’ve already given it a makeover, but I think I’ll save that for a separate post.

After our stop at River Revival we planned to hit up a garage sale that wasn’t too far away.  Unfortunately, we hadn’t read the fine print and after driving out to it we discovered that they weren’t going to be opening until 1 pm.  Since it was only around 11 a.m., we didn’t want to hang about for 2 hours.

So instead we headed to Acme Junk Co in Amery, Wisconsin.

I’ve popped in here a few times, and unfortunately I tend to find that their prices are a bit out of range for me.

They have some amazing dress forms …

But, at $350 or so, they are too rich for my blood.

That being said, I did find something to splurge on.

I just fell in love with that little painting in its ornate gold frame.

I thought it would be a perfect addition to the gallery wall in my q branch.

For now I’ve hung it just above my desk, but I may end up re-arranging the entire gallery to give it a place of honor.  Then again, it’s in the perfect spot for me to admire it while I sit here typing up blog posts!

These thrifting trips are just tiding me over until garage sale season starts here in Minnesota.  The big neighborhood sales start in earnest the first weekend in May, so it’s just around the corner.  Be sure to stay tuned!

french flower buckets.

Published on by Quandie16 Comments

I have a definite fondness for French flower buckets.

I was planning to fill this post with some interesting history about them, but these days it seems like all the internet wants to do is tell us where to buy stuff.  Have any of you noticed that?  You google something hoping to get some background info on it, and all you get are links to purchase one.

I eventually found this definition:  the phrase “French flower buckets” likely refers to the galvanized metal buckets used to transport and store flowers, which are a common sight in the European floral industry, and are sometimes associated with French floral markets.

Well, OK then.  Not terribly enlightening.  True, they are usually galvanized metal.  But they are also tall and are often tapered from top to bottom.  They also typically have handles at the top, but not always.

They also are usually round.  But I think you can still count this next one as a French flower bucket even though it is oval instead.

Although they are often just galvanized metal, sometimes they are enameled.  I have a lovely vintage yellow enameled one.

While I would never paint one of the vintage enameled buckets, I have painted quite a few of the galvanized ones over the years, usually in white.

Although I have tried other colors as well, like the Dixie Belle Dried Sage on this next one.

That brings me to the pair of French flower buckets that I thrifted recently.

The first bucket has a black rim, and I always love the contrast of the black with a warm white so I went with my standby Dixie Belle Drop Cloth on that one.

To prep it for paint I simply washed it well with some Dawn dish soap and hot water.  Then I applied two coats of the Drop Cloth.  Once dry, I sanded to distress it and after wiping away any dust, I applied one of the I.O.D. Traditional Pots transfers.

For the 2nd bucket I decided I wanted to step outside of my warm white comfort zone, so after the same prep I gave it two coats of Dixie Belle’s Apricot.

After the paint dried and I had distressed it a bit, I added one of the roses from the I.O.D. Rose Botanical transfer.

So pretty!  Perfect for spring.

By the way, I added a coat of Dixie Belle’s flat clear coat over both of these buckets for durability.

I don’t think I can pick a favorite, how about you?