sit.

Published on by Quandie30 Comments

I painted this little chair last summer and then took it to Eye Candy ReFind.

sit before

Since it didn’t seem to be selling, I decided to bring it home and add a little more pizzazz to it.

But first, I managed to dig up the original ‘before’ photo from May of 2014.

Linden Hills 8

Yep, this chair and its companion were pretty ratty looking when I first brought them home.

Initially I painted this chair with an undercoat of Miss Mustard Seed’s Flow Blue and MMS Linen over that.  The second chair was painted in MMS Luckett’s Green, but that one is long gone.

I decided to jazz up the white chair with some grain sack stripes on the seat, and a stenciled ‘sit’ on the back.  I have to give credit for the ‘sit’ idea to my friend Sue.  She brought the most darling little chair to one of our occasional sales that was painted with ‘sit.’  I am totally copying her.

I used my Cricut machine to cut a vinyl stencil for the ‘sit’.  My sister gave me some of the stencil vinyl for Christmas.  It worked perfectly for this project.

sit chair stencil

sit chair 1

I just used tape for the grain sack stripes.  I sanded them down a bit to make them look good and worn.

sit seat

I think the chair has a little more pizzazz now.

sit chair 2

Don’t you?

sit 2

repeats.

Published on by Quandie19 Comments

How do you feel about repeats?  Personally, I’m not a huge fan.  I almost never watch the same movie twice (exceptions made for James Bond and Jason Bourne).  I don’t buy movies on DVD specifically for this reason.  I don’t watch too many television repeats either, nor will I read the same book twice.  In general I don’t even like to travel to the same places, but prefer exploring a new destination.  I try not to repeat my furniture makeovers either.

repeats title

But sometimes I repeat smaller projects because I loved them so much the first time around.  Such is the case with my painted hatboxes.

I painted my first one back in February of last year.  It was painted using chalk paint though, which made the transfer process a little tricky.

hat box on suitcase

I then improved on the idea back in March by using Fusion paint instead …

painted hat box

It worked much better because it held up well to getting wet when removing the paper after the transfer.

When I ran across a couple of cardboard hatboxes at a garage sale last summer for a dollar each, I grabbed them so that I could make more faux French hatboxes.

repeats before

I used the same basic process as before (check out those previous posts for more detail).  I painted them in a couple of layers of Fusion paint, then used a gel medium to transfer mirror images that had been printed on a laser printer.

repeats 1

I used a few different graphics.  I used to always get my graphics from Graphics Fairy, but lately I’ve found some good ones on pinterest also.

I actually purchased this next graphic a couple of years ago on Etsy.  I think I paid a few dollars for it at the time.

repeats 3

If perfection is your goal you might not like the results you get with a gel medium transfer, but I like the aged and worn look.

repeats close up

How about you?

repeats 2

the charmer.

Published on by Quandie29 Comments

charmer title

Remember I told you that I sent Mr. Q after two dressers recently?  The first was the ‘how chippy is too chippy’ dresser from last week, and this is the second.

charmer before

Before getting started on the paint job, there was a small fix on this one that Ken helped me out with.  This dresser must have originally had a mirror.  It would have been mounted onto the back and the mounting would have fit into two notches cut into the top of the dresser at the back.  I did a crappy job taking photos of the fix, so you’ll have to excuse the poor picture.

charmer repair

The lighter piece is an insert that Ken cut to fit the notch.  He used glue to hold it in place, along with a few nails driven in from the back.  I then patched the edges with another new wood filler I’m trying, Elmer’s ProBond in Walnut.

These are the kinds of flaws that make pieces good candidates for painting.  If one wanted to strip and stain this piece, you’d have those two big notches at the back of the top.  Do you try to match the wood?  Do you leave the notches?  Either way you’d probably end up with a so-so end result.  But with paint, the repair is barely even noticeable.  In fact, you might roll your eyes in disbelief, but I totally forgot about this repair by the time I had this painted.  It wasn’t until I started editing the photos for this post that I remembered, ‘oh yeah, Ken fixed this one.’

charmer fixed top

See, you can’t even tell there is a patch back there can you?

As you can see in the ‘before’ photo, the existing stain on this dresser was dark, dark, dark and had a slightly reddish tinge.  I was fully prepared for it to be one of the dreaded ‘bleeders’.  You know, where the stain bleeds through the paint?  I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was not.  My course of action when I have a piece that might bleed is to paint the first coat and then watch for bleeding.  If I see stain coming through the first coat of paint, then I seal it before moving on to coat number two.  In this case, my plan payed off.  No bleeding after the first coat meant I didn’t have to seal this one, thus saving myself the cost of sealer and the time spent to apply it.

If you’ve been following me for a while, you might know that my usual philosophy is to not fight against the existing color of pieces.  In other words, with a finish this dark to begin with I would usually paint it in a dark color.  Originally I was leaning towards Miss Mustard Seed’s Typewriter (black).  Or possibly the Little Billy Goat Prizewinner (dark blue).  But in the end, this dresser was crying out for light (or maybe that was just me projecting my own feelings onto an inanimate object on a dreary winter day).

After reviewing my paint inventory, I pulled out Fusion’s Inglenook.  Good grief I love this color!  It’s just so pretty.

charmer 2

In addition to being pretty, I am once again impressed with Fusion’s coverage.  It did take two coats to cover this piece, but look again at how dark it started out!  Going this light in two coats is pretty impressive.

charmer angled view

And of course, the second real benefit of the Fusion, I didn’t have to use a top coat!  I sanded the edges for a distressed look and I was done.  I accomplished this makeover (not including Kens’ repair) in two evenings after work.  The first evening I removed hardware, lightly sanded, wiped it down with TSP substitute and painted the first coat.  The second evening I painted a 2nd coat of paint before dinner, watched an episode of The Blacklist (James Spader, who remembers when he had hair?) while it dried, sanded the edges and replaced the hardware.  Bam!  Done!

the charmer title

Isn’t this dresser just a little charmer?  I love that curved bottom on the lowest drawer, and the curve of the front two legs.  This piece is just full of subtle curves.  I purposely left the paint job simple so that the design of the dresser could speak for itself.

You’ll notice that I replaced the hardware with glass knobs.  The wood knobs were still in good shape.  I could have opted to just paint them and put them back on.  In fact, I most likely would have done that had I chosen a dark color for this one.  But this color was calling out for pretty glass knobs.  Right?

charmer glass knobs

Like adding sparkly jewelry to a pretty outfit.

This vintage alarm clock was the perfect color to use for staging.

charmer staging

It’s still set to midnight from New Year’s Eve!

charmer collage

So what do you think?  It’s hard not to be charmed by this pretty little dresser isn’t it?

Linked up with:  the FAB Friday link party.

the gleason board.

Published on by Quandie31 Comments

Melanie from Lost and Found Decor (the blogger who spearheaded Monday’s Fusion giveaway) recently wrote about her trip to the auction house.  Reading it reminded me of one of my favorite auction stories, so I decided I should share it with you guys!

There is an auction house just a few blocks down the street from me.  They hold an auction nearly every Monday evening.  The owner/auctioneer is quite funny and entertaining.  In a way, attending the auction is similar to live theatre.  It’s definitely worth the trip just to enjoy the show.

Quite a number of years ago I got the auction bug.  I bought a few really cool things that I still have, like the full length mirror in my bedroom that is framed in copper salvaged from the roof of a historic building in Philly (or at least that is what the sticker on the back claims).  Here it is leaning on the wall next to my armoire.

mb armoire

And hey, sidebar note, I have an exciting project coming up involving this armoire … so check back for that in the coming weeks.

The lamps made out of antique Chinese tea tins that used to be in my dining room were also from the auction house …

waterfall buffet painted black

In the end though, I realized that auctions were a bad idea for me.  The problem was that my right arm would just fly up on its own accord every time I saw something that I liked.  In the excitement of the moment, my brain didn’t have time to compute the full price with fees and taxes added in.  This particular auction house adds a 15% commission plus 7.125% sales tax to every item.  For example, a dresser that you bid $75 on suddenly costs you something closer to $92.

But the real problem for me ended up being items sold in ‘lots’.  It always seemed like the items I wanted were being sold as part of a ‘lot’ and the other items in the lot were crappy stuff that I didn’t really want.  And to further complicate matters, at that time when you bid on a lot you were bidding per item.  So, if your lot contained 3 items and you bid $25, you were going to pay $25 per item, or $75.  And then you still had to add in that pesky commission plus sales tax.  Yikes!  That’s a lot of math to do in your head in a split second!  In the excitement of the moment your brain is thinking “$25!  What a bargain!” And what it really should be thinking is “$25 times 3 equals $75, plus commission and taxes is $92.  Yikes!”

Such was the case with a vintage birdcage that I really wanted one night.  It was being sold in a lot with two other items.  One was a small rocking chair with a cane seat and the other was listed as an antique folding table.  I didn’t want either of those things, but I figured I could unload them at my own occasional sale and just keep the birdcage.  I can’t remember now what I ended up paying for the lot, but I’m fairly sure it was more than I should have paid for just the cage.  I loaded up my items and brought them home.  I then decided to put the table up and see how it looked.  I first noticed that the legs were a little short.  The table was only about 2’ tall or so.  And weirdly enough, one side sort of tilted up.  It also had a label that said “Gleason Board”.

I immediately got a bad, bad vibe from the thing.  But I’ll admit I was thinking ‘doctor’s office’ at the time, not ‘funeral home’.

I put it in my front hall closet and put it out of mind for the moment.

A few months later I went to the Oronoco Gold Rush (an annual antiques flea market here in Minnesota).  As I was wandering around, what did I happen upon?  A very similar table.  I still remember thinking “Oh look!  One of those tables.  Let’s see how much they are charging for it.”  I walked over and took a look at the tag, which prominently said “antique embalming table”!

mortuary_Gleason_1886_table_overview

Quelle horreur!

I dropped the tag with a gasp and jumped back.  Dear lord!  I had an antique embalming table in my front hall closet!  I don’t think I even noticed the price because I was so horrified.

Later that night as I slept in my bed I had a terrible dream.  I dreamt that the spirits of every person ever embalmed on that table were now inhabiting my front hall closet.  I opened the closet door and there they all were.  I woke with a start and reached over and shook Mr. Q awake as well.  I told him the table needed to be removed from the closet a.s.a.p.  I didn’t care what he did with it, it just had to go.  And by a.s.a.p. I meant ‘right now in the middle of the night’, not just sometime soon.

He ended up putting the table in the trunk of his car.  I think his intent was to get rid of it somewhere eventually, but instead it stayed in the trunk of his car for quite some time.  And as a matter of fact, it was still there when we traded the vehicle in on a new one!  Yep.  We left it in there.  Somewhere out there, someone bought a used car that came complete with an antique embalming table!

Accidentally buying an embalming table sort of ruined auctions for me.  I haven’t gone back since then.  I think I’ll leave auctions to the people who can control the are holding their paddle, do math really fast in their heads, and recognize creepy antiques when they see them!

how chippy is too chippy?

Published on by Quandie53 Comments

Thanks so much to everyone who took the time to leave a comment regarding the question of drawer pulls last week.  Pressed brass drawer pulls, should they stay or should they go now?  If they go there will be trouble, if they stay it will be double … is anyone else singing along?  For those of you not old enough, that song is by The Clash and was written in 1981.  I’m pretty sure it wasn’t about drawer pulls though.

Well, to clear up any mystery, here are the actual drawer pulls in question.

chippy title

And I’m guessing that some of you might be tempted to think that was a ‘before’ picture, but no, it’s not.  Thus leading to today’s question.  How chippy is too chippy?

Let’s start at the beginning though, shall we?

chippy before

A week or two ago I found three dressers in one day on craigslist.  Two were even right here in my own hometown, which was pretty awesome.  It was also Mr. Q’s day off, so he was free to run around picking them up.  In the end, we only purchased two of them.  The third was a little overpriced and the seller wasn’t budging on the asking price, so Mr. Q passed on it.  This dresser is the first one he purchased that day.

As you can see, it had that ugly orange-y/reddish stain.  I am not a fan.  Job no. 1 was to strip the top and then wax it.  Easy enough.

chippy top

Turned out beautifully.

Next step was to paint the body in Miss Mustard Seed milk paint.  Those of you who follow Miss Mustard Seed have probably been reading about the new color she has coming out, Farmhouse White.  I was so wishing I had that color for this dresser!  But no, I am just impatiently waiting for it like most everyone else.  Meanwhile, since I’d had such good luck with the Marzipan and leaving it unwaxed (on the book page dresser), I chose to go with that color again.  I was aiming for a chippy, vintage farmhouse look, so I opted not to pre-sand.  I did wipe the dresser down with some TSP substitute though.

I have to say, even after having painted, let’s see, maybe close to 100 pieces of furniture in milk paint, I still often can’t predict the end result.  I suspected I would get some chipping.  I wanted plenty of chipping.  What I got was A LOT of chipping.

chippy dresser 1

Personally, my heart still skips a little beat whenever I see an awesomely chippy piece of furniture.  One of my own favorite pieces is this chippy cupboard that resides out in my photo cottage.

studio cabinet inside lower

Recently I saw a very similar cupboard (much taller, but the doors were missing) for sale at my local Bachman’s and the price tag said $1,000 (Maplewood location in case any of you locals want to rush out and buy it).  No lie.

So when I saw how chippy this dresser turned out, I thought it was pretty fab.  My sister wasn’t so sure.

chippy corner

I could have opted to sand this all down to the wood and start over.  I have done that before and in general once you do the sanding necessary to take all of the paint off, the next coats of paint tend to adhere pretty well (not always, but generally).

But I was kind of loving the chippy.

chippy angle

When my friend Meggan dropped by to pick me up for some thrifting, she voted a resounding yes on the chippy as well!  So how about you?  Chippy yes or chippy no?

Lots of ironstone seemed like the right choice for staging this dresser.

chippy staging 3

chippy staging 1

Along with some old books and wooden utensils.

chippy staging 2

As for the drawer pulls, there were a couple of comments left on my last post about them that really made sense to me.  Kim made a comment about creating the look I want with the dresser and then deciding on the hardware.  And Nikkii’s comment about choosing a style really clicked with me.  I realized that this dresser was going to be vintage farmhouse all the way!

chippy drawer pulls

I think the existing pressed brass drawer pulls totally work with the chippy, vintage farmhouse vibe of this dresser.  I hope you agree!

chippy farmhouse dresser

This dresser is available for sale by the way.  If you are local and interested, feel free to leave a comment and I will be happy to email you with the details.

a Fusion Studio Metallics giveaway.

Published on by Quandie17 Comments

Recently one of my favorite bloggers, Melanie from Lost and Found Decor, decided to put together a blog hop.  She asked me to join in along with three other fab bloggers, Homeroad, Bliss Ranch and Finding Silver Pennies.

metallics collage

Our focus is the Mathew Mead Studio Metallics paint from Fusion.  As you may remember, a while back Fusion sent me some free samples of this paint.  So far I have painted a pale gold chair and added some brushed steel to the back of a mid-century bookcase.  I’ll admit that when I agreed to try the metallic paint I really wasn’t sure what I would do with it, or if I would really even like it.  Since then I have become a serious fan of the stuff.  Along with the Pale Gold and the Brushed Steel, Fusion also sent me some Copper.  So I pulled that out for this project.

copper 1

Back just before Christmas my sister and I had popped into one of our local thrift shops where we picked up some wooden divided bowls.  I had seen similar wooden serving dishes painted in a metallic gold, so I thought it would be a fun project to try with one of the Fusion metallics.

wood trays before

I’m afraid I have a confession to make at this point.  I went ahead and painted them without my sister.  When Melanie sent out the post asking if anyone wanted to join her in this blog hop, I knew this would be just the right project, so I got painting pronto without waiting for Debbie.  Sorry sis!

I started by sanding the bowls slightly and then wiping them down with TSP substitute.  I then painted them entirely with three coats of Fusion’s Picket Fence, which is a nice, bright, crisp white.

copper step 1

This is one of those projects that doesn’t take a lot of effort to do, but there is a lot of waiting between steps.  You know, paint the top, wait for it to dry, paint the bottom, wait for it to dry … repeat twice.

Next, tape off a section of the bowls to paint in the copper.

copper step 2

I absolutely love this copper color.  Isn’t it gorgeous?

copper paint

I used two coats of the copper paint.  I wanted a very solid coverage.

Once the copper was dry, I taped off at another angle to add the next color.  But before I started I used a little sandpaper on the seam between the copper and the white that I was painting over.  If I hadn’t done this, there would have been a visible ridge under the final color.

copper sanded

I wiped the dust away and then added a couple of coats of my favorite Fusion paint color, Laurentien.

copper step 3

As you can see, I don’t do a very good job of keeping the mouths of my paint jars clean.  Bad, bad, painter!  I often have to ask Mr. Q to help me get these open again.  It also works to run them under hot water for a minute.  But I always ultimately get them open.

Laurentien

After all of these small steps, in the end I have these lovely painted bowls perfect for holding jewelry.

copper with jewelry

Including my Mantraband bracelets.

copper with bracelets

You’ve probably noticed that I seem to have plenty of jewelry in my favorite color of aqua as well!

copper bowl aqua earrings

So there you have it, a simple way to update some divided wooden bowls.

copper bowl necklace

So snag some at your local thrift shop and get painting!

copper with jewelry 2

To help you out with that, Fusion is sponsoring an amazing giveaway for us today.

giveaway

The giveaway includes the following:

2 MM Studio Metallics (winner chooses color)
2 Pints Fusion Paint (winner chooses color)
1 small Fusion Brush
1 Fusion Brush Soap
1 Fusion Antique Glaze
Nice, right?
There are numerous ways to get your name in the hat via Rafflecopter to win!  There is the same Rafflecopter on all five posts, so you only have to enter on one of the blogs to qualify.  Click the following link to enter …

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Please take a moment to visit each of the other blogs participating to see their Studio Metallic projects:

Bliss Ranch

Finding Silver Pennies

Homeroad

Lost & Found Decor

 

one year later, and a quick question.

Published on by Quandie36 Comments

Can you believe that it has been almost one full year since I revamped my study (now fondly referred to as the Q Branch)?

  Well, I’m one of those people who do a lot of tweaking at home (not to be confused with twerking, I’m pretty sure I don’t ever do that).  Very few things in my home are static.  I’m always swapping out this for that, or changing things up somehow.

q branch update title

So after posting about my new ‘Q’ on Monday, I thought it would be fun to re-visit the Q Branch in its entirety and show you a couple of tweaks I’ve made in the past year.  If you’d like to first refresh your memory about how this room started out, check it out here.

OK, now let’s start with my wall quote.  Believe it or not I found this at a garage sale for a quarter!

q branch wall quote

I pretty much had to buy it, right?

q branch wall quote close up

After all, sometimes I do literally dream about painting.  And in some ways, I day dream about how to paint particular pieces of furniture and then I really do paint my dream!

If you’ve never tried one of these rub-on wall quotes, I’d encourage you to try one.  You can find them at Hobby Lobby, Michael’s, JoAnn Etc, even Target has some I think.  They are fairly easy to apply, you just have to have some patience, go slowly and make sure the letters are sticking to the wall as you pull off the backing paper.  I had a different wall quote on this same wall before I made over the room, so I can tell you from experience that they are very easy to remove when you want to change up your room.

q branch bureau

I’ve refined the display on top of my bureau under the wall quote a little bit too.  The vintage cameras went out to the front porch, the ironstone went out to the Welsh cupboard in the dining room.  I limited the pieces here to vintage items in blues or greens.  I filled my little Eulalie’s Sky hutch with my collection of old flower frogs.

q branch frogs

I moved some toy phones around.

q branch toy phone

I also put this sweet vintage plate out to remind me that spring is just around the corner.  OK, maybe that’s a little optimistic, but it really will be here before we know it.

q branch plate

Remember the old paint brushes I bought at a garage sale last summer?

crusty brushes 1

Well, I found a few more at the thrift store last weekend and I finally got around to doing something with my favorites.

q branch paint brushes

I used my favorite decorating trick, when all else fails hang it on the wall!  There is just something about all of the old bits of paint on these that really appeals to me.

q branch paint brushes close up

The ‘sign’ hanging above the paint brushes is an old drawer front. q branch paint brushes close up 2

It came off the re-styled sideboard I painted back in May 2014.  Here’s the ‘b & a’ of that piece …2014 spring blog14

Yep, see that skinny top drawer in the before photo?  I painted it in Miss Mustard’s French Enamel, added a stencil, and then hung it on my wall.

I didn’t hang all of the old crusty paint brushes though, some hopped into the back of my blue truck …

q branch truck with brushes

Which is currently parked on my rooster cupboard. q branch rooster cupboardI still have my pal Lula hanging out in the corner (just out of view to the right in the above photo), but I’ve changed out the design on the chalkboard chair that hangs on the wall over her head (well, she doesn’t technically have a head, does she?).

q branch chalkboard chair

To draw my logo on the chalkboard I simply printed it out on paper, rubbed chalk all over the back of the paper, and then placed the paper over my chalkboard and traced the design.  Once that was done, I took the paper away and just went back in with sharpened chalk and darkened (lightened?) up the design.  Easy peasy.

I haven’t changed up the desk and chair, or my chalkboard door behind the desk, but this photo gives you a better idea of how the Q looks hanging on the wall.

q branch desk close

q branch desk

I have to laugh, that photo makes the room look positively expansive.  And trust me, it is not.  It’s really only about 9′ square!  Still, it’s the perfect size for a little room of my own where I write my blog.  And you’ll notice that my chair is right next to the radiator, so this time of year I am quite cozy sitting there tapping away on the computer.

Well, there you have it.  The Q Branch one year later.

Before I leave you for today, I want to ask for your opinion.

You’re all familiar with this style of antique brass drawer pulls, right?

blue hardware

So, my questions is, do they stay or do they go?  I have a dresser to work on this weekend (not pictured) and I can’t decide.  Do I keep this style of drawer pull, or do I change them out?

french enamel dresser 2

Do I replace them with glass knobs?

patriot

Or do I paint them?

crackled linen side angle

What is your preference?  Original brass drawer pulls, painted pulls or some sort of replacements?

a fun new venture.

Published on by Quandie17 Comments

As some of you know, last summer I started selling some of my furniture pieces at a shop in Stillwater, MN called Reclaiming Beautiful.  It’s a shop that focuses almost exclusively on refurbished vintage furniture, so pretty much a perfect fit for my pieces.

Recently the owners of the shop came to me with a proposition.  They asked if I would be willing to spruce up their blog and write the occasional post for them in exchange for a reduction in their commission rate.

title photo

It took me about two seconds to think about it and then say YES!

I really enjoy blogging.  I love taking the photos, editing the photos, writing the text, coming up with the ideas.  And I especially love connecting with the people who leave comments.  I’m not as big a fan of the technical aspects of blogging, but my WordPress skills have come a long way since I originally started my own blog and fortunately the Reclaiming Beautiful blog is also on WordPress.  That couldn’t have worked out better.

Since writing blog posts doesn’t feel at all like work to me, I was happy to take this on.

First I spent a little time giving their blog a fresh new look.  I added their logo in the header, changed the ‘theme’ that they were using to one with bigger photos, updated some info, and added a link to their Facebook page.

Today is the official unveiling of the new look along with my first post for them.

I hope you’ll take a minute to pop over and take a look (click here).

Let me know what you think!  And consider becoming a follower.  You definitely won’t see me posting as often there as I do here on q is for quandie, so it might be convenient to get an email every time I do.

the q.

Published on by Quandie10 Comments

Imagine my delight on Christmas Eve when I found this under the tree!

q before

Well, it wasn’t quite ‘under’ the tree because it’s a little too big for that.  This guy is a bit over 3′ tall.  And seriously heavy.

My sister got it for me.  She saw it way back in August at the Grand Opening for Eye Candy ReFind, and she decided it would be the perfect Christmas gift for me.  How fab is that?  I’m so touched that she remembered it and went back for it later.

Of course, it needed a little ‘quandification’.

First of all, as I mentioned it was really, really heavy.  And the Q was mounted on some pretty unattractive plywood.  It was a no-brainer to start with removing that backing.  I thought this would be easy.  Ha, silly me!  It’s never easy, is it?  There were about a dozen screws holding the Q to the plywood and every single one of them was rusted tight.  After attempting to loosen them up myself and failing miserably, it was time to call in the professional, my handy neighbor Ken.

He started by attempting to drill out the screws from the back.  No dice, the drill wouldn’t stay on the screw.  Next he decided to just drill the plywood all the way around each screw.  Once he’d done that, we were able to pull the Q away from the plywood and then go back with a vice grips and remove all the screws.

Q removing screws

Once I had the Q free from its backing I painted it with a base coat of Miss Mustard Seed’s Flow Blue.

q in blue

I suspected I wouldn’t get much chipping.  I’m not really sure what kind of material the Q is made out of, but it’s not real wood.  It seems sort of like layers of hardi-backer board glued together.  Whatever it is, I had a feeling it would absorb the paint, and it did.

Once the Flow Blue was dry, I rubbed hemp oil into it wherever I wanted to get chipping after applying the final color which is MMS Linen.  I painted three coats of Linen, and then since I wanted lots and lots of chipping I got out my trusty blow dryer.  I have found that adding heat usually results in more chippyness.  Here is how that starts to look as you’re blow drying.

q chipping

Once I lightly sanded, vacuumed off the chips and then added wax, the finish looked like this.

q chipping 2

q after painting

Initially I was going to stop here.  But the more I looked at my Q, the more I realized it needed just a tiny touch of something more.  Like maybe some stencils.

q stencil 1

After I added a couple of stencils, I hung it in its new home in the Q Branch.

q

And I just love it!

After hanging it, I realized there were a couple of other small details that I needed to finish up in the Q Branch.  I’ve got those all pulled together and later this week I’ll share an update on those.  Check back on Wednesday as well for a fun announcement.

thinking outside the jewelry box.

Published on by Quandie15 Comments

Not a traditionalist?

jewelry box title

Prefer to think outside the box?

jewelry box top

Well, how about keeping your jewelry in an old tackle box?

jewelry box inside

I painted this old metal tackle box back in October when I had some friends over for a painting party.  I hadn’t done anything with the inside though, so recently I decided to line it with pretty paper and feature its potential use as a jewelry box.

jewelry box earrings

For Christmas this year Mr. Q gave me a giant cutting mat and a rotary cutter.

jewlery box cutter and mat

I thought these tools would be handy for cutting vintage wallpaper to use on furniture, and also for cutting fabric liners for the insides of drawers.  I pulled them out to give them a test drive for this project.   However, as it turns out they were overkill this time.  I found that it was just easier to use my Creative Memories paper trimmer since the October Afternoon paper I was using was 12″ square (anything larger than 12″ won’t fit in this trimmer).

jewelry box CM cutter

I’m sure my new mat and cutter will come in handy for projects using larger pieces of wallpaper or fabric, but for today I was easily able to cut my scrapbook paper on my old trimmer.

jewelry box watches

I just measured and cut each piece of paper and placed it inside, it’s not adhered to the bottom.  This way if it gets yucky it can be easily changed out.

Have you heard of MantraBands?  I purchased mine a little over a year ago.  If I need a reminder to dream bigger, live in the moment, or even just to breathe, all I have to do is look at my wrist!

jewelry box bracelets

I bet there are plenty of other great ideas for using old tackle boxes.  Got any that you want to share?