st. patty’s toolbox.

Published on by Quandie12 Comments

With St. Patty’s Day coming up, I just had to do something green!

And this toolbox was green both ‘before’ and, as you’re about to see, ‘after’.

To be honest, I don’t really remember where this came from.  I think I may have grabbed it at a late fall garage sale, but I’m not sure.

No matter.  It was definitely rusty and filthy dirty, and I remember debating whether or not it was worth the effort.  After giving it a good clean with some Dawn dishwashing soap and hot water, I then went over the rusty areas with some 120 grit sandpaper.  I mainly like to smooth down the surface so it doesn’t look quite so chunky, but I don’t attempt to remove every bit of rust.

But that means that I need to do something to keep the rust from bleeding through my paint.  So I thought this was an ideal opportunity to try the new Bonding Boss from Dixie Belle.

By now you are used to seeing me use Dixie Belle’s B.O.S.S. to block odors and stop stains.  This is their newest version of that product.  It combines all of the blocking qualities of B.O.S.S. with the bonding qualities of their Slick Stick.  It comes in clear, gray or white.  I like the clear version because I don’t want to see a layer of white or gray when I distress the edges of an item I’ve painted.

It’s nice to have one product that does a job that formerly required two different products, but that being said I’ve never had any adhesion problems using chalk style paint over the old B.O.S.S..  So I’ll continue to use it until the stuff I have on hand is used up, then make the permanent switch to Bonding Boss after that.

Once the Bonding Boss was dry, I painted the interior of the toolbox in Dixie Belle’s Cottage Door.  I love this warm shade of peachy-pink.

I added a Classic Vintage Label transfer from re.design with prima inside the lid.

This toolbox came with a tray, so I painted that up too.

Then I added a little section of I.O.D.’s Rose Chintz paint inlay to one of the sections.

I knew that I wanted to paint the outside of the box in a shade of green, but which one?

English Ivy or Kudzu?  I love them both.

Since I was planning to use the paint inlay on the outside too, I decided I’d better do a sample board to see which green worked best with it.

I painted half the board in English Ivy and half in Kudzu, and then added some scraps of the paint inlay.  I also pulled out a scrap of black transfer wording to make sure that would look good over my color of choice as well.

In the end, I rather thought either color would work but I decided I liked the English Ivy just a bit better.  The darker color made the florals pop a bit more.

So I painted the outside of the box in English Ivy and then applied the paint inlay to the bottom front and around the sides.

Before moving on, I sprayed the paint inlay with Rust-Oleum’s matte spray sealer to keep it from smearing while I worked on the rest of the box.  While I was at it, I spray sealed the tray and interior of the box as well.

Once that was dry, I sanded the edges of the box to distress them and then worked on adding some typography to the lid.

I kept it pretty simple, with just some segments of wording from the I.O.D. Label Ephemera transfer.  I added a line of text to the front of the lid as well.

I decided to go ahead and spray seal the exterior since I already had the spray handy, and it’s so much quicker than brushing on a top coat.

After the spray was dry, I also added a quick coat of clear wax over it.  There’s just something about the sheen of a wax topcoat that really appeals to me, although it wasn’t necessary for any practical reason.

With that, this toolbox makeover is complete.

I brought this one into the shop where I sell on consignment (Reclaiming Beautiful in Stillwater, MN), so if any of you locals are in need of a fabulously green toolbox, head into Stillwater this weekend.

Thank you to Dixie Belle Paint Co for providing the Bonding Boss and paint used for this makeover.

another mini makeover.

Published on by Quandie13 Comments

Remember the dollhouse that I purchased for $5 at a garage sale last year?

I’m not sure I mentioned it at the time, but it came partially furnished.  LOL, well, it was mostly just tacky plastic stuff that I discarded, but I did hang on to these three pieces …

They were made out of wood, so I thought they might be fun to paint up.

But much like with full-size furniture, I had to send the larger cupboard over to Ken’s workshop for some repairs first.

It was missing what I presume was meant to be a pull-out cutting board, the opening for it has already been covered up by Ken in the photo below.

A couple of the drawers needed some glue, and like so many cast off pieces of furniture, it was missing just one knob.

After scuff sanding and cleaning it, I gave it a couple of coats of Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth.  Then after sanding the edges to create a worn look, I added a couple of transfers.

You’ll note that I painted over the knobs.  That was partially to make them blend a bit more, and partially to disguise the fact that the original 4 knobs are metal while Ken carved a wooden replacement for the fifth one.

The transfers I used are knob transfers from re.design with prima.

They tend to be the perfect size for miniatures.

I lined the drawers with some pretty scrapbook paper.

Can we just take a moment to admire my miniature fly swatter?

I saved a handful of things from the dollhouse that my dad made, including that and the other props I used in these photos.

The remaining two pieces were pretty simple makeovers with more paint and transfers.

The transfer on top of the bookcase is from the Classic Vintage Labels from re.design with prima.

As is the ‘cafe’ transfer on the trunk.

These mini’s were so fun to work on, and so much easier than working on full-sized furniture, LOL.

I think they are much improved with a little quandification.

What do you think?

As far as what I’m going to do with them, I do have a bit of an idea percolating in the back of my mind.  We’ll just have to wait and see if it comes to fruition or not!

gardening in March?!

Published on by Quandie6 Comments

Good morning from the garden!

I don’t think I’m back to regular weekly ‘Sunday mornings in the garden’ posts quite yet, but due to our crazy mild winter I was actually out gardening this week.  I can hardly believe it myself.

Gardening in early March, in Minnesota!  Who woulda thunk it?

I am a full month ahead of schedule with pruning the hydrangeas!  Last year I pruned them mid-April, and there were still patches of snow and ice on the ground.

Since I’m so far ahead of schedule this year I’ve decided to take my time and focus on cleaning up one garden bed at a time.  So far I’ve finished the front garden under the window box, the shade garden alongside the house, and now the garden next to the carriage house.

That is the ‘after clean up’ photo, in case you weren’t sure.

The right corner of that flower bed contains a Vanilla Strawberry hydrangea, a Tiger Eye Sumac and that amazing Roguchi clematis.

I started my clean up with the hydrangea and followed the general panicle hydrangea pruning rules:

  • reduce the overall height of the shrub by about 1/3.
  • remove any dead, broken or weak branches.
  • remove any branches that are rubbing on other branches.
  • prune just above a leaf node.

This photo doesn’t do these trimmings justice …

But they were all at least 3′ long, if not more.

The Roguchi clematis went next.

In case you’re new here and haven’t heard me go on and on about this variety, let me just say that right now it’s my favorite clematis.  It blooms from May through October and is absolutely covered in flowers that whole time.  The flowers aren’t particularly showy, but they are pretty sweet.

Clematis plants belong to one of three pruning groups, and these groups have different rules.  This one belongs to group 3, which means that you want to prune it right down to about a foot or two from the ground.  In my opinion, this is the easiest sort of pruning job for clematis.  Just prune all of the stems right above a leaf node, about a foot or so from the ground and then discard everything from above that point.

So all of this …

came off and got discarded.

As for that Tiger Eye Sumac, you may remember that I pretty much thought it was dead last year.  It normally doesn’t die back to the ground, but last year it did.  We cut all of the dead limbs off assuming it was a goner, but then it sent up new shoots from the ground.

Unfortunately those ground level shoots seem to have been a rabbit magnet this winter.  The easy way to tell rabbit damage from deer damage is when the damage only goes up to maximum rabbit height.

I’ll just have to wait and see how the Tiger Eye does this year.  I may dig it out and plant a new one in another spot.  It’s competing with the hydrangea in this location anyway.

But speaking of rabbit damage, you may remember my ongoing struggles with creating a lilac hedge.  I started this hedge in 2011, and after much trial and error, I think only one of the original lilacs I planted remains.  All of the others died off and have been replaced.  Currently I have a tall section of hedge in the middle, with two newly planted sections on either end.

This past fall I decided to go above and beyond with protecting the newer plants from the rabbits by enclosing them with chicken wire filled in with chopped leaves.

And it worked like a charm!  The rabbits weren’t able to get to them, and now they are chock full of buds.  I’m so hoping that their growth really leaps over the next couple of years and they catch up with the rest of the hedge.  Maybe I will finally have a lilac hedge after all!

Who doesn’t love a good lilac?

As for the rest of that garden bed cleanup, I just needed to cut back some perennials and clean out fallen leaves.  I tried to be mindful of where I was stepping because I have bulbs coming up!

Wait, what??  Bulbs up in early March?  And actually, most of these were already poking their heads up in late February before I left to visit my mom.  How fun is that?

I have quite a few more garden beds to work on over the coming week, plus I should really get some chicken wire around my emerging tulips.  I don’t want a repeat of last year when deer completely munched on one whole section of new tulip bulbs.

I purchased some more green chicken wire specifically for this purpose, so I should get it in place now since the tulips are starting to come up already!

I’m really looking forward to seeing whether or not my Darwin Hybrid Pink Impression tulips have multiplied.

Darwin hybrid tulips will supposedly naturalize well.  We’ll just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, have you been back out in your garden yet this year?  Leave a comment and let me know!

another library book review.

Published on by Quandie7 Comments

It’s time for another library book review!

If you’ve been following me for a while, you know that my mom goes to the library on a regular basis.  So when I’m visiting her I tag along and check out what her library has to offer.

Unfortunately, I seem to have exhausted their supply of ‘decorating with vintage stuff’ type books.  They didn’t have anything on the shelf in this category that I hadn’t already checked out.

So I decided to check out their gardening section next, but it seems as though books on gardening aren’t much of a draw in the desert!  For obvious reasons (they currently have a watering ban that only allows them to water plants once a week).

I did find one book on landscape design, and a handful of ‘garden adjacent’ books to check out though.

I’ll start with the prettiest of the books, which was Vintage Roses.

This book is absolutely chalk full of gorgeous photos of roses.

It begins with a brief section on the history of roses, then goes on to highlight specific varieties which are broken down into four categories; classic blooms, dramatic flowers, romantic beauties and fragrant delights.

Each rose looks positively drool-worthy to me.

I wish that I could get better results with roses here in my garden.  Unfortunately, I don’t have the patience to deal with the many challenges of growing roses, including those nasty Japanese beetles that turn their leaves into Swiss cheese every year.  I still have one old fashioned shrub rose (the easiest type to grow) that I try to train up a metal garden obelisk each year with very limited success.

My neighbor Arlene had a lovely rose garden for decades until she finally gave up the roses back in 2018.  I found quite a few local readers here on the blog that were willing to take them for their own gardens.

If you have any interest at all in roses, you would really enjoy this book.  I also think it would make an awesome gift for a rose lover.

Next up in the library book pile is Decorating with Plants.

This books gives a lot of detail on the growing needs of specific varieties of house plants.

If you are getting into house plants, this book would be a great resource.  They had a page on Streptocarpus, or Cape Primrose, and after reading it I realized I was making some mistakes with the Streptocarpus that I brought into the house this winter.

It looked great when I first brought it in (above), but I haven’t seen many flowers on it all winter.  The foliage is lush and green though.  Apparently I shouldn’t be feeding it over the winter, too much fertilizing can cause lush foliage and no flowers.

But back to the book.  This one also contains room by room ideas on displaying your houseplants like this vertical garden for a foyer.

Or this idea of filling your bathroom with ferns.

The third book in my pile also features houseplants and is called Plant Craft.

This books features 30 specific craft projects that feature plants.  Mostly indoor, but there were a handful of outside projects too.

I have to admit that I really only found two projects that appealed to me, the first being a simple terrarium.

But most of us could probably figure out how to plant a terrarium without a book.

There was also a section on how to make a Kokedama.

If you aren’t familiar, Kokedama is the Japanese art of growing plants in a moss-covered ball of soil wrapped with string.  I’ve debated trying to make one of these, but in the end decided that caring for it would probably be a bit too fussy for me.

Last up is the Encyclopedia of Landscape Design.

This is one of those DK books (published by Dorling Kindersley).  They specialize in illustrated reference books.  I absolutely love their travel guide books.

This book is packed with tons of info on everything from creating a site plan …

to ways to create screens or boundaries.

They also have lots of info on plants including tree, shrubs and perennials.

Unfortunately quite a lot of the plants they featured were not hardy in my zone 5a (formerly 4b) garden.

Still, this book would be a great resource if you are starting from scratch with some landscaping.

I hope you found this library book review of interest.  If you’d like to check out some of my other library book reviews, just click on the photos below to head to those posts.

kitchen wax and other things.

Published on by Quandie17 Comments

And once again, I’m back from my travels.  In case you weren’t paying attention to my last post, I went off to visit my mom in Henderson, NV for a week.

My mom will be turning 84 later this year, so I like to take every opportunity to spend some time with her these days.  In fact, I’m going back again in April with my sister.

For this trip I was flying solo though.  It is incredibly easy for me to get to my mom’s, despite it being 1,680 miles away.  There are plenty of flights to choose from between Minneapolis and Las Vegas, and the flight takes about 3 hours.  I live fairly close to the airport on my end, and my mom lives even closer to the airport on her end.  In addition, I find that both the Minneapolis airport and the Las Vegas airport tend to operate quite smoothly.  The same can not be said for Puerto Vallarta …

That place was a zoo!

And of course, now that I am retired I can go visit my mom anytime.

Aside from dining out a couple of times, and doing a little shopping and errand running, we mostly just spent some quality time hanging out.

I thought I’d share a few updates on projects out at mom’s that I’ve shared with you guys in the past, starting with her front door.  If you’ve been following me for long, you may remember that I painted her front door back in February 2022.

I used Dixie Belle’s Midnight Green Silk paint from their Desert Collection, which seemed appropriate since she lives in the Mojave Desert.

Two years later, the door still looks as good as the day I painted it.

It was a little dirty, but wiping it down with a damp rag quickly took care of that.  Considering that this door is subjected to the blinding Nevada sunshine on a daily basis, I am pretty impressed with how well this paint has held up.

Speaking of holding up, check out that pot of cyclamen.  I planted that back in October of last year, and my mom basically does nothing more than water it now and then.

It has been outside all winter, and despite the occasional night below freezing it still looks fantastic and is blooming away.  Here in Minnesota we basically treat cyclamen as a blooming houseplant.  I rarely get a 2nd flush of blooms out of them.  My mom says this one has been blooming steadily all winter.

I can’t say the same for the gardenia that I planted for Mom back in April of last year.  Here’s how it looked when I planted it.

It has grown quite a bit, but unfortunately it has never bloomed again.

I suspect that it might just be too hot on my mom’s patio for this plant to thrive.  If any of you have any tips on getting a gardenia to bloom, be sure to leave a comment.

In March of 2021, my sister and I gave my mom’s patio a makeover.

We purchased that cute little bistro set at Lowe’s for $248, and it too has held up beautifully for three years.  Unfortunately this set is no longer available at Lowe’s or I would certainly recommend it.

This little enclosed courtyard is perfect for enjoying a cool late February morning with some library books and a cup of coffee.

One of the things I did out at mom’s was to clean out some closets, as well as her laundry area in the garage.  I had to laugh when I came across her Jubilee kitchen wax.

I’m fairly sure that my mom has not waxed a floor since I was in grade school.  But for some reason the Jubilee wax has made every move from Illinois to Minnesota to Florida to North Carolina to Kentucky to Nevada (yes, my parents moved a bit).  And she even packed it when she moved out of her big four bedroom, three bath house to her current townhouse.

There’s no way my mom’s going to be down on her hands and knees waxing a floor these days, but for some reason she just keeps hanging onto that wax.  And now, somehow I just can’t bring myself to toss the Jubilee either.  How silly is that?

I did take some time to stop into the Goodwill that is just around the corner from my mom’s place.

Unfortunately there wasn’t a single item that could be considered ‘fabulous’.  It was quite disappointing (garage sale season can not arrive soon enough!).

How about you?  Are you ready for garage sale season?  Leave a comment and let me know!

I bought the farm.

Published on by Quandie30 Comments

I’m not gonna lie people, my creative well has gone a bit dry lately.  I’m still struggling with tooth extraction pain, and it took a while to get over the cold I brought home from Florida.  OK, I haven’t exactly ‘bought the farm’, but I definitely haven’t felt very creative lately.

In addition, I’m heading out of town again tomorrow, this time on a solo trip to visit my mom.  So it seemed like a the wrong time to get started on any sort of more complicated project.

I did manage to get out for some thrifting with my friend opK earlier in the week though.  I didn’t find much, but I thought I’d share my very meager haul with you guys.

We started out at a Goodwill where I made just two purchases.  First up, this amber bottle.

I brought it home, gave it a good wash and then added that faux French apothecary label.

I did some similar amber apothecary bottles in February last year …

and I thought they turned out quite nicely, so I tried it again.  I shared the source for printing those labels back in that post, so you can find that there if you’re looking for it.

The labels are easy to apply with some Mod Podge.

Since I already had the Mod Podge out and some labels printed, I decided to add labels to a couple of other jars I already had on hand.

I’ve had that pair of jars for ages and they originally had a much more faux looking paper label on them.  I soaked those labels off to replace them, and these are so much better.

These jars have the cutest little galvanized lids.

I also found this dollhouse barn at the Goodwill.

It needs a little TLC, but I couldn’t help but be reminded of the dollhouse that I fixed up back in December.

That was such a fun project to work on, so I’m thinking this one will be more of the same.

Here’s the other side …

I had to laugh when I brought it up to the register and the clerk said “oh, I see you’ve bought the farm!”  LOL.

Anyway, the barn has already gone over to Ken’s workshop for a few repairs.  I’m looking forward to giving it a fresh look.

We headed to a spot that was new to me next, the St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store in St. Paul.

By the way, can I just point out that it was a beautiful sunny day and the sidewalks were completely clear of snow and ice on the sunny side of the street.  This is not the norm for Minnesota in February, but I’m loving it!

Unfortunately, I think their sidewalk sign was a bit of false advertising.

I didn’t find any hot deals.  However, as we were waiting in line for opK to make some purchases I saw a shoebox full of old photos so I started flipping through them and this one caught my eye.

Just look at those stern faces!  These guys were very serious about their sport.

The basketball … wait … is that a basketball?  I guess I’m not 100% sure about that.  Is there some other sport played with a ball that looks like that?  Or is that what basketballs looked like in 1929?

Well, whatever it is, it says “E.F. HS 28 – 29” on the ball.  There are no markings on the back of the photo, so that’s my only clue.  So the age of the photo is obvious, but no idea where it was taken.

The photos were priced at a mere 15 cents each, so I thought I really should take it home with me.

I really have no plans for its ultimate fate, but for now I’ll just enjoy displaying it somewhere.

And that’s it.  I only purchased three things.  I’m really looking forward to garage sale season because I am not finding much at the thrift stores these days!

As I mentioned, I’m headed off to my mom’s tomorrow.  She has a to-do list all ready to go for me.  So far I’m doing her taxes, cleaning out her fridge and her closets, and replanting some of her pots on the patio.  I’m looking forward to just spending some time with her though, and maybe enjoying some sunshine and warm weather.  Once again I don’t have any blog posts planned during my absence, but hopefully I’ll be ready to get busy on some creative projects when I get back home again!

coffee bean is the new black.

Published on by Quandie13 Comments

A while back I mentioned that I’d seen a YouTube video where the creator was using Dixie Belle’s Coffee Bean paint and calling it ‘black’.

That led me to take a 2nd look at Coffee Bean.

I had some on hand, and I’d used it here and there as a base coat, or a shadow color with stencils and I’d always considered it a dark chocolate brown.  And brown has never been one of my favorite colors.  So I pulled it out to take a closer look.

And you know what?  It’s pretty dark.  You have to look closely to see those warm hints of dark brown.  At first glance, it really does look black.

This revelation dovetails nicely with a gradual change in my appreciation for black.

Back in 2018 I was painting everything in Dixie Belle’s Caviar.

Caviar is a rich, deep, super dark black.

But then in 2019 I discovered Dixie Belle’s Midnight Sky and it became my new go-to black.

Midnight Sky is just a little bit less black, sort of a slightly faded version of black.

It’s a little less harsh.  It also has the added benefit of not showing quite as many fingerprints as Caviar tends to do.

As a side bar, the Anchor shown in that photo above is from Dixie Belle’s Silk line, so it’s an acrylic paint rather than a chalk style paint.  It’s also a deep, rich black like the Caviar.

I painted our baby grand piano in Midnight Sky.

If you’ve read my blog for long, you know that no one in our household actually plays the piano.  It’s a long story, but someone gave me this piano and I had intended to learn to play.  Um, yeah, in my spare time (which I still don’t seem to have even though I’m now retired from the day job).  However, it has turned out to be the most versatile piece of furniture for me.  It’s the perfect spot for folding laundry, wrapping presents, doing a jigsaw puzzle, or putting out a buffet at a party.  I also have a huge drop cloth that I drape over it and it becomes my workbench in the winter when I can’t be out in the carriage house.

The beauty of the Midnight Sky is that it barely shows the inevitable dings and dust that result from that kind of use.  Since it’s a chalk style paint, it’s also super easy to repair more significant damage.  For example, I tried to use the piano as an ironing board at one point without thinking about what the steam setting would do to the paint job.  But the fix was as simple as sanding that area down a bit, feathering in some more Midnight Sky in that one spot, and then buffing everything with another coat of clear wax.  Easy peasy.

Actually, it was literally easy peasy because I used Dixie Belle’s Easy Peasy spray wax.

But I digress.

I still use Caviar on some pieces, like this armoire …

But I’d been reaching for the Midnight Sky a little more often.

It was gorgeous on this spoon carved set.

But lately I’ve found that I’m no longer as fond of black.  It feels just a little too … well … sort of cold.  Don’t get me wrong, I still like dark shades.  But I want them to be just a little bit warmer.

And that’s where the Coffee Bean comes in.

I used it a last fall on this wooden tote, and I really liked it.

Still, I really thought I’d never see the day when I’d decide to paint a piece of furniture ‘brown’.  Yet that’s exactly what I decided to do with this vintage bankers chair.

Mr. Q used this chair in his study for … well … a long time.  I’m not exactly sure how many years it has been.  But now that he is spending more and more time editing videos for his YouTube channel, he decided it was time for a comfier chair.

The chair was quite beat up after all of that use, and also quite filthy!  So after giving it a good cleaning, I decided to paint it in Coffee Bean.  Once painted, I added a quick stencil to the seat using Dixie Belle’s Putty.

Gosh, in that photo the stencil looks as though it was done using a white paint, but trust me, it’s Putty.  Let’s try a close up photo to see if I can capture the color more effectively.

That’s better.

By the way, I’ve used this stencil quite a lot without cleaning it properly afterwards.  As a result, I am no longer getting a nice crisp image.  So I decided to order a new one to replace it, but it seems as though the company I originally ordered it from, Maison de Stencils, is no longer in business.  Their website is unavailable and the most recent post on their Facebook page is from June 2022.  They also no longer seem to have a presence on Etsy under the name Maison de Stencils.  After a bit more searching, I did find this same stencil available from Euro Stencil Design on Etsy.  It also appears as though this may be the same seller, but with a name change??  I’m really not sure, but if you’re looking for this stencil, start there.

I sanded the stenciled design down, along with the rest of the chair to give it some age.

I then finished it off with some of Dixie Belle’s Big Mama’s Butta in the Orange Grove scent.

I staged the photos in my newly painted q branch, but I won’t be keeping this chair.  I prefer something a little cushier myself.  But hopefully I can find a buyer for it.  I did a bit of googling and found lots of similar chairs out there including a reproduction option at Wayfair for $203 and lots of authentic versions on Etsy ranging from $389 and up.

I’ve decided to price mine at $125 so someone out there can get a bargain.  It’s in good shape and is quite sturdy.  So if any of you locals need a vintage bankers chair, be sure to check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page for more details on this one.

As for the rest of you, leave a comment and let me know what you think of Coffee Bean as the new black.

As always, thanks to Dixie Belle Paint Co for providing the products used on this chair.

let the sun shine.

Published on by Quandie19 Comments

I’m back from sunny Florida!  Although I have to say, it wasn’t as sunny as we’d hoped it would be.  We started out with one beautiful day, and then the weather ranged from rainy to windy to chilly and then finally to warm and sunny again on our last day there.

My sister and I still had a great time though!

I think we’ve decided that February isn’t the best time for a Disney visit though.  Not only was the weather mediocre, I also didn’t love the Festival of the Arts in Epcot which runs from mid-January to mid-February each year.

I much prefer the Food & Wine Festival, or the Flower & Garden Festival, over this one.  You’d think the ‘art’ theme of this one would appeal to me, but the art is very much focused on animated Disney characters which really isn’t my style at all.

But I’m back from Florida, nearly recovered from a cold I caught on the last day, and still doing a bit of recovering from my tooth extraction (my dentist thinks I had a minor dry socket), and today I’m sharing another toolbox makeover!

One of my fellow Reclaiming Beautiful vendors found this one for me.

Isn’t it funky with that handle off the side?  At one point it must have been painted in a metallic silver, which was later covered up with black paint that then mostly chipped off.

After cleaning it up and not finding any rust, I decided I could skip the B.O.S.S. step this time.  For those of you not familiar, Dixie Belle’s B.O.S.S. is a primer that blocks odors and stops stains.  I usually use it on my toolboxes to block rust stains, but this one didn’t need it.  I simply sanded this toolbox to remove any flaking paint.

Now, I have to confess, I painted this toolbox three times!  Good grief, right?!  Well, I started out painting it black.  But then it sat for a week or so because I just wasn’t loving the black.  So, then I painted just the lid in Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth thinking I’d go for a black and white look.  But I didn’t love that either.

So ultimately I decided to paint it in Dixie Belle’s Sawmill Gravy.  I did leave the handles black though (and that is Dixie Belle’s Midnight Sky).

I added some I.O.D. transfers next.  The one on the top is from their Label Ephemera set.

Part of the wording on the front is also from that one, but part of it is from their Cosette transfer.

And that bee at the bottom is from a re.design with prima transfer.

And you may have noticed that I opted to leave the latch ‘as is’ along with the chain that hangs beside it.  I’m not entirely sure what that chain was for, but I suspect there was some sort of peg hanging from it originally that you could use to secure the latch.  I was initially planning to remove it, but I couldn’t get it off so I decided to just leave it.

As for the inside … well … we’d been having some seriously gloomy weather here in Minnesota before I left on my trip, so I decided that adding a little Florida sunshine couldn’t hurt.

OK, a LOT of Florida sunshine!  Certainly more sunshine than we saw on our trip!

That is Dixie Belle’s Daisy, and I think these photos make it look just a tad brighter than it really is in person.  Well … I don’t know … it is brighter than their Rebel Yellow, which is a good choice if you’re looking for a paler yellow (you can see Rebel Yellow on this piece).  But in a lovely, sunny sort of way … not in a fluorescent traffic sign sort of way.

The yellow interior was also inspired by the bees.

The bee inside the lid is from the Classic Vintage Labels transfer from re.design with prima.

I feel like I took a bit of a risk with that yellow.  Yellow seems to be a love it or hate it sort of color.  But if the toolbox doesn’t sell with the yellow interior, I can re-paint it quite easily.

I sealed the inside of the toolbox with Dixie Belle’s flat clear coat for extra durability, and the outside with their clear wax.

So, what do you think?  Yellow, yes or no?  Leave a comment and let me know.

And if you’re local and need to add a little sunshine to your life, this toolbox is for sale.  Check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page for the details.

Thank you to Dixie Belle Paint Co for providing the paint and top coats used for this project.

winter decor.

Published on by Quandie15 Comments

I know I’m a bit behind the times with this post since the Christmas season is long over.  I have a good excuse though, I’ve been struggling with some dental problems.  I ended up having to get a tooth pulled (ugh!), and then … as per usual for me … it is taking a while for me to feel better.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t really handle tooth pain very well.  I tend to curl up in a ball under the covers and hope that it goes away.  And that pretty much zaps my creative energy.

But, it has slowly started improving this week.  That, combined with our unseasonably warm weather, motivated me to get outside and transition my Christmas decor into simply ‘winter’ decor.

You may remember that last year we had so much snow that I couldn’t even get to some of my Christmas decorations to take them down!

But this year is a completely different story.  Our brown Christmas has turned into a mostly brown January too.

I took down my red and green Christmas lights, and put away the evergreen garland and faux red berries.

But I left the white lights in the pots on either side of the deck stairs.

In my opinion, white lights in the garden look pretty any time of year.  Plus, we need all the extra light we can get on these still long winter nights.  One thing about a warmer than usual winter, the nights are much darker without any snow to reflect the moonlight.

I’ll also leave the evergreens and dried flower heads in the pots for at least another month or so.

We haven’t had any heavy snow this winter, so the hydrangeas are holding up really nicely and providing some great winter interest in the garden.

I’m trying to appreciate brown this year.

And if you look closely at that photo above there are even some pops of green!  In January!  How crazy is that?  The green is mostly lamium, or spotted dead nettles, which stays green year round, even when it’s buried under a foot or two of snow.

And hey, remember my little experiment with leaving some ornamental kale in the front flower box to see how it holds up over winter?

It still looks fairly decent, doesn’t it?  Although I suspect that it will turn to complete mush when it really warms up outside.

You may have noticed that I took down the Rudolph and Co. sign that hung next to the door and replaced it with my Skate Rental sign.

I painted this one up two years ago using a stencil from Wallcutz.

I have to confess though, I’m still looking forward to replacing that sign with the Flower Market sign.  Last year I did that just in time for our April Fools snowstorm, remember?

Although I’d pretty much had it with snow by April 1 of last year, it was really pretty!

In other news, my sister and I are headed off to Disney World today.  Since I’ve been laying low to recover from the tooth extraction, I don’t have any posts stored up to share while I’m gone so the blog will be on hiatus for next week.  But I’ll be back in another week, hopefully more fully recovered and ready to go!

the mini adirondack.

Published on by Quandie29 Comments

As I’ve mentioned in the past, our next door neighbor Ken is also our ‘handyman’.

He has done so many projects for us over the years!

He custom built our pantry.

He helped me create the faux shiplap wall in our principle bedroom.

He also created the faux board and batten look in our piano room.

We also discovered, long after we moved in, that Ken had built the shelving in our living room for the previous owners of our house.

In addition to these larger projects, Ken has also helped out with innumerable smaller projects around our house.  He once saved us $6,000 by building custom screen inserts for the windows in our dining room (we thought we’d need to replace the windows and the quote for that was $6,000!).  This would become a really long post if I tried to list everything he’s done around here.

And of course, on top of all of that, Ken also does the bulk of my furniture repairs.  I think his favorite fix, or at least the one he still talks about, is the humpty dumpty dresser.  After accidentally knocking it off some sawhorses and having it completely fall apart, he put it back together again.

I’ve also mentioned here that Ken builds Adirondack chairs.

We have two of them on the front porch, and two of them on the deck out back.

The thing that makes these chairs special (besides the fact that Ken built them) is that they are super comfy.  They are all based on an Adirondack chair that nnK once had.  Ken took her chair apart and created a template for making more.  Since then he has made countless chairs.

A while back he decided to see if he could make a miniature version.  He scaled his template down and came up with a perfect mini replica of the chair.

He put it together with painstaking detail.

He used toothpicks as miniature dowel rods to attach the slats.

He made one of these mini’s for nnK first.  Then he made another for himself.  And then finally, he made one for me!

Of course, I gave mine a paint job.  I started by painting it with Dixie Belle’s Midnight Sky, which I then covered up with their Drop Cloth.  I wanted the dark base coat so that I could distress back to it along the edges, rather than just seeing that pale wood underneath.

Once the paint was dry, I added a simple, small Tim Holtz number transfer to the front of the seat.

After sanding lightly to distress, I finished it all off with a coat of clear wax.

I staged these photos using a few of my favorite things including the small boxes I painted up last fall.

They are sitting on a tiny new testament bible that belonged to my grandfather.

There is an inscription inside that says it was gifted to him as he went off to fight in WWI.  And yes, that’s WWI, and it was 1917.  I believe he would have been around 24 years old at the time.  If you’re trying to figure out the math and how I could have a grandfather that was born in 1893, I have to point out that he was 47 years old when my mother was born.

I grabbed a few other items to add to my photo …

Most of these things come from those shelves in my living room, which is the eventual home of the mini adirondack as well.  Unfortunately, it was far too gloomy here last week to get a good photo of the chair in its ultimate resting spot.  So you’ll just have to trust me when I say that it fits right in with some of my other mini’s on those shelves like this one …

and this one …

I don’t know why I find miniatures so darn appealing.  How about you?  Are you drawn to miniature versions of furniture?  Leave a comment and let me know.