q is for quandie

I picked up this pig shaped cutting board a while back.  Well, to be honest, far enough back that I don’t really even remember where I got it.  Was it a garage sale?  A thrifted find?  I’m not sure.  But I had it in the stash waiting for a makeover.

I have a feeling that there was a time when every high school shop class churned out these pig shaped cutting boards by the millions.  They seem to be fairly common around here.

I added a French Market stencil to one way back when I was still hosting an occasional sale out of my carriage house.

In fact, I stenciled quite a few different cutting boards back then.

But lately I’ve been more into painting them.

But for this pig, I decided to go back to my roots and give him a quick stencil using one of Dixie Belle’s silk screen stencils from their Farmhouse set.

First up, I washed the cutting board thoroughly with very hot water and some Dawn dish soap.  Often times these old cutting board are pretty grungy.  Then I sanded it down to some fresher wood.

Then I applied the stenciled design using Dixie Belle’s Midnight Sky paint.

Let’s talk for a minute about silk screen stencils.  They are a bit different from traditional stencils.  For one thing, they are made out of a flexible, adhesive backed vinyl rather than the stiffer mylar of typical stencils.  Also, rather than a fully cut out design, the area to be stenciled is backed with silk screen.  That means bridges aren’t required in the design.

If you aren’t familiar, bridges are the areas that hold inside pieces in place, like below in the letters “P”, “O” and “A”.

So silk screen stenciled designs can look less, well, stenciled.

One downside to the silk screen stencils is that they don’t hold up to tons of use though.  I find that the silkscreen gets a little clogged with paint after a few uses if I’m not super diligent about cleaning them immediately after use.  And as we all know, I’m definitely not super diligent about that.

So if lots and lots of repeated use is something you value, and you aren’t all that good about cleaning your stencils, you may not like the silkscreen stencils.

You can see the result of a slightly clogged silk screen stencil on my pig.

Once I saw that rather rustic result from the stencil, I decided to make it work by adding some age back to the wood using Homestead House’s Antiquing Wax.

In hindsight, I kinda wish I had followed my own regularly given advice to lay down a coat of clear wax before adding the dark wax.  That allows you to move the dark wax around a bit more for a uniform look.

But no, I didn’t do that.

So I did end up with the dark wax being more pronounced over my stencil, basically where the cutting board was more worn.  This is definitely a case of do as I say, not as I do.

I will say that I think I certainly accomplished my goal of adding back some age though.

This definitely doesn’t look like freshly sanded wood with a newly painted stencil, right?

I should be sure to point out that this little piggy is no longer food safe, but rather intended for décor only.

What do you think?  Do you prefer the stenciled look, or the painted with transfers look?  Leave a comment and let me know.

My friend Sue popped by the other day with some thrift finds for me.  I’d told her all about the dark academia themed window we were putting together at the shop (fyi, if you want to see how it turned out, check out the Reclaiming Beautiful Facebook page), so when she saw these amber Kombucha bottles she thought they would be a fun addition.

She suggested that I use some of the white I.O.D. Traditional Pots transfers on them.

But I was reminded of a video I’d watched from Canterbury Cottage (that Sue had also sent to me) where she printed out apothecary jar labels and applied them to bottles.  The video even has convenient links to the .pdf for printing out the labels (find that here).

So I thought I’d go half and half.  There were 8 bottles total, so four got white transfers and four got labels.

First up I washed all of them in hot, soapy water and let them dry.  Then it was super simple to apply the white transfers to four of them.

The white transfers have definitely improved over time.  When they first came out, I wasn’t a fan.  They had more of that filmy halo around them.  But I think these look really good.

There certainly is still some halo, and you can see it in that close up photo.  But to the naked eye it’s pretty insignificant.

People always ask if I seal transfers when applying them to glass, and I do not.  They stick like gangbusters to glass.  In fact, I usually warn people to make sure you’ve got your placement just right before allowing the transfer to touch the glass because it will get sucked down onto the glass like a magnet.

As for wear, they will be fine if handled gently.  You can hand wash them with soapy water, but don’t scrub on the transfer.  For that matter, when you get sick of them you can scrape the transfer off using a razor blade.

For the next four bottles, I added those apothecary labels using Mod Podge.

Personally, I prefer working with the matte version.  You all know I’m not a big fan of shine.  I also think that in this case it gives those paper labels a more authentic look.

I had printed the labels out on your basic printer paper.  Once I had them cut out, I brushed a thin layer of Mod Podge on the back of the label and applied it to the jar.  In contrast to those white transfers, you can easily slide the label around on the glass until you have it on there straight.  Once I had it in place, I smoothed it down with my finger to remove any air bubbles and then added another layer of Mod Podge over the top of the label.

I then carefully wiped away any excess Mod Podge around the edge of the label using a damp paper towel.

And that’s it.  Super simple.  I just had to let them dry.

Unlike the bottles with the transfers, these labels would not hold up well if you got them wet.  So I would not advise washing these other than possibly wiping them down with a dust rag now and then.

That being said, they really did turn out kind of fabulous, don’t you think?

Once I was done adding labels to all of my bottles, I thought it might be fun to update this little wooden crate to hold them.

This was a super simple project.  I scuff sanded the wood, wiped it down with a damp cloth and then stained it using DIY Liquid Patina in Dark & Decrepit.

I have to admit, I haven’t found a lot of uses for this product.  I experimented with it over paint and didn’t really like that look.  However, it worked perfectly for this.  I just applied it with a rag, and then wiped away the excess with the same rag.  I did have to use a q tip to get into some of the corners, but that wasn’t difficult.

It dried quite quickly, and once dry I added some more decoupaged apothecary labels to the sides.

Easy peasy.

Unfortunately, I did not get these finished in time to take them in to the shop this week.  And in other news, my sister and I are flying out to visit our mom on Saturday, so I won’t be around to take them in for a couple of weeks.  But eventually they will make their way into Reclaiming Beautiful.

In the meantime, which style is your favorite?  The white transfer, or the labels?  Personally I’m digging those labels.  They look so authentic to me.

Posts will be hit or miss over the next two weeks while I’m off at mom’s, but I’ll be back before you know it so be sure to stay tuned.