q is for quandie

feels like 12.

Published on October 23, 2022October 19, 2022 by Quandie22 Comments

We woke up to a bright and chilly morning last Tuesday. The actual temp was 21, but the ‘feels like’ temp was 12! Twelve! In October! Yikes!

I don’t really remember when they switched out ‘wind chill’ for ‘feels like’, but I did a bit of googling and apparently the ‘feels like’ number takes humidity levels into consideration whereas the ‘wind chill’ did not.

Either way, ‘feels like 12’ is too cold for October. And as I’ve discovered, it’s also too cold for mums.

Dang! I probably should have covered them. But then, the soil is frozen rock hard. I’m not sure that covering would have helped.

It’s funny, when I planted all of my bulbs a couple of weeks ago I thought I was planting them way too early. But here we are in October with a hard freeze already. I guess my timing was pretty good after all. Likewise, I also pulled out all of my caladiums last weekend in preparation for saving them over the winter. Just in time I think.

I used quite a few caladiums in my planters this summer.

That tall white one above was one of my favorites, as was the pink and green one I planted along with some double impatiens …

Caladiums are another fantastic way to add colorful foliage to your garden. They will grow in full to partial shade and perform best with some dappled morning sunlight.

They are not fond of cold weather though. Caladiums are only hardy in zones 9 – 11. Here in my Minnesota zone 4 garden I have always treated them as an annual and just tossed them at the end of the season. But, you know what? Caladiums are kind of pricey. They are around twice the price of other annuals that I plant.

So this year I’ve decided to try saving the bulbs for next year.

The first step was to dig them all up, and gently shake off any loose soil. Do not rinse or wash off the dirt with water as this will make the bulbs more susceptible to rot.

Leave the foliage in place and allow the bulbs to ‘cure’ for a week or so (sound familiar, feels like we’re painting). I just left mine in the potting shed on vintage plates to dry.

Once they are ‘cured’, or dried out, the leaves should drop off or at least be easy to pull away from the bulb. Go ahead and remove all of the leaves.

At this point you should inspect your bulbs for any signs of damage or rot. Be sure to toss any that are damaged, moldy or soft. As they say, one bad apple (or in this case, caladium bulb) will spoil the bunch.

It seems like with the many caladiums I had, I should have a big pile of bulbs. But after weeding out the bad ones (maybe about 25% of them were bad), I ended up with just this one plate full.

Then again, if each one of these becomes one plant, I have plenty!

Next up comes packing these away for winter. The bulbs need to be kept dry, therefore the packing materials should allow them to breathe. A cardboard box or paper grocery bag should work. I’m choosing to nestle mine in a cardboard box filled with shredded paper.

I’ll put the box in the basement where they will stay cool, dry and out of sunlight.

The big trick for me will be remembering to pull them out again next spring. I plan to pot them up indoors 4 to 6 weeks before our average last frost date. With our short growing season here in Minnesota, it makes sense to give them a good head start before transplanting them out into my pots.

I’ve put a reminder on my calendar for the end of March.

Hopefully next summer I’ll have lots of beautiful caladiums and will have saved myself a few bucks by not having to buy them. Wish me luck on that!

a simple wood tote.

Published on October 21, 2022October 19, 2022 by Quandie18 Comments

Whenever my friend Sue sees these simple wood totes, she always grabs them for me.

I had two of them in my stash recently so I decided to hang onto one of them to give it a Christmas look, but I went ahead and painted up the other one.

I started by simply painting it inside and out with Dixie Belle’s Sawmill Gravy. Then I pulled out all of my I.O.D. transfer scraps and started layering them onto the tote starting with some florals from the Floral Anthology transfer. I then layered some wording from the I.O.D. Label Ephemera transfer over them on the front of the tote.

I added florals to the ‘back’ of the tote as well. I think these make awesome centerpieces on a dining table, in which case they need to be decorated on both sides.

I had the perfect spot left to add a bee from the I.O.D. Brocante transfer on the back.

I also wrapped the florals around the sides a little bit.

After adding a quick coat of clear wax, I filled the tote up with some of my dried hydrangeas.

I brought this one into the shop where I sell on consignment last week, and I don’t know whether or not it has sold. I usually try to post things here on the blog first, but I was in a hurry with this one since I flew off to Orlando at the crack of dawn this morning (technically it was prior to the crack of dawn).

My sister and I are spending the coming week at DisneyWorld. But not to worry, I have a few blog posts already lined up to keep you guys company while I’m gone. I may not find the time to respond to comments until I’m back though.

So I hope you all have a great week, and I’m sure I’ll be back before you know it!

the farmers market bookcase.

Published on October 19, 2022October 18, 2022 by Quandie17 Comments

Last winter I purchased a beautiful armoire via a Facebook Marketplace ad, and coincidentally, I knew the seller. She’d purchased a few of my pieces in the past.

While I was at her home picking up the armoire, she mentioned that she had a few other pieces she wanted to sell including this bookcase.

It’s not my normal style, but it’s a really nice quality piece and I thought it could be fun to make over, so I purchased it.

It’s a bit odd though because it’s collapsible. I’m struggling to figure out why one would want a collapsible bookcase. Especially one that is as heavy as this one is. It’s not like you’re going to tote it around and set it up whenever you have a sudden need for a bookcase. But the shelves are hinged and fold upward. Then the sides fold in, and the top and bottom fold in as well.

It took me all year to get around to doing something with it because it was a bit clunky to wrangle it around with all of those hinging pieces. But I finally pulled it out of hiding last week and got it painted up.

After giving it a light scuff sanding all over, and then cleaning it with TSP substitute, I gave it a base coat of B.O.S.S. after Mr. Q looked at it and said ‘gosh, that stain looks like it would bleed thru’. I allowed the B.O.S.S. to dry for 24 hours and then gave the bookcase two coats of Dixie Belle’s Dried Sage.

I ‘discovered’ this color last summer when I painted a dresser I got from a friend. Based on the name, I assumed this color would be more of a sage green … and I’ll admit, I’m not a huge fan of your typical sage green. But then I used it and realized it’s a fabulous medium warm brownish-greyish sort of color with a green undertone. I went on to use it on my potting shed floor, although I lightened it up a tad for that using some Drop Cloth.

It was the perfect color for this bookcase.

However, this color is such a chameleon that I really struggled to capture it correctly in my photos. It changes with the light, and compared to what is beside it.

After the Dried Sage was dry, I decided to add my wallcutz Farmers Market stencil to the top of the bookcase. I liked the sign I made earlier this month with that stencil so much that I wanted to use it again.

So I got to work stenciling. It took a couple of tries to get the colors right. I initially started off using Drop Cloth to stencil the large wording, and that just didn’t work so I sanded it down and painted a fresh coat of the Dried Sage so I could try again. Ultimately I realized I should paint up a tester board to try and get the colors right before attempting the stencil again.

I painted the board in Dried Sage, then I added a few swipes of the Cocoa Bean because I would have a Cocoa Bean shadow under the larger words. I tried Burlap, but it was too brown. I tried Cashmere, but it was too yellow. I tried Sawmill Gravy straight up, but it was too light. Finally it occurred to me that I could mix some Sawmill Gravy with the Dried Sage itself creating a lighter version of the color.

And that was perfect. It’s subtle, but still very legible. Applying the stencil to the top of this bookcase adds just a little something special to it, but it’s definitely not an ‘in your face’ sort of detail.

When looking directly at the bookcase from the front you don’t even see the stencil.

I also added the bottom portion of the stencil to the top shelf using my custom mixed color.

Once everything was dry, I sanded lightly to distress and then added a couple of coats of Dixie Belle’s flat clear coat to protect it all.

Now it’s perfect for displaying some ironstone

or maybe some brown transferware.

All this bookcase needed was a little bit of paint to bring out its charm.

What do you think?

This bookcase is for sale, so be sure to check my ‘available for local sale‘ page for details if you are local and in need of a bookcase.

Thank you to Dixie Belle Paint Co for providing the paint used in this makeover.

it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Published on October 17, 2022October 15, 2022 by Quandie36 Comments

As I mentioned yesterday, we had our first snow here on Friday. Go figure, we went from 80 degrees on Tuesday, to snow on Friday. Lucky I finished getting my windows washed and the storm windows in place on Thursday!

There’s always something magical about that first snow of the season. And what better way to celebrate than with a little Christmas project?

I’ve been plugging away at my pile of toolboxes, tackle boxes, and lock boxes. As I was working on them, I decided it might be fun to give one a holiday look. I have to admit, I chose one of the very simple lock boxes for this because I wasn’t sure I would like the results. I figured if it didn’t turn out well, it was a small one and I could easily do it over.

Silly me! How did I not realize how lovely a Christmas lock box would be?

OK, let’s start at the beginning. Well, not precisely because I’ve gotten really bad at taking ‘before’ pictures lately. But you can just picture your average putty colored lock box here. Nothing special.

This one wasn’t really rusty or gross at all (that’s generally reserved for the toolboxes), so after washing it, I skipped over the B.O.S.S. step and went right to paint. In hindsight, I won’t do that again. Somehow that coat of B.O.S.S. just makes them easier to paint, although I can’t really explain why.

I went with Dixie Belle’s Silk paint in Fiery Sky on the inside.

It took three coats to get really good coverage, but red is just like that.

Next I painted the outside in two coats of Dixie Belle’s Sawmill Gravy. Then it was time to get creative. I first pulled out Dixie Belle’s Evergreen and Holly transfer and added the pretty poinsettias and holly to the box.

But then I felt like it needed just a little something more. You know how I love to use typography. So I pulled out another new Dixie Belle transfer called Vintage Post.

I trimmed out a section here and a section there and added them to my box.

It was precisely what the box needed.

The typography doesn’t have anything at all to do with Christmas, but those fonts have a holiday look to me. What do you think?

I finished off the outside of the box with a couple of coats of Dixie Belle’s flat clear coat. I didn’t need to clear coat the inside because the Silk paint has a built in topcoat.

Wouldn’t this lock box be perfect for storing your most treasured vintage glass ornaments?

It would also make an amazing gift box! If you have someone special you’re exchanging gifts with this Christmas, why not package it in a fabulous lock box? Or simply fill it up with homemade baked goods, or Christmas candy.

I’m definitely going to do some more of these holiday themed boxes. I just can’t get enough of ’em. Well, I say that now, but by mid-December I’m sure I’ll be sick of anything that’s red and green. But for now, staging these photos sure was a fun way to welcome the first snowfall of the year.

So tell me, is it looking a little like Christmas where you are?

This Christmas lockbox is for sale, so be sure to check my ‘available for local sale‘ page if you are local (sorry, I still don’t ship my creations) and in need of a fabulous lock box.

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

just for judy.

Published on October 16, 2022October 15, 2022 by Quandie25 Comments

Thank you to those of you who took the time to leave an encouraging comment about my ‘sunday mornings in the garden’ posts. I was reminded that even though many of you never leave comments, you’re still out there reading and enjoying (hopefully) my posts.

I think the most surprising feedback I had was from my neighbor’s mom, Judy. I popped across the street for lunch one day and Judy was visiting and she mentioned how much she enjoyed my gardening posts and wished I wouldn’t discontinue them! I didn’t even realize she followed my blog.

So just for Judy, and the rest of you who said you didn’t want me to quit posting about the garden, I am going to continue with ‘sunday mornings in the garden’, just maybe a bit more sporadically.

Which brings me to today’s garden subject, fall color in the garden. I have to say, I really do think fall is the most beautiful season of the year. It’s an unfortunately short season, but I sure do enjoy it while it lasts.

Now I have to admit, I have not done all that well with adding fall color to my garden. I don’t have a single tree that turns a beautiful color in fall. Well … that’s not entirely true, I do have a huge maple next to the driveway that eventually turns a pretty yellow, but it’s not a show stopping orange or red.

But that photo is from a few years ago, this tree turns really late in the season and it’s only just starting to show a tiny bit of color now.

We’ve attempted to add pretty fall color trees to the front yard, but we’ve had bad luck with trees in that spot.

Since we’ve lived here we’ve had two trees in front that have come down in wind storms. I feel like there’s something about this spot that funnels the wind through in some way. The last one came down in September 2019 and we still haven’t talked ourselves into replacing it.

But gosh, that tree sure was pretty in the fall.

I think I’m talking myself into replacing it again as I’m writing this post!

Anyway, I also have to say that luckily I don’t have to just rely on trees in our yard to provide fall color, just down the street there are some trees that put on an amazing show every fall.

I get to admire those regularly from my piano room window.

In addition, you don’t have to rely solely on trees for fall foliage. There are shrubs that provide some fabulous color too. One of my favorites is Tiger Eye Sumac.

My Tiger Eye is planted right next to a Vanilla Strawberry hydrangea, and the flowers on that also turn a deep red as the season progresses.

And of course, all of my various hydrangeas add nice color to the garden in the fall. The Limelight turns a pretty combo of pink and green.

I also get a surprising amount of pretty fall color from some of my perennials. Have you seen how many gorgeous options there are out there for heuchera these days?

This one is called Fire Alarm, and it’s the perfect color for fall.

Believe it or not, there are also some varieties of hosta that change color nicely in the fall.

Not all hostas turn color like this, but if you google it you can find lots of recommendations for those that do.

I also rely a bit on annuals to add some fall color to my garden.

I feel like a few of my favorite garden vloggers have been dissin’ the mums lately, but I like to pop a few into my containers after pulling out the more brightly colored summer annuals.

I try to stick to a moderate budget of $100 for that though because the fall season just tends to be so short for us here in Minnesota. I filled the front window box with some inexpensive mums from Home Depot, and then filled in with some of my dried hydrangeas.

I left the Lemon Coral sedum in place because it’s pretty hardy. It won’t make it through the entire winter here in zone 4, but it can handle some freezing nights in fall.

But speaking of fall being a short season, we went from 80 degrees last Tuesday to snow on Friday.

So, I guess you could say our fall season lasted about three days this year.

The snow didn’t stick around long, it was gone by lunchtime. But it was certainly a reminder that summer is definitely over and winter is coming. We should all enjoy fall while it lasts!

an indiscriminate painter.

Published on October 14, 2022October 12, 2022 by Quandie33 Comments

Despite what may seem like evidence to the contrary, I’m not an entirely indiscriminate painter. I don’t think that absolutely everything can be improved by slapping some paint on it. There have been times when I’ve passed up purchasing an item because I don’t think it should be painted, and yet it’s also something that won’t appeal to my market ‘as is’. Sure, I realize that someone else is going to come along and buy that item, and they may even paint it, but it won’t be me.

Some of the things that I think shouldn’t be painted include mid-century pieces that are in good condition, antique pieces with a nice patina and no damage, and pieces with authentic original chippy paint.

I really had no idea that today’s project would fall into that last category.

But let me go back and start at the beginning. First a little history for some of my newer followers. My picker, Sue, and I have been friends for a long time. We met at our day job, where we worked together for 34 years. Last year both Sue and I retired. The situation at our day job had really gone south and we both wanted out. Sue was my original garage sale mentor. She introduced me to the fine art of shopping garage sales and thrift stores. For many years Sue and I hosted an occasional sale together out of my carriage house too. These days Sue picks up items for me that she knows I’ll like. Quite honestly, she often has more confidence in my ability to breathe new life into something than I do.

Today’s project is a case in point. Sue bought this very rusty, crusty toolbox for me over a year ago, before either of us were retired. I remember this because she brought it to me at work, and I put it in the trunk of my car. And then it stayed there for all of last winter! I dug it out this summer and stashed it in my workshop knowing that I needed to get to it when I could work on it outside.

Now, sadly, I totally forgot to take a ‘before’ picture of this one. Drat! It would have made an amazing ‘before’ and ‘after’ collage. So just try to imagine a toolbox that was almost completely rusted shut. The bottom was solid rust inside and out. Although I didn’t get a true ‘before’ photo, I did take some pictures after I sanded, cleaned and gave it a coat of matte spray sealer (and apparently set it down on some wet blobs of Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth).

My initial plan was to sand the heck out of it to get as much rust off as possible, then paint it up.

As I started sanding though, I began to reveal a lovely minty green color underneath the coat of black that someone must have added at some point.

I really liked how the lid of the toolbox looked with the chippy black over that mint green, but I wasn’t so fond of that rusty bottom.

So I started to think about possible ways to keep the lid ‘as is’, but cover up that rust at the bottom. My first thought was that I could paint the bottom in a matching black and then just add some gold wording … along the lines of this toolbox …

And I did pull out Dixie Belle’s Silk paint in Anchor, and I painted the bottom.

The Anchor was perfect for this use. But then I started thinking about the Rose Chintz paint inlay from I.O.D. I’d seen it used over black and I thought it might just be perfect for the sides of this toolbox. The paint inlays work best with a chalk style paint rather than an acrylic style paint like the Dixie Belle Silk paint. So I made the switch to Dixie Belle’s Caviar for the sides of the toolbox and I applied the paint inlay all the way around the four sides of the box.

Eureka! I love it!

The distressed look of the paint inlay was perfect to go with the chippy lid. And isn’t that Rose Chintz floral gorgeous over black?

I wanted to add just a little something more to that lid though, so I pulled out an old small Seeds transfer in white and chose a portion of the wording to add to the lid.

Then I also cut out a little white crown from the I.O.D. Traditional Pots transfer and added that under the handle.

Next up I added a couple more coats of Rust-Oleum clear matte spray sealer to both the lid with the transfers and the paint inlay.

Today’s q tip: always remember that the paint from the inlays can be reactivated with water. To avoid smearing it, it’s best to seal it with a spray sealer.

Next up was dealing with the interior of the toolbox. As I mentioned, it had a solid layer of rust inside the bottom. I had sanded that down a bit and cleaned away the dust. Then I gave it two coats of Dixie Belle’s B.O.S.S. in clear. I find that the B.O.S.S. does a good job of blocking any bleed thru from rust. I can’t vouch for its long term effectiveness since I’ve only been using this product for a couple of years, but so far it seems to do the trick when I’ve used it on rusty pieces.

Once the B.O.S.S. was dry, I added a couple of coats of Dixie Belle’s Mint Julep. I knew this color would be a good match for that mint color I’d revealed on the lid.

I wanted to also add a pop of something special inside the toolbox so I pulled out this leftover scrap from the I.O.D. Petit Rosier transfer and applied it inside the lid.

It was a perfect fit. Well, almost. I had to trim a little off the edges.

I also sealed the inside of the toolbox with the matte spray sealer.

People occasionally ask me what my buyers do with these re-fabbed toolboxes. Some have told me they use them to store art supplies, or sewing supplies. I think this one would also be perfect for housing all of one’s ribbons.

But regardless of what is inside, I just love how this one turned out. What do you think of it? Would you have kept the chippy lid, or would you have painted over it?

As hard as it may be to part with this one, I won’t be hanging onto it. It is for sale locally. If any of you locals are interested, be sure to check my ‘available for local sale‘ page for more details.

Thank you to Dixie Belle Paint Co for supplying the paint used for this project.

the most wonderful chair.

Published on October 12, 2022October 10, 2022 by Quandie7 Comments

I recently pulled this schoolhouse chair out of my workshop to give it a fun holiday makeover.

In case it’s not obvious, this chair is child sized. It has a bit of a mid-mod vibe, don’t you think? I actually would have liked to strip and re-finish this one in that raw wood look, however it had some fairly significant damage to the veneer …

I feel like paint is the best way to disguise this sort of damage, so I decided to go ahead and paint the wood using Dixie Belle’s Caviar. But I also decided to leave the legs in their rusty, worn state. I think I’m taking a bit of a gamble with that, but I’m hoping that there will be a fellow rust lover out there who appreciates this choice.

My first step was to sand the chair all over, including those legs. That’s just to remove any flaking bits. Then I cleaned the chair well using TSP substitute. Next I sprayed the legs and the metal parts of the chair back with a Rust-Oleum clear matte sealer. I like to seal in the chipping paint and/or rust so it doesn’t continue to flake off. So the legs are beat up and rusty, but they are clean and sealed.

Next I painted the seat and back with two coats of Caviar. Once that was dry, I sanded to distress.

I specifically chose to sand the Caviar, and vacuum/wipe away any dust, before moving on to my next step, which is adding a stencil in Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth. That’s because I wanted to avoid getting any of that black dust smeared into my white lettering. I’ve learned from experience to do this when using contrasting colors. It’s just a good way to make sure the white stays crisp.

Next up I pulled out the Most Wonderful Time of the Year stencil that wallcutz sent to me when they offered to sponsor this post.

I added that to the seat of the chair using the Dixie Belle Drop Cloth.

It was a perfect fit. That’s because I ordered it that way. This stencil is available anywhere from 10″ x 10″ up to 21″ x 21″, so you can order the size best suited to your project. In my case, that was the smallest 10″ x 10″ size.

I used a small artist’s brush to fill in the bridges in a few spots to give this a more hand-painted look rather than a stenciled look.

If, like me, you don’t particularly like to do a free-hand design on your chalkboards, this particular stencil would be perfect for that too. It would mimic the look of a message that was handwritten in chalk.

On one of my recent posts about stenciling a reader asked me two things; what brush do I like to use for stenciling and how do I clean my stencils. I figure if one person is taking the time to ask that in a comment, there are probably more of you wondering the same thing.

First up, my current favorite brush for stenciling is the Best Dang Brush from Dixie Belle. I’ll admit, it’s not cheap at $25.95. So if you don’t do a lot of stenciling, you may not want to invest in this brush. However, if you do, it is one that won’t fall apart on you after six months of regular use like so many others.

It is a large brush, so it covers a lot of area quickly. I like that. The one downside to its size is that you may have to mask areas that you don’t want to accidentally hit with the paint, like over the edge, or a portion of the stencil that’s going to be a different color. I just use painters tape for that.

Now, as for cleaning my stencils, the honest truth is that I don’t always clean them. The only time I clean a stencil is if I’m just using it for one project at the moment and I’m about to clean my brush anyway. That’s because I clean both at the same time under running water. I use the Best Dang Brush to rub away the paint on the stencil, and then I finish with cleaning the brush. This works great as long as you do it immediately upon completing your stenciling. If you give the paint too much time to dry on the stencil it will be harder to get off.

This is certainly an instance where it’s better to do as I say, not as I do. With a stencil that has some fairly fine details, like this one in particular, your results will remain crisp if you keep the stencil clean. If you allow paint to build up on it, over time your edges won’t be as crisp. So yeah, I really should clean my stencils every time I use them. But hey, nobody’s perfect, right?

This chair just might be perfect though. OK, well, perfection is in the eye of the beholder. But if you love a mid-mod vibe and pieces that show a bit of history, then yes, you might call this perfect.

I think it would be adorable sitting next to the tree at Christmas, or maybe sitting next to your door to welcome guests as they arrive for the holidays. It would also be perfect for adding to a child’s bedroom during the holiday season. It is for sale, and if it doesn’t go to one of you local readers then I’ll be adding it to my growing stash of holiday items that I’ll take in to Reclaiming Beautiful (the shop in Stillwater, MN where I sell on consignment).

If you’re local and interested in more details, check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page.

Thank you to wallcutz for providing the stencil, and to Dixie Belle Paint Co for providing the paint and the brush used for today’s project.

thrifty wednesday.

Published on October 10, 2022October 9, 2022 by Quandie15 Comments

Somehow ‘thrifty wednesday’ just doesn’t have the same ring to it as ‘thrifty thursday’. None the less, Wednesday is the day our local Goodwill stores offer a senior discount, and since I’m older than 55 (really, only slightly, I swear), I qualify. And so does my friend Sue. So now that we are both retired, we schedule our thrifting get togethers for Wednesdays.

Sue and I headed out on a gloriously beautiful fall day last Wednesday and I came home with a nice little pile of goodies, so I thought I’d share my finds with you guys.

Actually, looking back, very few of these things were actually from Goodwill. We went to two different Goodwill stores, and I only purchased one thing at each.

I found this set of 10 pretty vintage Grapevine pattern plates at the first Goodwill.

They definitely have a mid-century vibe, don’t they? And maybe a little bit of a fall harvest sort of feel to them.

At the 2nd Goodwill I found this set of three copper molds.

The rest of the items are from various other stops we made; an estate sale, a garage sale and Turn Style (which is a consignment shop).

The estate sale was first, and let me tell you … the poor people running this sale must have put hours and hours into getting everything priced and set up. There was so much to look at. The living room was lined wall to wall with big folding tables and every possible inch of that room was full of just the Christmas stuff.

Apparently the former occupant of the home also collected anything, and everything, that had a giraffe on it. There were giraffe purses, giraffe towels, giraffe throw pillows, giraffe luggage, giraffe china … and an entire bedroom was filled wall to wall with giraffe figurines of every kind. Seriously, like easily 100’s of them. I should have surreptitiously taken a photo to share with you guys, but I didn’t think of that.

There wasn’t really much in the way of vintage items though, and I didn’t really need a giraffe figurine. Still, I did grab a couple of fun items including this little galvanized container with a lid.

As you can see, I’ve already added a Classic Vintage Label transfer to it.

I also grabbed this cute little wire basket.

I try to purchase good baskets when I see them at a reasonable price. You never know when you’ll want to put together a gift basket so it’s nice to have a stash of baskets handy.

I also bought these two galvanized bin thingies at the estate sale.

I added the Everyday Farmhouse transfers to the fronts of them after I got them home. They still had their Hobby Lobby stickers on the bottom, so I know these are just inexpensive reproduction sort of items. The addition of the wording gives them a more authentic feel though.

I like the idea of filling them up with some ironstone pitchers …

or how about a quartet of potted herbs?

You could hang one in the bathroom and fill it with rolled up wash cloths, or maybe toiletries. You could fill one with jars of spices in the kitchen. There are so many different ways you could use them.

After the estate sale, we stopped off at a garage sale that was a few blocks away and I scored these fabulous candle holders.

I just think they are so elegant looking.

I’ll be putting them in the pile of stuff that I’m bringing in to the shop for Christmas.

I purchased a couple of items that I’m keeping myself from Turn Style. The other day I had some former co-workers over for drinks and I realized that I was in need of some cute, small bowls for nuts on my charcuterie tray. So I grabbed this set for $7.50 …

And I’ve been on the lookout for a kleenex box cover that was more my style than the one we currently have.

I found this one for $4.25 at Turn Style. And of course, I added the Classic Vintage Label transfer to it, it was originally plain. It’s actually from the Hearth & Hand collection at Target where it costs $14.99 new, so I think I got a bargain.

Oh, and I almost forgot the little enamelware cup.

That was from the estate sale, and I added the wording from the I.O.D. Traditional Pots transfer.

When Sue picked me up for our thrifty outing, she had a few goodies in the car for me as well including this tall ironstone pitcher …

and a green toolbox.

The red tacklebox and the blue toolbox were from the garage sale.

I spent a warm day last week out in the backyard washing up a bunch of toolboxes with some Dawn dish soap and the garden hose, so you should be seeing some painted toolboxes here in the coming weeks. Later this week I’ll be sharing my latest wallcutz project with you too. So be sure to stay tuned!

adding some fall color.

Published on October 7, 2022October 6, 2022 by Quandie16 Comments

Before getting on with today’s post, congrats to Cynthia Goscinak. I drew her name at random to win the giveaway of the white Silk paint colors (Cynthia, I’ve emailed you to get your mailing info, if you didn’t get my email check your spam folder).

Our temps are dropping, the nights are getting cold and the leaves are starting to turn pretty shades of yellow, orange and red. We’ve had a couple of nights that dipped into the 30’s already and that killed off some of my coleus, so it was time to start pulling annuals out of the planters and replacing some of them with mums and ornamental kale.

Although I don’t really decorate inside the house for fall, I do like to change things up a little outside for fall. You may remember the Fresh Flower Market sign that I made up last year using a stencil from wallcutz. I had it hanging on the carriage house in 2021 …

And then this summer I had it hanging on the deck.

As I was looking at it earlier this week I thought it looked just a bit too summery for fall, so I decided to make it reversible. I simply removed the hooks from the front, flipped it over, removed the hanging hardware from the back and then gave it a good clean.

Next up I pulled out some fall paint colors. I started out with Suzanne’s Fall Colors from Dixie Belle.

However, I realized that I must have given away the Pumpkin Spice color because I couldn’t find it anywhere in my stash. Hmmmm. What was I thinking? Well, no problem, Dixie Belle’s Mojave from their Silk line would work just as well.

I painted the flip side of the sign in a base coat of Juniper. Then I pulled out my Farmers Market stencil, also from wallcutz.

By the way, this is not the sponsored project for wallcutz that I mentioned on Wednesday. I had already purchased this stencil a couple of years ago and I’ve used it on several projects already including some old table leaves that I turned into signs last fall.

I had to make a few adjustments to the spacing and design of the stencil to work with my uneven surface. I started by stenciling just the bottom line of wording on the raised border at the bottom of my cupboard door using Cashmere.

Next I stenciled the words ‘always fresh’ in Dixie Belle’s Cocoa Bean. Then I adjusted the stencil slightly over and down and stenciled just the word ‘farmers’ also in the Cocoa Bean. Thus I created a shadow behind that word when I moved the stencil back into place and stenciled over the Cocoa Bean with more Cashmere.

Creating a shadow this way is so, so simple and it adds a ton of impact. I highly recommend it for the wording on signs especially.

I completed the rest of the stenciling just using Cashmere straight up. If you look back at the image of this stencil, you’ll see that there is a box around the word “market”. I left that out on my sign because I thought it would be hard to get that to look right going over that raised piece in the middle.

While we’re on that topic, you might be wondering how I stenciled over that raised section in the middle. Basically I was just very careful to hold the stencil as flat as possible and to not get too heavy handed with the paint. Then, once I pulled the stencil away I went back in with a small brush and touched up those letters that fell on the uneven surface and needed a little more paint.

Next up I stenciled the little do-dads on either side of the word ‘market’ in Mojave. This is where I would have liked to have that Pumpkin Spice color on hand, but I think the Mojave substituted nicely. Once that was dry I added a little swoop of Cashmere to give them a little more dimension too.

After all of the paint was dry, I sanded my new Farmers Market sign to distress the edges and make everything look a little more worn, and then I added a coat of Big Mama’s Butta to finish it off.

I added some mums, a faux pumpkin and a little wooden lantern to the bench under the sign.

That’s part of the I.O.D. Label Ephemera transfer on that bucket, and the pot on the right with the yellow mum is concrete, but has been given the faux rust treatment using Dixie Belle’s patina paint (you can check out how to do that here).

I absolutely love how this sign turned out!

And that might be a problem come spring when it’s time to turn it back around to the flower market side. I may have to re-paint that side in similar colors now because these colors look great up against the dark green of my siding. Plus, I also have to admit that my sign stenciling skills have improved greatly over time.

What do you think? And how about you, do you change up your outside décor for fall? Leave a comment and let me know.