q is for quandie

gearing up.

Published on September 29, 2025September 28, 2025 by Quandie4 Comments

I returned home from Canada just in time to gear up for my upcoming sale.

Way back when I chose this date I was worried that it might be too cold to have a sale in October. I certainly never expected that we would still be having summer weather, we are expecting highs in the upper 70’s to low 80’s yet this week. In Minnesota! In October! Go figure.

I’m definitely not complaining, but is the weather going to make people less inclined to buy Christmas decor? Because I’m going to have a bit of it at the sale, including one of my ornemanistes toolboxes.

I’ll have a number of stenciled sleds available as well …

Unfortunately, I’ll only have a smattering of vintage ornaments.

I wish I had more of those on offer.

I also hope that someone decides to take this bucket home.

It’s not overtly Christmas, at least to English speakers. But if you were Dutch it would be (it translates to peace on earth and goodwill to men). I think this bucket would be fantastic with a small Christmas tree filled with vintage ornaments in it.

But maybe you’re not quite ready for Christmas yet (and who can blame you).

That’s OK, because we’ll also have some fall merch like my rusty pumpkins.

And don’t forget about my black hat society sign.

The French flower buckets that I shared last week will be in the sale …

As will the ombre stacked boxes.

I’ve got quite a stash of rusty pots.

I know this isn’t exactly gardening season, but these would be perfect for holding a mum for fall, followed by a winter arrangement of evergreens.

I’ll have a few of my toolboxes at the sale including this one …

And this one …

And I’ll also have some of my floral books.

The sale is taking place this coming Saturday, October 4 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

We accept cash and Venmo only (sorry, no checks or credit cards).

The address is 6041 47th St North in Oakdale, MN.

Hope to you see you there!

once again, I caved.

Published on September 26, 2025 by Quandie9 Comments

Every time I.O.D. comes out with a new release I tell myself I’m not going to go wild. I’m not going to order a bunch of new stuff. I have a large stash of older stuff that I should use up. Etc., etc.

And then I see what’s on offer and I cave.

Such is the case with the new I.O.D. Clementine transfer.

I just couldn’t resist. Look how pretty it is!

It is one of the smaller ones, so priced just under $25. So maybe not too much of a splurge, right?

As you can see, although this is part of the I.O.D. 2025 Holiday Collection, it doesn’t have a super strong Christmas vibe. I’d say the colors make it feel more fall-ish.

To begin with, I decided to try one out on a cannister that I brought home from the Goodwill store near my mom’s house (back right).

I clearly must not have been too impressed with the result the first time I painted it back in May because I never even shared it here on the blog.

I did put it in my spring sale, but it didn’t sell.

So clearly no one else was too impressed with it either, it was due for a do-over.

I sanded it down and then gave it a coat of Rust-Oleum’s Ultra Matte black spray paint.

Once the paint was fully dry, I simply applied one of the Clementine transfers.

Then I sanded the entire thing lightly using one of Dixie Belle’s sanding sponges. I find that they work really nicely on a curved surface.

I will note that you can see some brush strokes under that Rust-Oleum paint. Although it’s called ‘Ultra Matte’, it actually does have a bit more sheen that I expected. And sheen always highlights brush strokes. Just something to note.

I finished things off with a top coat of Dixie Belle’s clear wax.

I loved the way the Clementine transfer looked over the black paint, so I pulled out a stash of French flower buckets that my friend Sue found at a garage sale for me.

After giving three of the buckets a couple of quick coats of the Rust-Oleum Ultra Matte black and letting them dry, I applied some more of the Clementine transfers.

You’ll notice that the finish is much smoother when not applied over previously brushed on paint.

Once again, after a quick, light sanding, I finished them off with some clear wax.

The colors in the one with the pink cabbage in particular inspired me to fill them with some of my dried hydrangeas. The deep rose color of my Quick Fire Fab hydrangeas were a perfect match.

While my dried Limelights were perfect for the one with the oranges.

All of these will be available at my upcoming occasional sale.

I hope some of you locals can make it.

Stay turned for next week when I’ll be sure to share my address and any other sale details.

As for the rest of you, did you cave in and purchase any of the new I.O.D. transfers? Or am I the only one who can’t seem to resist them? Leave a comment and let me know.

surprise!

Published on September 25, 2025September 24, 2025 by Quandie13 Comments

You may have noticed that there hasn’t been much activity from me over the last two weeks.

Well … surprise! Mr. Q and I were in Canada.

We took a 10-night Quebec ‘intensive’ cruise with Azamara.

I’m sure most of you haven’t heard of Azamara. It’s a small boutique cruise line with only 4 ships. Their ships hold around 700 passengers as opposed to the giant mega cruise ships that hold anywhere from 3,000 to 7,000 people.

That being said, they are an ocean going cruise line, not a river cruise line. That seems to confuse people when I mention that we sailed out of Montreal, which obviously is not on the coast. But we did eventually end up in the North Atlantic Ocean after traveling down the St. Lawrence River and through the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Basically, if a river cruise and an ocean cruise had a baby, this cruise would be it.

It was very cool to be sailing down the St. Lawrence while sitting out on our balcony …

and while also being on a ship that had a few more amenities than your typical river cruise boat.

I thought it was pretty interesting to see some of the vessels that were going in the opposite direction fairly close up as they passed by, they definitely don’t pass this close out at sea.

It was also fun to be able to see the opposite shore much of the time.

That would have been better yet had we thought to bring binoculars with us!

And for those of you who may not appreciate the motion of the ocean, for the most part we barely felt any movement at all on this cruise.

Our weather was very nearly perfect with the exception of one rough night on the Atlantic, and one afternoon of rain on our very last day.

Azamara specializes in what they call ‘destination-intensive’ itineraries that focus on a single country or region. Because they are a smaller ship, they can visit smaller, lesser know ports that can’t accommodate the mega-ships.

Although this cruise was called ‘Quebec intensive’, only half of our ports of call were in the Canadian province of Quebec. The others were further east in Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and the Magdalen Islands. We even technically visited France. St. Pierre and Miquelon is an archipelago of 8 islands just off the coast of Newfoundland and it is a French overseas collectivity. In other words, its residents are French citizens.

I’ll share more about that and the rest of the itinerary in future blog posts, I plan to post separately about each of our ports of call.

Azamara considers itself a ‘luxurious boutique hotel at sea’, and I have to say that whether or not they qualify probably depends upon your definition of ’boutique hotel’. The Oxford dictionary defines it as ‘a small stylish hotel’. Well … it was small, and while some of the public areas could be called stylish …

The cabins themselves definitely were not.

In fact, our balcony cabin was quite bland. Zero artwork, zero color, horrible lighting, and one of the worst bathrooms on a cruise ship ever. The shower was miniscule, I had to stand sideways in it, and the water temperature randomly fluctuated from scalding to tepid as you were showering.

That being said, the cabin itself was decent sized for a cruise ship and we were comfortable enough.

Another definition of boutique hotel however is ‘an independently owned property that emphasizes authentic experiences and personalized service’, and that does aptly describe Azamara. The cruise line was originally owned by Royal Caribbean, but they sold it off to a private equity firm in 2021. So yes, it is independently owned. And Azamara definitely offers personalized service. Every single Azamara employee that we encountered went out of their way to provide exceptional service. Furthermore, Azamara’s focus on destination immersion definitely ’emphasizes authentic experiences.’

Before I continue on with the rest of this blog post about our overall experience, I should now mention that I ended up with Covid about halfway through our voyage. And yep, that pretty much sucked. I ended up mostly in bed for about 48 hours. I hadn’t thought to bring Covid tests along with us, but some other travelers that Mr. Q befriended were kind enough to offer us some. Sure enough, I tested positive while Mr. Q was thankfully negative.

Being a rule-following sort of person, I reported my illness to the ship’s doctor. He then came to my cabin and gave me another covid test to be sure, and yep, it definitely was covid. The ship’s policy was to quarantine me to my cabin for the next 24 hours based on the fact that I did not have a fever. If I remained fever-free at the end of that time period, I could leave my cabin wearing a mask. I had to wear a mask in public areas for the next five days, which was basically the duration of the cruise.

In other words, I spent WAY more time in our cabin than in any public areas of the ship on this cruise. I also ate a lot more room service than I ever have before on a cruise. Once I knew that I had covid, I felt like it would be wrong to take my germs to the ship’s buffet (masked or not), and I didn’t really relish spending a lot of time wearing a mask elsewhere either.

So … room service on the balcony was my only real option from that point forward.

And most of the time it was room service for one. Mr. Q was still allowed to go about the ship at will, so I didn’t want to deny him the chance to find something better to eat.

Which brings me to the food. In my experience, the food on the Azamara Quest was not great. Now of course, once I had covid I couldn’t be a good judge, but even before that I was pretty disappointed in the food. Everything on the buffet was lukewarm at best, and more often cold, by the time you got to your table to eat it. The menu in the main dining room usually didn’t offer many choices that appealed to me either.

They had a couple of dining events that I did make it to starting with the brunch buffet on our first full day.

The spread was certainly spectacular looking, but like a lot of buffet spreads it mostly all looked way better than it tasted. The baked goods tended to be somewhat dry, the hot foods didn’t stay hot, and everything was just a bit bland in flavor.

Mr. Q and I also made it to one of Azamara’s signature events before I became sick, their White Night Party.

This was basically another extravagant buffet, this time on the pool deck.

Everyone is encouraged to wear white, there is live music, they were grilling lobster tails, and the staff puts on a bit of a show.

It was a beautiful evening, once again the weather was perfect. But also once again, it was a buffet, and there was limited seating so after wandering around for 15 minutes looking for two free seats, we ended up with cold food when we finally found a place to sit down.

I also have to point out that it was when we were on our way back to our cabin at the end of the White Night Party that I started sneezing, and over the course of that night I knew I had caught something. I hoped it wasn’t covid, but of course, as it turned out, it was. Having covid for half of the cruise meant that I missed out on a lot of shipboard activities. It also meant that I didn’t really feel well enough to truly explore the last four of our eight ports, and in fact I missed out on one of them altogether. So you can take my review with a grain of salt. I’m sure I would have had a much different experience had I not been ill.

But I’m home now, I’m starting to feel a bit better, and I’m still hosting an occasional sale at my house coming up in a week and a half.

So I’m going to start gearing up, while also taking some time to rest up and fully recover.

I hope you’ll stay tuned for more posts about some of the lovely spots we visited in Canada, as well as some posts about the upcoming sale and what sort of merch I’m pulling together for it.

In the meantime, have any of you been on an Azamara cruise? Or how about cruises in general? Leave a comment and let me know.

hello fall.

Published on September 16, 2025September 10, 2025 by Quandie8 Comments

Although fall doesn’t technically start for another week or so, it started feeling like fall here in Minnesota right after Labor Day. I had to cave in and turn on the heat back on September 5 when the overnight lows were already in the 40’s. So for me, fall is already here!

I’d like to say that fall is my favorite season, but the truth is, I can’t really pick a season that I like the best.

I love the first snow of winter, it’s always so magical watching those big fluffy flakes slowly falling.

But I also love spring when the snow has all finally melted, the days are getting longer, and I’m starting to see life in the garden again.

And of course I love summer. Mornings spent in the garden, afternoons spent floating in the pool, and the garage sales!

But I have to admit, by the time fall gets here I am ready for a break. I’m pretty much done with weeding, watering, fertilizing, pruning, deadheading, and otherwise caring for the garden. I’m also done with heat and humidity. And bugs, I’m definitely done with bugs.

I’m ready to close the windows, put on some cozy sweatpants that have definitely seen better days, and not feel guilty about watching old movies all afternoon.

I also love the apples.

There’s nothing better than a crisp, juicy Honeycrisp apple that was locally grown.

Fall is definitely one of the prettiest seasons in our area too.

It doesn’t stick around long, but it’s an amazing show while it lasts.

Because it is such a fleeting season, I don’t tend to do much decorating for fall. Mostly I just add some mums and pumpkins outside. And I also flip the cupboard door sign on our deck from ‘summer’ …

to ‘fall’ …

Our fall tends to go from this …

to this …

in the blink of an eye.

Since fall is so short, and also since I usually have to start working on Christmas decor really early on in order to get it to the shop by early November, I don’t tend to work on too many fall decor projects. Also, since Mr. Q and I are taking that trip to Canada this year, I probably won’t have many fall projects to share this year.

So today I thought I’d share a few of my favorites from previous years, starting with the rusty pumpkins from last year.

If you click on the link to that post, you’ll also see some of my other painted pumpkins too.

Another of my favorite fall creations was this toolbox with it’s lovely fall color palette …

This ‘hello fall’ banner goes way back to 2019 …

You can find a tutorial for making one here if you want one yourself.

I do create the occasional bit of Halloween decor too, like the Black Hat Society sign that I shared a couple of weeks ago.

Then there was the Notice of Decommission sign that I shared back in 2019.

I hope you have the time to work on a few fall projects yourself this year, and maybe you’ve gotten some inspiration from the ones I’ve shared today.

Also, if you’re local, don’t forget to mark your calendar for my upcoming Carriage House Sale!

I hope to see some of you there!

the ombré nesting boxes.

Published on September 9, 2025September 6, 2025 by Quandie13 Comments

Recently my friend Terri gifted me with a set of nesting boxes.

These are the real McCoy, made out of wood rather than heavy cardboard.

The green wasn’t really working for me, but not to worry, Terri knows me very well and intended for me to paint these. She won’t be offended that I didn’t like the green.

I thought this might be a good opportunity to use some of the new Countryside Collection colors from Dixie Belle, so I pulled out 4 of them that I thought would work beautifully together on the boxes.

However, after painting each box in one of the colors, I decided that the Oxford Fog was out of place.

So I decided to add in a color from Dixie Belle called Gardenia instead.

So, from top to bottom we have Gardenia, Chantilly, French Villa and Truffle.

They created a lovely neutral ombré sort of look.

I don’t know, is ombré still in? Apparently it depends who you ask, some sources say it’s out, others say it’s making a come back. Either way, I’m loving it on these boxes.

After painting each box, I sanded them to distress the edges and then finished the bottom three with a mixture of Dixie Belle’s Big Mama’s Butta mixed with some of their brown wax.

Before adding a topcoat to the top box I decided to add a paint inlay from I.O.D.

This is from the Floriography set.

After letting it dry, and then spraying the inlay with some Rust-Oleum matte clear spray to seal it, I also added a coat of the butta and wax mix to this box.

I staged my pictures using an urn that I picked up at a garage sale this summer.

I did debate leaving it ‘as is’, but it just didn’t feel quite right with that pinkish toned terracotta coming through the faux paint job. So I gave it another kind of faux paint job using Dixie Belle’s Patina Paint in Iron paired with the Green Spray to give it a rusty look.

This was one of the items I did on my assembly line rustification day.

I filled it with some dried flowers from my new Quick Fire Fab hydrangea hedge.

These have a darker color than my usual Limelight or Vanilla Strawberry hydrangeas.

I also used a stack of old books.

I purchased that old bible at a garage sale, and I’ve never been able to figure out why there is paper lining the spine of the book. I don’t think the spine was meant to be open, that just happened over time. By when was it lined with that paper? If any of you know when or why this technique was done, please let me know in a comment.

And also let me know what you think of the ombré nesting boxes!

seeing double.

Published on September 4, 2025September 3, 2025 by Quandie7 Comments

Earlier this summer I picked up this black toolbox at a garage sale.

While giving it a good cleaning, I noticed that there was a pretty blue/green/grey color underneath that black paint.

So that inspired me to use one of the new Dixie Belle colors on the inside, Oxford Fog. Since this color is from their Silk paint line and thus has a built in primer, I thought I could get away with skipping my usual Bonding Boss.

But I was wrong. If you look closely in the photo above, you can see little pin points of rust bleeding through the paint. See them?

So that’s just a heads up for you if you like to paint rusty metal, you’ll want to use the Bonding Boss to prevent that rust from bleeding through your paint, even when using the Silk paint with its built-in primer.

All is not lost at this point, I went back and applied a coat of the Bonding Boss over the Oxford Fog. Keep this in mind if you ever run into a similar problem, you can apply Bonding Boss over a coat of paint, you’ll just have to add another coat of paint over it.

So I could have then added another coat of Oxford Fog over the Bonding Boss, but instead I decided to pivot. I realized that this particular toolbox wax almost identical to one that I painted back in 2022.

Remember this one?

It’s one of my all-time favorites, and in fact I even kept it for myself and have since used it to display my vintage glass Christmas tree toppers.

I also found that I could still order both of the transfers that I used on it, the I.O.D. Cosette transfer for the wording and the Dixie Belle Evergreen and Holly transfer. Both are older transfers, but I was easily able to find them online.

So I decided to simply copy my own work and make another one just like it.

It’s not an exact duplicate. This toolbox has two latches rather than a single centered one like the first toolbox. But otherwise they are pretty much the same.

I also switched up a couple of other elements. The older toolbox was painted in Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth, this newer one is painted in Ecru. The Drop Cloth definitely has more of a yellowish cast to it and you can really see that with them side by side.

I also opted for a different color on the inside. The original toolbox has Dixie Belle’s Honky Tonk Red on the inside, and I painted over that Oxford Fog with Barn Red on the new one.

It’s a subtle difference, but the Honky Tonk Red (top toolbox) is a bit brighter than the Barn Red.

By the way, I’m not sure that you can really see it in this next photo, but the Bonding Boss did do its job and prevented the rust from bleeding thru that Barn Red.

For those of you who may not be familiar with this product, it’s a combination of two of Dixie Belle’s original products, Slick Stick and B.O.S.S. The Slick Stick was a product that improved adhesion over slick surfaces, and the B.O.S.S. ‘blocks odors and stops stains’. Now one product does all of that, the Bonding Boss.

There is one other significant difference between the two toolboxes, the first one had a tray that I painted up.

This newer one also came with a tray, but I didn’t bother with painting it.

That’s because I’m planning to keep this 2nd toolbox now. Since I always used the previous one for those glass toppers, I didn’t have a use for the tray. I suppose I could have come up with some sort of use for it, but I never did. It really was just something I had to store somewhere while the rest of the toolbox was in use.

So now I plan to sell the original with the tray, and keep the 2nd one with no tray for myself. I will definitely be pulling it out again this Christmas to display my toppers.

By the way, I fully realize that this is WAY too early to be sharing Christmas decor. However, I plan to have some holiday merch at my upcoming occasional sale which is precisely one month away (Saturday, October 4). So I am getting cracking on some things for that and I hope you’ll forgive me for the early holiday post. But then again, this gives you guys plenty of time to order these transfers for yourself and make your own Christmas toolbox, so maybe early isn’t such a bad thing.

What do you think?

the black hat society.

Published on September 2, 2025September 1, 2025 by Quandie6 Comments

If you’ve followed me for long, you probably know that I’ve taken quite a few cast off cupboard doors and turned them into ‘signs’ using stencils.

I’ve done a few signs with garden themes, and lots of signs for Christmas.

But I’m noticing that sales on these have kind of slowed down. I had quite a few of them at my sale back in June that did not go.

So I’m taking a step back from producing quite so many.

That being said, I did pick up an awesome pair of old cupboard doors at a garage sale earlier this summer.

And I certainly didn’t want them to go to waste.

So I pulled out the smaller one a week or so ago and after giving it a good cleaning, I decided to give it a Halloween look. Now that September is officially here, I think it’s OK to start transitioning to autumn, right?

I just happened to have a stencil on hand that fit perfectly.

Rather than painting the door first, I decided to keep the original finish. I just simply added the stencil using Dixie Belle chalk style paint in Ecru.

I usually like to add a shadow behind the larger wording on stencils. For example, you can see that on the Bed & Breakfast sign below …

I do that by first stenciling the words in a darker color, and then moving the stencil slightly up and over and stenciling again in my final color.

But the wording on this particular stencil was just a bit too fine for that to work. So instead I added a little bit of shading using Dixie Belle’s French Villa from their new Countryside Collection.

It’s definitely subtle, but I think it adds just a little bit more dimension.

Once the paint was dry, I sanded over everything with 220 grit sandpaper and then I followed that up with Dixie Belle’s Big Mama’s Butta.

The original wood finish really need a bit of a refresh, and the Butta was perfect for that.

Last up, I added a little metal ’13’ to the lower part of the door.

I left all of the original hardware in place because I thought it provided some nice vintage charm.

I put a sawtooth hanger on the back so that it could be hung on the wall, but I rather like it just leaning … maybe on a mantle or at the back of a bookshelf.

Unfortunately, I didn’t seem to have any ‘witchy’ sort of items to use for staging my photos so I made do with a beaker, some bottles and a stack of old books.

I think this particular cupboard door sign would be a unique bit of Halloween decor, how about you?

I plan to hang onto it for my upcoming occasional sale. I’m planning to have the sale on Saturday, October 4, rain or shine (fingers crossed that it’s both sunny and relatively warm), so if you’re local, be sure to mark your calendar!

should I throw in the towel?

Published on August 31, 2025August 29, 2025 by Quandie13 Comments

Good morning from the garden.

I just realized that the title of today’s post might come across as a little click-bait-y.

No, I’m not throwing in the towel on blogging. What I am considering is throwing in the towel on my lilac hedge.

Yep, after 14 years of struggling to grow a proper lilac hedge I want to give up.

Let’s start with a little history on the hedge.

When we purchased our house in 1988 there was a hedge that ran all the way across the back of our property. I have no idea what type of hedge it was. You can sort of see it in this photo which dates back to 2009.

See it back there behind the potting shed? It was a tangled hot mess, and it was next to impossible to prune. However, it did a great job of providing privacy in our backyard.

I was tired of how messy it looked though, so in 2011 we pulled it out and replaced it with a row of lilacs.

I thought lilacs would be easy. They grow like weeds, don’t they? I see them everywhere here. I know people who have literally cut their lilacs down to the ground and they still bounce back.

They require full sun, which I happen to have along the back property line. So it should be the perfect spot for lilacs.

I also love the flowers, so a lilac hedge seemed like a no brainer. A big, fairly low maintenance shrub that would provide privacy in the summer (not so much in the winter when they lose their leaves).

But aside from some lovely blooms in the spring …

I have had exceedingly poor results with mine.

I initially planted around 10 lilacs, and after 5 years, the hedge looked like this …

Really sad, right?

But I was determined. I kept pulling out the scrawny lilacs and replacing them. I decided that maybe the problem was the hybrid (ie. fancy) lilacs that I was choosing. Maybe I needed a basic common lilac to get the result I wanted.

So I put in two of those, and they did quite well for a while. Here they are last summer when I thought maybe this lilac hedge was going to work out after all.

As an experiment, I planted three clematis to grow up amongst the lilacs last summer. Clematis take a few years to really fill out, but I did get a handful of blooms this summer on the two that made it through last winter.

Unfortunately towards the end of last summer the lilacs ended up with leaf spot fungus and once again looked awful after losing most of their leaves.

They only recovered somewhat this spring. I had plenty of flowers.

But the leaves never really filled in well.

To try and add some bulk down low, I decided to try to underplant the lilacs with some hostas a month or so ago.

I divided these from a row of hostas that I have in another area.

Hostas always look a bit sad after being divided, and to make matters worse, something is eating them now (I suspect deer, but it could be rabbits).

But they should look much better next year if I can keep them from being eaten. I think I’m going to have to resort to using a deer/rabbit repellant spray.

However, once again this summer we have had lots of rain and humidity, the conditions that allow leaf spot fungus to proliferate. So once again my lilacs again look pretty pathetic.

Every year I waste on trying to baby these lilacs is another year that a different shrub could have been growing to maturity.

So now what? Do I throw in the towel? Pull everything out and start over?

Or do I give them one more year? Wait and see how it looks as my clematis and hostas fill in?

What would you do? Leave a comment and let me know.

is it just me?

Published on August 26, 2025August 25, 2025 by Quandie14 Comments

Is it just me, or do you also think garage sales gone downhill lately?

Remember the good ol’ days when I would come home with a haul like this one?

Here’s another good one that’s more recent, from 2023.

I always had some pretty good finds of the day too.

How about the time I found this awesome ‘portable’ typewriter?

Or this lovely glass tree topper to add to my non-collection?

I used to find plenty of vintage glass Christmas ornaments.

But this year I haven’t found any.

OK, to be fair, it might be slightly my fault. I’m not getting out there nearly as much as I used to, especially this year.

Mr. Q and I took our trip to the Brandywine Valley in May, which caused me to miss a few of my favorite neighborhood sales. And now I’ve gone and done it again since we have a trip to Canada coming up and I will miss two big neighborhood sales for this one. I think May and September are probably the top two months for sales in my area (Twin Cities, MN).

That being said, I have found quite a few sleds this year.

And I also have quite the stash of ice skates to work some magic on for the coming holiday season.

I’ve also definitely found plenty of toolboxes over the summer.

That brings me to my latest ‘haul’ … if you can call three items a haul.

My friend opK and I went up to Chisago (yes, that’s Chisago, not Chicago, although autocorrect begs to differ) for their city wide sales a week ago or so, and I came home with just three things.

First up, this vintage laundry basket.

It has a fantastic patina and is in great shape. My plan is to fill it with dried hydrangeas and then put it in my fall sale (tentatively scheduled for October 4, FYI).

I also nabbed a pair of vintage pillow cases.

I love the feel of vintage linens like these. It’s hard to describe if you don’t know what I’m talking about, but suffice to say they just don’t make ’em like this anymore.

I will soak these in some Oxyclean (although I haven’t found any stains on them), then wash them and hang them on the line for our own use.