getting unstuck.

Published on by Quandie43 Comments

As I’ve mentioned recently, my furniture is not selling very quickly (or at all) for me these days.

I had a really strong start to 2022.  I sold a number of pieces in January and February including the nightstands made by separating the two sides of a vanity …

this gorgeous armoire …

the barrister bookcase …

a primitive chippy dresser …

and the botanical cupboard …

But since then the only piece of furniture I’ve sold is the dry sink.

Well, and also the rusty garden furniture, which I suppose does count as the sale of furniture.

I’ve been selling refurbished furniture for a long time, and if there is one thing I can say for sure, it’s that it is very difficult to predict what will sell and what won’t.  Mainly because it changes all the time.

For a while there, dressers were a sure fire seller for me while more unique pieces like dry sinks, armoires, book shelves or restyled radio cabinets were likely to be more difficult to sell.  Now the opposite seems to be true.

One of the problems I have when unsold pieces start backing up is that I have nowhere to store them safely.  Sure, I could put them out in the carriage house, but it is damp and dirty out there (not to mention the bugs and critters).  Definitely not a great environment for storing my finished pieces.  They really need to be inside the house, so I line them up in the dining room.  And currently I’m out of space out there.

But really, the bigger problem I have when pieces aren’t selling is that I get stuck creatively.  I totally lose my motivation for working on more furniture.  I just can’t continue to add to the pile.  It starts to weigh me down.

So I took some time this past holiday weekend to try and brainstorm some potential solutions to this problem and I came up with a few ideas.

First up, I have this washstand that hasn’t sold.

I decided that I really liked this piece myself, and it could possibly work in my front hallway.  So I put it out there just to see how it would look.

It turned out to be a good fit.  So at least it’s out of my dining room and freeing up some space in there for now.  I’ll continue to list it for sale, but in the meantime I’ll enjoy it in my hallway.

Next up is the bench.

As you may remember, this is look number 3 for this bench.

If it still doesn’t sell in the next month or so, I may possibly take it into the shop where I sell on consignment.  I don’t usually take big pieces of furniture to them, and I have to wait until they have space for it, but maybe I can reach a wider audience … or at least a new audience … there.

I’ve also decided to try something a little more trendy on this piece …

I’m going to strip the drawer fronts and then either leave them as raw wood or add a white wax.  Then I’ll repaint the rest of the shell in a closely matching chalk paint, maybe Dixie Belle’s Putty or maybe the Burlap that I used on those nightstands.  Or maybe I’ll just strip the whole thing.  I’m not sure yet.  But it will be getting a new, raw wood sort of look.

If that ends up helping it sell, I may have to rework the other two dressers that aren’t selling.  This one …

and this one …

Another idea I had is to try going in a little different direction with the style of pieces I work on, starting with this set of modern end tables.

I’ll be sharing their makeover with you tomorrow.  And then we’ll see if these sell quickly or not.  If so, maybe I need to change up my inventory and focus more on mid mod pieces?

And finally, I’m also going to spend some time working on a couple of projects for myself.  I have a cabinet that I’ve been meaning to get to that will be part of a makeover of my shed/photo cottage, and I also have a headboard that I’m making into a sign to hang on the carriage house.

So hopefully in the end some/or all of these options will help me get unstuck.

I’d love to hear from any of you that are furniture refurbishers.  What is selling for you these days?  And when you get stuck, how do you get unstuck?  Leave a comment and let me know.

nothing earth shattering.

Published on by Quandie6 Comments

I went to the Longfellow (Minneapolis) neighborhood sale the weekend before last and it was pretty much a bust.  I brought home a couple of jigsaw puzzles, another glass canister, a shovel with a beautiful wooden handle, and this E. Swasey & Co crock.

The crock has some pretty good chips and dings in it.  I ended up giving it a quick refresh by filling the chips in the upper dark brown area with some paint to make them less noticeable.

Dixie Belle’s Coffee Bean was a pretty good match.  I added a top coat of DB’s Gator Hide over the Coffee Bean to try and match the sheen on the pottery as well.  It’s definitely not a professional looking repair or anything, but it improved the appearance of the crock.  This one wouldn’t be collector quality, but it would be great for holding utensils on the kitchen counter or as a plant pot.

Normally I wouldn’t even bother sharing this with you guys, but I wanted to point out that I don’t always come home from neighborhood sales with a carload of amazing finds.

I was with my sister and my niece that morning, and by 11 a.m. we’d had enough so we gave up on the garage sales and went for brunch at the Longfellow Grill.  They have a lovely patio, and the food and mimosas were delicious.

But all is not lost.  I also popped over to a sale near me recently and came home with a few goodies.

The sled will go into my stash for Christmas, as will the metal ‘Christmas trees’.  The metal lockbox will be added to my growing pile of metal boxes so that I’ll have plenty to work on when the weather isn’t quite as nice.  True, it’s not a toolbox, but I’ve done a couple of these lock boxes and they turn out pretty cool too …

The doorstop will head to the shop …

As will the urn …

I found a spot for that funky wire thingie in my garden …

It was the perfect fit for this little concrete urn filled with pale pink double impatiens.

And that leaves the galvanized tote.

I cleaned it up and added an Everyday Farmhouse transfer to the side.

Then I had some fun staging it up with my faux flowers.

It will also make its way to the shop to be sold.

So, nothing earth shattering, but I did find a few goodies to share with you guys after all!  Hope you enjoyed seeing my finds, and what I’ve done with them.  Let me know if you have a favorite.

steep and hilly.

Published on by Quandie8 Comments

We had some absolutely perfect weather this past Sunday, so my sister, niece and I decided to take advantage of it and do some hiking.  My niece purchased an annual state park pass, and we are getting lots of use out of it.

We started out in Whitewater State Park, which is near Winona, MN.  The list of trails in this park all seem to have one thing in common, the guide describes them as steep and hilly.  Personally I’m more of a ‘flat and wooded’ sort of hiker, but I was game to try ‘steep and hilly’ if it meant getting an amazing view.  So we headed for the Chimney Rock Trail.

Hmmm, a ‘moderate’ 1 hour hike, that seems easily doable, right?

It starts out pleasantly enough with a stone bridge over the Whitewater River.

As soon as you’re across, you see some steps in front of you.

But that, my friends, is only the beginning.  There are over 100 steps leading up to Chimney Rock, interspersed with some narrow, rocky trails.

It was fun to check out Chimney Rock, but I have to admit I wasn’t brave enough to crawl inside (although plenty of others were).

Although going up is physically challenging, for me it’s coming back down that totally freaks me out.  I was so focused on not slipping and falling that I didn’t even take any photos on the way down.

But we made it down safely, and then decided maybe the Trout Run Creek Trail, which was described as flat with packed dirt was more our speed.

It was really lovely.  We were surrounded by leafy forest that was filled with bird song.

However, we’d only gone a little way down this trail when we saw a turn off for Inspiration Point.  There were a couple of hikers coming down from that trail and they told us we really shouldn’t miss it.  Sure, it’s steep and there are over 100 more stairs, but it’s so worth it.

And I thought the first trail was scary.  Yikes!

If you like narrow, rocky trails with a steep drop off beside you, or lots and lots of rickety wooden stairs, you’ll love this trail.

But I have to agree that it was worth it to get to Inspiration Point.

That being said, none of the three of us were actually brave enough to go stand at the very end of the point.  Luckily that other lone hiker went out there so I could include her in my photo to try and capture the scale of the place.

The view was pretty spectacular, even from where we stood (in safety).

Unfortunately my photos definitely don’t do it justice.

I have to confess that my fear of heights kept me from really admiring the beauty up there.  And on the way down I was too concerned with not falling to my death to get any photos.  But I found this great post on daytripper28.com with good photos of these trails, including a picture of the rather frightening stairs coming down from Inspiration Point, so go check it out if you want to see what I’m talking about.

After making it back to the car in one piece, we decided to head over to Carley State Park.  This is a much smaller, and less spectacular, park.  But my sister and niece want to get to as many of the Minnesota state parks as possible, and it was just a short distance from Whitewater.  We did a quick hike through the woods there just so that they could check it off their list.

We decided to take the scenic route home from there and stop off in Lake City.

If you aren’t familiar, Lake City is located on the Minnesota side of Lake Pepin.

Lake Pepin is a naturally occurring lake on the Mississippi River (ie. it was not created by a man made damn).  It’s known as the birthplace of water skiing which was invented here in 1922 (you can read more about that here).

We didn’t realize it beforehand, but Lake City was celebrating Water Ski Days last weekend.  We arrived just in time to have roads blocked by the parade, but too early to see the water ski show.

That’s OK, we found a great ice cream place and enjoyed some waffle cones while wandering around lakeside.

As I enjoyed my white chocolate raspberry ice cream I was reminded of what a beautiful state Minnesota is.  So tell me, where do you live and what are some of the prettiest spots near you?  And are you a fan of steep and hilly, or is flat and wooded more your style as well?

 

 

annie’s dresser.

Published on by Quandie15 Comments

Back when my friend Annie gave me the toolbox that I shared back in May, she also had two dressers that she wanted to part with.  I really thought I would get to these sooner, but here it is the end of June!

I have to say, I thought time would slow down a bit once I was retired from the full time job.  But if anything, it just goes even faster!  I also thought I’d have plenty of time to get EVERYTHING done.  Ha!  Jokes on me.

But I finally have the first dresser finished.  Here’s how it looked when I brought it home way back in April, before there were leaves on the trees or plants coming up in the garden.

If you predicted that I would remove those carved details from the drawer fronts, you were right.  It’s funny, there was a time when I was adding details like that to plain pieces.  Now I’m taking them off.  Just goes to show how trends change.

They were easy to remove using a chisel to pry them away from the drawer.  They had been both nailed and glued, so once I had them off I sanded any remaining glue off the drawers.

I wanted to break out of my Drop Cloth/Midnight Sky (ie. warm white/black) comfort zone and try a new color, so I pulled out Dixie Belle’s Dried Sage.  They describe this color as a soft gray with green undertones, which is pretty darn accurate.

So, OK, maybe I didn’t take a really huge leap out of my comfort zone.  More like a baby step.

After my usual prep process of lightly sanding and cleaning this piece, I gave it two coats of Dried Sage.  Once it was fully dry, I added I.O.D.’s Petit Rosier transfer to the drawer fronts.

Once I had the transfer applied, I top coated the piece with Dixie Belle’s flat clear coat.

After the clear coat was on, I got busy with other things and the dresser sat for a few days.  That was when disaster struck.

Well, OK, ‘disaster’ might be a bit of an overstatement, but basically the water based topcoat drew the stain through the paint.

I’ve had this happen before, and quite honestly I should have known better with this piece.  Looking back at the reddish orange stain on the piece in the ‘before’ photo, I don’t know why I didn’t just head this problem off at the pass with a coat of Dixie Belle’s B.O.S.S. to block stain bleed through.  Often times you’ll see bleed through right away with the first coat of paint, but every once in a while the stain won’t bleed through the paint until you add that topcoat.  And even then, it can take a couple of days to show up.

Normally at this point I would just start over with a coat of B.O.S.S. followed by another coat of paint.  But in this case I’d already applied a slightly pricey transfer to those drawer fronts.

Fortunately, the drawer fronts didn’t look that bad.  So I added a coat of B.O.S.S. to the top and sides of the dresser and then headed off on my trip to my mom’s house.  When I returned a week later, I added another coat of Dried Sage to the shell of the dresser.

As I expected, the areas with the B.O.S.S. were a slightly lighter color than the drawer fronts.  So I decided to see what I could do with different top coats to darken them up.  I dug out a practice board, painted it in the Dried Sage and then tried four different top coats.

As you can see, the flat clear coat just barely darkened up the color of the paint.  Clear wax darkened it just a teeny bit more.  The DIY Dark & Decrepit was too much.  But I decided that I could work with the Dixie Belle brown wax over an initial coat of clear wax.

Today’s q tip:  if you start with an initial coat of clear wax, the dark wax you add over it will be easier to manipulate and blend.  It will also make it easy to remove any excess dark wax if you put too much on your piece.  You can go back with clear wax on a rag and use it like an eraser to remove some of the dark wax.

So, I clear waxed the shell of the dresser first, then added some dark wax here and there, especially around the drawers to blend the color of the drawer fronts with the color of the shell.

I think it worked out fairly well.  Obviously this is a case of do as I say, not as I do.  I’m reminded to hedge my bets by starting with a coat of B.O.S.S. whenever I encounter a stain that even remotely looks like it might bleed.

The sides of the dresser are much improved.

You may have already noticed that I did not put the original hardware back on this piece.  I planned to initially, but after seeing how nicely the black transfer contrasted with the Dried Sage, I decided to go with a simple black knob from Hobby Lobby instead.

Finally, I lined the drawers with some pretty paper.

And with that, Annie’s dresser has been made over.

What do you think?

This dresser is for sale, be sure to check my ‘available for local sale’ page for details.

Thank you to Dixie Belle Paint Co for supplying their products used in this makeover.

the pie safe.

Published on by Quandie17 Comments

I found this vintage metal pie safe at a garage sale earlier this summer.

I liked the chippy original paint job, but it needed to be cleaned up, and the inside was in pretty rough shape.  It was also missing the shelves.

I wanted this piece to be functional for storage, so I asked Ken to cut a piece of wood to use as a shelf.  Then I cleaned the interior and followed that up with a couple of coats of Dixie Belle’s Kudzu.

I love that pop of vibrant green, don’t you?

As for the outside, I decided to retain that original chippy finish.  I gave it a good clean, then I sanded it lightly to remove any flaking paint and then I sprayed it with some Rustoleum matte clear spray sealer to reduce further chipping.

Finally, I added some bits from I.O.D.’s Label Ephemera transfer to the door, and then gave that another coat of the spray sealer.

I’m happy that I was able to keep the authentic look of this piece, while also giving it a little more pizzazz (and functionality) with some paint and transfers.

I suppose if you bake a lot of pies, you could actually use this as a pie safe, but I think it would be perfect in a potting shed.

It would also be awesome hung on the wall in a bathroom and used to store toiletries and such.  If only we didn’t have the world’s smallest bathroom at our house!

It has some holes at the back of the top that would make it easy to hang.

No matter where you use it, I think it would make a fabulously unique storage solution.

This piece is for sale, so if you’re local be sure to check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page for more details.

if it’s broken.

Published on by Quandie10 Comments

If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.  But if it is broken, well … sometimes you still can’t quite fix it.

A few weeks back my handyman/neighbor Ken and his wife asked me whether or not I would like to have their cast iron garden furniture.  It’s your typical set that includes a bench (not pictured below), two chairs and a little round table, all in the classic grapevine pattern.

By the way, the giant pot is not from the neighbors, I only put it in the ‘before’ photo because I was working on it at the same time.  Kinda wish I hadn’t done that, but that’s water under the bridge now.

Ken and Arlene have had this set for decades.  I’m sure at least 40 years or more.  Every year they would haul it into their shed for the winter to save it from the elements.  But over the years, Ken has found that task more and more difficult because these pieces are pretty heavy.  For the last few years my other neighbor (the athletic trainer at a nearby high school) has gotten some football players to help with that task.  Still, Ken wanted to be rid of the furniture.  He’s tired of storing it in the shed every year (and I also suspect he’s tired of re-painting it bright white every few years), but his wife won’t have it any other way.

When they offered the set to me, I had to point out that I would leave it out in the winter.  Not only would I leave it out in the winter, but I would purposely make it rusty.  So if they couldn’t handle seeing that, they shouldn’t give it to me.

But they were still willing, so I took it!

There were a couple of issues though.  Both the bench and one of the chairs have broken legs that Ken wasn’t able to repair.  If you’ve followed me for long, you know that Ken is my fixer.  So if Ken can’t fix it, well, I’m not even going to try.  Apparently he even went so far as to have a welder attempt to weld the legs in place, and that didn’t work.

So basically, neither of those two pieces are suitable for actual sitting.

Well, that’s OK with me.  I planned to use the Dixie Belle Patina Paint to make them rusty, and unless you seal them, that makes them unsuitable for sitting on anyway.  Plus, let’s face it, it’s not like this furniture is comfortable, right?  Does anyone ever actually sit on it?  This is definitely one of those form over function sort of situations.

So I made them rusty.  The bright white just wasn’t ‘me’.  As per usual, I started off in the wrong direction.  I decided to give them a dark base color so there wouldn’t be any patches of white poking through the rust.  I also decided to use spray paint for this, simply because it would be way easier than painting them with a brush.  I had a couple of cans of gloss black on hand, so I thought it would be OK to use that.  So I sprayed them up … and boy was that gloss spray paint SHINY.  Like so. very. shiny.

I didn’t want to see super shiny black spots behind my rust, so I switched directions and gave the pieces a base coat of flat red spray primer.  Much better.

One caveat re: the primer, if I was concerned about these pieces rusting for real I could have used the Dixie Belle Prime Start.  It contains an acid blocker that prevents the activator (green spray) that you apply later from eating through the paint and degrading your metal item.  But I’m OK with these pieces rusting away for the next decade or two.

Next I followed the normal process with the Dixie Belle Patina Paint in Iron, followed by the green spray (you can get detailed info on that process by clicking on the image below).

For reference, it took most of the 8 oz. container of the Iron paint to do the two chairs and the round table (I haven’t gotten to the bench yet).  So if you’re planning a rusty project, maybe this gives you an idea of how far the paint goes.

I really loved the rusty look I achieved on these pieces.

Yep, rusty is much more to my taste than the bright white … or the glossy black for that matter.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, the rusty patina can take a while to fully develop.  I’ve also noticed that a little rain falling on the items will speed up that process.

Dixie Belle does make a sealer specifically for use over their patina paint called Patina Guard.

You may want to consider using this sealer to protect a rusty finish, or more importantly to protect yourself from sitting on a rusty finish.  But personally I don’t like the sheen it imparts, so I prefer to leave my rusty pieces unsealed.  You can read more about that in this post.

I’ll be splitting up all of these pieces rather than keeping them together as a set.

One of the chairs has found a home in my front garden next to the fountain.

I also have a spot picked out for the bench (once it’s done).

I did have a plan for the other chair and table, but ended up not liking them in the spot I picked out.  So now I’m going to attempt to sell those two unbroken pieces.  So if any of you locals are in need of a rusty table and chair for your garden, be sure to check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page for more details.

As for that pot, I made that rusty too, and here is how it turned out …

The pot also has a grape vine motif that looks great rusty.

It’s also available for local sale.

While I’m at it, I also have this pair of tall rusty planters and obelisks available.

These are quite tall and would look amazing flanking a door, or maybe a path in your garden.

Be sure to check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page for the details on all of these rusty items.

Have I gone overboard with the rusty look?  I don’t think so.  In fact I have another pair of planters that are going to go rusty next, and I still have to get to that bench!

As always, thank you to Dixie Belle for providing me with their Patina Paint products.

the upholsterer’s toolbox.

Published on by Quandie26 Comments

I picked up this wooden box while out at garage sales a few weeks back.

I knew it would be a fun painting project, and swapping out that blue plastic handle would be super easy.

As I was paying for it, the seller told me that her dad was an upholsterer and this was his toolbox.  Inside the lid was this contraption, which consisted of some steel wool covered by some felt and held in place with upholstery tacks, and then filled with big pins with round loops on the end.

Apparently those are upholstery pins or skewers.

Of course, I’m not keeping any of that.  I think it might seriously limit my ability to sell this piece if my target market only includes upholsterers.

So I removed all of that, and pulled off the ugly handle.  Then I gave the box a base coat of paint in Dixie Belle’s Dried Sage.  That was just to build on though.  I decided to try my hand at paint blending once again.  Some of you may remember that I tried this once before and wasn’t happy with the results (on this bed).  I ended up painting back over that attempt with a solid color.

But you know what they say, if at first you don’t succeed …

So I pulled out a couple of colors that I thought would blend nicely for the outside of the box, Dixie Belle’s chalk mineral paint in Sea Glass and Juniper, and their Silk paint in Cactus for the interior of the box.

I have to confess that I did cheat a little, or maybe it would be fair to say that my technique was a little different than that of the experts.  I started by mixing my two colors together in a plastic cup to create a third mid-range color.  I then painted the centers of each surface in Sea Glass, the outer edges in Juniper, and used the mixed paint to blend in between.  I used the Dixie Belle Continuous Mister Bottle to keep my paint wet thus allowing me to blend the colors together as I worked.

I kept my blending a little on the more subtle side, and I love the results.

Once I had the paint blended on the outside, I painted the inside in two coats of Dixie Belle’s Silk Paint in Cactus.

You might be wondering why I didn’t just use the Juniper again on the inside, and that’s because I wanted to use a Silk paint for the interior.  It has a built in stain blocker, and a built in top coat.  There were some stains that I thought might bleed through, and I wanted the inside to be durable without having to add several coats of sealer.  Two coats of Silk paint and I was done.

Next came the fun part, adding some transfers.

The wording is from the I.O.D. Label Ephemera transfer, the florals and that adorable row of birds is from the I.O.D. Brocante transfer, with a couple of florals from their Floral Anthology thrown in as well.

And as you can see, I swapped out the original handle for a drawer pull from Hobby Lobby.  In fact, it was the drawer pull that inspired the color scheme.

The little moth on the latch is a Tim Holtz transfer (the 1858. is from Label Ephemera).

Once I had all of the transfers in place, I sanded over everything lightly with 220 grit sandpaper and then added a coat of clear wax.

This box would be perfect for storing art supplies.

Or maybe your bird watching materials.

I really enjoy working on these sorts of projects.  When I’m working on furniture I feel much more limited in what I can do.  I’m always trying to walk that line between creating art and creating furniture that is marketable.  Maybe that’s where I’m going wrong with the furniture?  I might have to give that some thought.

But in the meantime, it doesn’t even feel fair to make a before and after comparison on this one.

I can’t imagine that anyone would prefer the ‘before’ version.  Except possibly an upholsterer.  What do you think?

This former upholsterer’s toolbox is for sale locally, be sure to check my ‘available for local sale‘ page for more details.

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

stencils by ellen j goods.

Published on by Quandie23 Comments

Mr. Q and I can be opposites in some ways, but there is one thing that we share a common love for … office supplies.

I know, that’s kind of weird, right?  Or is it?  Maybe lots of you also have a secret passion for pencils, fresh tablets of paper and those old heavy tape dispensers.  Do you?

My love of office supplies goes all the way back to my childhood.  I can clearly remember visiting my grandpa Quist (dad’s side) and spending time in his home office.  He had one of those big old steel desks, sort of like this one …

And he had lots of cool drafting pencils, little boxes of pencil lead, and various other old office supplies in his drawers.  I remember that he had the coolest sharpener for his mechanical pencils, like this one …

I loved sharpening all of his pencils.  I would pretend that I was a clerk in an office somewhere, taking calls on his old rotary telephone.

Really, it’s no wonder that I ended up becoming an accountant, is it?

I wasn’t really thinking about those memories when working on today’s projects, but as I was staging my photos they were brought back to mind.

Which brings me to the projects at hand.

Recently Lynne from ellen j goods reached out to me to ask if I would like to try out her new line of stencils in designs that are based on old German grain sacks.  I don’t think I could say ‘yes’ fast enough.  Even without my recent resolution to say yes more, I would have said ‘yes!’

Just a few days later I received the stencils in the mail.  I love that she offers a variety of sizes, I especially like the smaller 8″ x 8″ versions.

I wanted to give them a try right away, so I pulled out a small wooden box that my friend Sue found for me.

It was super simple to paint up the box in Dixie Belle’s Midnight Sky, and then add a portion of one of the 8″ x 8″ stencils to the top and front of the box using Gravel Road.

I love the subtle look of the dark grey stenciled over black.

In fact, I liked it so much that I pulled out a 2nd box that I’d found while garage saling and gave it the same treatment using part of another of the 8″ x 8″ stencils.

I think these look totally legit, don’t you?  These pencil boxes would have looked right at home on my grandpa’s desk next to his funky mechanical pencil pointer.

I lined both of the boxes with some Paris map paper from October Afternoon (no longer in business).

The black and white paper worked perfectly with my color scheme.

As I was staging the pencil boxes for photos, I decided that a drop cloth would create a better background than the white waxed wood of my table top.  And of course, I couldn’t just leave it completely plain.

So I stenciled it with the Koch Lions 1871 stencil from ellen j goods.

Isn’t that gorgeous?  It would be perfect for pillow covers, or on the seat of a chair.  Hmmmm … that has me thinking about a chair I’ve been meaning to get to, I may have to try that.

But in the meantime, those 8″ x 8″ stencils are perfect for use on smaller projects and I know I’m going to get lots of mileage out of them.

Be sure to check out the stencils at ellen j goods, and if you’ve got some time you could also check out Lynne’s YouTube video featuring the stencils here.

So tell me, do you share our fondness for office supplies?  Or are we the only ones?

everything’s coming up daisies.

Published on by Quandie13 Comments

The day before I left for my mom’s house, Mr. Q and I drove out to my in-law’s place to see their daisies in bloom.

I just had to share their field of daisies with you guys, so even though I forgot my camera that day I snapped a few photos with my phone.

Mr. Q’s mom and step-dad, Naomi and Tom, purchased this old farmstead in Wisconsin a few years back.  One spring their lawn mower was on the fritz and they weren’t able to get it fixed right away, so the front lawn didn’t get cut.  That was when they discovered that it wasn’t just a weedy lawn, it was actually a field of daisies.

Since then they have left it to bloom every spring.

Once the daisies are done blooming, they mow it all down to normal lawn height.  But before then, they get to enjoy this beautiful field of daisies for several weeks.

There are a few other wildflowers mixed in with the daisies, but the daisies are definitely the star of the show.

This is such a great life lesson.  You never know when a broken lawnmower might lead to the discovery of a field of daisies!

While I was out there, I thought I’d also get a few pics of one of Tom’s fairy houses.

This makes my fairy garden look like child’s play, does it not?  I’m going to have to consider expanding.

The creeping thyme was just starting to bloom while we were there as well, isn’t it perfect for a fairy garden?

Tom built this fairy house from scratch, carving all of the wood elements by hand, cutting stone for the roof and even making the leaded glass windows.

It’s furnished inside and even has electricity, see the lights burning in the windows?

It does not, however, have indoor plumbing.  That’s what the outhouse is for.

Usually when I share photos of this fairy house people ask if Tom sells these creations, but I have to say that if he did the price would have to be exorbitant.  He puts so many hours of labor into them.  This is one of those things that you can’t really put a price on.

I hope you enjoyed this visit to see Tom & Naomi’s field of daisies as much as I did!

the peak of peony season.

Published on by Quandie24 Comments

I’ve returned from my visit out west a little blonder (thank you Sun In), and with a bit of a tan.  I wasn’t sure I would survive the heat (well over 100 degrees most days), and the sunshine feels a bit relentless to me out there (I love a good drizzly day in the garden).  My mom is doing much better though.  My sister and I helped her out with a few things while we were there, and her broken ankle is healing nicely according to the doctor we spoke with.

When we weren’t ferrying mom to appointments, replacing her screen door, and re-planting her pots (I seem to do this every time I visit, flowering annuals don’t last long in her climate, I’m trying moss roses this time around), we just floated in the pool at her townhouse complex.  It was definitely too hot to do any hiking, or really even much sight seeing.

Although it was relaxing, I was definitely ready to come home and get back to my painting projects!  And my garden!

When I scheduled the visit to my mom’s, I wasn’t really thinking about what I would be missing in the garden.  It wasn’t until shortly before we left that I realized I would likely miss the peak of peony season (which was a little late this year).

Jeesh!  I wait all year for the brief blooming period of those babies!  And I planned a trip smack in the middle of it.  What was I thinking?!

Before I left I grabbed a quick photo of my cutting garden …

My cutting garden, by the way, is out back behind the carriage house.  It’s a nice sunny south facing spot, and you can’t actually see any of it from the rest of our yard.  That makes it perfect for a cutting garden because you never feel guilty about cutting all of the flowers to bring inside.

Before I left for mom’s, the peony buds were just beginning to show some color.

And the siberian iris were just starting to open.

But I knew that some hot weather was headed for Minnesota while I was gone, and hot weather is the kiss of death for peony blooms.  Also apparently for the iris, because they were pretty much done when I returned.

So I decided to try a couple of peony saving measures.  First of all, I cut those few things that were already open.

I popped them into a jar of water, and put that in the fridge next to my peach sangria.

That actually worked quite well, when I got home the flowers still looked just as good as when they went in.

I also decided to save some peony buds in the fridge.  You may remember that I experimented with this process last year (for the full details, you can read that post here and the results of the experiment six weeks later are here).

So once again I cut stems with buds that were at the ‘soft bud’ stage, in other words they feel like a large marshmallow when you squish them a bit.

After removing all of the leaves, I simply popped them into a large Ziploc bag and then put them at the back of the fridge.  I’ll pull them out sometime in July and be able to enjoy peonies again then.

The first thing I did when I got up in the morning after returning home was check on the peonies.

Sure enough, quite a few of them were already spent.

But luckily I have a lot of peony plants, and quite a few of them still looked pretty good too.

Since the forecast for yesterday was hot and humid with a high of 96, and by today we’re supposed to have a high of 99 (ugh, did I bring it home from Nevada with me?), I decided to cut all of the open flowers and bring them in the house ahead of the heat wave.

I ended up with three very lovely arrangements.

The vibrant dark pink peonies went into an aqua vase, and I added in the irises that I’d saved in the fridge.

This arrangement is perfect for those who love a big pop of color.

I put the medium pink peonies into my paint inlay watering can.

Those medium pink peonies were growing in the garden here when we bought our house 34 years ago, and I suspect they’d been here for quite some time even then.  I eventually had to move them to a sunnier location, but they are still going strong.

Finally, I put mostly white peonies into one of my buckets.

I say ‘mostly white’ because in addition to the solid white peonies, I also have these gorgeous peonies that have just the tiniest hint of pink.

Personally, these are my favorite.  I love that delicate little bit of pink in the centers.  So pretty!

Unfortunately, I haven’t retained knowledge of most of the peony varieties that are in my garden with the exception of that one.  It’s called Raspberry Sundae.

My advice to you if you’re looking to add some peonies to your garden is to shop for them while they are in bloom.  Photos of the blooms seem to vary wildly, you want to be sure you know what you’re getting.

I’ve been toying with the idea of adding a yellow peony to my line up, maybe that will happen next year.

In the meantime, I’m going to bring all of these arrangements inside my air conditioned house and see if I can keep them looking good for another 4 or 5 days.

How about you?  Do you grow peonies?  Have you tried saving them in the fridge?  Have you got any other peony tips to share?  If so, be sure to leave a comment.