My Journey With A Vintage Kansas School Map

I went to a Kansas auction in the middle of March.  It was something of a dud, but it is a slow time of year.  I did manage to snag a bedraggled pull-down school map of the state of Kansas.  LOVE.

It's pull-down days were long over.  It needed to rest in a stationary position.  And it needed some good back support. (It is sounding a lot like me!) Since I only paid $2 for the map, I decided I could afford to go to Hobby Lobby to buy a giant Quick-Stick Foam board (peel-off sticky on one side) which sells for a painful $15.


Here are my Easter figurines holding down bits and pieces of the glued map.
Even rolling the brittle map out carefully, there were plenty of tears and holes.  The top had a lot of damage, and needed the most repair.  I used parts of the bottom to repair / fill in the missing areas, kind of like a Kansas patchwork quilt.  I had to do this in other smaller areas of the map as well.  Lots of glue, in addition to the foamboard adhesive. 

I stenciled the "KANSAS" on the top.  The whole look is a little primitive, but it is salvaged now for a future project. Found out the end of the journey with the map by clicking here.

Four Panel Vintage Window Wall Hanging

It wasn't too long ago that I created two wallhangings from vintage windows and adhesive stickers made for walls, click here to view that post.  I purchased this great window from my Nebraska buying trip, and knew that the four panels were just begging for some "window dressing".

I paid more than I had wanted to for the window, so I needed to be cheap when I did the embellishing.  I bought two wall/window décor adhesives from Dollar Tree.  I cut one into three words:  LOVE, LAUGH, LIVE.  And I cut off the "extras" from the DREAM adhesive.  Word of caution:  the LIVE, LAUGH, LOVE all had separate letters, so be sure to apply them in a straight line.

The words were all too light, so I needed to lighten the back side of the window to make them pop.  Last time I used paintable embossed wallpaper.  This time I simply painted two coats of chalk paint on to the backside of the glass.

I really like the ease of painting the back of the glass.

I would definitely do this treatment to another

vintage window wallhanging.

Batch #2 Of Vintage Planters To Sell -- Metal Pails

Batch #2 of vintage planters this year:

If I decide to add color to planters this year,

I am going with red, shades of green and gold.

This batch has a couple of common themes.  Small pails and succulents. After sticking a horse shoe randomly in one of them, I am in love with the idea.

The black stripe was just begging for an embellishment, so I purchased some waterproof stamping ink.  It has kind of a chalk look to it.

And made my second fairy garden of the year.

This fairy is Dutch and has a little dog.

Vintage Metal Headboard Garden Decor

I wrote an earlier post on how I decorated a four panel window with Dollar Tree Wall Adhesives, click here to view that post.  It occurred to me at the time, since the "LIVE, LOVE, LAUGH" adhesive was all separate letters how easy it would be to spraypaint over the letters and then remove them. 

One of  the other purchases from Nebraska lent itself well to this project.  I turned this little metal headboard (or footboard, who knows?) upside down.  That way the large metal panel was closer to the top.  I  taped off the edges.  I made black lines to keep the letters straight and then applied the adhesive letters.  The letters are a little forgiving, if you tip one a bit too much you can remove and straighten it.  I should have pressed the letters down gently before applying spray paint.  I ended up doing two coats of flat black spraypaint (you can get generic cans for $1 at Walmart, Lowe's).  Wait until the paint is very dry before removing letters with tweezers.

You may have noticed my old concrete garden gnome.

I talked a lady into selling it to me a few years ago,

it has become my favorite garden decoration.

Tall Cabinet -- Furniture Redo "ROSALINE"

I spied this little piece at an auction last Saturday.  It is the ideal size piece that I am looking for in furniture.  It had been mostly "stripped", years ago.  It sat around parched and naked for decades.  I thought it was hidden well behind the sad abuse, and maybe no one else at the auction would see it's potential.  I should have known better.

I obviously did bring it home, but not for a song.  But it proved such an easy "redo" that I am so glad I got it. 


The drawers still had some paint on them.  The wood did not look especially beautiful that was showing, so I opted to paint the whole thing.  Two coats of white chalk paint and a little distressing.   It was such a blessing to have no hidden problems.

Even finding new (old) hardware proved easy.  I had it in my stash already. 

This is the kind of easy project I love to do.

I'm naming her "Rosaline".

Saturday's Vintage Finds 4.2.2016

A double header day -- a good garage sale (in 35 degrees) followed by an auction.  The day ended with a van load of assorted vintage items.  The merchandise is headed several directions -- ebay, my vintage booth, and a couple of things got dropped off immediately at the Outdoor Booth:

This "Triple Effect" gas parlor stove had

green enameling on it that was gorgeous.

My husband was a good sport about hauling it.

I got this cool old wicker chair for a song,

and passed on the savings to a lucky customer just two days

after the auction.

These are metal art deco table legs.

Paid $12, sold for $144  on ebay.

They are going to be on ebay Saturday afternoon.

  

I purchased this set of three original vintage floral watercolors.

 

 I loved the colors and the amateur flair.

Spice Cabinet Turned MISS MUSTARD SEED Pie Safe Lookalike

My dad would call this project piddling.  Spending way too much time on a project that is not going to have much financial reward.  Saturday I attended an auction, and brought home an ugly spice cabinet which came with something else that I actually did want.

Yesterday I looked up images of upcycled spice cabinets, there were some cute ones -- but none that really rang my bell.  (This was already considered "piddling", because there was a whole van load of good stuff to sort and price.)  THEN, last night I caught Miss Mustard Seed's blog post on redoing an old pie safe -- click here to view that post.

LIGHTBULB MOMENT.  I think I laughed out loud.  I went to sleep thinking how I could stage my "pie safe" to look like hers.

First I tore off the top curvy piece and used a saw to even out the side pieces so it would sit flat (which it still didn't -- so I had to McGyver something, but not important to this post).  So, at this point the bottom became the top.

I then spraypainted the exterior with flat white, including the screens and drawers.  Two coats, and a light sanding to distress just like MMS did. 

Thank you, Miss Mustard Seed for not painting the inside of your cabinet. All I had to do to the interior was cut the top curvy piece to fit inside the cabinet to make a top shelf (after all, my spice cabinet had only two shelves and her pie safe had three).

Then the fun.  (MAJOR Piddling).  I drug out any little thing that vaguely resembled what MMS had in hers.  The difference of course, was that my "pie safe" was only 12" tall.  I even tried to get the same type of background and rug.  Yeah, her photography is way better, but you get the idea.

Here it is the way it would look if I were going to keep it.

 

This is a photo of my mother when she was little.

Love the lid on the "sugar" bowl,

that was very similar to Miss Mustard Seed's ironstone lid.

Time to actually get to work...

Vintage Junk Succulent Planter Tutorial

A.  Look for cheap ($1 or less each) vintage containers to use as planters. Metal is my favorite.  Not too big, or it is too heavy to haul around.   Not too small, or people won't purchase them.  Just right.

B.  Poke holes in the bottom if they don't have holes already (I use a hammer and nail).

C.  Put some "junk" in the bottom for drainage.  Black walnuts, clay pot pieces, small rocks, leaves and items found in your compost pile.

D.  Fill with dirt from your compost pile.  I maintain a compost pile year round.  Mine is a "cold" compost pile, which means I am too lazy to mix it up and add the right amounts of sand, "green", etc.  Mine has two sides.  I use one side each year to stack leaves, gardening leftovers, etc.  The other side has the thick, rich compost left from the year before.  Anything that hasn't completely composted I put on the leafy side.  The finished compost is enough for all my retail plantings.  I do not mix potting soil into this, because it raises my cost of each planter. 

E.  Plant a couple types of succulents into the pot (your succulents should take up about half of the pot).  Keeping in mind that they will grow and spread somewhat.  I maintain a primary succulent bed and several satellite beds.  I try out different types of succulents every year.  They need to spread (be fruitful and multiply) so  that I can "harvest" the edges. 

Different colors, textures and heights are good.  Ideally they also need to make it through the Midwest winter.

F.  Plant a flowering annual in the pot.  I always use dianthus or rose moss.  (I just bought a 6-pack of dianthus for $1.75 at Walmart.) Both do great in high heat, direct sun, and very little water.  Both bloom for months.  Sometimes I actually have dianthus overwinter.

G.  "Mulch" with small pebbles, available in a huge bag at your garden center for $5 or less.  Cover all the bare dirt and lift plant leaves to mulch under them.  This helps hold in the dirt and the moisture, plus it gives a nice finished look.


H.  Water each container thoroughly.  After this, they generally only need watering once a week.  Twice if it is super hot.


I.  There might be some bare spots, which need a little interest.  This is a great opportunity to raid your junk stash.  Last year I used a lot of rusty metal items for filler.  This year I'm leaning toward rocks and shells.  Other items I have used:  broken porcelain doll pieces, game pieces, tiny glass bottles,  marbles, ceramic animal or bird figures.

J.  Clean off the outside of your pots and price them.  I use old spoons to write prices on, they don't blow over and water doesn't damage them.  My vintage store that I sell the planters at keeps the spoon "price markers" for me, so I can recycle them.  I try to sell most of the planters at a mind-blowing $9, I can only do that because I keep the costs down. 

Windmill Fever

Windmill Fever...It's a lot like spring fever, only way more expensive. It happens when I see windmill parts. Every windmill tail I saw seemed more awesome than the last. I purchased most of these from Ed in Nebraska on my spring break buying trip, click here to read about my other spring break purchases.

So I ended up bringing home EIGHT tails from my buying trip to Nebraska.

Most have graphics on both sides. 

I love the bullet holes in this one.

I think that two of them were manufactured in Fairbury, Nebraska

and the Dempster one was manufactured in Beatrice, Nebraska.

Ed said that this was the rarest one, made by Woodmanse of Freeport, IL.

 

And, I even got feverish enough to buy EIGHTEEN windmill wheel sections. For y'all who are not windmill savvy (myself included in that) this translates to three full wheels of windmill blades. Ed informed me that two of these wheels were Dempster Brand blades. I will be selling them in half circles (composed of three sections each).

I already mentioned my last purchase in a previous post...which is a windmill weight.  It is my keeper.  Made by Dempster, of Beatrice, NE.  I am trying to figure out where to best display it in my house.


Both gentlemen that we purchased from were in awe of my husband's packing job.  It all made it inside the van except for some windmill wheel sections which were tied on top.  Pretty impressive.

Two Vintage Window Wall Hangings

I have been doing some MAJOR spring cleaning.  Garden shed, house, yard, back porch and antiques shed.  I have uncovered some items that were totally lost in space and time (i.e. I had forgotten them.)  These two windows fell under that category.

One of my many reasons for purging now is knowing that after "buying season" begins I won't have much time for projects.  I love this size and shape of this type of window, because I know that they make perfect wall decorations.  But they don't just get that way magically, it takes time.

Major cleaning.  I know that it least one of this pair actually came out of a barn.  I was lucky enough to have a couple of the vinyl cling decorations on hand, but one was very light and needed some backing to make it pop.

So I thought of my paintable wallpaper that I had leftover from my bathroom renovation.  I did not paint it for this project, because I wanted it to be white. 

I actually got it wet so that the paste would activate, and pasted it to a cardboard piece cut to fit the back side of the window.

I left the old hinges on the top to add some character, and actually threaded the wire through parts of one for hanging.  I love the pale aqua chippy paint on this one.