MORE new signs in my etsy shop

Just added several new signs to my  etsy shop.

Man Cave sign at a special Father’s Day price.

Two different wedding sign sets.

Unlike most of the other signs in my shop that are ready made and ship out within 2 business days; the wedding signs are custom made, and take 3-4 weeks.   Reason being that the placement of the arrows will be different for each wedding.

AND they are available in a variety of colors.

Prince and Princess signs.

BIG 24″ long ‘No Soliciting’ signs.  (almost TOO big?!?!?  I didn’t pay attention to the size of this stencil when I ordered.  I will be getting a smaller one soon.)

Scatter Kindness.  I have also taken copies of all of these new signs (except the wedding sets) to both Stars and Curiosities.

Potting shed.

ANTIQUES with stars or pointing hand.  (I LOVE that pointing hand!!!  It can even be used on the wedding signs instead of the arrow!)

And a smaller ANTIQUES sign.

Latest finds

Will probably repaint these.

Cute mini armoire; bottom right knob is broken off.  The broken part is inside the drawer, so I might be able to glue it back on.  The drawers don’t come all the way out, so I’m not sure HOW I’d unscrew the old knob if gluing it back on doesn’t work?!?

Another picnic basket!

And this one has a ‘pie shelf”!

I actually had NO IDEA what that extra wood part in the bottom of the basket was for?!?!?  The clerk at the thrift store told me what it was.  AND she said that she collects picnic baskets and the ones like this with the pie shelf are very hard to come by!    Certainly appreciate that little tidbit of info!  I just might have taken it out and tossed it otherwise?!?!?

Cutie patootie LITTLE (creamer size) melon pitcher.

Pretty slim pickins lately.  Which is probably a GOOD thing, since sales are pretty slow right now and I don’t really NEED a lot more stuff.  I just HAVE to ‘stop in’ if I am driving by a thrift store, ‘just in case’ there is a treasure awaiting me!

The bed is back in my space at Stars . . .

 . . and I totally rearranged 75% of the space yesterday!  WHEW!  That was a LOT of work.   But it’s the kind of thing that once you move ONE thing, it’s a snowball effect and it ALL has to be moved!

Here’s what’s going on, in general, with my space at Stars.  My sales have slowed considerably since the first of the year.   I’m not sure if it’s ‘just me’, of if everyone else has seen the same slow down or what???  I’m not friends with other vendors that I can ask ‘how their sales are’.  Soooooooooooooooo  I work on the assumption that I just need to ‘DO BETTER’.

The first six weeks in the new space (and with the bed in place) and sales had not picked up, I decided the bed had to go BECAUSE it was not a ‘real bed’ and not for sale so it wasn’t doing anything to improve my sales.  Maybe it was even HURTING my sales because it made my booth SO cramped and difficult to move around it.  Out with the bed and in with some additional furniture.  No difference.

So I decided I may as well put the bed back in, if for nothing else but the ‘ahhhhhhhhhhhhh’ factor.  But now I had to make ROOM for it again.  I took out one big display shelf, and used a smaller table for the bed this time.

For some reason, this BIGGER booth (than the one I moved from) has always FELT smaller to me.  I thought it was such a GREAT idea to line the two outside edge OPEN sides of the booth with back to back shelves to really maximize the space.  But it didn’t seem to improve my sales any.

Another reason for putting the shelves on the OPEN sides was that I wanted to use the other two actual walls for hanging things on.  Ah, but ONE of those two walls was really only HALF a wall, halfway back; making it unusable for hanging things.  Might as well cover that spot with a tall shelf.  And THAT is where this latest rearrange began.

THIS is what the ‘aisle side’ (as opposed to the side that faces the back wall side) originally looked like.

THEN it occurred to me that it would look more cohesive it both the shelves on either side of the entrance to my space were the same color; so I switched that up.

THIS is what that side of the booth looks like now.  The BIG aqua hutch that was on the left is now along the inside wall, just behind the little round table on the right hand side.  HERE:

The entire part of the wall that this hutch is covering up AND the area that the shutter behind the round table is in the previous picture is the ‘unusable’ part of the wall.

This is what that same area looked like before.  I was trying to make use of the hanging space by using shutters, but that ‘sloppy space’ on the far left where you see the fabric always bothered me.  So I just covered it up.  With less space to hang signs now I’ve just had to display some like this:

Time will tell if this works or not.  Might have to have Michael build me a sign display box.

This is what the outside corner of the space USED to look like.  The right side faces the aisle and the left faces the back.

This is what that corner looks like now.

This is what the booth looked like with the original bed.

Then this is what it looked like after I took the bed out.

And this is what it looks like now.

This little corner is the part that hasn’t been changed just yet.

And this is what is on the other side of that corner, facing the back wall.

I’m happy with the changes for now; although I’m sure I’ll do a fair amount of ‘tweaking’ still.  But it still FEELS smaller than my previous space which actually WAS smaller.  sigh.

The ONLY think I can think of that could me making it ‘feel smaller’ is that I am leaving ‘openings’ 3-4′ wide on BOTH of the open sides of the space.  And my old space only had one open side to work with.  So maybe next time, when I work on that other corner, I’ll go ahead and close up the entry on that side and make the only opening a bit bigger.

FAQ: How do you paint signs with stencils?

I was actually ‘in the process’ of taking pictures and doing this post a couple of weeks ago when I was so unceremoniously interrupted by etsy; and side-tracked by that whole process.  And while I went into great detail on how I do things in that post (per the requirements of etsy), I did not include every tiny detail.  It was long enough as it was!   I’ll be reusing some of the photos from  that  post , but not going over ALL the same information.   Just filling in some of the blanks.

I almost always have a stash of ‘ready to stencil’ boards on hand for sign making.   That prep work is kinda BORING and when I feel like creating, I don’t feel like having to do the boring part first!  BUT, there are also times when I’m NOT feeling creative at ALL, but I still need to use my time wisely and be PRODUCTIVE.  That is when I sand and base coat my sign boards.  PLUS, I can   sand, base coat, topcoat, touch up the edges and distress a good FIFTY sign boards OUTSIDE on a dry day.  If I have to do that work inside on my craft table I can get maybe five done at a time!  So I really TRY to never have to prep sign boards inside; except maybe for an occasional custom order.

That way, when the creative mood hits and I’m ready to stencil on the sign designs, I can get LOTS done in one day.  I almost NEVER make one sign at a time.  Even custom orders get sandwiched in with more ‘like signs’.  It’s just a better use of my time to do several at a time.   It takes the same amount of time set up and clean up and to clean a stencil after TEN uses as it does after ONE.   Som why not use it ten times and save on clean up time?!?

I store my sign stencils in manilla folders.  I have WAY too many of them to just put one per file, so I file similar themes together and use paper between them in the folder.

BEFORE I start stenciling I set up my sink for cleaning the stencils.  The SOONER you get that left over paint into soapy water, the easier it will be to clean.    I”ve found that DAWN dish soap works best.  I put a couple of squirts into a dish pan and fill about half way with warm water. (which becomes sudsy!)  As you can see from the above stencil, not ALL of the paint always comes off.  And some people will tell you that you don’t need to clean the paint off at all.  But if you want to get more than 10 uses out of a stencil, you’d best clean off some of that left over paint!  If it builds up enough you will no longer have a ‘sharp (as in PRECISE!) edge to your stencils and you letters will be sloppy.

I use acrylic craft paints for my sign making.  And FOLK ART brand is the only brand I will use for the lettering.  It’s thicker than any other acrylic craft paints and has more pigment.    I KNOW they make special ‘stencil paint’ and special brushes for that special paint.  (I remember stenciling a sunflower border in my kitchen 20 years ago like that.  The paint came in little round plastic cups and was more like a soft CRAYON than paint.)   That is NOT the stuff you should use for making signs!!  Use the liquid craft paints; the thicker the better when it comes to using stencils!

These are the kinds of  ’pouncers’ that ‘they‘ tell you to use.  THEY are wrong!  These do not work very well at all.  And trust me, I’ve made THOUSANDS of signs, and  I  KNOW what works best!  These sponge or soft rubber pouncers just fall apart after a couple of uses, and they don’t give you a very sharp line at all.  I used to spend HOURS touching up the messy edges of my lettering before I happened upon the BEST applicators ever!

YEP!!! Cosmetic make up wedges!  These work like a dream, and are much easier to hold onto and my hand doesn’t get all cramped up when I am making a lot of signs.

*CLEANING YOUR PAINTING SPONGE AFTER USE:  I actually don’t  bother cleaning mine.  I just wrap in a plactic baggie and store in a sealed plastic container.  These don’t stay as “moist and ready for re-use” as the brushes and rollers that I save  for re-use in a similar way,  as shown here.  But it still saves a lot of water otherwise wasted for cleaning such a small item.  Besides, I usually make SO MANY signs at a time, that I practically wear tehm out in one use!  Still I save them.  If the paint has dried out on the end, I can usually just cot of the dry crusty part and get another use or two out of that same sponge again.

I use a scrap piece of cardboard for my ‘paint palette’.  Squirt out a blob of the black paint and VERY LIGHTLY dab the wide end of your sponge into the paint; just enough to get a little bit of paint.  Then you POUNCE your sponge around on a dry area of your palette to work the paint down into the sponge.   You want it to be ‘moist’ with the paint, but not WET.

Using blue painters tape, tape your stencil into place, then POUNCE your paint loaded sponge over the open parts of your stencil.  DON’T RUB it.  POUNCE it.  Quick, short dabbing motions until it’s fully covered with paint.  You WILL need to re-load your sponge with paint often.  DO NOT try to speed up the process by using more paint on your sponge.  All that does is make your edges BLEED.  

This is what your lettering will look like if you have too much paint on your sponge.  The edges will BLEED and be sloppy.  So, yes it takes longer to use a very lightly paint loaded sponge; but you get a better product!

THIS is how you want your lines to look!  When you are completely done stenciling your design on your board, immediately take your stencil and submerge it into your pan of soapy water.  I let mine soak for a few minutes.  Then lay the stencil flat in the sink, put a drop of Dawn dish soap onto a kitchen scrubber (like a greenie) and GENTLY scrub the paint residue off your stencil.  As I already said, not ALL of it comes off.  And DO be careful to not ‘snag’ the pointy parts of your stencil with your scrubber.  I lay my washed stencils on a towel to dry.  

I kind of got ahead of myself a bit there.  FIRST, right after you remove your stencil, your lettering will have ‘gaps’ in it.  That is just the nature of a stencil.  For example, they can’t completely cut out the middle  of the letter “O”, so they leave little ‘tabs’ to hold the center in place.  PLease, PLEASE, PLEEEEASE  never leave your signs looking like this with the ‘tab gaps’ showing.  It’s very quick and easy to fill them in!

Use a very fine paint brush with just a tiny bit of paint on it and ‘connect the lines’.  Be sure the lettering is dry before you do this so you don’t smear your paint.  And you might need to thin your paint a little for this process.  But only thin ‘a dot’ of paint on your palette.  NEVER add water to the bottle!

On some signs, you can barely notice the gaps (top sign); but still, please take ONE minute to fill them in.  It looks SO much more professional with them filled it.  I literally CRINGE when I see a sign made from a stencil with the gaps showing!!

And with a little bit of practice, you’ll be able to stencil HUGE signs like this!  I actually did FIVE of these signs in one ‘sitting’!

Distressing and finishing your sign:

No pictures for these last instructions.  I USED to sand my signs and distress them again AFTER I lettered them.  That was MOSTLY because, before I discovered using the make up sponges for my applicator, I had a lot of ‘bleeding’ no matter how DRY my applicators were.  That extra sanding took care of  some of that bleeding around the edges.

Since using the wedges for applying the lettering I find that I don’t ever NEED to add that extra sanding step.  So now I distress MORE when I am prepping my sign board, DON’T distress again after, and save myself a little extra work!

Do add a coat of varnish to your finished sign.  I prefer MATTE (NO SHINE) but it can be hard to find.  I just had to spend $56.00 on a GALLON of matte varnish because they were out of quarts and are discontinuing it altogether at the paint store!  sigh.

I buy my stencils from several different places on-line.  MOST of them have the very same stencils and pretty much the same price ranges, so it doesn’t much matter who you buy from.  Be prepared for a bit of ‘sticker shock’!  Stencils are NOT cheap; and probably not really worth buying if you are only going to use then ONE time.    I buy mine in bulk quantities to get discounts; usually at least $100.00 worth of stencils at a time.

Happy sign making!

New dolls (statues?) to alter!!

I am soooooooooooooo excited about this find!!!  I’ve been wanting to find some more dolls to alter and turn into ‘Santos-like’ figures.  And I finally found them!!!  AND it was HALF-PRICE DAY!    I wasn’t even planning on going to the thrift store.  I don’t NEED anything,  I really don’t.  But it was half price day and I hadn’t been to this thrift store for some time and I WAS driving right by . . .   Check out these beauties!!~

And I ALMOST passed these up!  I had found a couple of little things and was at the counter to pay for them.  This particular thrift store  displays some of their ‘more valuable’ items behind the counter, and that is where these figures were standing.  Knowing that it was typically more expensive stuff that they put behind the counter like that, I almost didn’t even ASK how much they were. ??!?!

I really even kind of like them ‘as they are’; so I will probably let them ‘hang out’ for a while before I alter then.  These two have swim goggles on their heads, but I’m pretty sure I can easily sand them off.  Would live to find some GOOD crackle medium to use on them when I am ready to work on them.

The arms are even movable.  The one with no hands is like that intentionally.  Santos dolls are often missing hands too, so it’s all good.

And the moral of this story is “ALWAYS ASK!”  Just look what I’d have missed out on if I hadn’t asked how much they were?!?!

Stenciling desings on benches

Just repainted a set of three wood stools that were in my booth at Stars.

I did the big silverware stencil on one of them.  (took these pics out in the storage shed and it was a bit dark, so the color is a bit ‘off’.  These ARE ‘my beachy blue’ color)

The French postcard stencil on this one.

And a bit of a ‘mix and match’ using 2 different stencils on this bigger bench.

This is the ‘as is’ stencil that I used parts of for the previous bench.   Just spread it around a bit and added the Paris.  These will be going to my booth at CURIOSITIES in Beaverton.

Now that I’ve figured out how to do white lettering on black backgrounds . . .

 . . I’ve gone on somewhat of a black sign making binge!!

This was my first try with gold paint for the lettering.  The lettering came out a bit faint and hard to read unless you are at just the right viewing angle.

The BIGGEST problem with stencil painting is if you have too much paint on your utensil, you lines will ‘bleed’.  So I couldn’t load MORE paint on my applicator sponge to darken this cool gold paint.

BUT, since there IS so little paint on your applicator, it dries very quickly.  So what I did was go back over the whole thing with a secondary application to get my color darker.  Worked like a charm!

Then I did some Ivory lettering on the black backgrounds, using the same ’2 coat’ technique.

ALL of these signs are available for purchase in  my etsy shop .

And I did do some in my regular cottage colors.

And my FAVORITE newest stencil design!

And a slightly smaller 20″ x 10″ version for my etsy shop.

These signs will also be going into my mall booths over the next couple of weeks.

 

IKEA storage box from plain to Paris chic

Cute little storage box I found at the thrift store.

Upon examining the inside, I see that it originated from IKEA.  It was perfectly clean inside, so I bought it.  (ALWAYS be sure to check the INSIDES of items before you buy!  They may look fine on the outside, and when you look inside you see WHY it was given away!)

I’m not certain, but it felt like leather (or faux leather!) so I decided spray paint was my best option.  After two good coats of  black spray paint, I used a stencil to add PARIS to the top in white; then a coat of varnish over the top.

This piece is for sale in my booth at  CURIOSITIES in Beaverton.

Outdated vintage magazine table – UPDATED!

Forgot the before picture, sorry.  But really not much to see.  It was that really dark stained knotty pine, and the top was pretty badly scratched up.

I gave it a good sanding, then spray painted the whole thing black.  On items like this, where there are lots of slats and hard to reach interior parts, SPRAY paint is a real time saver.

After my spray paint dried, I hand sanded (using a sanding SPONGE) around the edges and the grooves on the top so some of the original brown showed through to distress it.

Then the HARD part!  Deciding what to paint on it!  At first I thought about using the three lines as part of the design, but it just didn’t feel right.  So I did a laurel wreath stencil with the bird with crown stencil in the center.

Then with a foam stamp, added a fleur de lis on each side.

Sanded over the stenciled on design just a tad before applying a matte varnish to the table top.

And DONE!  This will be going to my booth at Curiosities in Beaverton.

To alter or not to alter???

Found this cute little guy while thrifting this week.  He is just about ‘life size’ too!

He had what ‘looked like’ a light fixture, but it didn’t work.  Price was right though, so I bought him; thinking I might be able to easily replace the light.

I’ve never seen a bulb like this before and I couldn’t figure out how to ‘unscrew it’ to even take it to look for a replacement.  hmmmmmmmmmmmmm….

I suppose I could stuff a string of led lights into him to light him up.  OR maybe alter one of those little ‘clip lights’ that take night light bulbs.  OR just sell him ‘as is’ and suggest using battery operated tea lights to light him up.

My other thought was to cover him with old book pages???  But I probably couldn’t get that much of a higher selling price for the amount of work that would take.

He IS awfully cute as is.  I’m sure a ‘doxy collector’ would snap him right up.

To alter or not to alter?  That IS the question!