Quick Change

Well, not really all THAT quick (it took me three hours), but a considerable change in my booth layouts.

My original ‘plan’ to put in a completely new vignette in my little wall booth has been abandoned.  I’m not abandoning the space, just the idea for changing it out.  Why?

My thought process in deciding to change it up monthly was that it was a small enough space and it would be fairly easy to do so.  It was a LOT more work than I had anticipated.    Not that I necessarily eschew hard work, but it was getting to be too much for my ‘bad back’ to handle.

AND the aisle along the back is much narrower than the central aisles.   It was next to impossible to move stuff around without blocking the aisle for shoppers to traverse.  So I decided to put mostly small items in my wall booth.  Small stuff is easier to stock without getting in the way of shoppers.

Fortunately for me, the owner scheduled a ‘dealer work shift’ Saturday, which gave dealers 3 hours to work without any customers.  I took advantage of that time to move the big metal rack from my big boot to the wall space.  Which sounds fairly simple, but it was a pretty big undertaking.

First I had to empty and move four shelves on the back aisle side of my big booth in order to access the big metal shelf.  Then I had to empty the metal shelf.  Move the stuff that was in the area of the wall booth where I was going to put the metal shelf; then move that big heavy shelf to the wall space.  Put all the product back on the metal shelf.  Figure out where I wanted to put the four shelves I had moved out of the way.  Then figure out where to put the stuff I had taken from the wall space!  Believe me, I needed every MINUTE of the three hours allotted for us to work without any interference.

Normally I have what I am going to do with my booths pretty well thought out ahead of time.  As soon as I decide to take a new piece of furniture in, I start thinking about where I will put it and how I will move things around.  So I had measured ahead of time and knew where I was going to move the big metal shelf to, but beyond that I just drew a blank.  Had to ‘wing it’ this time.  I’ll be changing this up again next week when I take the leftover Christmas product from the show in, and pull the last little bit of fall left.

It feels SO much bigger without that metal shelf in the middle!

Took these two cute little upcycled tables in last week.

The bottom photo here is the space where the big metal shelf used to be.  Haven’t quite decided what I want to do there.  This will do for fine for now though.

Some pretty vintage liqueur bottles.  Perfect for putting homemade liqueurs for gift giving in.

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Stocked and spruced up and ready for the Summer Sidewalk SALE at STARS!!

Stars BIG ‘Summer Sidewalk Sale’ starts Friday, August 31st and runs through Monday, September 3rd; Labor Day.

This is really one of the BEST sales of the year at Stars.  LOTS of vendors bring in ADDITIONAL inventory to set up on the sidewalk outside.  Don’t miss this sale!!

BOTH of my booths are stocked to the hilt; and as always, everything in my booths is 50% off during the sale.  Last chance to purchase my beach decor items from my wall space.  After the sale I will be converting the space to Fall decor.

I have added a few little ‘hints of fall’ to both booths . . .  just to get you in the mood for fall.  (Not that anyone needs to be enticed to ‘think fall’ after the record HOT summer we’ve had!)

Lots of vintage hobnail milk glass vases and dishes added recently; as well as regular and gold rimmed milk glass.

Vintage and upcycled beach decor.  Big surag starfish, painted white and glittered.  Little jars filled with tiny seashells or pretty beach glass.  Shells mounted on wood posts and jars.  Candle lanterns and lamps.  And of course, Mermaid crowns!!

Vintage picnic baskets, bar stool, ‘breakfast in bed’ tray, wreaths, cubby shelves, trugs and wall decor.

And that is just my little wall space!  On to my 10’x10′ booth!

No such thing as ‘too much’ when it comes to my booth!!
Vintage Fire King gold rimmed milk glass dishes and vintage Ironstone dishes are restocked and always plentiful.

Both Stars Mall are open 7 days a week, 11am – 6pm.

Timing is everything.

Remember this cute little grey chest of drawers?  It’s been forever since I had any chests to put in my booth at Stars, so I was anxious to get this one painted and taken in.

Just DAYS after I had put it in my booth, I came across this adorable little SOLID OAK  hutch top /  cubby shelf, that looked like it would be a perfect fit to set atop the grey dresser.

I went to work on it as fast as I could.  Painting it in the same grey that I had used for the chest, and distressing it.  I was SO looking forward to pairing it with that grey chest!  Alas, when I went in the following week with the grey hutch top and some additional stock for my booths, the chest had SOLD!! Bitter sweet.  Happy for the sale, of course; but disappointed that I wasn’t able to display the two pieces together.  Lousy timing!

Here are a few other pieces that I’ve recently completed:

Off white oval three tiered night stand; painted pink and distressed.  This piece is available for purchase at Pink Door in Aurora, Oregon.

I had two of these child size chairs.  The seats were made of that white ‘dry erase board’ kind of wood, which as as you can see in the before photo, was slightly damaged.  While the damage did not affect the structural integrity of the chairs; my attempts to cosmetically repair them failed.  Pretty wrapping paper and Mod Podge to the rescue!  These have not yet been taken to either of my sales venues.

  The drawers to this cubby didn’t slide very well once I had re-painted it; so I set them aside for some other project.  Cubbies with the backing already on them are extremely time consuming to paint; hence, spray paint is my go to solution for such pieces.  A little hand sanding along the edges shabby it up a bit.  available to purchase in my booth at Stars.

Continuing with the grey color scheme on this small shelf and DVD rack.  available to purchase in my booth at Stars.

 This bar stool is BIG and sturdy.  It had a glossy finish on it to begin with, so I had to either prime it or sand it before re-painting it.  I opted for primer, which gave it an added dimension when I distressed it.  Some of the distressed areas show the white primer layer and others the original dark color.  I was very tempted to stencil something on the back, but I couldn’t quite decide what, and I really NEEDED furniture in my space, so I left it plain for now.   Available to purchase in my booth at Stars.

With two of the wicker drawers missing, I opted to just remove them all.  The cubby was in fairly rough shape, and since I had just painted the other cubby white, I decided to leave this one it’s original wood; just distressed it a bit.  It’s available to purchase in my booth at Stars.

The leopard print mannequin torso needed some ‘legs’.  I had a black wrought iron base and a tall curvy plant/candle stand.  Opted for the wrought iron base as the weight of it would make her stand steadier; and besides, her skirt pretty much covers the base.  I used nearly 100 yards of tulle to hand make her fluffy black skirt.  She is available for purchase at Pink Door in Aurora, Oregon.

A couple of smaller upcycled mannequins with fluffy tulle skirts; also available for purchase at Pink Door in Aurora, Oregon.

I’m ALWAYS on the lookout for vintage gumball machines to make over and fill with ‘fun stuff’ like seashells, spools of thread, jingle bells . . . . etc.  NEVER imagined that I’d come across a silver plated one!?!?!  It really wasn’t even very tarnished and required minimal polishing.  Such a fancy gumball machine needed some fancy filling.  Acrylic gemstones to the rescue.  They look prettier in person.   Available for purchase at Pink Door in Aurora, Oregon.

Somehow I missed getting a ‘before’ picture of this one.  It was dark brown wood, that I sanded painted and sanded again to distress.  LOVE the little drawer and the ceramic rose drawer pull that I put on it.  This piece can be purchased at Stars in Portland.

Could hardly believe my good luck when I found this set of three suitcases . . . ALL of them had beautifully CLEAN innards!!  The color is difficult to tell in the photos, but it’s a very, very pale pink.  Each is priced individually; and available for purchase at Pink Door in Aurora, Oregon.

Just waiting for the weather to cool down a bit and the outside air to be ‘breathable’ so I can get LOTS more painting done.

Beach Cottage Decor now at Stars

I rearranged my wall space at Stars and put out all the beach cottage decor.

I brought in my shabby white crates to create shelves for the booth.

A couple of shabby blue nightstands tucked in there, and a white wall shelf.

A sweet vintage shabby white child’s chair and a little three legged foot stool.

Shell topped jars, shell filled jars and shell candle jars.  A little round table with a shabby white trug on top.

Distressed turquoise frames with ‘floating’ white fingerling starfish.  Some BIG sugar starfish, painted white and glittered.

A shabby vintage spice rack filled with little jars of shells and sea glass.  Some small mermaid crowns and a sugar starfish mounted atop a shabby white candle holder.

I did some rearranging and stocking of my big booth too.

Lots of stacks of old books, as always.

This giant turquoise cubby shelf is filled with vintage milk glass and Ironstone pieces.

Some additional, and smaller, cubby shelves.

LOVE this vintage chicken tureen!

I’ve added lots of this style of vintage Ironstone with the scalloped edges.

Beautiful hand painted vintage milk glass vase with gold accents and ruffled edge.  Gold glitter Eiffel Tower tags.  Little vintage vanity jars.  Old bottles and upcycled bottles with repro labels.

Vintage metal chair with new gold paint and pretty soft blue and gold Toile covered seat.

Come on by and check it all out.  The construction on the next block continues; BUT, they have not been blocking off the side street parking as much lately.

 

 

 

 

 

White furniture binge

Went on a bit of a white furniture painting binge recently.  Here’s the end result of said binge.

Cute little metal birdcage.  Just a quick coat of white spray paint.

Little brown step stool.  Painted white and distressed.  Still debating whether or not I should stencil something on it???

Not a very good picture of the refinished piece on this one.  (sorry!)  Just a basic white paint job and distressed.

Cute three tier wall shelf; again just painted white and distressed.

This half round table was the same dark wood color as the shelf above.

This little shelf was already white.  I just distressed it.

This coffee table with lower shelf had already been repainted white, but they didn’t do a very good job of it.  You can’t really tell how ‘streaky’ the paint was in the pictures.  I needed to sand it before repainting it anyhow; and decided that I liked how it looked without repainting!  Distressing covers a multitude of mistakes!

Little ‘jewelry box size’ chest.  Removed the knobs, sanded off the red, white and blue; painted it white, distressed it and put the repainted knobs back on.  easy peasey.

Little upcycled side table made using a tall metal candle stand and an inverted metal tray.  Glued together using e6000, and spray painted.

This ‘open back’ cubby shelf was a medium wood color.  The white paint and distressing really emphasized the dental moulding at the top.  Below it, in the second photo is another cubby shelf, but with a back.  It was already white, so I just distressed it a bit.

I guess this shelf was for some kind of sports memorabilia.  Some white paint and you have just a regular white wall shelf!

 

No before picture for this one.  It was dark brown and had a ‘tapestry-like’ cover on the seat.  I LOVE the foot stools that open up like this for storage space!  Painted it white and distressed it a little.  Added some additional padding to the seat before I recovered it with a pretty soft aqua paisley print fabric.

All of these went to my booth at Stars.  A few have already sold.

So, what’s next???  I’ve got some pretty BIG news!  A new shop is opening soon in Aurora . . . and they will be carrying some of my items!  Stay tuned for more details and official Grand Opening notice!

 

 

 

Revamped Night Stands

Cite little night stand with 2 shelves and a drawer.  I especially loved the unique drawer pull, but not on this piece; so I decided to change it out after I repainted it.  I was having issues with my camera for a while with ‘dark splotches’ on the left side; so that BLOB that looks like something ‘icky’ in the drawer is not a flaw.  You KNOW how I am about making sure that the drawers are clean!

What do you think of the new drawer pull?  I added some pretty paper inside the drawer, painted it a soft aqua and distressed.

This two drawer night stand was pretty beat up and had some very deep gouges on the top.  It took a LOT of sanding to prepare it for repainting.

I forgot to show you the ‘clean’ drawers in the before photos, so I took one with the ‘afters’.  Painted it Ivory and distresses, switched out the modern looking knobs with some that have a more vintage feel.

The below pictures of the refinished two drawer night stand are more true to the actual Ivory color.

Both of these pieces are available in my booth at Stars.

GOLD!

Yep, Gold.  While I’ve almost always had ‘little touches’ of gold mixed in with my offerings; all of a sudden I had a LOT of gold and decided to make it a focal point display on the back wall of my booth at Stars.

This wall is usually reserved for displaying my signs, but now that I have closed my etsy shop and am letting my sign supply dwindle, I can finally do some varying displays on the back wall.

This large gold metal wall basket is filled with upcycled gold framed cork boards.  Smallest ones start at $8.00 up to the largest priced at $19.00.

I’ve been holding onto this metal basket for YEARS!!  I always wanted to use it as a ‘bed crown’ by turning it upside down.  Alas, I don’t have enough room in my booth for a bed.  I finally decided to just use it as intended.

Here are some pictures from Pinterest of bed crowns, just in case you couldn’t quite picture what they are.

Gold framed shadow box can be used to display items IN the frame and on top of it.

 

This cute little metal frame was painted black when I bought it; but I could see that it had originally been gold.  I just refreshed the gold paint.

I extended the gold theme to below and beside the wall display.

I had actually been setting this gold stuff aside for next February’s Junk Salvation show.  Alas, the Washington County Fairgrounds Exhibit Hall, where the show has always been held, was recently ‘condemned’ and deemed unsafe for use, and will be torn down in the very near future.  Sooooooooooooo . . . .  I will not be doing the show ‘one last time, for old time’s sake’.

I’m quite certain that ‘the show WILL go on’; in a different facility.  The promoter was already feeling like maybe it was time to look for a bigger space.  For me, given that it was going to be my LAST booth show anyhow, (health reasons) it’s just not worth the extra work to ‘get my bearings’ in a new facility.  Having a routine ‘down pat’ for delivering and setting up; and being close to my son’s job for him to help me unload, factored hugely in my capacity to do the show.  PLUS, the old location was super close to home for me; which was a BIG “+” factor for me in deciding to do the show.

So, next year I will have to settle for just being a spectator at the Junk show.  I’ll still keep you informed of the dates and new location.

Faux concrete statues

As promised, this is the post on how I made the previously shown faux concrete statues.

Above are the finished pieces.

This is what I started with for the big oval one.  A glass light globe with metal embellishment, which I found at a thrift store; and a wooden bowl, which I had in my stash.  I glued the bowl to the globe.

It’s difficult to tell what’s different about this pair of photos.  To make the glass more durable, I added several layers of paper.  Newspaper works fine.  I just happened to have to plain newsprint paper.  I used tacky glue to adhere the paper to the glass part of the globe.

When I have made similar statues in the past I used spackle from a big tub that I bought at the hardware store.  That stuff dried up on me, and I didn’t want to buy another BIG tub, so I got the little one at Dollar Tree.  But it was pretty ‘wimpy’ stuff.  Almost like it was whipped and airy, and it just flaked off as i was applying it.  I remedied that problem by mixing in some Mod Podge; which added the perfect amount of ‘oomph’!

The bird one is made using a round light globe, a bowl base just like the other light globe, and a little ceramic bird glued to the top BEFORE the paper layers.  Adding the paper layers to the bird and the base helped make their attachment more secure.

These two were a pair of vintage ceramic urns, topped with two different curtain rod end ornaments and  . . . . .two and three salt shaker tops, glued together.  I did not apply the coats of paper to these two.  Went straight to the DT spackle + Mod Podge.

This one was made using a big plaster egg that I had bought at Dollar Tree YEARS ago!  I used to attach them to wood bases (as shown) and paint folk art style designs on them.  I found this one last one in a box of other stuff.  I was about to toss it into my ‘donate box’ and decided to see if I could do something with it along with these other projects I had in the works.  I glued a wood finial to the top.  Then a coat of my oomphed up DT spackle.  But I ran out of the spackle before I got to the second and third coats on this one.

Having run out of the DT spackle, and having very little patience when I’m ‘in the zone’ and want to get a project DONE, NOW . . . . I had to improvise the following additional layers.  I made a new concoction of Mod Podge and SAND to add the final coats to the three smaller pieces.  Liked the look so much that I added the sandy stuff to the two bigger ones, even though they had sufficient coats of the spackle.  I decided that I wanted them all to have the same ‘textured’ finish.

For painting them, I first applied a coat of grey spray primer.  Then I ‘stipple’ painted with an off white.

Close up view of texture and paint.

I was liking the grey color so much, that I decided to stick with the color theme for repainting batch of wood finials.

And here they all are on display in my booth at Stars.

There was also this grey urn that I painted with a faux galvanized look.

There was actually a whole batch of items that I faux galvanize painted.

For the faux galvanized look, again I spray painted the pieces with grey primer.

Then I dry brush stippled an off white paint.

Then the same application with some lighter grey paint.

Not quite the real thing, but it’ll do!

I seem to be really liking neutral colors lately.

Monday, March 5th is the last day of the sale at Stars . . .  and 50% off everything in my booth!

 

 

 

 

 

More show product preview

ONE WEEK TIL SHOWTIME!!

I’m getting pretty excited for the upcoming Rebel Junk Marketplace at Washington County Fairgrounds February 2 & 3.

Still working away on a few last minute projects for the show. . . . .

This shabby bar stool and little round accent table will be available at the show.

I especially LOVE the way the tops of these two items turned out; so EXTRA grubby and shabby!  The table had a ‘fabric-like’ finish; that shows through the two coats of paint when I sanded it.  The bar stool had your standard light wood seat.  BOOOOooo0000oooRING!  I did several layers of paint and it was still not grubby enough.  Since I really liked the texture that the fabric stuff gave to the table, I decided to try something similar with the bar stool.  I applied a single layer of a two-ply paper napkin with tacky glue.  Let it dry and added another two coats of paint; black then white.  LOVE how it turned out!  Single layers of napkins are going to be my new ‘secret weapon’ I think!

I’m also paring down some of my own personal items to sell at the show.  I’ve had this sweet little set of three wicker ‘suitcases’ for well over 20 years, and have used them to store just about everything imaginable, from craft supplies to clothing.  They are still in PERFECT condition.  $48.00 for the set of three.  (just $38.40 with your 20% discount . . .  don’t forget to ASK for the discount!!)

This metal Eiffel Tower clock was in my booth at Stars for a while.  I found the metal cut out at a thrift shop and added the clockworks.  For some reason, people are compelled to ‘mess around with the clock hands’.  I fixed them are re-tightened the nut that holds the hands in place at least a dozen times.  Finally decided to bring it home when someone actually STOLE the nut and broke one of the hands?!?!  Fortunately I have a stash of ‘clock works’ on hand at home and was able to replace them.  Will be taking this to the Rebel Junk Show too.

I can’t wait to unpack all the goodies that I’ve been stashing away for the last year for this show.  It’s going to be like Christmas for me getting to see all the stuff again!

There’s still time to buy your tickets on-line and avoid waiting in the long line on the show dates.

 

My new favorite color

I’m really drawn to galvanized metal items and soft grey colors these days.  I especially LOVE the contrast of mixing them in with shabby chic white decor.  I’ll be bringing LOTS of items in this color to the upcoming Rebel Junk Vintage Market on February 2&3.

In addition to the ‘real thing’ (all of those items are already packed away for the show) I’ll have lots of faux painted items, like the ones shown above.

 I’ve also got some distressed turquoise metal items, shown above.  For some reason, I decided to buy some dark turquoise spray paint a while back; and I painted these items with it.  Did not like it once they were painted though, so they have just sat in storage.  Got them out and was going to sand them to prep them for repainting, but decided that I actually LIKED the distressed dark turquoise!

These items and much MORE will be available for purchase at the

Rebel Junk Marketplace

Come visit my booth, and don’t forget to ASK for your 20% discount.  Discount given ONLY to those who have read about the show via my blog and/or Facebook page; and only if you ask.  My booth only.