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.

 

 

 

 

 

Adding just a little color

Pair of pretty shell prints in monochromatic color scheme.  Initially I had looked at these ‘just for the frames’; but the frames were not removable.  I really liked the pictures, and usually I’m all about monochrome colors.  These were just TOO bland for me.

I have always liked this kind of ‘text book’ drawing; so I decided to buy them and see how difficult it would be to repaint the frames with NOT being able to remove them.

The hardest part of this quick make-over was taping the paper over the glass to protect it while I painted the frames.

A couple of quick coats of paint; then some sanding (sand BEFORE you removed the paper covering the glass!).  Just a touch of color; the distressing brings out the original frame color to coordinate with the pictures.

Which do you like better?  Original color or the aqua?

Upcycled beach treasure box

Just a simple, almost ugly, little wood box.

With a very BAD paint job I might add.  The paint was kind of ‘curdled’.  Bleck!

Not sure WHAT the deal is with the partially painted innards, or the raised parts on the sides???  But it IS ‘clean’ inside and paint will easily cover all of that.

It took a LOT of paint to cover that bright red; so instead of a THIRD coat on the inside, I added some pretty scrapbook paper.

And a white fingerling starfish on the top.  I HAD to leave this one ‘un-distressed’ due to the first coat being red.  I COULD have sanded off all that red paint, then repainted AND distressed.  But on a small project like this you need to be sure you aren’t spending more time than you can recoup in your selling price.

This one has sold already too!

Beach cottage decor just stocked at Stars

I usually stock my ‘beachy’ stuff at the beginning of summer.  A bit late this year with my move and all.

Better late than never. I guess!

I filled this glass conservatory with assorted glass bottles topped with shells and starfish; and placed a sea-glass wreath over the top.

I made several of these wreaths in various colors a few years ago when I found a great buy on the sea-glass.  The BIG ones like this are $35.00; take about a week to make.

Closer look at the bottles in the conservatory.

There is a specific name for this kind of ‘shell collage’ that I made on a candle pedestal, but it’s escaping me right now.  The little three section frame, I added turquoise paper and glued shells and starfish on.

I filled the big birdcage with shell topped bottles and some shells and starfish on tall candlesticks.

Closer look at the shells in the cage.

Some small apothecary jars filled with shells too.

The smaller sea-glass wreaths are $13.00 – $19.00

Vintage ceramic clam shell bowls.

These framed shells are on a sand paper backing.

A small framed shell and a photo of a shell.

Upcycled beach lantern.

Another sand paper backed shell collage; shell topped cloches, shell filled and topped jar and a jute wrapped candle jar with starfish.

Old rope and starfish wreath.

Starfish and grapevine wreath.

Burlap and jute wrapped wreath with shells.

Updated two tier round table

LOVE this kind of table!!  Really want to keep one for myself, but they are so hard to find and always sell so well; I always end up selling them!  Oh well.  One of these days I’ll claim one for my very own.

Sanded off the existing finish with my orbital sander.  Applied two coats of paint.  Sanded to distress, then varnished the top.

I really thought LONG and hard about adding some kind of stenciled on design to the top tier.

Thought this French bee design might work, but the arch was too wide.

This laurel leaf wreath and fleur de lis fit the space okay, but then I started second guessing myself?!?!?  Whomever purchases it will probably PUT stuff on the top so it won’t really even be visible!  So I refrained.

Didn’t want to make it TOO ‘Paris chic’ looking because I think it would be really cute in a beach cottage setting too.

It has gone to my booth at Curiosities in Beaverton.  $49.00

It’s displayed atop an upcycled aqua and white round table.  $37.00

I just added several new dessert pedestals and stands with dome lids to curiosities too.

Curiosities in open Tuesdays – Sundays; 10am – 6pm.

Child size desk chair

Found this cute child size desk chair on my recent thrifting rounds.

And while I LOVE finding ‘child size’ items; I HATE that they almost always come laden with stickers!!!  ACK!!!  Only a few to deal with on this particular piece.  Plus, it had a fairly shiny finish, so I was going to need to sand it before repainting it anyhow.  And the stickers sand right off with the finish.

About ten minutes with the orbital sander and it was prepped for painting.

If you don’t have an orbital sander, and you want to fix up and repaint old furniture; you really NEED this tool.  It would have taken a good HOUR to hand sand this little chair.  With the orbital it took about 5 minutes.  Time IS money!

Most of the chair I was able to paint using a mini sponge roller.  Just needed a brush for the corners.  Using a paint roller is a real time saver too.  Plus the paint goes on much smoother and more evenly.

After two quick coats of paint and almost NO drying time in the summer heat, I was ready to distress; again using the orbital sander.

Fast and easy!

I debated whether or not to paint some kind of design on the seat or back rest.  Went withOUT for now.  If it doesn’t sell right away I’ll bring it home for some additional detailing.

It is available to purchase for $25.00 in my booth at Stars in Portland.

Little tin candle lantern: outdated rustic to beach cottage chic

Thrifted  rustic little  candle lantern.  The price was right so I brought it home for a make over.

I spray painted it with flat white, and sanded a little to distress.

Just to ring out the pretty details.  Then as it sat on my work table while I hunted for a suitable candle, which I could NOT find, I decided to alter it a bit more.

While I couldn’t find a small enough TAPER candle to fit the existing hole, I DID have several pretty aqua 3″ pillar candles on hand; which ‘filled the space’ much better anyhow!  So I glued on (using e6000) a mini metal pie tin to put the pillar in!

CAREFULLY spray painted to newly added tin, avoiding spraying over the distressed parts as much as possible.  (YES, I am that lazy!)  Then sanded the rim of the tin a tad.  Then I GLUED IN the candle.  (otherwise they seem to ‘disappear’ at the antique mall!)

Then I ‘beached it up’ by tying on a white fingerling starfish and seahorse tag.

Pretty AND functional (remove the tag before burning!) cozy beach cottage candle lantern.

This lantern is for sale in my space at Stars antiques in Portland, Oregon.

Thrifted white vase

I forgot to take a before picture on this one.  It was just a big ole plain white vase!

I tied a snippet of tulle around the rim and glued on a big scallop shell.

Once that glue had dried, I added a few smaller shells to one side.

Then finished it up by filling it with twigs!

A perfect addition to this little beach vignette at Stars!

One fine day

This time of year (and the preceding 7 months really!) ‘nice days’ are few and far between.  I watch the evening news weather reports and literally plan my week around it, IF a ‘nice day’ is predicted.  What IS a nice day to a Pacific Northwester?  Any day that is DRY and warm enough to work outside wearing a jacket.   SUNSHINE is not definitive to nice days here.  Monday was a GORGEOUS day!  SUNNY and warm!  I’ve had ‘outside painting projects’ piled up for MONTHS, awaiting a day like that!

Sweet little desk.  This one was going to have to be SPRAY painted in order to get paint into that open drawer space.  Need to be sure I have a NOT windy ‘nice day’ for spray painting.

Another spray paint candidate.  When I tried to straighten that dowel it popped right out!  Ended up leaving them out, after trying unsuccessfully to permanently attach them.

Yep, another one to spray paint!  Lucky for me, spray paint was JUST on sale and I got 4 cans of white.  Spray paint is getting SO dang expensive.  The cost to spray paint an item is something to consider when selecting project pieces.

Lightly hand sanded this one to distress.  Still debating on applying ‘something’ on the desktop area.  Old book pages maybe?  OR I’ve got lots of old floral wall paper samples.  OR I could stencil a design on??

Just may leave this one ‘as is’ and not distress it.  Still thinking on it.

Need to sand this one for a bit MORE distressing, and may stencil a design in the center.  Looks a tad bare without those decorative turned dowels.  It took 3 cans of spray paint to cover these three pieces.

This one I had primed previously, but ran out of painting time.  I have another similar, but BIGGER 2 tier drum table  like this.  Can’t wait to see how they look stacked together!

This table had a shiny varnish, so needed to be primed (or sanded) before painting.  Due to all the details, priming was going to be quicker and easier than sanding.  THIS is how ‘heavily’ you need to apply brush on primer.  It does not need to completely cover the surface.  Just quickly ‘slap it on’!

After 2 coats of paint.

And distressed.

Michael built the 2 bigger benches for me.  I built the little pink one YEARS ago!

Couple of little thrifted benches.  ALWAYS on the look out for little benches and step stools like these.  They are great for adding height to displays AND they always SELL well!

Painted and distressed.

This one is more of an ‘end table’ size than a bench.  Just lightly distressed it.  Pondered painting stripes on the top.  May still do so.  Most of the striped aqua/white stuff I did last year sold quickly.

Forgot the before pis on this one!  Was just stained, no varnish; so a very quick sanding was all the prep it needed.

Distressed and ready to go.

Stencil something on the top maybe????

Not bad for ONE days work, eh??

MORE stripes!!!

Grabbed this ten drawer dresser at a recent rummage sale.  It was actually still sitting on its side on the hand truck when I took the picture.  It needed to stay like that overnight for a little repair on the side; and I KNEW if I didn’t take the before picture RIGHT THEN, that I’d forget!  So, please pardon this weird photo!

I quickly slapped on a bit of my beachy blue paint to see how it looked WITH the green.  Was thinking that maaaaaaaaaaybe I could leave the green and just add blue stripes.  Close, but no cigar.  Besides, the green paint was too glossy!

I gave it a good sanding (coarse sand paper on an orbital sander) and a quick coat of primer (KILZ or Zisner).

Depending on the piece, you usually don’t need to FULLY cover the surface with the primer (especially if you also sanded first!)    This is about how heavily I paint on primer. 

I wanted to do something REALLY different for the knobs.  Been finding lots of curtain rod type finials lately and I’m just DYING to use them as oversize knobs on a chest.  Alas I needed SIXTEEN knobs for this baby, so I had to create my own.  Found some old cut out stars from my primitive crafting days.  PERFECT!  Just needed to find something to back them with to raise them from the surface so you can actually grab them to open the drawers.  These old wooden wheels worked perfectly!  Glued them together with some e6000 and painted them white.

Painted the whole thing my signature beachy blue, and decided to just do stripes on the top, since the drawer pulls are so oversized.  Then sanded the whole thing.  Here you can see a little bit of that original green peeking through.

Also applied a couple of coats of matte varnish to the top for durability.

 

And then, the knobs!

What an awesome dresser for a beach cottage bedroom!

Would be great as a buffet or credenza too!