I thrifted a vintage spice rack at an estate sale awhile ago. It was in great shape and I don’t think the jars had ever been used. I knew I could update it and make it work for today’s kitchen decor and be functional as well.
I also ordered some spice jar labels from Temu for it. They arrived, so it was time for this makeover.
Today, I cleaned the spice rack well, took off the eagle and stars and painted the spice rack with black chalk paint (3 coats), then distressed it. A friend from one of my groups collects eagles, so I am sending the little eagle to her for her collection.
The secret for no brush strokes with the chalk paint I use is thin coats.
Even an emery board will lightly distress wood.
I then sealed it with Wise Owl Salve.
I took the old labels off the jars. They all, except for two of them easily slid off by soaking them in hot, soapy water. Only two required a little scrubbing. I then applied the labels I thought people would use most often.
The purple chalk style paint we created to paint a vintage wooden chair is such a pretty color, we decided to name it MO Eureka Purple.
I decided after seeing a similar chair painted purple by Junk Chick, I knew I had to paint one, too. I sold it even before it was finished to a customer whose favorite color is purple!
This is your Missouri History lesson for today. George Hearst was born in Franklin County, Missouri … some say near what was to become Sullivan, Missouri. His wife, Phoebe, was born in Anaconda, near St. Clair. George named his copper mine, Anaconda. I’m not sure but would like to think he yelled “Eureka” when his mines would produce. I haven’t found out if this is true or not but since that is the city where one of our sons lived in and still is close by and our grandson still goes to elementary school there, and the school color is purple…. MO Eureka Purple is the perfect name. I wonder if that is why the city is named Eureka.
Painting this chair reminds me that the second thing I ever painted with chalk paint was in January 2014. My best friend had been painting some furniture and gave me some left over Annie Sloan gray paint in 2013. It took me a year to try it. After that, I was hooked.
You can click on this link: Annie Sloan and Me to see my first experiences with chalk paint.
I liked Annie Sloan paint but after trying Missouri Limestone Paint Company’s chalk-style paint in 2015, produced in Ozark, Missouri, I was hooked and SharSum Paint company was born. I love how smoothly it goes on with no brush strokes at all as long as you apply a very thin coat for the first coat. This is the gripping coat. The second coat usually does full coverage. It dries so fast (usually 15-20 minutes), by the time you have finished the first coat, it is ready for the second.
Introducing MO Eureka Purple – a vintage chair painted purple and displaying my favorite faux purple flowers!
I found a chicken planter and a rooster that would hold a vase at two different thrift stores in the last few weeks. I decided they both needed updating using a concrete look technique.
The first thing I did with the chicken was spray him with Mod Podge pearlized glaze. Any sealer would work or even spray paint. I sprayed it to help the paint adhere well since the pottery was a bit shiny.
Next, I mixed chalk-style paint with baking soda and began daubing it on all over. This gives it a nice texture and no brush strokes. I gave it two coats, letting it dry in between.
After two coats of the baking soda and chalk paint mixture. I don’t have a photo, but I sprayed it with a coat of Mod Podge. This will help keep the antique look I’m giving it from soaking in which would make it hard to remove if needed.
Next, I did a little dry brushing with the gray paint. I would daub it on and use a baby wipe to blend where needed.
That’s it. I now have a chicken planter with a concrete look.
Now, for the rooster – I finished him much in the same way using the baking soda and white chalk- style paint mixture with a little different type of antiquing.
I learned the rooster was made of resin. I knew it wasn’t metal or wood. I had someone tell me to scratch off a bit of the bottom and if it was white underneath, it was resin…it was white!
I daubed the white chalk paint all over him. I only used one coat and wasn’t worried about full coverage because I liked the colors underneath and didn’t mind them coming through a bit.
Once dry, I used sprayed the rooster with this clear chalky spray. This will help me when I apply the glaze and will let me remove excess.
I applied the metallic green glaze to make it look like the rooster had been outside in the weather for years and had moss growing on it at one point.
I also applied a bit of turquoise paint for some patina.
The rooster was now ready to be added to a garden display.
For today’s project I am up-cycling an old gold frame and adding a Redesign with Prima transfer from the Floral Collection. The transfer is applied to a unique background – a piece of one of Dollar Tree’s storage bins.
Cutting apart a Dollar Tree storage bin
The material is kind of a paper/fabric with cardboard in between layers. I cut off a piece to use as background for the transfer.
I cut the cardboard to fit the frame.
I used a glue stick to glue the material onto the cardboard.
I then trimmed the material to the size of the cardboard.
It was time to paint the frame. I mixed a little baking soda with a littler chalk paint to achieve the texture of stone.
It took two coats. On the first coat I used a brush to pounce the paint/baking soda mixture on so I didn’t get brush strokes. For the second coat I used a foam dauber. I love the distressed shading this technique produced. I set it aside to dry well.
Once dry, I gave it two coats of Mod Podge Pearlized Glaze Spray to seal it.
It was then time to apply the transfer to the material I had adhered to the piece of cardboard. I didn’t seal it as it is a decor piece and will not be handled much.
The sheet underneath is a silicone baking sheet I use to work on. Paint does not adhere well to silicone, so it is easy to clean after I finish a project.
I added the transfer to the frame. You could add the glass back in but I did not use the glass.
The final reveal – The material under the transfer looks almost like a piece of linen. It makes a very nice background.
We’ve been working on an Art Deco dresser. Danny has taken it all apart and is rebuilding it. It is going to be beautiful! The detail is so pretty! But the drawer pulls are spectacular! They were so worn and discolored but still all in one piece. The red Bakelite inserts are in perfect shape and by themselves are valuable. I cleaned them, scrubbed them with Bar Keepers Friend, then waxed them and applied gold leaf RubnBuff. They are amazing!
The dresser had been painted in an earlier life. The only thing now is to decide what color to paint it. My thought right now is to paint it a bluish green color with our Missouri Limestone Paint Company chalk paint color we named “Something Blue”. Then highlight the details on the front, the trim on the back of the top, and the feet with gold leaf RubnBuff.
I changed it up a little. This one is 5” tall. I used a small 2 1/4” wood slice for the base and cut down the size of the skewer some. It still has a point on it for piercing each strand of jute. I just cut it off at the end.
The jute pieces I used:
12 – 4” 12 – 3” 12 – 2” 2 – 1” And a half inch piece. For this one I used more glue and pressed and molded it to round off the top.
I cut off the skewer and left enough to glue the greenery and the star to the skewer and glued some jute to the back of it to cover.
This one got caught in a snow storm so has a bit of snow (paint) on the branches.
Today we will drive to St. Genevieve, MO (about 2 hours one way) to give Grandson Ben’s mom some sample bottles of paint. She’s at the bank there today so we don’t have to drive all the way to their house. Because, of course, he needs it by tomorrow. Lol
5th grade Middle School and Ben has an Entrepreneur class. 😳
He was to create a business and will sell items in the school store. Of course he chose to sell paint. 😂 He said his teacher approved of it. We will see. 😬 At least we seal the bottles so hopefully they won’t open them at school. 🙏
He plans to donate 1/2 of his profit to charity and keep the rest. This boy is smart. He knew we would give him the paint so he will have more profit. 😂 The other part of his business is that he will have a donation box where people will drop off broken items and he will try to fix them and sell them. He has learned a lot from his PopPop. Lol
But no problem. We will thrift shop on the way there and back.
Of course, I made him a display for his paint. I had a half of an old globe. It fit perfectly into a Dollar Tree hanging basket. I added a bunch of shredded paper my sister-in-law gave me. Instant display.
Ben also knows once he is in middle school we will pay $5 for any As each grandchild gets per semester. He needed a clarification on that the other day as he got all As this first quarter. He was hoping it was every quarter. Lol He’s a planner. He says he needs a new laptop so…..
I had a bit of a brainstorm this morning. I was inspired by a YouTube video where someone decoupaged napkins on animal cut outs.
I had these cool pig and rooster wood cut outs. They stand alone. The rooster is 4 3/4“ tall x 4 1/2” w. The pig is 4” tall x 5 3/4” w.
I also had a sheet of Dollar Tree rub on transfers with farmhouse images.
So….. I gave them a coat of white paint so the transfers would stand out and then applied the transfers as they were on the sheet and filled in where needed. They are protected with Mod Podge matte spray. Sorry, forgot to get a pic of spraying them.
I have been a bit busy the last few days creating fall decor. Some days are just like that. You can’t stop. We’ve had some beautiful fall days in Missouri this week so I took advantage of the weather. It felt good to be outside working on my projects.
First up…. I was going through my fall decor boxes and ran across a box with a bunch of wood cut outs I hadn’t seen since I stored them. It was a jackpot of pumpkins, ghost, cats, and a few other goodies. One pumpkin had a very unique wood grain on the front and back. I just saw someone posted one very similar. It looked like an ostrich! I could see an ostrich in this one, too! Not only that, I saw an owl on the back!
I wasn’t sure what to do with it, but finally settled on using Howard’s Restore-a-Finish to bring out the grain and then I sealed it with Wise Owl salve. I named the Ostrich in a Pumpkin Woodette and the owl Woodsy. Soooo cute!
Then my friend, Midge, had an idea: flowers, a tiara, or crown for Woodette. I happened to have some small sunflowers and with just a dab of glue, they will come right off. I can change them out for each season! I think I might need to make Woodette a princess for Halloween and find a little crown for her.
In the same box as my Ostrich in a Pumpkin, I ran across this little shelf sitter or hanger. I passed over it at first, thinking….Wow! The 80s!
But then, I got this fall dish drying mat out of the Dollar Tree bag I just purchased. I realized some of the colors went so well with it and the other fall things I have in the corner of my kitchen. So..now, it is out of the box and in the corner of my kitchen counter. 🙂
Oh no! Another gnome …. after I said no gnomes this year! But the Gnome and Backyard lady had this idea I couldn’t resist. She made a quick and easy gnome out of the small plastic ghosts from Dollar Tree. I spray painted one for the hat with a copper color because that’s what I had on hand and added tiny Dollar Tree sunflowers for embellishment. The other I left white and glued it upside down to the hat. I gassed a wooden bead for his nose. I bought two big ghosts, too, to make a larger gnome.
I spray painted a Dollar Tree wire pumpkin form white with a green stem and attached my cute little gnome to it with jute twine and now have a cute fall door hanger for my front door. He hangs from a magnetic hook on my stork door by the stem
This awesome creator also had a tutorial for making a pumpkin out of a Dollar Tree soap saver. What? Check it out! https://fb.watch/fOIcejAF2x/
Of course I had to make one, too. This one I left gray and put it inside a Dollar Tree shadow box. It looks so cute with my gray pumpkins I made (the striped fabric came from DT), but I bought a few more to paint! 🙂
I still hadn’t gotten to my other pumpkin cut outs, so onto more decor!
I made this arrangement in three different sizes and used a Dollar Tree napkin decoupage technique. I was going to add embellishments but I love the rustic vintage look of them just as they are. They stand up on their own and are perfect for shelf sitters or tiered trays.
I also decoupaged a little 3 1/4” square natural wood trinket box. I made the little leaf ladder tall last year. It goes perfectly with this arrangement.
This next project is one of the larger pumpkin cut outs and will stand alone. I glued one of the Dollar Tree faux tin panels to it.
For this finish I did a kind of an aged terra-cotta color I’ve been seeing others do. I painted it with a color I mixed and added just a bit of baking soda to it. Then I sprinkled more baking soda on it while still tacky. After the paint dried I blended the baking soda on with a bit more paint then sealed with a matte sealer. I used a bit of the napkin I was using earlier on the stem.
So pretty! I really enjoy creating a more neutral look for fall decor.
And finally, I ended my marathon crafting this morning. Maybe. Lol I started this project last night and finished today. I still had more pumpkin cut outs in 3 different sizes so painted the face of each with the terra-cotta color I mixed. I used a bit of left over napkin for the stems.
I distressed them a bit with sandpaper and then used the new Dollar Tree brown parchment paper rub on transfers on them. I apologize in advance for finding more of these transfers in different designs. They are so hard to find, but I found these in the same store I found the others in Ballwin, MO on Manchester Road. But, oh how I love working with them and hope they make more. I’ve not seen them online yet, either.
That’s not all! I’m now working on a natural wood napkin decoupage riser and it should be finished soon! 🤷🏼♀️
Update: The last of this grouping is complete. 🙂
I had this 12” round wooden plate. I had the fall napkins. I had the decoupage medium. I had some little rub on transfers and the wood beads from the foot exerciser I bought a couple of weeks ago at a yard sale to use for feet. I have items to display.
I thrifted this wood container and did a black distress over it using our Missouri Limestone Paint Company chalk-style paint in Coal Shovel. I added some filler, fall foliage, a pinecone, a couple of pumpkins, a gourd, and this beautiful green silk sunflower to create a unique fall centerpiece that looks finished from front and back.
SharSum Paint 