My name is Daena and I can't stop buying boxes.

I have a thing for old wooden boxes and I have stacks of them around the house. And this "thing" extends to old trunks, big old trunks, of which I have way too many stacked in the barn. I'm thinking it's time to give these trunks some attention. They can be a lot of fun and I have a lot of ideas rattling around in my head.

Here's some of the raw material waiting for me:

I happened to drive by a yard sale and saw this from the car. I'm using this chest for out-of-season clothes, so who knows when it will get painted. "Never" would be a good guess.

This trunk came from a thrift shop on the Oregon Coast. It's huge and was a real challenge to stuff into the truck. I'm excited about my idea for this trunk. Maybe I'll get to it this summer.

This is one of those "Where in the world did I get that?" tool boxes. Maybe I'll remember some day. Meanwhile it sits by the garage door, all rustic perfection and attitude.

 We brought this bad boy home from Washington state, along with a zillion other rusty things. It has amazing hardware. My plan is to shellac the entire thing and make it an outdoor bench or maybe it'll be The Big Rusty Thing on the Patio. Mr. Bad Rabbit is thrilled. har.

And here are some completed trunks.

The Old Sign Trunk 

I acquired this old wooden trunk from somewhere...... I don't  remember where it came from. (The continuing theme. I don't remember where they came from!) I really took on a lot when I decided to pull off the canvas and restore the wood. I had no clue. No clue at all.

I didn't think I'd ever sell this, I was keeping it for myself. I had 300 years of work into it just removing canvas. But the day came ..... and the trunk now lives in L.A

 

The Circus Trunk

I have no 'before' shot but I think we've all seen this type of unfinished trunk at the craft stores.

I painted it for myself and it was my Circus Box. Until it was pushed out the door by more furniture. It didn't go to the barn though. The Circus Box is in upstate New York.

The Railroad Trunk 

Again, I have no idea where this box came from. Very frustrating! It was an Ugly Duckling but I saw potential. Or maybe I just saw an old wood box and had to have it.

It became a Railroad Trunk and I want to do more railroad trunks.

I did a simple stencil on the trunk and we used it as an end table until more end tables crowded it out and it was put in the barn.
And sorta forgotten about.

A few weeks ago we brought it up from the barn and put casters on it and we put it in my booth. It was gone in a matter of days.

Railroad trunk #2

So I felt inspired; my railroad idea wasn't a bad one and I did another trunk. This one is totally different, like night and day. Again, I've had the box for a few years and again it sat down in the barn when it got removed from the house. It was in my work room until I realized my
work room wasn't functioning.

But, hey! I remember where I got it! At our yearly entire-town garage sale.

There it is on the bottom. It was bare wood, I painted and glazed it, and put fabric in it. In about 2 minutes I was tired of moving the upper boxes every time I needed fabric. Do people REALLY store things this way?
Buh-bye Stack of Boxes.
(My 22 box is in the garage hoping to be let back into the house.)

 

The new railroad box.

 Check out the moss. You can tell we live on the north side of a mountain.

 I used inkjet print-outs and good old ModPodge to do the graphics. I think it would have been faster just to hand-paint but I didn't feel like painting a train. Lazy. :-)

Inspiration strikes!
I realized I had no pictures of the back or the right side. When I went to set up my tripod again I happened to notice the reflection .

Be still, my heart. Old mirrors. My new obsession.

 Fun, fun, fun! I think I took 34 pictures in the mirrors.

 I'm loving the patina from my ancient mirror!

Today, after horse chores, I'm going to explore this mirror concept some more. Maybe with one of my rocking horses.

Safety first.
The casters I used had quite a long bolt attached and they protruded into the trunk quite a bit. I was afraid of someone getting scratched so I went to the hardware store to see what my options were. I found packages of door-stop tips. Perfect! They come 4 styles to a pack but there are only 2 each, so I bought 2 packs. They fit over the bolt perfectly. 

I know, I know, the bolts could have been cut. However, we're talking ME here and I don't have a clue how to do that, so door-stop tips it is.

Ready to go to a new home!

Before I go, I have to show you this:

I ran across this quiz this morning. See? I'm a CASUAL collector not a PROBLEM collector. No need for a 12 step program here. No sirree. Bwah ha ha ha.

If you want to take the quiz, it's right here:
what_is_your_natural_collection_style

No cheating!

Linking up with:
funky junk interiors
nifty thrifty things
pjh designs
the dedicated house
savvy southern style
primp
a stroll thru life
miss mustard seed
shabby nest
french country cottage
redoux
coastal charm

Annie Sloan, where are youuuu?

I haven't been posting lately because I haven't been painting furniture. And I haven't been painting furniture because (a) I've been in repair mode and (b) I have been sick with a hellish flu for 11 days.

Just before I was felled by the flu, I went to fluff my booth and found this.

Well, how 'bout that? Someone busted the leg off my little desk.

And that opened a whole new kettle of fish. Little did I know but Annie Sloan paint is no longer available in Southern Oregon and I didn't have one speck of olive paint left to match the desk. I wasted a bunch of time trying to mix olive from what I had on hand but it always came out too blue. 

I think I now have the paint I need to mix the olive but I haven't gotten to it yet. Because then I got sick.

But let's get back to the important part of my little narrative here. 

Annie Sloan Chalk Paint is No Longer Available in Southern Oregon.

Oh sure, I could mail order the olive paint. That would only cost me $26 for a sample size - which is all I need. And, forget it. I'm of a frugal nature.

I guess I have become a CeCe Caldwell user by default. It's lovely paint, so I have no qualms about that. Except for the olive missing from her line.

I have some other repairs to do in order to clear out my workroom and bring in something new. But I'm still moving slowly, recovering from that stupid flu. What I didn't realize could happen is my blood counts taking a hit from being sick. I was doing so well and now I'm back to feeble. Plus, I just want to sleep all the time.

(Can you believe I can't get Chalk Paint locally? sheesh)

A friend brought over a cute little table that turned out to be over her skill set. It was just the perfect little project to get my spirits back up. She left with a  nightstand and I had a table with 8 layers of paint and a few more layers of dried stripper. What better way to get over the flu?

Camo that feels like dinosaur skin. Oh boy.

 I got busy with my palm sander and got into the crevises as best I could, fixed the broken drawer, and grabbed my MMS Milk Paint in Iron Stone. I was going to fight chippy with chippy!

The end result.

 The table came with the oversized glass pull. I think it's cute!

 The Milk Paint left a lot of the under-layers exposed, so the table kept its primitive look. This look isn't for everybody - it seems it's a "Love it" or "Hate it" technique.

 

The natural chipping of Milk Paint.

 

 My new white table. And I was able to get it done between naps.

Linking to
miss mustard seed
shabby nest
redoux
my uncommon slice of suburbia
primp
a stroll thru life

Can't I just leave anything alone?

Uhhhh. No. No, I can't.

I took inspiration from my own mirror inspiration post and changed the windows in my hall bath again. You know how sometimes you just aren't happy with something? That niggling feeling that you need to rethink it? Or, in my case, that in-your-face feeling that That's Just Wrong? That's how I felt about the checkerboard fabric in my windows. And the teal suede. It wasn't me - I'm not a glue-picture-to-fabric girl. I like to push things a little farther.

Soooo...

Yesterday the windows went from here

To here

Yup. Frames.

And then here

Pulling out all the teal suede gave me an opportunity to refine my skills at finding thumbtacks with stocking feet alone. Pretty soon I'll be ready for competition.

The tops of the windows gave me grief.
First I thought 'found objects hot-glued to wood.' Nah, too rustic. Besides, I didn't have enough little treasures I was willing to hot glue.
So that idea was out.

Tiny mirrors propped in the panes?

(Geez, lighten up with the mirrors all ready!)

I was wishing I could ink jet transfer onto glass but that skill eludes me. BUT! I could print out transparencies instead of the paper images I've been using.

I trimmed the transparencies and affixed them to the glass. I'm liking it so far, there is a subtle 3D effect now.

On the big frames I used MMS Milk Paint over randomly applied bonding agent. I wanted a little bit of control over the chipping. The joke was on me however, I must have skimped on the bonding agent because the paint chipped its little heart out.

The little frames are ASCP.

I ditched hanging the little frames because it was getting too shabby for my aesthetic. I tried it and forgot to take a picture before I ripped them out of there. I went for randomly propping the frames in to see what that looked like. yay! I liked.

Then I spent an hour looking for my double-sided carpet tape. Never did find it so I used some Gorilla Tape I found in the garage. Strange tape, that. But it worked after I figured out its idiosyncrasies.

Is the 3rd time the charm? Will I wake up next week and wonder what I was thinking? Maybe.

Linking to:
miss mustard seed
shabby nest
redoux
my repurposed life
common ground
five days five ways
the dedicated house
pjh designs

Where Halloween goes to hide

They're creepy and they're kooky, mysterious and spooky. They're all together ooky .......
 

I found where Halloween hides while it"s waiting for October.

 At first I wasn't going to go.

I hemmed and hawed and looked at the Craigslist pictures but I really didn't want to drive that far ..... then I saw it. Wayyyy back in the corner. What the heck is that? The stuff of nightmares, that's what.

For some reason that clinched it and I went to the sale if only to see what was up with the giant bear. Or is it a mouse?

It all looked so normal when I got there even though the barn was almost completely dark. And it was so, so, SO COLD! I couldn't stop shivering. I was so cold I couldn't concentrate.

I went up and down all the tables, speed-shopping. I think I was hunched over with cold as a matter of fact. And my nose was running.

It didn't matter if I was freezing because I knew I-Must-Prevail.
I am Picker, Hear Me Roar! Plus I'd driven, like, 45 miles. So I found a few things: a rocking horse, a couple metal table bases, some tools and a nice curio cabinet.

Then I took note of the bear. Then I noticed the bin full of masks and,
uhhh, body parts? Shudder.
Up close he is not a nice bear. Then I took a slow look around.

 Oh, good lord! My worst nightmare. CLOWNS! I feel sick.

An alligator! Eating raw meat!

More body parts.

The 'parts' again. Wait. Are those prizes?

Oh my gosh, there was so much creepy stuff just beyond the tape, lurking in the semi-dark, I half way expected to see the giant desk from the hoarder sale I went to.

I asked the seller if it was a closed amusement park but she said it was a haunted house. Ohhhhh. Okay, that made sense. No wonder there were
bins of masks.

Of course! Why else would there be a row of skulls just outside? And a hearse parked in a shed?

And a barrel of alien slime? Interesting garage sale, I'd have to say. I mean, how many times to you get to go to a haunted garage sale?

I wonder if the family's last name is Addams?

All in all it was a good, if a bit unusual, sale. I was happy with what I found and even happier when a nice man loaded my car for me. Sadly, the mirrored back of the curio broke on the way home. sigh

But as I left I had to wonder, how in the world did I not see
THIS on the way in?

Seriously? I drove right by this? Eegads.

Linking to:
shabby nest
redoux
five days five ways
pjh designs one of a kind