New Spring Lids for Old Glass Jars

A few weeks ago, I bought a few charm packs from Craftsy,

with no specific plans,

I just loved the colors.

With 40 charms in each pack,

and four packs,

I'm going to be finding many projects to use these.

First, I'm making jar lids.

The bright spring colors will jazz up any plain old jars,

even the leftover pickle jars that are great for storage,

but rather bleeeehh

can have a big WOW of color.

Here are the first batch of lids.

All the pretty lids in a row.

Farm Estate Auction

I love going to auctions,

but I really love going to a farm estate auction.

All the old things.

Antiques.

Farm tools.

Old jars.

Saturday was a lovely day for March

at about 50F with the sun shining.

To get to the auction,

we headed down the gravel,

across the blacktop,

down another gravel road lined on one side by a hill

and the other size by grazing black cattle on gently rolling hills,

across the highway,

then down another long gravel road with lots of turns and twists.

We found some wonderful things.

Rusty Metal Crates

Avondale Farms

Midwest D P '59

Galvanized Gas Can

tucked away in the barn

Tractor Seat Chair -

A tractor seat welded to a disc

How's this for handcrafted?

Old Casters

Huge and Heavy

Old Rusty Wheels

17 Rung Ladder

This ladder came from the last farm auction.

There's also a 15 rung ladder.

A little too tall to use as a quilt or magazine rack.

I have so many other things to still photograph,

lots of old rusty metal things, a few kitchens items,

and

the thing I love most to find

old blue jars!

The final tally was 70 jars for the day.

Combined with the 30 I picked last week,

gives us 100 new jars to put in the shop.

So if you love blue jars,

or you're getting married and are looking for jars for your wedding,

or you just want a lovely old blue jar to hold your spring flowers,

please drop by the shop.

If you don't see what you're looking, for,

just let me know,

we have many, many things waiting to be listed,

tucked in corners,

hiding in boxes.

What treasures have you been finding?

Rustic Shabby Cabinet

Last week, I found this cabinet listed in our local swap shop on Facebook.

Not too pretty,

but it had potential.

This cabinet was originally made as a little washstand,

but the upright pieces had been broken.

The little ledge around the top was held on with sheet rock screws

drilled in at an angle

and left sticking out on all sides by about a quarter inch.

So it was a little sad cabinet,

but

it was made with love.

This is the kind of piece that I think

someone would have made for

their wife, mother, daughter, sister.

Someone put their time and heart into it.

One of the doors isn't quite as wide as the other,

and maybe it's not all perfect,

but we're all learning to imbrace the perfectly imperfect, right?

So after the wood around the top was removed,

I grabbed the sandpaper and gave it a thorough going over,

roughing it up,

taking off the poly,

removing the orangeness of it all.

Next it got kissed with a coat of Heirloom White on the outside

and a "custom" mix of a robin's egg blue.

(By custom, I do mean a mix of four colors that were not quite right for anything,

but blended very nicely with a little luck and lots of  s h a k i n g.)

After the paint was dry,

it was time to beat up the cabinet with a little more sanding.

60 grit sandpaper is my friend.

It makes the work quick and easy.

After all the paint and wood dust was swept away,

(wind gusts at 45mph about blew me away that day)

I mixed up a little glaze and burnt umber acrylic.

With an old cotton cloth,

the glaze was wiped on,

allowed to sit for a minute,

then wiped away,

leaving behind a discoloration in the paint and the exposed wood.

After the paint was well dried,

two coats of wax were buffed into the wood,

into all the little nooks and crannies,

giving it a more finished look.

I think this would be really cute

filled with scrapbooking papers and bits,

fluffy towels and linens,

or loaded with homemade jams & jellies.

Homemade jam sounds wonderful.

Maybe with some cute little covered lids,

but that's for another day.

Here's the before and after photo,

definitely an improvement.