Before and Afters and Yard Sale Finds

Oh boy, have I got a lot to share!

First of all, I want to show you a couple of things that I just took to the consignment shop.

Remember those two chairs that I painted with my very own serendipitously concocted Robin's Egg Blue?

Well, I had to get some more. A yogurt container full was NOT enough. So I took my stir stick to the Home Depot and they color matched it for me. Now I own a quart of Satin Latex in a color that is mine, all mine! :)

I had a couple of these wooden boxes laying around that I wanted to give a face lift to. This one contained a set of bath gels and such.

A coat of paint, a little diluted brown acrylic for glaze and some sandpaper produces a much prettier look.



I used to put my children's clothing patterns in this one, but recently haven't been using it for anything.

Browsing Miss Mustard Seed's blog recently inspired me to try some hand painting, which is something I've never been very good at. (You have to check out Miss M.'s furniture photo gallery- she is so amazing!!)



This box definitely needed some handles, so I drilled a couple of holes in each end and added some apple green grosgrain ribbon.

This chair hasn't gone to the shop yet, but it will next week. It started off dark, dated and just kind of blah.

Here it is with a coat of primer...

...and then some of my Robin's Egg Blue. I wanted to do some detail, so it got a swallow silhouette that has shown up in many of my other projects.

A little distressing and it's ready to go!

Are you as excited as I am that it's finally yard sale season again? Truthfully, I didn't go yardsaleing last year. Not once. So early Friday morning with no shower and a hat on I hopped in my car with 3 children in their pj's and some cereal in baggies for breakfast and off we went! I'd checked Craigslist the night before for listings and wrote down a couple of addresses nearby, but I was also keeping my eyes open for signs. First of all, it turns out that I didn't need to get such an early start. Even when people say they're going to start their sale at 8:00, it's at least 8:30 before they appear. So we did a lot of aimless driving around. Like, a LOT. But the kids were great and didn't mind when I'd pull over, jump out and keep them locked in the car while I'd browse.

We didn't really find that many sales, and I only came home with one thing.
One. Thing.
After 3 hours! But it was a cute thing anyway.
You guessed it- a chair!

It's in nice shape and has some gold painted details and stenciling.

I'm not real crazy about the stenciling. I like the detail it provides, but this chair may be another candidate for some hand painting.

The biggest thing about this chair that needs addressing is the *ahem* seat.
Yes, that's a butt print. It's actually imprinted into the paint! Nothing a little sandpaper can't take care of, though.

After a discouraging first attempt on Friday morning I decided that Saturday would probably be more fruitful. I was right, but not after wasting about an hour waiting for sales to start and, again, lots of aimless driving. I only took my daughter with me this time and she enjoyed herself as much as I did.

Here's what we came home with:

small wooden bookcase: $3

antique magazine rack: $6 (from a thrift store)

wooden piano bench: $2



coffee table: $5

little rocking horse: $4

antique sheet music: $1

After seeing what Miss Mustard Seed has done with Mod Podge and old sheet music on a couple of her pieces, I'm excited to try it out on something.
This week I'll be busy working on furniture and trying to clear some out of my garage so I can go yardsaleing again next weekend! :)