Vintage (ish) Paris Flower Box Tutorial

Well it’s time for another Super Masculine Project from Cheltenham Road……

I’ve mentioned before that sometimes I see a piece of furniture and know instantly what I want to do with it – repair, color, style everything.

That sometimes happens with little project too.  I see something in a magazine or on a blog and think “I HAVE to make that!”

Such was the case when I came across this terrific tutorial for a salvaged wood toolbox at A Diamond in the Stuff.Doesn’t that look cool!?  All made from things she had hanging around.  Her tutorial is great and she just made it seem so, I don’t know…. do-able that I had to try it myself.  And I knew exactly how I wanted to do it.

Of course, this makes no sense.  I have no need for decorative salvaged wood tool boxes, the style I have in mind has nothing to do with anything in my home nor with anything I sell.  But I had all the pieces!  It seemed so straightforward!  It seemed so cool! I had to do it!

So I dove in.

Materials You will need

• Two fence posts ($2.35 each)
• 1 spindle (i used a leftover you could buy one from Home Depot)
• Paint – flat latex leftovers are perfect
• A Candle
• Screws
• Spackle (optional)
• Wax (optional)

Tools

• Saw (or you could have the guys at Home Depot do the cutting)
• Drill
• Sander
• Blender Pen (optional)

Cut List

• Sides: 2 @ 17″
• Bottom 1 @ 16″
• End Caps 2 @ 10″
• Spindle 16″

A Note on the Cut List: My fence posts were 1/2″ thick – yours may be different so measure and calculate before cutting

I was going for a two-color, chippy look so I didn’t do any sanding and got right to painting both sides of every piece with my under-color which was a leftover blue.

After that coat had dried I took my trusty candle and rubbed it, randomly, everywhere.

Then I gave everything  a quick coat of flat white (leftover ceiling paint actually) and set it aside to dry thoroughly – like overnight thoroughly.

When the paint was dry I attached a course grit sandpaper to my sander and went over everythingThis step produces the “chippy” look but it clogs up the sandpaper pretty quickly.  Since I do this method a lot for my candle blocks and letters I’ve taken to saving old sanding disks that are just about headed to the trash to use for this.

For my version of these boxes I wanted to use some old french graphics.  So I put a blender pen under my pillow when I went to bed and, as I was promised, the Graphics Fairy came and left me these – already reversed and ready to go.The Blender Pen method requires a laser printer, working quickly and elbow grease.

Print out your image on plan copy paper, immediately lay it, face down on the surface of the wood, take your blender pen and rub like you’ve never rubbed before (seriously, you have to press pretty  dang hard).Next up assembly.

I marked each piece where they would connectAnd then marked where I wanted to drill my pilot holes.  Pilot holes are key to preventing the wood from splitting. (tip: to ensure that the spindle would be level I placed the end pieces on top of each other and drilled through both of them at the same time to create the pilot holes in the exact same spot on both)

The fence wood is very soft so the screws ended up nicely recessed but I wanted to cover them up further so I just dabbed a little spackle over each one and then a little touch up paint – now you can’t see them at all.  After a light coat of past wax it was time to rummage in the yard for flowers.Very simple, very inexpensive!

(you will have noticed there are two of them.  The two-fence-piece- method leaves you with leftover wood so I made a second, smaller version)

Now what to do with these super-manly objet d’art…….

When Life Gives you Lemons

Well, I’m happy to say that life certainly hasn’t given me lemons.  (My backyard did though – I have a lemon tree bush that is like something from that episode of Gilligan’s Island  – it just produces tons of lemons year round.   It’s wonderful!  But I digress)

No, no lemons from life.  However, I do feel like I’ve fallen in an Etsy hole.  It seems to happen every few months.  Things are cruising along fine – sales are great, views are good, lots of activity and then WHAM!  Darkness falls and suddenly it all gets very, very quiet.

I’m getting used to the cycle however and trying to use the time wisely.    So, in this lull I’m trying to come up with new products and new ideas.

And here is where it all ties back into lemons (see what I did there?).

I love the graphics on these old, French lemon syrup labels (if you click on the pic it will take you to the Etsy listing).  In a rare moment of…something… I actually kind of like these pictures I took too.

However, I do not like that every time I need to take a picture it somehow requires me to tear apart my entire house.  I mean, seriously, we’re talking about a 3.5×3.5 inch coaster and I managed to trash the bedroom, the living room and the kitchen trying to snap a pic as I ran from room to room muttering “I’m loosing the light!!!!! I’m loosing the light!!!!!”

Everything did not come up Rose Bowl

It happened again!

The Rose Bowl suddenly snuck up on me and I was (wait for it!) UNPREPARED!

So I ran around like a crazy person finishing up tons of projects while – never one to focus on just one aspect of my life at a time – simultaneously closing the run of the play I was in.

Planning?  I don’ t need no stinking planning!

I did some more work with my Blender Pen on some End Table Nirvana tables (man that was a good day!).  And thanks to the generosity of The Graphics Fairy I was pleased with the outcome.

Here are the “before” shots as a reminder:

Of course I didn’t really put the final touch on them until Saturday  so I was in a hurry to take photos.

I decided to make use of the natural outside light rather than trying to stage something indoors but I think all I managed to do was make it look like they had just escaped and were making a run for it.

Keeping with my Frenchy theme I had some solid oak chairs that I had purchased for a song a very long time ago.  In my homage to Miss Mustard Seed I had splurged on some French Grain Sack material and gave a shot at that vintagy, frenchy, shabby, look (apparently the chairs also made a break for it).

Throw in some magnetic chalk boards

Some vintage Halloween goodness,

And I was all set.

The Booth looked festive!

The people showed up!

There was a lot of looking and pointing and exclaiming!

But

Nobody bought anything!

I went from September being my best month ever to October being my worst month ever.  Ugh.

I understand markets are unpredictable (hello my 401K) but sheesh!

Ah well.  Onward!

At least Etsy sales have been robust  and now, when I suddenly realize in early November that, “oh my god the Rose Bowl is next week!”  I won’t have to do much!

(that would be the lemonade-I-made-from-lemons-half- filling-my-glass perspective)

Shall we link?

It (kinda) Worked!

I’m scrambling to get my Mod PodgeRocks tutorial turned in but I just wanted to do a teaser for that little table I tried and failed to transfer the image onto.

It worked!  Sorta….

I’m not sure what to do when something works.  How am I supposed to wittily complain about success?

I’ll find a way I’m sure.  It’s how I roll.

Anyway, here’s how it came out the second time around:

I’ll share details on what I’ve learned about Blender Pens tomorrow as well as the scoop on that acting job that I’m being so superstitious about and the two (really?  two?  that never happens)  auditions that I just found out about.  Ack!

Hope everyone had a good weekend.

David