Great Thrift Store Day

There isn't too much that I like better than a thrift store or a yard sale.  I love estate sales too, but they always seem to be a little pricey.

I am so excited about my first item.  As I've mentioned before, I want to distress some furniture with chalk paint.  I did make my own chalk paint and I'll show you the results from that a little later.  It was OK, but I'm getting ready to break down and buy the real stuff - Annie Sloan.

I didn't actually get this piece at a thrift store.  It was a Craigslist.org find.

How great is this going to look re-finished with chalk paint and wax?!?  I think I'm going to do a light greyish color, but I'll have to look at the Annie Sloan paint chart and see.  Annie Sloan Chalk paint is not sold in my town, so I'm going to have to order it online.  I hope it doesn't take long to get, because I am really excited about do this.

I watched the best videos by Christen Bensten on using the chalk paint.  I'm feeling pretty confident.

Next, I found this cute little chair.  I plan to paint this with the chalk paint also.  I need to go to JoAnn's tomorrow to get some pretty fabric to recover the seat.

 

And lastly - a gorgeous frame.  The print is actually kind of pretty, however, I'm always looking for nice ornate frames and this one is great.  My plan is to paint the frame and make a chalkboard.  It's 24" wide and 28" high, so it would make a really beautiful piece.

 

 

When I got home from the thrift store, I went into a little painting frenzy.  I finally painted the pedestal cake plate that I made.  I glued a silvertone tray to a brass candle holder.  I still need to add a clearcoat.

 

 And, I painted some more Sirocco.  The shelf is actually the same green color as the cake stand, above.  It doesn't look green in the photo.  The shelf has 2 sconces that go with it.

 

That's it for now.  Peace, Cyndi 



3 Vintage Milk Glass Lamps

The Acquisition

It was a beautiful morning for yard sales. The sun was shining.  The birds were singing. And then...at a nice yard/estate sale, I spotted 4 cute, little, milk glass lamps.  After turning and flipping and tapping them for a couple minutes, I asked the price.   Two dollars a piece!   "Great", I said, as I was thinking of all of the adorable possibilities for them.  As I was looking around for a box to hold them, a very stern woman walked up to the table and helped herself to one of my lamps.   With a smile, I told her that I was buying all 4 of them. "You won't mind if you just get three" she snapped and turned to the yard sale owner to ask the price. The lady holding the yard sale looked confused because she knew that I was getting them . She said $2, nervously and the snippy woman bellowed "$2.00" to her husband.   As he handed her the bills I could tell that he was a man who's spirit had been broken long ago.   I was so shocked by her aggressiveness that I was at a loss for words. Then to top the whole thing off, she decided that she didn't want the one in her hand, so she grabbed one of the ones that I was putting in the box, saying "you don't care which one I get."

Now, inside I was furious.   I was mad at the woman because she was so rude and mad at myself because I allowed her to do it.  I thought of my long time friend from high school.  She would have said NO and slapped her with the lamp cord if she had continued to persue it.

I know that in the big scheme of things, little white lamps are not that important, but WHAT'S WRONG WITH PEOPLE?

The Dissassemblage

Prior to last week, I had no idea how a lamp was put together, but I took another lamp apart the other day and now I'm hooked!   I took each of the little, milk glass lamps apart, carefully keeping the lamp parts separate. My plan is to sand, prime and paint all of the metal parts, put them back together, and make a cute shade.   I'm not really sure what colors I'm going to go with.   Should I paint the parts gold or should I do something different like blue or yellow?  We'll see.   I'll put pictures up when they're finished.

The Lamps - as you can see I already took the middle one apart.

Al three lamps disassembled.

A lamp is really just a stack of things on a rod with a socket at the top.

Here's the video on rewiring lamps.