Zig Zag Pottery

So my latest completely nerdy thing this year is going to the pottery painting place (with a friend...of course) and painting salad plates. I also made a butter dish that I'm quite fond of. Hopefully in October I'll be able to enroll in some community pottery classes and make my own pieces. I never conquered centering when wheel throwing so I've always had some hang ups with ceramics but I'm working on some ideas for slab / hand built pieces.

Here's my salad plate from last week:

Chairs and more Chairs

Went to the Monday auction today. We're currently stripping the wallpaper from the 12 foot ceilings in the second living room/dining room which has proven to be a nightmare. So, meanwhile I'm trying to focus my positive thoughts on the dining area. I managed to grab a set of antique ice cream parlor chairs for $20. I also found a great table/2 bench set of iron hairpin legs at the auction today for $22 (not bad since a new set of legs is between $65-$80 and now I have three sets to mess around with). Unfortunately they came attached to a weirdly patriotic picnic table from the 60's that must have come straight out of the VFW rec room. I thought I would take the legs off and discard the heinous table tops at the auction-- but as life would have it the screws were rusted so badly they couldn't be loosened. Once I got home and pulled the dirty benches out of my now soiled car, I realized that the wood of the tables was so badly rotted that all you had to do was put your weight on the legs and the screws just ripped out of the rotted wood-- fabulous. The entire experience made me seriously reconsider the idea of any type of reclaimed wood, specifically watching all the varieties of termites and wood-eating insects that crawled out of the joints of this ugly table.

The world's tackiest picnic table? Possibly. Not gonna lie, I SORT OF liked the benches but they were too rotted to save.



Last week I bought two vintage school chairs from a church basement for almost nothing and spray painted (I liked the original patina but they were too rusty to be used regularly)... all better now. I'd like to distress them a bit but I've never done that to metal before.

(BEFORE)


(AFTER)

Coffee Table Makeover

Here are some before/after pictures of my coffee table refinish job. I have a Lane Acclaim series 1960's coffee table that I love the shape of but the piece was stained brown and had accumulated a quarter inch of Pledge residue over its lifetime. I bought a matching end table at a flea market this summer for $5 that was being sold as a microwave stand, so I used that as the test subject before redoing my coffee table.

(Above is the table completely sanded). The first and worst step is stripping the varnish off. This is completely awful, no way around it. I started with all the environmentally friendly stuff and by the end I had goggles and ventilation masks on, using chemicals that started melting my rubber gloves. The end result is not very rewarding, it actually looks like you ruined your furniture but it made sanding easier. After I sanded the piece down, I used a tung oil finish. I did about two coats and sanded with steel wool between them.

As you can see I still need to paint the tips of the legs black like the original tables. I also found the perfect location for the red wire vintage basket I picked up for free at an auction.

1962 House & Garden; Book of Interiors

Some images to inspire from 1962 copy of House & Garden; Book of Interiors.
I am loving that suspended boat.

A little wednesday afternoon project

this, that and the other

Woke up early to a beautiful, sunny morning-- went to the weekly auction-- didn't find anything too exciting so I came home and decided to work on a few projects from last week.

Yay, the spring blossoms survived the torrential rain over the last few days.
Photos taken this morning. The weeds seems to be thriving too.

I bought a much-needed record cabinet for $7 from the local thrift store on Friday. The cabinet was just particle board with wood legs but it was really dinged up with that telltale crap-furniture 1950's "blonde" faux-finish. I figured I couldn't really go wrong even if I hated the end result so I decided to spray paint it white. Andrew liked the diagonal faux wood grain on the cabinet doors so those were left as is.





I got a cute little chair for $1 (shown below), unfortunately it came with complimentary rust stains from where the auctioneers decided to put rusty dumbbells on top of the white upholstery.

easy upholstery cleaning formula: 1/4 C liquid detergent + 2 C water
Use a short bristled clean scrub brush to work into a lather-- this sounds like an obvious formula but it worked like magic on stains I couldn't even get out with OxyClean. I thought the upholstery wasn't salvageable it was so dirty and it came out looking great, took the rust stains out too. Trying to decide whether I should leave the wood finish or paint the chair.

Beach Bum Berry Review

The cold start to April has been bumming me out so I finally ordered three spring/summer books from Amazon that I've been eyeing all winter. Salads, drinks and more drinks. A sampling from the Simply Salads index: prosciutto wrapped melon slices, thai beef strip marinade with peanut dressing, wild mushroom saute, lobster salad with grapefruit vinaigrette... I'm picturing watching the sunset from my patio on a balmy summer night, finishing off a pitcher of sangria. SIGH. 2 more months of rainy, cool weather to go.

Sippin' Safari book description courtesy of Amazon:

"The new book by the Author of The Grog Log, Intoxica and Taboo Table. Beach Bum Berry as he is better known is America's leading authority on tropical drinks and Polynesian pop-culture. In this all new book, Berry not only offers up tantalizing new drink recipes, but tells stories about some of the most famous figures of their time. The Bum applies the same dogged research to the untold stories of the people behind the drinks. Stories culled from over 100 interviews with those who actually created the mid-century Tiki scene -- people as colorful as the drinks they invented, or served, or simply drank. People like... Leon Lontoc, the Don The Beachcomber's waiter who served Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando by night, and acted in their movies by day..."

Berry discloses once secret recipes from some of the most popular Tiki bartenders of the bygone era. Here's my Tiki-inspired Etsy Treasury (link here) to go with the read...which I recommend for anyone with a soft spot for faux Polynesian kitsch and a sense of humor. The stories are as enjoyable as I hope the drinks will be.

Quilts and A Sound Off

First quilt, auction find. I loved all the 1940s novelty print fabrics they used.



After I bought it, I turned it over and found another quilt on the back:



The pattern is called "Grandmother's Flower Garden." It needs some seam repair but no shattered quilt squares. I'm waiting for a nice warm day to wash these and lay them out in the yard to dry on blankets. I was prepared to go to $50 on this one but somehow I got it for $5.

Yesterday I had another great quilt find at a local thrift store for $8 (pictured below). It's in great shape, I thought it was machine quilted but when I flipped it over I saw all the hand-quilting and the names embroidered on the edge. I think the pattern is called "Tree of Life" or some variation of that. Very pretty-- I love the way they quilted it too!



Third quilt, embroidered bunnies! Ideally I'd like this one in a guest room but until I find a better centerpiece for above the bed, it stays. I think this is circa 1930s/1940s. Ebay splurge for $35.



I also thought I'd throw in some cute ceramics:

$2, little owl dish


$4, handmade ceramic heart dish

A Few Good Reasons to Buy Vintage:

1. Your money goes back into community programs and local charities through thrift stores instead of the pockets of megacompany CEOs exploiting impoverished people in developing countries with no labor laws or environmental restrictions.
   
2. Less in the landfills. Buying vintage not only saves items from going into landfills but it saves the earth from the waste byproduct and subsequent production industry pollution of creating new items.
   
3. Investment value. Vintage and antique items retain their value which increases over time.
   
4. Furniture was made to last... out of real wood by real craftsmen…a novel concept for the Ikea addict. Items were made from better materials with better manufacturing standards.
   

If people really knew how most items they purchase were made they would probably feel sick with guilt or foolish at the dirt cheap cost to make the item versus the markup they paid for it. You don't have to sacrifice quality when buying used items. If anything you sacrifice quality when you buy crappy particle board furniture from I*** with a life expectancy of 5 years. And really...you aren't just sacrificing quality, you are destroying the planet--- we don't have enough resources to support this made to break consumer society. I'm in no way implying that you can't buy quality clothing or furniture today. Just saying that we've all collectively lowered our standards for a good shopping bargain but there is no such thing, you get exactly what you paid for, poorly made junk and a worse environment from the production process.

I'm not saying don't shop at Target, Ikea, etc. I'm saying... why not check secondhand resources and artisan shops first.

Tripod Lamp DIY

I haven't posted on here for awhile. I've been sort of overwhelmed with DIY projects but in a good way. A few weeks ago I bought a woodslice that I sanded down and now I'm looking for some hairpin legs to repurpose. I'm currently in the middle of making a tufted cushion for a mid-century cedar chest and finally I came across a vintage wooden telescope tripod I've been searching for on Monday.

Some inspiration:

Ethan Allen $536 . Pottery Barn $299 . Macy's $325

My version:

Total cost: $15 lampshade, $2 vintage telescope tripod, $5 cord = 22.00

(Saved some money by reusing the socket and harp from a lamp I was going to discard). I also added using a hacksaw, pipe cutters and wiring a lamp socket to my skill set. There's a great tutorial online for this too, check out this blog post.

A Tiny French Book

There are few things more precious than tiny books filled with beautiful illustrations of sea life.
This is one of my favorites, "Le Royaume De La Mer," copyright 1943.

Illustrations by Ernest Flammarion

A Sketch and Two Postcards

  
I finally dusted off my sketchbook today and put it to use. I'm ordering my plane ticket for Northern California next week to visit my parents this summer... hoping to spend 3 weeks there and travel north through Portland and Seattle to Vancouver, staying at campgrounds along the way. The town my parents live in is a 1960's small-town time capsule named Paradise, located 30 minutes outside of a slightly more populated town called Chico. The main street has old signs and storefronts that haven't been updated in decades and the general feel is a rundown mountain town surrounded by canyons. It's glorious.

Be Mine

A few valentine-inspired romantic items for my wishlist. How cute are the stamp sets at VerdeStudio?

1. Jeffrey Campbell Internship Interview Wedge $142    2. Happ & Stahns Eau De Parfum $68 Anthropologie

3. French English Gray Patent Leather Scallop Satchel $100    4. Dahlia Heart Print Chiffon Dress $111 ASOS

5. VerdeStudio Apple of my Eye stamp set $6.25 Etsy    6. Kiel Mead Forget Me Knot Ring $56, Fredflare

Bookworm

Below are a few pen and ink illustrated bookplates I made for gifts this holiday. My friend Veronika let me use her 9" Xyron "Creative Station" sticker machine-- shown here. I'm definitely thinking of investing in one-- for $50 this would be good for making personalized address labels too and it can be used for laminating and magnets, super easy--you just turn a crank.

I always get excited when I find an Ex Libris inside an antique book.
These are a few of my favorite bookplates from researching online:

A Very Retro Christmas

This weekend I put up the Christmas tree. I spent a long time searching ebay for a vintage aluminum pom pom tree but in the end decided I wanted a fuller looking tree. I got a white tree this year which I think still has a retro feel. Last year I was lucky enough to stumble upon an entire box of 1960's christmas tree ornaments in perfect condition. Sets of flocked green and pink bells, little plastic marching men, clowns, angels and elves. I was excited to finally put them on display!

This weekend was also my family's annual gingerbread house "competition". Andrew and I decided to go with a pretzel log cabin design this year. Here's the recipe if you are interested (add 1-2 cups more flour than the recipe calls for), roll the dough out 1/4" thickness. There are lots of templates online for houses. Cut the windows before baking, allow at least 3 days for the pieces to harden before assembling. Here are some photos from the event:

(the guy on the left is chopping wood with an axe -- andrew's creation)