thrifty thursday

Today I am taking a leaf out of my friend Catherine's book and doing a Thrifty Thursday post.

 Saturday was Second Hand Saturday in our area, and there were tonnes of garage sales to go to.

B4 and I hit the trail early, VCH had to work as they were having a sale at his business. 

 I bought these at a garage sale and paid $5 for them. 

The guy who was selling them is a collector so I was a little surprised at the price, but the coffee canister lid was a little damaged, (I started fixing it before I took the photo) so didn't think they were worth much.

On Monday I started painting them, then later as I was searching for some ideas for labels,
 I came across a set on eBay for sale for $60- oops!

 A metal peacock chair $5
I am debating about whether or not to redo the cushion as the cover is in perfect condition.
But if I leave it I will have to paint it in something that matches red.


This little table $3 from another sale, but I think I will do them up as a matching set.


A clock, I got it with the table.
It doesn't actually work, but am hoping I can fix it, or I will turn it into a cool piece of art, to go with the other two pieces.

 This cool trolley I got for $10, I am going to "redeem" it to hold things at my market stalls!

 Old magazine rack $5

 A paper towel holder I got this and a metal candle holder for $5,
 bundling as the American Pickers would say.

 I little table with storage underneath, $5

I just need to remove all the blu-tack from the edge first!

 $10 for this cute little trolley.

 A little kids deck chair $5, my two big boys had similar ones when they were little.

We paid $2 for this table and 2 chairs (not shown), the table top was chipboard that had swollen, with a laminate on top.
B4 has started to get the old top off for me.
Plus loads of other cool stuff, not bad for a Saturday haul.


This piece however was a Friday find.
I happened past an op shop on my way to get groceries and just thought I would pop in and have a look see, when I spied this beauty.
It has two drawers and is a lovely old timber piece, I thought by the wood on top that it may have been an old luggage stand, but I am not sure.
 I am hoping to be able to take those bits off and turn it into a cool ottoman.

Lots of work happening here at the moments getting ready for a Christmas market in a couple of weeks.
I will be back with some cool  makeovers, soon!

kids collection

Just thought I would round up my market coverage by showing you some lovely kids items I did.

The table and chairs were originally made by VCH when our oldest two were little.

 They have been redeemed several times in their life,

 however as all our children have grown out of kid's tables and we don't have room to store furniture for years on end waiting to give them to grandchildren or such, I decided it was time to pass them on.

Here they are previously in The Girl's room.

So for it's final makeover I chose to keep the white that they had been painted and to just give them a good distressing and a good scrub.

I then recovered the seats in an aqua polka dot Mexican oil cloth.

The table top I repainted in a light aqua and lightly distressed it.

 

 The other cute item I did was to redeem two old bedside tables into a little retro kitchen.

The tops were an old laminate so perfect for a kitchen.

I painted the sides on both and front on one with Rustoleum's 2x sun yellow.

VCH made the backs and the oven door and I painted them and the legs in grey. 

An old tap and a metal bowl were added to make a sink unit and I finished it with a cute curtain.

The oven dials were from an old BBQ, that the kind man at the dump gave me, and the hotplates are old CD's painted black.

VCH fixed the handle on the oven after the photo was taken.

They were greatly admired at the markets and went home with a new owners.





 

dandelion dreams

 Today I thought I would share a piece I did recently and just loved.

In fact if I had a smaller family I would have been tempted to keep it.

It started out when I picked up 6 chairs at a local op shop for $40.

 I decided to find a table to match them.

I found a table on a local buy swap and sell Face Book site, it was extendable, although I don't think it would work well to sit 6 around it as you would have to sit with your legs either side of the table leg.

(sorry can't seem to find a piccy of the original)

I decided that I would just do up 4 chairs to match and keep the other 2 chairs for something else.

I had it in my mind that I wanted to paint the chairs black and have the seats in a white fabric with a black motif. 

When saw this dandelion fabric I fell in love!

Thinking about the table I decided I would do black legs with a white top.

With my mind whirring away (as it tends to do at times) I thought it might be cool to go one step further 

and put a dandelion on the table top.

This was quite a huge step for me as I am no artist.

But I decided that a dandelion should be simple to draw so why not give it a go, 

if it didn't work I would just paint over it and no one would be any wiser!

I tried keeping the dandelions fairly similar to the fabric,

 painting (or rather drawing with a thick black sharpie) two large dandelions on either side of the shut table.

 

I then opened up the table and  drew two smaller dandelions, 

again similar to the fabric as it also had dandelions of various sizes.

I took this piece to the markets on Saturday and it was greatly admired.

It didn't sell on the day but a lady who saw it and loved it, rang me on Monday to see it had sold and has since purchased it and VCH delivered it to it's new home this morning.

(apologies if you notice the watermarks say redeemed, I usually watermark for both when I edit them, but I must have been in a hurry and only did the one and couldn't be bothered to go back and edit all the photos again this morning)

market makeovers

 Here are a few  make-overs that came to the markets with me on Saturday.

This box came to me without a base, bit it was solid and heavy.

We put a new base and some castors on it and painted grey inside and used homemade white chalk paint on the inside.

It was then heavily distressed and I applied decals to the front,

and the back, with a grocery theme.

If it didn't sell I was going to bring it home to use to store wood next to the fireplace, but someone loved it and it is on it's way to a new home.

 I picked this stool up at an op shop 

 and repainted it grey and added this Parisian fabric,

 it went home with a little girl who happened to have a quilt in the same fabric.

 I can't seem to find a before shot of this chair, maybe because we has to fix the front legs so it sat upside down on a table for a while.

The original fabric was green and while it was in fairly good condition on the top it was ripped at the bottom.

I sprayed it charcoal with an upholstery spray paint.

I sprayed the woodwork with a an almost identical colour and then I painted on Miss Mustard Seed's Milk Paint in Ironstone over the top and then distressed it.

 We reupholstered the base in the same Parisian fabric. 

VCH has bought a staple gun for the air compressor and that made the job super easy, I held the fabric and he stapled it on.

  I covered up a couple of little holes on the top part with a small piece of the fabric.

It has gone to a salon in town.

 Here is a lamp that we were also given. It just needed a little gluing to get it right and then I painted it in the same charcoal colour,

and made a new lamp shade for it.

This was the tricky part, but I think it came out OK for my first time.

 Here is the completed lamp.

It came home with me, but that's OK as there is always a next time!

For those of you who are going to ask, 

I had a fabulous position at the markets right on a corner where everyone has to go past and that meant a two sided frontage. 

The sites are huge 5m x 5m so plenty of room to spread out!

I sold quite a lot of stuff and made a nice profit.

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