THIS IS WHAT WE FOUND!

Today is an appropriate day for this post. It's the winter solstice and tonight is the best view for the Christmas Star. The two largest planets in our solar system will be closer together than they have been in centuries, and it's happening just in time for Christmas— hence the nickname of the "Christmas Star." And while it's not an actual star, the two planets will certainly make a bright splash in the night sky—a holy night. This 8 x 10 frame came in a box of misc vintage artwork. There was no art in this particular frame. It was this beautiful green color. Perfect for a Christmas project! I thought about cutting a piece of wood to fit the frame, but then I pulled this sheet of rusty metal from my stash. The rust complemented the color of the frame. We used a Dremel to trim the metal sheet to 8 x 10 to fit the frame. This artwork came from the the Silhouette library store. I downloaded the artwork and cut a sheet of gold vinyl using my Silhouette Cameo 3 device. We sealed the rusted metal with a coat of polyurethane. After it dried, we applied the vinyl. It stuck to the metal fairly well, but it was lifting in a couple of places. A coat of ModPodge solved that issue. A new hanger was added to the back and it was finished. Overall it took less than an hour (if you don't include the drying time of the polyurethane or the ModPodge. If you like my blog, please follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest! Just click on any of the social media links above! Thanks for following me on the junking journey!

I had been picking up tennis racket brackets at yard sales for a while now. I knew I wanted to transform them into frames somehow, but they had been sitting for a while. Last weekend I finally tackled this project! Some had a nice patina, some were unfinished wood. I took them apart. Some of the screws were rusted and were difficult to remove from the wing nuts. I added a coat of Traditional Pecan from Varathane to the pieces that were plain wood with little patina. It gave them a nice warm feel. Since the original screws were rusty, I replaced all the screws. I didn't want them to have a new look so I painted the tops black to look better with the wood. I had eight total of various sizes. They all have a nice warm patina now. I coated them all with a matte polyurethane. I twisted some jewelry wire and attached it to the springs between the brackets. I added a couple of clips and some images. The really make an unusual frame. The dual boards allow the piece to stand alone on a surface or they could be hung on a wall. I added a simple picture hanger on the back of the frame. This was a super simple project that took minimal skill and zero power tools. If you like my blog, please follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest! Just click on any of the social media links above! Thanks for following me on the junking journey! #tennis #racket #bracket #brace #frame #wood #wooden #photos #wire #hanger #mantle #repurpose #repurposed

Raindrop on roses and whiskers on kittens...I have never understood why "My Favorite Things" is played with Christmas music. But since it is, I thought I would share a few of my favorite vintage Christmas things as I am packing up my Christmas decor for another year. This little Noel plate has such great graphics. It is pretty small, about six inches. This vintage paper creche. It fits perfectly in my wooden star on my mantle. My new (old) sled (see the story here) and the tin litho tree stand. My Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer cake pan... and all my little cake pans! Did you know Rudolph was created by the Montgomery Ward department store in 1939? The commissioned the story to be written for a Christmas give away. I have one of the original books (already packed it away!). He is a legend now—and one of my favorite things! I use the cake pans as ornaments on my Christmas tree. I found these sweet silhouettes on the 127 sale a few years ago. There are many more favorite things, but I thought of this topic after I had packed up several items. Oh well, that just leaves me more to share next year! #Rudolph #Christmas #cakepan #sleigh #sled #tinlitho #treestand #creche #paper #manger #Noel #holiday

So you are moving in to your booth...Plan on it taking several hours, and I have an SUV, not a truck, so I have to make multiple trips when I load into a new space. I have been in five different antique malls over the last several years. I found some got zero traffic, some just were not a good fit for me, and some simply closed their doors and I had to find a new spot. I am currently in two separate shops in two different towns. Each are about 20 miles from where I live. One is in a town known for it tourism featuring the Amish that reside in that area. The other is a small town just outside of a larger city. I have two spaces right next to each other. I like the space in the lower photo because it has two walls. It is difficult to hang things on the brick wall, but the reclaimed wood wall has worked out well. When I was at my booth this past weekend, I found I had sold a lot of items off of the wall and I had not brought enough new items to fill it in. This is always a struggle. I have a few friends that are dealers and we help each other out by taking photos of each other's booths and sending them to each other when we are in our booths. It helps us see what has sold. I found this old baking rack at a garage sale. It is great for shelving and it is also for sale. I have put a really high price on it. I am willing to sell it but since it is so useful for shelving, someone would have to really want it and be willing to pay $$$ for it. This shelf is great for holding my postcard racks. There is also plenty of cubbies for other items. Speaking of postcards...sales of postcards pay for about 20% of my rent every month. I sell ordinary postcards for $1 each, booklets and specialty postcards (holiday, birthday, cartoon) for $3 to $5. They are always messed up when I get to my booth so I have to spend some time tidying them up, but they are well worth having in my booth. I have several vintage ladies hats in my booth. I showed how I made these displays here. I also have repurposed a basket display rack to showcase my hats. I found this barrel wine rack and knew it would be great to display my rolling pins (but the wine rack is for sale also!). This is one of my pet peeves. Every time I go to my booth, my linens are scattered everywhere, in complete disarray, and wrinkled. I spent a lot of time ironing these things! I always keep this shelf stocked with vintage cookbooks. They always sell. You need some showstoppers in your booth. Items that customers will ooooh and aaaaaaah over. The Chris Craft picnic set in the above photo is complete and is a perfect throwback to when times were simpler and picnics were common. The primitive handmade rocking horse is another crowd favorite. You need to move things around in your booth quarterly. Moving things around gives fresh eyes to customers that come in on a regular basis. You may have not added anything new, but moving it around will draw in repeat customers. They will definitely see things they haven't seen before. I always see a spike in sales when I have spent the time to rearrange. That's it for the series. I will post photos of my second booth in a future post. Feel free to reach out for questions. I am happy to share my experience! #booth

How cute is this little footstool? It's a tiny little thing, the needlepoint is so faded, but it's just adorable. I got it at an estate sale on the second day when everything was 50% off. I removed the top. It was adhered with four screws on the underside of the stool. Very easy to remove. This fabric had been on there for a while. All the staples were rusty, but they came out pretty easily. The underside of the fabric show how vibrant the colors once were. This also shows that this piece had gotten wet at some point in its history. Yuk! This board shows that it was wet at some point as well. The board was sturdy and not at all damaged from the water. It was easy to reupholster with a small scrap of fabric I had had left from another project which can be seen here. This was the last scrap of the fabric I picked up at Goodwill a while back for 99 cents. I added new foam and batting and reupholstered the top in about 10 minutes. The base was easy as well. I used Rustoleum Milk Paint in the Eclipse color (two coats) and distressed it and sealed it with a coat of polyurethane. I reattached the upholstered top to the base. The fabric piece I had left was the perfect size for this stool and the rooster was right in the middle of the swatch—perfection! I love projects like this—super simple and can be done in a day! Thank you for reading my blog! If you would like to see more, follow me on Facebook, Instagram,and Pinterest! Just click on any of the social media links above! Thanks for following me on the junking adventures! Below are some links to products I used in this project. Disclaimer: Junk is My Life is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. Below is an image to pin to Pinterest if you would like to save this idea!

There are some pieces that just get jostled around in my storage area. There are a variety of reasons—mainly time, but sometimes the piece just doesn't inspire me. I purchased this vintage record cabinet at a garage sale about three years ago. I had just finished painting a small, heavily distressed table in a celery green color. I thought this table would look great with the same treatment. The doors were hanging off and the knobs had not been applied in the same spot on each door. I found these embellishments in the craft section at WalMart on the day I started on this cabinet. I thought these would look great on the doors and add a little pizzaz to the piece. The embellishment already had adhesive on the back and it adhered to the doors really well. I painted the entire piece with Waverly chalk paint in the celery color. I used 60 grit sandpaper to heavily distress the piece. I wanted it to look like the paint had been on there forever and had worn off over time. I used Varathane Crystal Clear polyurethane in the Satin finish to protect the paint. I drilled new holes for the knobs and switched out the old knobs for vintage glass knobs. I reattached the doors to the base and it was finished. This cabinet would look great on a porch or in a sunroom. It has a fresh new finish but it looks like it has lived a long life. It just needed a few vintage accessories to complete it. Thank you for visiting my blog! If you would like to see more, please follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest! Just click on any of the social media links above! Thanks for following me on the junking adventures! Below is an image to pin to Pinterest if you would like to save this idea!

I buy a lot of ugly furniture. Dirty, tattered, damaged furniture. Mostly because it is inexpensive, but beyond that, I don't really see it as ugly, I can usually envision how it CAN look versus how it presently looks. Just like people, we all look better when we clean up a bit! I liked this chair because it looks like a miniature stool. It is the height of a chair but it is tall and skinny like a stool. Definitely child-size. The fabric was worn, torn and really dirty. The chair was caked with dirt. I mean caked. Where on earth was this thing stored? And how long did it sit there? All fixable. I removed the seat and cleaned the entire chair with Krud Kutter. This stuff works great—and I am not getting paid a dime to say that! I really like how it, well, cuts through the crud. After it was clean, I coated it with Folk Art Chalk Paint in Rich Black. I used 100 grit sandpaper to distress the piece in several places. Then I used Varathane Crystal Clear Polyurethane with a satin finish on the chair. I removed all the old fabric and padding and covered the seat with new foam, batting and a black and white ticking canvas fabric. I wanted to add a contrasting button on the seat so I used a small piece of black canvas material to make a fabric covered button. This is very easy to do. You can buy button cover kits at most fabric, craft or big box stores. I used waxed upholstery thread to attach the button to the seat of the chair. I reattached the seat to the chair. It is really cute now. Clean lines and really sturdy. It would be great as a time out chair. Who wouldn't want to spend some time on this? It's now ready for the next generation of use. It sold in less than a week after putting it in the shop. Before I even had a chance to write this post! If you like my blog, please follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest! Just click on any of the social media links above! Thanks for following me on the junking journey! Below is an image to pin to Pinterest if you would like to save this idea!

Footstools are easy to upcycle. They are typically inexpensive at yard sales, thrift stores and auctions. They are easy to paint and reupholster. I buy and sell a lot of them. I picked this one up at a yard sale. This little guy had had a couple of makeovers through the years. When I bought the piece, it had blue corduroy fabric. At some point in its history, it sported brown velour fabric. Finally, after stripping off the first two layers of fabric, I unearthed this gem. This fabric screams the 1970s. It was actually in pretty good shape. I considered keeping it as is—for about a minute, then I removed it. I removed the legs and painted them with Rustoleum Chalked Paint in the Pebble color. I could have just unscrewed them from the metal bases, but this way I could paint them while they were standing up. I selected a gray and white ticking canvas fabric and reupholstered the seat. Always begin in the center of each side, ensuring the fabric is straight. Carefully work your way out to the edges, rotating the piece to ensure the fabric remains aligned correctly. This is the finished piece with all the staples in place. I covered a button in matching fabric and used a needle and waxed thread to tuft the seat of the footstool. I was able to align the fabric on the footstool with the button. Then I heavily distressed the legs of the footstool. The heavy distressing allowed some of the white from a previous coat of paint to show through. Then it was sealed with Varathane Crystal Clear Satin Polyurethane. This project was very simple and can easily be completed in under an hour or so. It is really cute and works well as a footstool or it could be used as a time out stool tucked away in a quiet spot. If you like my blog, please follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest! Just click on any of the social media buttons in the sidebar above! Thanks for following me on the junking journey! Below is an image to pin to Pinterest if you would like to save this idea!

I always look through a pile of wood, old cabinet doors, and windows at a garage sale or auction. You never know what you will find and you just might come across a treasure! I purchased several pieces of wood from an estate sale. Each piece was $2. At estate sales, keep in mind the more you buy, the more willing they are to bargain with you. Also, if it is a couple of days into the sale, they are motivated to move the merchandise. Use that to your advantage! This piece came from an estate sale. I bought a whole stack of various pieces and have used them for various projects. I am not really sure what this was in a prior life, but something about it really intrigued me so it went in my pile at the estate sale. A coat of Varathane Crystal Clear Satin polyurethane made the wood grain stand out. I wanted to add an old medicine bottle to make a vase on the board. You can find old medicine bottles at garage sales and auctions. I bought a box of them at an auction and this purple one was in it. I didn't even mind the chipped lip. I puchased a bottle clamp from Hobby Lobby. You can buy them online or they are in the drawer knob section in the store. I always wait until they are 50% off—and they are on sale a lot! We used the clamp to bridge the gap in the wood piece. The bottle was added to the clamp and some lavender was added (fake—it was still winter!). These few pieces combined to make a stunning wall vase. A loop hanger was added to the back for hanging on the wall. If you like my blog, please follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest! Just click on any of the social media buttons in the sidebar above! Thanks for following me on the junking journey! Below is an image to pin to Pinterest if you would like to save this idea!

I have used cutter quilts for several projects. Bunnies and eggs for Easter, trees and stars for Christmas, there are several ways to upcycle quilts that have seen better days. They have gone over well in my booths so I created some hearts for Valentine's Day. I have used this quilt for several projects. It is almost completely used. I cut several patterns out of paper, just like we did in elementary school, folding paper in half and freehand cutting hearts. Sew the edges, leaving a small space open to add stuffing. Add some poly fiberfill to the inside of the heart and stitch closed. The hearts are then ready for display! The look great in this old wooden box I recently featured. They look great individually or in a group. The more the merrier! If you like my blog, please follow me on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest! Just click on any of the social media buttons in the sidebar above! Thanks for following me on the junking journey! Below is an image for Pinterest if you would like to save this project!

Every Wednesday in the little town of Shipshewana, Indiana hundreds of people come together for an auction. As with all auctions, you never know what you will find, but there are always treasures to be found in Shipshewana. I wanted to share some of the items that caught my eye yesterday. This cute little piggy bank caught my eye. The colors are vibrant and it was nestled in between two huge pickle jars. It looked like it was hiding and taking a nap. The graphics on this vintage metal sign scream farmhouse decor with the cow image and the beautiful blue color. It wasn't huge and would easily hang in a kitchen. I heard it sold for around $90. This vintage Coca Cola sign was awesome. Unfortunately, I missed it when it was being auctioned off. There are multiple rings going on simultaneously at the Shipshewana auction barn so unfortunately, you can easily miss items. This piece caught my eye immediately. It was a huge canvas with individual advertisements hand painted on the canvas. It was well worn in many places but the graphics were incredible. It was huge—probably 30-40 ft long and maybe 10 feet high. I wasn't by that space when it was auctioned but I think about who may have bought it and what their plans are for this wonderful piece. I don't know if you can see the carnival clown game in front of the canvas, but it was huge as well. It sold for over $1,200. There were so many things at the auction yesterday. I came home with a few things myself. Unfortunately nothing shown in this post. Stay tuned for future posts to see the treasures I brought home! If you like my blog, please follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest! Just click on any of the social media buttons in the sidebar above! Thanks for following me on the junking journey! #treasures, #auctionfinds, #vintageadvertisements, #piggybank, #haveacocacola,

It's been too cold to work on projects in the garage this winter. I came across this round wooden box last week at an auction. We call them cheese boxes in Indiana. I loved the green lid and the overall patina of this piece. I almost stuck a price tag on it and put it directly in the shop, but I thought I could add a little pizazz to it. I bought this artwork from the Silhouette store. I added the South Tree Market, NY, NY. to it. I cut a stencil out of vinyl and applied part of it to the side of the box. I wanted to add a little something to the lid, but not too much. I didn't want to cover up that beautiful green color. I wanted the art to look like it had been on the piece for a while so I used Folk Art Java Chalk Paint. I only used one coat because the coverage was pretty good and I didn't want a solid paint job anyway. After the paint dried, I peeled off the stencil and was left with this. I did a little light sanding to make it look like it was as old as the box. Never underestimate what a little distressing can add to your piece. I didn't clear coat it yet, but I will when the weather warms up a bit. I like to clear coat all of my projects stenciled with chalk paint so it won't "distress" any further. For now my trusty chalk dog statue can watch over it for a while. Thank you for reading my blog! If you would like to see more, follow me on Facebook, Instagram,and Pinterest! Just click on any of the social media links above! Thanks for following me on the junking adventures! Below are some links to products I used in this project. Disclaimer: Junk is My Life is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. #round #box #wooden #flower #market #chalk #dog #silhouette #FabFind