Fall decor with my wine crate

It is officially fall now...we have cool nights (and cool days for that matter), my basil bit the dust after a night that was too cool for it, and we have had the heat on for a couple of weeks now. Instead of worrying what comes next (shhhh...winter...eek!), I wanted to zhush up our front porch for the season and I thought using my wine crate would be perfect. In yesterday's post I gave some before shots, and today I'll debut the afters - I think it was the perfect little vessel for my front porch zhushing!

Here's hoping the squirrels (a) do not like gourds or (b) are starting to get verrrryyy sleepy and won't disrupt my crate of plenty.

Vintage wine crate makeover

You've probably seen vintage wine crates popping up here and there - I like the look of them for storage, and one of my favourite inspiration pics of one way to use them is here:

via Cozy.Cottage.Cute

Doesn't that look great in the nursery? I have also seen crates used as mini-gardens among other things. I have seen them at antique shops / fairs, but they always came with a hefty price tag ($40 for an old wooden box is a bit much in my books). As luck would have it, I was coming home one evening after work and saw a wine crate sitting on a neighbour's recycling bin, ready for the next day's garbage collection. The neighbour was outside, so I asked her if I could have it, she said sur,e so I grabbed it and took it home! I'm pretty sure she thought I was a little loony taking her wooden wine crate, but so be it. All in the name of DIY I tell ya.

I decided to stain it and figure out what I would do with it later....here's what it looked like:

Notice it's from France. Score.

I scraped off all the stickers and removed the nails and staples that had held the top on the box. Then I broke out the Walnut stain and got to work.

That's what it looked like with one coat...check back tomorrow to see the finished product and what I decided it's premiere would be!

DIY fabric covered tray

Today I'm keeping it light, but definitely remembering 9/11. My thoughts go out to all who were affected or suffered loss that day.

Onto the lighter side....

All summer the Mr. and I lamented about needing a tray to carry dishes outside for eating al-fresco. I finally found one at the end of August that needed a little face lift.

It was filthy...so I did a good clean on it and then started to remove the old shelving paper that was lining it.

Fortunately it peeled off pretty easily.

I decided I didn't want to paint the tray (been there, done that) so I thought I would line it with fabric. Initially I thought I would cover it so we could wipe it down, but the Mr. said we shouldn't really need to do that since we'll be using it primarily for dishes before / after eating, not for actual food. Good point.

I broke out some extra fabric I had from our master bedroom bench. it's durable since it's outdoor fabric which is a bonus. I laid it over the tray to measure, and traced the inside of the tray with pencil.

I cut out the fabric and sprayed the back with spray-adhesive, set it on the tray and pushed out any creases / bubbles (sort of like putting on a new iPhone cover...but wayyyyyy easier).

It's hard to tell from this photo, but the edges weren't great since I just cut the fabric and didn't hem it. The fabric was fraying a bit and not perfectly square with the tray. So I decided to add some ribbon to finish the edges off.

My first Aberfoyle adventure

On Sunday the Mr. and I ventured out to Aberfoyle!! For those not from 'round these parts, Aberfoyle is a huge outdoor antique market near Guelph ON and until Sunday I had NOT YET BEEN. There were definitely some amazing pieces there and a whole range of prices (some ridiculously good, some just ridiculous!). All in all it was fun to spend a sunny day there looking around.
I'll get to some of the fun stuff we saw in a second...but first I'll show you what we bought:

Yes ladies and gents...that rust sodden pan is all ours (and the only thing we came home with). There is a little story to go along, obviously :) It starts with the Mr. wanting to cook everything on the BBQ, and me being concerned about ruining our pans. Our compromise / conclusion was that we needed a cast iron pan, one that can withstand anything! Well...new cast iron pans are expensive, so we tried searching for them at garage sales with little luck. The Mr. spotted this beaut at Aberfoyle and decided we had to have it. He was excited about the project that lay in cleaning it up and de-rusting it, and excited about bartering for it at Aberfoyle. So, he knocked the seller down to $5 from $10 and the pan was ours.

Excitement reigned until this:



Why, yes, that IS a pristine cast iron pan that you see (same size)...it was priced at $15. With the steel wool attachment the Mr. has to buy for his drill to clean up the rusty one this one would have been CHEAPER. We had a good laugh about that...but the end of the story is that we have the rusty one...so keep an eye out for a Mr. before and after guest post :)

In the meantime, here is some of the fantastic stuff we saw at Aberfoyle. To be honest I expected more furniture, but there were mostly small trinkets. There were also a TON of doors, banister posts, and some smaller furniture (e.g. vintage crates). I'm sure it changes from week to week or month to month as well. If you haven't been I recommend it as a fun afternoon!

Thinking back, I can't believe I didn't buy this squirrel nutcracker. You put a nut in its mouth and then move the tail to crack it. How funny is that?

One man's trash is another's treasure...

Just last week I was reading Emily A. Clark's post 5 Things to Grab at Yard Sales. It's a great post with tips on items to buy at yard sales that will ALWAYS be useful. Pre-Blog Podium, the Mr. and I wandered Saturday morning for a coffee and pain au chocolat, and on our way back home a part of our street was having a yard sale! I looked around quickly at a few houses - focused on finding things that I actually liked AND were a good deal, not just clutter. We saw a bunch of junk (cassette tapes, anyone?), and a few treasures (to me) that I picked up:

How cute are those? A gold owl (seriously on-trend), and a (real) silver cup that I would love to use for a little vase for big flowers like peonies or hydrangeas. Can't go wrong with a unique / vintage take on a trend, and a high quality item. By the way...the owl was $4, the cup $1.50 - I obviously bargained to $5 for each because they were from the same seller.

Here's a pic of the owl in action:



I also bought this:

I know, kind of creepy to have a portrait of someone else, but I obviously bought it for the frame...and because it cost this much:

I heart deals, what can I say. But seriously, where else can you find a frame, of any size, for $2? It's begging to be spray painted (one of Emily's tips) - I'm thinking gold? Depending on what I put in there the existing finish could work too.

My next mission will be out-of-the-way antique markets...surely they won't have much for $2, but it's a fun treasure hunt none the less!

 

Antiquing in Ottawa

While I was in Ottawa a little while ago for a quick visit, I popped into a great antique market that my friend T turned me on to (Ottawa Antique market - which is conveniently down the street from her house). My mom and I popped in after I visited with T - here are some of the beauty items we saw (sadly nothing came home with me as I was taking the train back to Toronto).

This chair is gorgeous, and check out the stack of black books for filling up a shelf!

Beautiful blue Wedgewood pieces

If you saw my post on trends, you know that floral was one of them! I love how crowded / concentrated this floral pattern is.

Those are just some of my fun browsing finds - where is your favourite antique store / market?