What do You Do When you're Done with a House?

Well, what I seem to do is 1. put is away, 2. admire it for a while, then 3. take it apart for the joy of creating something new with it! For me it seems, it's the process, not the end product that is therapeutic so I just can't leave well enough alone for long. I've been enjoying making lots of little things lately that really don't fit in any one house so what should I do with the shabby chic, country style and child accessories? I'll put them in a flea market style shop with booth areas of various styles, a wonderful hodge-podge of things that I like that don't have to match each other one little bit. The Orange Blossom is no more! As you can see, the owners are still moving in and getting their things out of storage...

Vintage Graphic Art Meets Furniture

I have this thing for vintage signs and labels; the whole graphic design-meets-antiques is so appealing to me! Years ago in Country Living Magazine I saw an ad for a dresser that was decoupaged with an old vintage poster across the drawer fronts. Since my husband wouldn't quite understand me doing that to our real life furniture, I get to try it in mini! That's what this hobby is for, right? Totally whimsical and just fun to do! The fruit butter cabinet above has the ends of fancy toothpicks for handles.Moo-ving right along (ha, ha)...Bess Milk label is just quirky and fun enough to liven up my neutral kitchen in the Beacon Hill. Each panel opens downward to be a vegetable bin, holding potatoes and onions and the like. I might have to age it a bit to mellow it.
The dry sink probably won't be in this room, but it's fun to see the country and vintage theme coming together. Just keeping it country :)

A Little Bit Country...

... but not at all rock-n-roll! I found this House of Miniatures drysink kit already assembled for $2 at a odds and ends store and decided that since dry sink= country, I would go all out with a aged painted finish like you see in Pennsylvania dutch furniture. It had to be painted because...
... whoever assembled the kit previously intended to stain it and mixed stain with the glue to make sure there would be no glue spots showing when they stained it after assembly. Ingenious! Not the color stain I wanted though, so I got to play with paint. Can you see the dark brown spots at the joints?
Below you can see the silvery grey aging that I added by painting on a mixture of black India ink and rubbing alcohol. It works miracles! After that dried, I painted, sanded, applied stain over the paint and sanded some more.
From blotchy natural wood to weathered and worn, just the way I like it. Now if only I could figure out how to make hardware...