MMS Milk Paint - The First Time...

Living in a Toronto suburb had its advantages when it came to ordering my first batch of MMS Milk Paint.  As Homestead paints is based out of Toronto, when I ordered my sample package of MMS paint, it was in my mailbox three days later!  No kidding!  Well, it went in my basement for about a month unopened...Until this week, when I built up the courage to open it up.

Let me back track and give you a little info about my psyche and what type of person I really am...

I'm the kind of person that:

• goes to the same dentist for the last 30 years even though he's in the heart of downtown, and I'm way up in the burbs.
• See's the same doctor for the last 15 years even though she only works two days a week and sometimes I have to wait three weeks for an appointment.
• bought an electric toothbrush about 20 years ago, but as my regular toothbrush was fine and dandy, never ever opened up the package. Eventually that electric toothbrush became more and more intimidating.  It reminded me that so much time had gone by and I still hadn't touched it...I had to give it away to Goodwill so I could sleep at night!

Anyway, as I didn't want my box of milk paint to haunt me, I conquered my inner sloth and ripped that sucker open!  It was like Christmas!  So much fun to order a whole package.

So I decided it was time to makeover this little beauty with my new paint.

I sanded the thick finish off the top because I didn't want the milk paint to peel off the top. I wanted a good adhesion.

Its a very simple table with nice details.

I decided on Typewriter, as I really like the look of dark charcoal paint with dark wood exposed underneath.

As I said previously, I don't really like too much chippy/peely so I added this to it:

And I followed all the instructions, especially about all the mixing...

The white is the bonding agent (which smells a lot like school glue).

It was a bit thin, definately thinner than Chalk paint, but the bonding agent gave it body, and it painted on easily enough.  However it was a bit runny and I had to go over areas to fix the runs/drips, but you can't catch them all...

It was a like/hate thing...before it dried, I thought that I would stick to ASCP once I had used up my MMSMP as its not cheap, but once it had dried, it had the nicest, smoothest finish ever!  I loved the way it smoothly coated the wood.  There was just two problems...

1.  The bonding agent (I'm assuming) caused the paint to ball up in spots and leave rubber like spots on the finish which I had to pick off.  See photo 2 and 3.
2. Once dried, the table top was black with dried white specks (like grains of salt) embedded on it.  I tried to paint over it with the leftover paint, but it was in the paint...so my finished table looks like someone sprinkled salt on it and then waxed it!

Overall, I liked it quite a bit, but now I'm anxious to paint without using the bonding agent to see if it makes any difference!   

Have any of you who have used MMSMP or any other brand, had any issues like the rubber balls or white specks?  If so, please let me know what you did.  Thanks :)

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Reverse Antique Dealing

Okay, I know the point of opening up a booth at an antique mall is to SELL your junk stuff, but I think I'm doing it wrong.   I mean I am selling some stuff, although not as much case goods as I'd like.  However it seems every time I go to drop off new merchandise...I bring a bunch home with me!  The other dealers must just love me!  I bought a great old Neilsons chocolate school map for a song!  Sorry, no pix of that yet.  

I did take photos of what I bought on my last trip...all this for less than $20!  Quite a bit less, actually! 

I don't know how the dealers in this mall do it, or where they buy their stuff so cheap!  You couldn't get this stuff off craigslist or thrift stores at these prices!

Just look at these gems!

Gem #1:
A vintage suitcase with leather trim, in pretty good condition! Its from a Toronto company, and numbered too!  

Gem #2:
A lovely old aluminum Flour tin.  It may have a couple of little dings, but its lovely none the less!  It would make a great receptacle for all the aluminum pop can tabs which end up in my Kitchen.  The kids collect them for school fundraising, so they are all over the place all year long!  Now they have a great big Aluminum home to store them in until its time for them to go in.

Sweet, huh?

Gem #3:
Okay, this was almost a freebee!  What a great way to hold pens, pencils, kitchen remotes.

I tell my husband that I'm paying my rent, and covering the cost of my merchandise...and $20 a week on fun finds is no biggee, right?  I mean I think its give and take...I take some stuff out of my house and sell it, and I bring some stuff back (as long as its less that what I remove, we're all okay!).

Have a great week!!

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Cheap and Cheery Curtains

Last week my husband went to London for his brother's 50th birthday party.  It was a big family get together and he wasn't going to let the Atlantic Ocean get in his way!  I never try to talk him out of a trip to the UK because while I'll miss him, I know I get lots of loot!

He knows me sooooo well!  He brought me an assortment of yummy different chocolates, and 9 Kg of bonbons I had ordered from a wholesale company ahead of time and had shipped to my BOL house.  "My name is Loretta and I have a problem..."

I'm SERIOUS about my candy!!

I also sent him to the local Cath Kidston shop.  While I don't need any more Cath K stuff, cause I'm begining to get diabetes from all the sweet prints I have bought over the years...I just couldn't resist!  

I wanted to change my old kitchen curtain.  I had red and white stripe tea towels (my kitchen curtain of choice) hanging from tension rods and clip rings.  I bought these to use at Christmas time, but as they aren't really Christmasy and because I'm lazy, I'd left them up. 

1.  Since my hubs was in England...
2.  Since Cath K just started her summer sale...
3.  Because a set of two tea towels was on sale for 8 pounds...


I sent him shopping!  They didn't have the prints I wanted, so my hubs sent me photos of what they had and I picked 6 sets of these:

Set 1:

Print One

Print Two

Set two

Print One

Print Two

Each set has two different prints, so I needed 6 sets for three windows.

From the photos my husband sent, I loved both sets and felt I could use all of them as curtains over time.  I'm not wasting these babies on drying dishes! 

When they arrived, while I liked both sets, I LOVED the first set! Why would I go for classy when I can pick kitch?  I'm one classy kitch!

These are definitely cheery, and if you figure 8 pounds x 6 sets = 48 pounds which approx = 100 USD (EEEEK not so cheap you may be thinking), but if you figure thats for TWO different sets of curtains...thats only $50 for the 3 windows, so they are kind of cheap and very very cheery!!!!  Yes, this is definitely how my brain works.  Creative math, no punctuation, rationalization without logic, Yes thats me!  

Look at how cute the details of these tea towels are:

So I now love my new curtains and have saved the rest of the tea towels in my Cath K stash. 

I've been reinvesting most of the money I've made from my antique booth into new/more furniture to paint/sell, but I had to buy myself a little English treat!!  I ordered these online from a Canadian supplier:

How cute are these???  I can hardly wait for fall!!!  Only kidding!!!  

Have a great day, and may it be cheap and cheery!

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Frugal Fridays - Shabby Nest

"Hot enough for ya??"  

Here in Canada, we have about 9 months of winter, and then when summer finally arrives, it hits us with a vengeance (most years)!  Then we all walk around asking each other...'Hot enough for ya?'  Of course we stick in a few 'eh's here and there just to be true to our cultural roots...all this while carrying a cup of Tim Hortons coffee. 

My garage studio is either too cold to paint in, or sweltering!  Last week I think the heat got my brain but real good!  I forgot to take a before photo of my tall dresser before I painted it.  She was an okay looking piece from the get go.  Dark brown 'okay' wood.  Not mahogany or anything fancy, so I didn't hesitate to pull out the paint.  She went from 'okay' to spectacular!  She's really got nice feminine curves with a classic style, and the simple grey/white colour combo really brings her to life. 

Bad angles, bad lighting, poor iPhone camera...all I can do is apologize!  

I painted a gorgeous two tiered table in provence with gold wax detail, but didn't get a photo before I took it to the booth, and it was sold before I got there again...so no photo of that beauty.

My booth is filling up (slowly) and really sucking up a lot of time...but its so much fun!  

Hope you are all having a great summer, and oh yeah...'Hot enough for ya, eh?'

Take care
Arda  I mean Loretta!

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Frugal Fridays at Shabby Nest

So last week I rented a trailer thingy and my neighbour hitched it to her husbands SUV, we filled it with all the furniture I had ready, and off to the antique mall we went!

I have half the room.  Most of the window, and to the left is mine.  Its about 6' x 12' long, but big enough for lots of furniture!

Its still pretty sparse.  We unpacked the case goods, rearranged it all, and tried to stage it with whatever smalls I had brought with me that day.

We eventually screwed knobs on and took the paper off the mirror!

I love this blue table and chair set!  I painted it in the Louie Blue ascp and was going to outline the chair details with old white but when I distressed, the details were so pretty as is, that I just left it alone.  Wax was all it needed.

See what I mean, sparse!  I went back the next day with more smalls, but the room just sucked them up! It was as if my trunk load of smalls just disappeared in the room!

Fan is not an antique, and not for sale!

I love the Cath Kidston paper that I lined the cabinet with.  I bought a couple of rolls back from England with me a few years back and still use it (sparingly to make it last).

The best part of this antique mall? The very authentic English pub down the road.  My husband was beside himself with joy when he found out they have THREE different beers from Ireland!!

I'm much more a home made fish and chips girl myself!

I'll have to not make a habit of it though!

I'm so excited about getting this booth! I don't know why I didn't do something like this sooner!  I went back on Monday (as its an hour away from my home) to bring in chenille bed spreads, and my big dresser/mirror had sold!  Yippee!!  Now I'm looking for another couple of dressers to paint ... Oh joy!  I can feed my habit without guilt now!