Welcome to my crazy world!

Hello and welcome!

Thursday, August 29, 2013

LONG SUMMER!

Okay, this has been a loooong summer!  The actual part with the kids being home was great and flew by, but other things happened this summer which really makes me want it over with already!

So this weekend is my hubs bday, and we are having some people over (more than 10, less than 100...somewhere in between), and my very expensive appliances are falling apart.  TODAY.  As in 5 minutes ago!

These were appliances I dreamt of, drooled over and built my kitchen around.  I cut out other important things in our renos so that I could afford these beautiful piles of steaming SH**!!



While they were under warranty, it was bothersome that repairmen ALWAYS had to come, but at least I wasn't paying anything extra for it.  NOW?!?!  

Ladies, if you drool over these, save your money or buy another brand!!!


UGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thursday, July 25, 2013

MMS Milk Paint Attempt 2 and 3

Well, I mixed up a really really bad batch of MMS in Ironstone a few days ago, and I LOVED the colour, but hated the grit and big chunks of paint, regardless of all my stirring. 


MMSMP try #2
No before photo (bad bad blogger), but it was that beige fake wood grained paint effect you see under the ironstone colour.  This is it after one coat of ironstone (with binding agent) but sanded down to remove all the grit (lots and lots of grit).

I've decided I'm not going to go buy a blender to dedicate to painting, so I found this blog  with her great advice of using a mason jar to mix (easy peasy, and mostly- not completely smooth).

The paint came on much smoother, and after it dried, I sanded the legs and rims of the top and shelf for a really heavily distressed look.  Not my usual thing, but it had so many lovely colours poking out that I just fell in love!

Waxed and done!








I think of this table as a success!  Its relatively smooth and intentionally distressed, so a success....

However the shelf unit which I painted TWICE, once with bonding agent, just didn't stick!  Even tho I gave it a good sanding!  No photos, because it just makes me cry 8(

Then, everything I painted on just chipped right off...I may as well have painted it with yogurt!!

I love Marian from MMS, and I LOVE the colours of her paint, but I won't buy this paint any more.  I've got a couple of hundred bucks of it as I bought the sampler kit (with waxes, hemp oil, etc...), so I will use it until its finished, but I will have to go back to chalk paint (sorry Marian)!  I love chalk paint...no sanding, no priming, great colours, sands smooth as silk, waxes beautifully!  

I really wanted to love MMSMP, as I read about all of the great projects people have painted with it, but I honestly don't have the time to keep painting, sanding, crying, etc...


Good news!

I sold my table and chair set at my booth!!!  Yippee!!!!  I loved that set, and everyone who saw it loved it but it just sat there for the last 6 weeks...

Now I have room to take something else!



Have a great day!

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Thursday, July 18, 2013

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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Tuesday, July 9, 2013

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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Friday, June 28, 2013

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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