You know those oak country trash cans from the 80’s & 90’s? Well, this was one of them. I bought it at a yard sale for $2.00. It’s actually hand made, very sturdy & useful. So, I painted it a bright white, gave it some feminine detail in the hand painting & glass knob, and painted a plaque in French that labels this piece “poubelle” or “garbage.” Sounds better in French, doesn’t it?

I purchased these side tables (originally a vanity) at a yard sale for $3…for the pair. $1.50 each! They were in rough shape and sat in my basement for several months before I gathered the courage to work on them. I made new tops, sanded, primed, and painted them an olive green. I then did the floral and scroll decorative painting (I’ll include more detail about decorative painting in a future post), applied a dark walnut stain, and a polycrlic topcoat. I was excited and sad when these sold. I always want to keep pieces I paint, but I think that’s a good thing. If I don’t like them, I can’t take much pride in selling them.

This was my family room right when we moved here about 3 years ago. I was not into the beige with mauve undertones on the wall, the side door with only primer on it and the furniture was a mish-mash of stuff from our last house and hand-me-downs. Not bad, but I had plans… So, I painted the walls a creamy yellow by Sherwin Williams called Lemon Chiffon. Yellows are hard to pick out and this one didn’t turn out exactly like I thought it would, but it’s still a great improvement. Please excuse the black foam over my hearth (I have 2 toddlers and it has saved a few trips to the ER.) We’re planning to rip out the fireplace to make way for built-ins…some day. I hand painted the wreath and swags above the fireplace. Here’s my new concrete chicken that I purchased at Luckett’s Fair. I wanted

First of all, thank you to everyone who has started to follow me! I have big plans, so please invite your friends and keep the comments coming! I have been thinking about tips and tricks I could share, specifically about decorative painting. One thing I almost always do is mix Burnt Umber with all of my paints. I like my furniture to look soft and classic. A lot of the paint colors available in acrylics are pretty bright, so I use the burnt umber to tone them down. Here are a couple examples of a red and blue mixed with the burnt umber. Just add a squeeze and mix it with the end of your brush handle. This will give your decorative painting and much softer look. Lots more “seeds of wisdom” to come, so keep checking back!

~BEFORE ~ I’ve been posting before & after pictures of furniture so far, so I wanted to change it up a bit and put some before & after pictures of a mural I rendered in a client’s home. Above is the before picture. It is a very welcoming room, but they were ready for a change and they were very open. Their home is a historic home that was used as a hospital during the Civil War, so I wanted to capture that in a mural. I suggested we paint the walls a creamy yellow and on a focal wall, I would paint a Rufus Porter style folk art mural of their home, a nearby covered bridge, and some surrounding barns. This is the after above their fireplace. The house centered in the middle is their home as it looked in the 1800’s. ~AFTER~And here’s the after picture of the

This past weekend was an exciting one for Mustard Seed Creations and me personally. I went to The Old Lucketts Fair in Lucketts, Loudoun County, Viriginia. I’ve been to this fair many times in the past, but this was my first time attending as an antiques vendor. Well, despite the weather (buckets of rain!), it was a great success! AND I was very proud of myself that I only purchased 2 things – an ironstone platter and a concrete chicken for my fireplace. My hand painted antique furniture sold very well and I received many compliments on my work, which is always nice. We are planning to be vendors in the Luckett’s Antique Fair in May. Come see us then! Here are pictures of the weekend when we had some sun…

I am an avid yard saler. I wake up Saturday mornings with anticipation of what I might find that day. Last Saturday I didn’t get the chance to set out early, but I was able to stop at a few on my way home from an errand. So, I’m driving up to a yard sale off of a main road and I decide to pull off on the shoulder instead of pulling into the host’s driveway. Wrong move. As I slowly pulled up, my front tire dropped off the road into a trench that was not visible due to the high grass. With my front right tire in the trench, my back left tire was about a foot off the ground. Thoughts of how I was going to explain destroying our van to my husband and the insurance company were rushing through my mind and my heart was in my