Thrift Shop Shakedown #7 & Two Thrifty Makeovers!!

Hello, thrifty friends!! I have a treat for y’all today! Not only am I bringing you TWO thrifty makeovers, I’ve also got the newest Thrift Shop Shakedown video of me and Nancy to share with you!!

Nancy and I have been Blogging BFFs for well over a decade, collaborating with our friends and attending several conferences together:

(Haven Conference 2015)

But my favorite thing to do with Nancy is going thrifting, of course, and I love that we get to share it with you!

The two items I’m sharing today are what I found on our day of thrifting, and Nancy is sharing two makeovers of items she found that day as well. I’ll link to her makeovers at the bottom!

Let’s start with the video of our day out!

We haven’t made a thrifting video since the month COVID arrived, so it has been a minute!!

Enjoy!

If you have trouble viewing, view on YouTube HERE.

We have such a laugh when we get together!

SO as you saw in the video, these are the two items I found that day that were in dire need of some help:

Thrifty Makeover #1

The lamp started at $5.98 and was marked down twice to $2.98:

I don’t have any idea what they were going for with that center area, but I noticed the gorgeous detailing at the top and on the bottom right away:

I originally thought I would add something like decoupage paper, or a transfer to the center section, but that ended up not being the case. Before I even got started, I dug through my lampshade stash to see if I had anything that would work with this lamp.

After testing out several options, I landed on this pretty shade that had also been a thrift store find for $4.99:

Now, you know that if you have ever shopped for a lampshade, that is an absolute steal! And it was in beautiful condition.

It was an ideal fit to the lamp:

The shade helped guide where I wanted to go next, but first, it need a good cleaning!

Clean

I gave both pieces a good cleaning using my favorite prep for paint, White Lightning:

Paint

Then, after taping off the parts that I didn’t want to get paint on, I used my Belle Brush to apply two coats of Dixie Belle’s Gardenia:

After painting this armoire and this small side table:

I only had a tiny amount left at the bottom of this jar:

I was determined to use every last drop lol.

And here is a comparison of the whites that Dixie Belle now has to offer:

Compared to the others, Gardenia has just a touch of gray in it.

Here’s how I would describe the rest:

Cotton: The brightest white
Fluff: More of a vintage white
Magnolia: A warm white with the slightest touch of yellow in it.
Buttercream: A creamy, buttery color with a bit more yellow in it.
Dropcloth: An off-white/cream with no yellow undertones.
Ecru: A bit darker version of Dropcloth.
Cucumber Ice: Has a touch of green in it.

Because I still have the armoire and small side table in this color to take over to my booth, I thought it would be nice to do the lamp to match, and this color worked perfectly with the shade!

Sand

Once I had both coats of paint dry, I lightly sanded with 220 grit sandpaper to show off some of the details.

Seal

To seal, I gave it a quick spray of Rustoleum clear satin spray.

And this thrifty makeover was complete!

Thrifty Makeover #1 After

Here is how the lamp turned out:

The pattern on the shade was enough that all I really needed to do the base was paint it…

A little closer…

Those details painted up so pretty!

And this shade was an amazing find!

So simple and elegant now compared to the busy, dated before!

Thrifty Makeover #2

The second piece I found that day was this “art” for $4.99:

It had such a weird texture thing going on…

And it was a bit too rustic for the lighthearted saying that was on it.

But when you flipped it over, it looked pretty nice!

Now that, I could work with!

After cleaning, there had been staples on the corners that I removed. I secured those corners with the wood glue, and filled the holes with Dixie Mud:

Once the mud was dry, I sanded those areas smooth.

Next, I pulled out these finial things that my dad used to use in lamps that he made:

When he stopped woodworking, he gave me a bunch of things, including these. I used them most recently to add feet to the tray in this smalls post.

And, I decided to do it again here!

Adding feet to a wooden tray

These were pretty easy to add to this wooden tray.

Here’s how I did it:

The first thing I did was drill a hole where the center of my new feet would be using a drill bit. (As not to split those narrow strips of wood.)
Next, I applied a ring of wood glue to my new feet. (It’s always a good idea to add wood glue when joining wood pieces together, in addition to screws or nails.)
These “feet” had a hole down the center where I was able to drill a 2 inch screw down into them from the top.
And here is the final look!

Paint

Paint was next, and I went with… did you guess Gardenia?

(As you can see, I did have to open a new jar, so I guess I’ll have to see what else I can add to the Gardenia collection!)

I thought I would stage these two pieces together, so I was making them to match, but I ended up staging them separately in the end.

You can literally see paint erasing all the ugly that was there in that photo above!

I gave it two coats for solid coverage all over.

Adding Decoupage Paper

The lamp was pretty simple, so I wanted to add a little something more to this piece. And, I had some of this lovely Meadow Melodies decoupage paper left over from the small tray I referenced above.

It has been folded, so to remove the folds, I used my iron on the LOWEST setting:

Then, I applied the paper using Redesign’s Decoupage Gel and my Foam n Dandy 2″ brush:

Because some of the slats on the bottom were raised in areas, I added the gel and paper a couple of slats at a time and cut the paper at the joints as I went.