Milk Bottle Makeover With Decals

Take an ordinary bottle and add a fun decal to totally transform and re-purpose it.

This is an easy up-cycle project if you have an ink-jet printer.

These images were sourced for free from The Graphics Fairy and there is an abundance to choose from and I give you fair warning, you could get lost down a rabbit hole and lose an hour of your day as you discover one vintage image after another.

The other thing you will need is some clear decal paper suitable for an ink-jet printer. I got mine from here.

Do a test of your chosen design on a sheet of ordinary paper first to make sure it's the size and style you want. Then simply lay the decal sheet in the printer and away you go.

To make the ink water resistant you will need to coat it and I used Krylon Acrylic Crystal Clear spray. Spray lightly, giving the decal at least four coats allowing it to dry between coats.

Once dry cut the design out close to the edge of the printing. Make sure your bottle surface is clean. Using a shallow dish, place your decal in water for about 30 seconds. You'll know it's ready because the backing will start to slip from the decal. Ease your design onto the bottle making sure it's straight and smooth.

Now you've turned an old bottle into a new vase, water bottle or milk jug!

Your items will not be dishwasher safe and require gentle hand washing and to get the longest life from your design, do not soak. 

Give it a try. They make great gifts too.

If you can't be bothered with the faffing about, these bottles will be 

available

 in the shop.

( Link at the top of the page too)

I've used genuine vintage 1 pint milk bottles and they make a lovely nostalgic addition.

If you have had a go at decal work, post your pics or links in the comments section.

Face It

The generations have always had a gap.

But of each of us has belonged and owned every generation as we move into them.

Are they so different?

Is each successive one really unique?

Some of the faces from china finds from the yard over the past 18 months, indeed dating and spanning several generations. Can you guess the oldest and the youngest?

Simple Inexpensive Furniture Restoration

Everyone loves a "before and after".

This is the story of how an old desk top became a blanket box.

We acquired this old sturdy piece from a friend when they were clearing their mother's estate. It's a little broken about the edges but still solid and appears to have been a desk top at one stage now without legs (if it ever had them?) First things first was a thorough vacuum, then a good wipe down with a damp cloth.

Next I used a fine steel wool (#00) and some methylated spirits to clean off the old grungy layers of dirt and perhaps ancient wax or shellac layers. To do this, take a modest wad of stainless steel and apply a generous amount of metho, rubbing lightly with the grain and using clean rag pieces to wipe the grunge to remove before too much metho has evaporated leaving a sticky residue. This method works well on naturally finished woods like wax and shellac. Other varnishes or polyurethanes may require a caustic stripper.

Fine steel wool is excellent for cleaning up brass too, like these hinges. I'm not repairing the broken, chipped corners. This is not a "fine" antique and there is no use pretending it is. It's the broken and the scratched that tell a story and make these rustic pieces the treasures that they are.

My original plan was to shellac this piece but I felt the lovely high glossing would perhaps not be as appropriate as an oil and wax treatment to nourish the wood and the gentle glow somehow more honest and in keeping with it's altered nature.

Many old pieces can be brought back to a beautiful life very simply and inexpensively. This took me only a few solid hours of cleaning and polishing. You could do it too. To give you some idea, this project required 

about 400ml of methylated spirits

about six wads of #00 steel wool pulled from a roll

One old shearer's singlet

and wax and oil for finishing.

To nourish, I tipped small amounts of furniture oil onto the pan of wax and then used a soft lint free cloth to apply and buff - inside and out. Before deciding on the finish, I experimented on the back to see if I liked the effect.

Now it's ready to do service as a blanket box.

Don't forget to lay sachets of insect repelling herbs inside too.

You can find my recipe a little down the page in the post

"An Ounce Of Prevention"

and if you would really like to dip your toes into furniture restoration,

you could start by checking out

'The English Polisher" 

on YouTube. He has some great vids with great background music.

Dry

Drying clothes becomes a bit of an obsession for most Tasmanian families in the winter.

We line dry at every opportunity but because the daylight hours are so reduced, the washing must be brought in and "finished off" on drying racks, even on sunny days. As the sun sets in the winter here, the air quickly becomes chill and damp.

And on consecutive wet days....

When visiting, a common phrase upon greeting is"Excuse the washing...",

but by bringing it in we take advantage of the heating that is already in use rather than spending extra money using a dryer.

Now-a-days most people have collapsible white plastic coated wire hangers. Super portable and easily tucked away but not designed for significant weight and they collapse readily when trying to manoeuvre them.

I'm fortunate to have acquired a couple of vintage ones. They are a bit larger but certainly much more able to hold outer clothing. I'm not sure what wood this one is made from but it is time for a bit of wax! It folds up neatly and when extended to it's full spread it is locked in place by the angle cuts of it's "elbows". A really great design and maximises the space.

Solid rails are fitted and joints are strongly hinged.

The other one is an extremely simple style that concertinas together and stretches out with simple top and bottom rails. A pair of damp shearing dungas are quite heavy and this is perfect for the job.

We use electric heating and the clothes usually dry overnight. The electric dryer is seldom used but handy for linen wash days and the shearer's singlets.

A typical wash day for the shearer in winter is 2 or 3 pairs of dungas (thick pants especially designed for shearing), 6-8 singlets, 4 thermal long sleeve tops, 2-3 pairs of socks and 2-3 bath towels. He is constantly changing wet soaked garments all day to stay dry and warm.

I remember when the children were babies and toddlers. Going through several changes each day meant we constantly had ladened wire racks in the winter. Another good place I found to dry some smalls was on racks over the hot water cylinder. One of my neighbours had her husband rig up some pulleys and ropes on the ceiling so she could hoist up a drying rack to dry in the warm air near the ceiling like she did back in Scotland.

Care should be taken though. Never place washing directly onto a heater. Take care not to place too close to a heat source for fear of scorching and starting a fire and be mindful to keep washing out of "falling reach" near a fire place. Have patience and turn regularly and take advantage of as much sunlight as possible.

How is this oh so mundane but essential job done in your neck of the woods?

Lost and Found

Spring is bursting out in glorious blossom at our new home. Bees are pollinating "surprise" fruit trees as I impatiently wait the swell and bud and delight as the soft breeze lifts the petals like drifting snow flakes. 

Although there is still snow on the mountains, the days are definitely lengthening and the ckooks are contentedly laying again. We have the beginnings of our produce garden mapped out and spring planting is under way.

At the northern end of our property are the ruins of two working mens' cottages from the mid 1800's. This area contains lots of treasure still I'm sure. Certainly there are lots of interesting bottles and several old files.

Lost....

A little grave made from salvaged stone and inscribed in the sandstone headstone,

"Teddy Bear xxx"

The grave is tiny and I'm sure Teddy was probably one of the previous owners cats.

Found...

fragments of china to excite this china enthusiast 

and what a find!

A penny token!

Before currency when the colony was so new, some businesses commissioned the manufacture of penny tokens for their stores. These were made in England.

This particular token was commissioned by Thomas White of the White House in Westbury and bears the date 1855.

I suspect this garden will keep us engaged and excited for many years to come.

Workers Cottage Kitchen

Come inside 30 Smith St.

Grand historical homes are somewhat preserved but it's the ordinary cottage that is fast loosing a lot of their original fixtures. Many of them were cheaply built and time has worn them out.

Before being sold in 2011, it had been in the same family for 100 years and altered little.

Kitchens of this kind are becoming endangered as they are becoming renovated all over the city.

This cottage was probably built in about 1840 after George Smith's land holding was subdivided creating Smith St. 

Kitchens with recognisable built in cabinets similar to today became popular in the early 1920's. In modest homes these were often owner built and often from recycled and salvaged materials. By today's standards this kitchen is considered inferior, impractical and most definitely rustic...but let me show you some golden charming features.

The cupboard door slides open beautifully in its hand cut channels to reveal a below bench drawer. This slides out smoothly and easily on simply constructed runners.

Inside a perfectly cut square of 1940's linoleum to line the drawer.

Layers and layers of history.

The cabinetry on the other wall is constructed of strong timber frames, the shelves are like packing case off cuts. As the cupboard is built onto the rough hand made brick wall, the back and sides are lined with a metal gauze to keep them vermin proof.

It's tiny but modest kitchens had far less equipment and appliances than one finds nowadays.

Could I live and work in this kitchen? If it were my property would I rip it out?

Yes absolutely, but it's such a shame isn't it. So I had to take some photos and preserve some of it's glorious ordinariness for posterity because it and all it's fellows will be changed and we will lose those hand made gems.

A wonky old cottage with sloping ceilings and old tin roofs and up and down floors...

Beautiful ornate vents on lathe and plaster walls...

Heavy, sturdy internal doors with layers and layers of paint and keys long lost.

The houses have tiny or no front gardens and these golden pencil pines enrich the street scape and are considered historically significant. The council had them recently trimmed sensitively to ensure easier pedestrian access but maintain their profile.

There are plenty of glamorous mansions and significant properties of old preserved in time but it's the humble workers cottages and the homes of the ordinary that I also salute. On the face of things they stay relatively the same but within they are getting radical makeovers.

It's precisely the make do and mend of these plain cottages that is what Suburban Jubilee celebrates.

An Ounce Of Prevention

Being in the depth of winter here in Tasmania with the temperature regularly dropping into minus temperatures overnight now our first topic discussed at the Living Better meet-up was wool; it's use, care and protection. 

Coincidently this week, 4Corners aired a particularly damning expose of the exploitation of clothing factory workers. To say that these workers paid less than $3 per day in unsafe factories with no entitlements, protection etc is to spouse the usual blah, blah rhetoric. But to SEE their maimed and missing limbs and hear how a mother sees her son just once a year etc etc....

This is big clothing companies that retail in our countries squeezing the tightest dollar from the manufacturers. I am taking some responsibility for this too. Recently I have bought insanely cheap knitwear and though I marvelled and mused "how can they make it for the price?" that was as far as my thoughts went. In this country as recession has hit, we have congratulated ourselves staying afloat, keeping fed, staying warm....but clearly at the expense of poorer countries. 

Please, I urge you to watch this episode and report from 4 Corners called

Fashion Victims

The book in the photo above as you can see by the cover is a collection of war time brochures that though outdated in some of the energy information, still has valuable and timely household wisdom for today. A lot of the literature was about making clothing last. Our group discussed how in today's society little thought is given to the preservation or care of clothing. It is bought so cheaply and usually quality is compromised. Households are more inclined to throw clothing into machines and wear them less than a year and casually toss them out. Like the "Slow Food" movement principles, we can apply this also to our goods we use and wear. For instance, think about kitchen cabinetry. When you add up the time the timber took to grow, the miles that the product, raw and dressed travelled, the hours that it passed from hand to hand as it was crafted from tree to cabinet, it becomes mind boggling when one considers how cavalier people can be gutting their kitchens for a new one because it is not cosmetically fashionable enough.

Not so for Kylie over at lucy violet vintage, check out her story here about saving a Tasmanian Oak kitchen on the other side of Australia....but I digress a little.

Back to wool. Same applies. From the farmer to the shearer to the textile worker, literally miles and miles and lots of dollars but what IF we stopped for a moment and consciously thought about our purchases and cared for our things with the respect they deserved. 

Wool is a champion fibre. It is insulating and used in housing and garments. It can be spun from the finest of threads to the thick textiles and even felted. It is soil and stain resistant. It is fire retardant. 

I have woollen garments in my wardrobe typically older than 20 years. My oldest garment would be my grey scarf that my mother used to wear in 1973. That's 40 years old! Even older is the dress that my father knit for my grandmother, tucked away in a trunk here safely.

This is typical moth damage.

Woollen garments need not be washed every single wear as they are soil resistant. A mark needs only spot treatment like a sponge. After wear simply air before folding and putting away. Perhaps there has been a spot here and a moth has certainly found it. 

At the meet-up last night we discussed some simple ingredients from our garden and local area that can be used to deter moths and silverfish in cupboards. 

You may recall posts recently about our trip to the west coast. While there I picked up a couple of bags of Huon pine shavings, wonderful for the hen house and in the nesting boxes acts as a natural insect deterrent. It smells divine too. If you don't have access to Huon Pine then Cedar chips are commonly used in such a sachet. I acquired absithe artemesia plant from Killiecrankie Farm, commonly it is known as Wormwood and another wonderful pest deterrent and good for planting near the fowl yard. In the later part of summer I harvested and dried the leaves easily for use in wardrobe sachets. The lavender was also cut and dried upside down in the summer. Not only does it smell good but it is also an insect deterrent. Lastly from the pantry we added cloves which also has anti-mould properties. 

People have used ingredients like these for centuries. There are no hard and fast rules, just make sure the ingredients are dry and that they have insect repellent properties. You can also add essential oils if you wish to or other fragrant herbs as you prefer. 

You can simply cut a square of fine lawn or muslin and place a small pile of the ingredients in the centre then gather the fabric and tie off with a piece of string or ribbon. Recycle those small gauze drawstring sachets you sometimes get or stitch a shape like the heart above (here for more ideas and also here) and stuff with the ingredients and some wadding and sew closed. As simple or as pretty as you like. This is a great project to do with children and they make lovely presents at Christmas or for teachers.

And that was just the FIRST topic we discussed but that's enough for now, more tomorrow.....

when we talk about 

Elderberry Tincture. 

The Duckiest Cottage

 

There are a lot of you out there who like a bit of vintage, well we hit the jackpot with our Stanley accommodation when we stayed at Estowen House.

It was utterly charming and words are not needed. I was so excited and wanted to share so many delights that there were way too many photos, so I have created a few collages too. I am definitely going back one day soon and I hope you get the opportunity too.

Happiness is an entire collection of Georgette Heyer!

Isn't it duckie! I didn't want to leave.

I hope it never changes.