January is typically a month I organize…New Year’s Day cleaning opposed to spring cleaning.

Several blogs I follow were doing the same thing and actually had challenges going on.  We had started our winter cleaning prior to me reading the posts and of course I had no pictures of our own homemade disaster.

Like most decor junkies I like a tidy house…the garage…well that is a different story.

 With organizing on my mind I started to pin ways to organize with vintage or rustic decor.

 One of my favorite blogs…Funky Junk Interiors… had a blog about using old sewing machine drawers with mason jars.

I loved the idea and knew that I had a few drawers left in my antique booth.

The wheels started turning…. I decided to keep those for sale and make another version using some leftover barn wood.  The barn wood was perfectly weathered by mother nature with a slight hint of red from a paint job applied several decades ago.

3 boards were cut ten inches in length

2 boards were cut three inches for the sides

Keep in mind the type of wood your using when you’re measuring.  Barn wood is thicker than store-bought wood so I needed to make sure my vintage mason jars would fit.  

Even though the barn wood looked beautiful,  I decided to play with my branding irons to add accents and a small personal touch to the organizer.

 I had my “heart” set on an old heart-shaped branding iron I picked up in the North Carolina mountains years ago.  My thinking was that it would be perfect for Valentine’s Day…but, as fate would have it, it was the one branding iron that I couldn’t find anywhere…another reason to organize!!

I loved the shape of this “R” but decided to go with the number “10” branding iron

We have an outside fire pit so I heated the iron and started to play around.  I quickly learned that between the unevenness of the antique iron and the barn wood, it is important to rock the heated iron back and forth to brand a full image into the wood.

If you’ve never worked with barn wood you may not realize how dense it is.  If you make a rustic organizer with pine you could apply wood glue and small nails…not so for barn wood.

 To ensure the organizer would be sturdy, I pre-drilled all the screw holes and fastened the sides with small, black wood screws.

I also decided to inset the sides instead of having them cover the front.  I added a little Briwax in dark brown to the sides to blend the fresh saw cuts with the color of the barn wood..

As you can see my number “10” is not perfect…just perfectly rustic

I added a little burlap leaving the ends to fray…even a little red for Valentine’s.

I started a basic photography class in hopes of taking quality pictures for my antique booth.  My iPhone is great for my Facebook photos…not so great when I enlarge them to fit my blog.

Sooo here’s a glimpse

 A furniture cart in my antique booth at The Depot at Gibson Mill

Thank-you’s

I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who has commented on our booth expansion…it means the world to me.  With my best friends and family so far away it is a blessing to have the support of fellow vendors…new friends!

Also

Thank-you to everyone who has started to follow our blog and Facebook.  If you’re following our blog and have not seen our Facebook page please check us out…you’ll find lots of pictures of our antique booth.

Lastly

   My advice to anyone just opening a booth…give your business a name…start some form of social media…don’t wait three years like I did!

Kindly

Jane