Thrift Flip Road Trip! Roycycled Retreat + Vintage Finds Transformed (Before & After!

Hey everyone, it's Marla here, and I just returned from my road trip to the Royce Cycle Retreat in Safford, Arizona, and this year I planned my trip so I could do some thrifting. I had such a great time, and I didn't just thrift once, I found vintage treasures before, during, and after the entire trip. From a stop at a small antique mall in Globe, to hidden gems in Safford, and even more finds while visiting my sister after the retreat. Wait until you see how some of these pieces came together. Let me show you what I found, and how I turned them into timeless decor. So before I started my journey to Arizona to go to Royce's retreat, I asked Chad GPT to design a route for me so I could do a little thrifting along the way. And so he mentioned a couple of places. I ended up stopping in this small town that's just west of Safford called Globe. I went to the antique store there, had a lot of fun looking around. One of the first things that I saw was this red crate. I fell in love with it. The price was right, and I thought how much fun would that be to upcycle. And then I came across this beautiful old rolling pin. Look at the handles on this thing. I was just in love. If I do anything to it at all, it will probably be just add a little color to the handles. Then as I continued to look around, I came across this Dundee marmalade jar. You can probably tell I was in a booth that had a lot of kitchen things. Now I know I knew right away this was not an old antique one. I have several of those at home. But it still was a James Keeler & Sons Dundee orange marmalade jar, and I loved it. I went into Chad GPT to find out when these reproductions were made, and it looks like sometime between the 1960s and the 1990s. So that still makes it vintage. I love the fact that the jar has a lid, and the lid also has James Keeler & Sons Dundee orange marmalade on it. And the price was right. This was I think $7, and so perfect for vignettes. And then the last thing I picked up was this doily. I'm always looking for doilies to use in my vignettes. I used to have a lot, and I don't know why, but I got rid of them. And when I was looking at the antique mall where I have my booth in Las Vegas, that crochet doilies, they were very expensive. They were ranging anywhere from $15 to $25 for one this size. And I picked this one up for let's see here. Oh, she took the tag off. I picked it up for $3. I thought that was a steal. So that was my first thrifting haul in Globe, Arizona. Before we get into the projects, I wanted to share a little bit of the retreat with you. These are pictures of some of the beautiful vignettes Royce created. The way she puts things together really speaks to me, and I was so inspired by her creations. Aren't these vignettes just gorgeous? The retreat ran from Thursday evening until Sunday afternoon, and I had the wonderful opportunity of meeting so many new friends, including one of my favorite creators, Lynn from Ellen J. Good. Royce gifted each of us with a beautiful art journal full of amazing pages of her artwork, and we spent the next three days creating our own artwork in this amazing journal. Just like last year, the retreat was very well attended, and we all had such a wonderful time. On day one, we discussed color theory, and each of us created our own color palettes to use on the first two pages of our art journal. For our final project, Royce asked us to take everything that we had learned and use it to create artwork that represented a place in our lives that brought us joy. And for me, that had to be my rose garden. In the evening, we had the opportunity to relax and enjoy each other's company at the spring festival. And while I was at the festival, I met this sweet lady named Karen, who invited me out to her farmstead the next day to do a little picking. The first thing she pulled out for me was this beautiful vintage porch post, and of course I said yes. And then she took me over to one of her sheds where we continued to search for vintage treasures. She found the footboard of an old Victorian bed and gave it to me. I think it's going to make a great sign. After I left Karen's place, I headed south to my sister's house to visit and do some thrifting. Well, as you can see here, I've already done a lot of thrifting, and this is just the second day of my sister's house. I'll be sharing all of these items with you, but the first thing I wanted to do was share with you the items I thrifted in Safford while I was at Royce's. So I'm going to pull this beautiful old vintage toolbox out and show you everything I got from Royce's. So now that I've pulled out this beautiful old toolbox that I got at Royce's, I'm going to show you everything else I picked up. First thing I saw when I walked in was the toolbox. Absolutely fell in love with it. Asked her husband David, is the toolbox for sale? And he said everything is for sale. So I grabbed the toolbox first, and then I started filling it up. And I was fortunate enough to find two of these old sugar molds. I absolutely love those. I'm going to upcycle those with some milk paint and use them to store paint brushes in my studio. I also found this beautiful old spice rack, and it looks like some of the jars I have at home are going to fit in there perfectly. I also found this beautiful old tray that I can sit on my work table and it will hold a lot of my supplies. The next thing I picked up is really just a piece of decor, but it's the kind of decor that I love. And so I grabbed that and threw it in the toolbox. I got this message board with the cool spindle on the top. That's going to be fun to upcycle. And then I also found this, I don't know really what I'd call it, but it would make a great base for a riser or maybe to put a birdhouse on. After I got it out to my Jeep, I said well I'm going to go back in and see if I can find anything else. And I went back into the little room where she has a lot of her whatnot stuff, which I'd already been in that room once. But I went back a second time and I found this beautiful old tin that Royce said she upcycled in one of her classes. I recognize all of that Christmas Royce cycle decoupage paper on there. I absolutely loved the knob on this. It's just beautiful. But I am going to upcycle it again, not Christmas. And then I grabbed this other rusty old tin because I have some labels that I get off of Etsy that are going to look great on that. So that was my thrift haul from Royce's. I will be upcycling some of these items in the video and then later on I will show you some of the other treasures I have picked up while I've been here. For project one, I grabbed the two sugar molds I picked up at Royce's. I decided that I wanted to paint them with some green milk paint, green being my favorite color. I think this is a mixture of in a pickle and flour sack. I had noticed that the sugar molds had a shiny coating on them, so I did take these outside and give them a coat of shellac. The shellac gives the milk paint something to hold on to, plus it increases the likelihood of getting that chipping or crazing that I love. After I applied the first coat of milk paint, I got out my hair dryer to help speed up the drying process. This also increases the likelihood that you will get chipping and cracking. I then gave each of the sugar molds a second coat of milk paint for better coverage and then used the dryer to dry that second coat as well. I wanted to embellish the sugar molds a little bit and so I went through my book of transfers and found two transfers that would fit perfectly on the front of each. Both of these transfers came from the transfer book by any other name. I didn't seal the first sugar mold before applying the transfer and it was a little difficult to get on there, and so I decided to give the second mold a coat of liquid patina before applying that transfer. Both transfers came out beautiful, however the second transfer was easier to put on having that layer of liquid patina underneath it. Once I finished with the second transfer, I gave both sugar molds a coat of liquid patina to seal the transfers in. After the liquid patina had dried, I got out my vintage antiquing paste, one of my favorite products, to give each of these molds that beautiful old vintage patina. I absolutely love the way these sugar molds turned out and they are perfect for holding paintbrushes. Once I get my studio cleaned and organized, I think they're going to look great on my table with the rest of my vintage storage finds. For project two, I grabbed that small wood tote I had picked up in Globe, Arizona. I didn't show the other side of it but it had a cowboy on it and it said howdy cowboy. So I took it outside and sanded it the best that I could and then used my darkened decrepit liquid patina to darken the wood. I wanted to use milk paint on this as well and I wanted to make sure that when the milk paint cracked that you would see dark wood underneath. I wanted the final project to look old and vintage, so I started out with white milk paint. This is Sweet Pickens milk paint in the color flower sack. I decided to use a light color because I knew when I used the vintage antiquing paste and I used the darkened decrepit liquid patina, it was going to darken whatever color of milk paint I put on the crate. I decided to paint all of the crate with the milk paint except for the inside, so I went along the edges and painted the round handle as well. I used a chip brush to paint the milk paint on and it really worked out nicely because these stiffer bristles got down into the wood that along the edges was kind of rough. It made it a little easier to get down into all the nooks and crannies and then because chip brushes are relatively inexpensive, when I was finished I could just toss it in the trash. It only took two coats of milk paint to get full coverage. I used my hair dryer again to dry in between coats and then after I put the second coat on and I really got some beautiful crackle. After I finished drying the tote, I went through my transfer books and I chose several transfers of flowers and birds to put along the front and the ends of this tote. Whenever I'm applying transfers, I like to go over the entire transfer with the transfer stick before pulling up any of the edges and starting to pull that top sheet off. I feel like it folds the transfer down in several places so as you're working on it there is less of a chance that you are going to get any slipping or movement in your transfer. I always like it when I can add a little bit of text to my projects especially when I'm using transfers and I found a couple that worked perfectly for this tote. Another thing I like to do is layer transfers so if you're going to do that it helps to choose your transfers ahead of time and kind of get an idea of how you want the layout to look before you actually apply the transfers because once they're down it's pretty hard to get them back up. One of the many things I love about IOD transfers and there are many is that they include so many small pieces so when I was looking at the tote and saw a space that I felt needed some filling in it was easy to find a little butterfly to put there. Same with this transfer that I put on one of the ends. I went back in, found a small butterfly and placed it next to the flowers. After I was finished applying all of the transfers I gave the entire tote a coat of liquid patina to help seal in the transfers and to ensure that my milk paint was sealed as well. As I mentioned when I started this project I wanted to make this tote look very old and aged and so after the liquid patina had dried I got out my antiquing paste and started to apply it to the tote. I started first along the edges giving them a very very dark coat of the antiquing paste and then I used a soft cloth to start to work that antiquing paste in towards the center of the tote. And when I'm using antiquing paste or dark and decrepit liquid patina or an antiquing glaze I always start out with a little, wipe it back and then just continue to add more and more until I achieve the look that I'm going for. After I finished applying the antiquing paste along the edges I got out my dark and decrepit liquid patina and began to apply it to the entire tote. When I applied the liquid patina I put a little bit on at a time and used a soft cloth to wipe it back. If I need to add more I do that and I just continue that process until I get the old vintage look I am going for. I have found in the past that if I put too much on in the beginning and don't get it off quick enough it's very difficult to get it off. It does not come off like an oil or a wax because it is virtually a top coat. But if you apply it and then immediately start wiping it back you can achieve some pretty awesome results and as I mentioned you can just continue to add more and more until you get the desired result. I really love how this little tote turned out. I think it's absolutely beautiful. I achieved the crackle I was going for. I love the way the transfers turned out. I did sand them back a little bit to make them look vintage as well. You'll have to let me know what you think of this project in the comments. For project three I decided to grab that little black message board I had picked up at Royce's. I think I called it a message board because it had a clip on it where you could clip a message or a picture and as I was thinking about it I thought it would be the perfect place for me to clip pictures of projects that inspire me. I am always looking at Pinterest and Facebook and other places on the internet to get ideas for projects and so I wanted to upcycle this and have it sitting on my table in my studio as a place where I can clip those pictures and refer back to them as I'm working on my projects. I decided to go with pink milk paint this time and this is actually a combination of Sweet Pickin's Mulberry, Windowpane and Flower Sac. I just mixed the three together until I got a shade that I liked. As I always do when I'm working with milk paint I got out a heat source, this time my heat gun, to dry the milk paint to encourage that cracking and chipping. After I had finished drying the board I realized that this time I didn't get the cracking I was looking for in the front. Maybe I should have sprayed it with shellac but I didn't and so I decided instead of having the cracking milk paint and transfers I would go a different route and paint it with some Fusion Mineral Paint in the color Peony and put down a paint inlay and this paint inlay is from the book Lattice Rose. Before laying the pieces of the paint inlay down into the wet paint I sprayed each of them lightly on the paint side with a little bit of water and then I used my fingers to smooth the paint inlay out on the board. After that I sprayed the entire thing with a little more water and then used a After the paint inlay had dried completely I sprayed it with water a second time and again used a paper towel to dab back the excess. I let the water soak in for about 30 seconds before I started to remove the inlay. It never gets old peeling back that paper and seeing that beautiful inlay underneath and at this point everything was going great. It was late in the evening and I should have stopped but instead I waited a little while until I thought the inlay was dry and then I attempted to give it a coat of Big Top. Unfortunately when I looked at it the next morning I saw that I had smeared the inlay and so of course not liking a smeared inlay here we go round two. I gave the board another coat of fusion mineral paint this time in the color rose water because I had virtually used all of my little jar of peony on the first coat and I went in with a second piece of paint inlay from that same transfer lattice rose. Now at this point you're probably thinking is she ever going to get this thing finished because that's exactly what I was thinking but as I've said before I don't give up I'm not a quitter and mistakes happen even when you've done something as many times as I have done a paint inlay and so I went through the process again. I let the paint inlay dry completely used my spray bottle to spray some water on it dabbed it back with a paper towel and then removed the inlay and once again I was amazed at how beautiful these inlays are and how well they work. I was very happy with the way the second inlay turned out and I had decided I wasn't going to take any chances of making that same mistake again so instead of giving it a coat of big top I took it outside and gave it a coat of rust-oleum spray matte finish. After it dried I brought it back in the house and began distressing it using my finger sander. It was more difficult to get through the paint than many of my other projects but again this is now three coats of paint on this project. Something that was kind of cool though that I noticed as I was sanding away is that the paint inlay the previous paint inlay was starting to peek through as I sanded and I was really loving that look because now it was starting to look like something someone had painted years and years ago and then later on it had been painted again by someone else and those are the things that make vintage items that we purchase or antique items that we find so special to us. You can see how the item has changed throughout the course of time and so I continued to sand bringing forward bits and pieces of that previous inlay to the surface. As a math teacher I was always telling my students that they learned best from their mistakes and I think that holds true for most things in life and as I continued to work on this I realized how in the future I could add multiple layers if I wanted something in the end to look like it had been around forever and so I consider the mistake I made by smearing that inlay to be a happy mistake because I absolutely loved how this looked in the end. I decided to style it a little bit for the photographs and so I printed out this collage I put together that says project board. I printed it out on computer paper and then used the wet method to tear around the edges to give it more natural or organic looking edges and then to finish the board so that I could use it for inspiration pieces I took out a clothespin and painted it with that creamy pink paint and glued it to the front of the board. While the clothespin was drying I took out my fusion antiquing gel, mixed a little of it with some water and then painted that on the paper to give it an old vintage paper look. I glued the clothespin to the board and then put a little bit of the antiquing gel on it as well so the paint didn't look too new and fresh compared to everything else. I grabbed some lace ribbon that I had in my stash and decided to go along one edge of it. When I first got the message board from Royce, whoever made it had tied twine around the side and I liked the way it looked but I felt like the lace ribbon was more in keeping with the style of the board that I had made because it seems very vintage and a little bit French country or cottagecore and so I thought the lace would I love how this little project turned out and I think it's going to be a great place to hang those inspiration photos. It turned out to be a little more work than I had planned but in the end it was worth the time and the effort. I absolutely love the old vintage look that I achieved. You'll have to let me know what you think in the comments. Would you have spent that much time on it? In another thrift haul I got these items. My sister took me to a place called Donate It and it was just full of items primarily from people who had garage sales and not everything sold but I picked up some pretty unique items. I got this really nice basket. I love the weave on it. I think it's going to be fun to maybe turn that into a French country basket. I got this little tin that I can upcycle to make it look old and vintage. I thought this was kind of cute. It's a vintage paper plate holder called Country China. Of course I'm going to change all of that but I thought it was a unique little piece. I picked up another rolling pin. I'm always picking those up if the price is right. I think she charged me two dollars and then one of my favorite finds was this old vintage corner shelf and so that's going to be a lot of fun as well. For project four I decided to tackle this rolling pin. I had some leftover decoupage paper from one of Royce's papers that came in the maker's box. I used part of it to upcycle an art box a couple of videos ago and the entire piece of paper was so beautiful that I didn't want to waste any of it and so I chose a piece for this rolling pin. I started out by giving the rolling pin a good coat of DIY paint in the color white swan and then I sealed it with liquid patina. After the liquid patina dried I took a piece of decoupage paper I cut out and used my spray bottle to wet it down and then I applied a starter strip of liquid patina to the rolling pin. I like using a starter strip rather than coating the entire project with the decoupage medium because it allows you to place your paper where you want it and if necessary you can move it and you don't have to worry about a lot of the paper being stuck down. Once I got the paper placed where I wanted it to be I went over that section with liquid patina on top and then just continued to add liquid patina to the rolling pin and then used more liquid patina and my paintbrush to smooth it out getting out all of the wrinkles and I continued to do this until the entire rolling pin was covered. Once I had made it all the way around the rolling pin I looked at where the two edges of the paper met and then I laid my finger down on that line and started tearing the decoupage paper away. I don't like cutting straight lines because they never really turn out straight. This gives a much more organic edge which I really like and because the paper was wet it was very easy to pull it away. If you use this method you just have to make sure that you keep your finger down on the line so you don't pull away more decoupage paper than you want to. I gave the rolling pin a final coat of liquid patina and then set it aside to dry but apparently I forgot to turn off my camera and so it kept recording and when I watched the video back I saw a section where my sister's cat had come in and just made herself at home on my workspace. I thought it was cute so I left that part in the video. After the decoupage paper had completely dried I took my finger sander out and used it to remove the excess paper around the edges. The only thing left to do to finish the project was to paint the handles and I had decided I wanted to paint them green but I didn't have a green with me that was the exact color I wanted and so I mixed a little bit of Cambridge with a small amount of cold black paint to get the dark green that I wanted. Now if you watch you see that I add a little black, I add a little more black and then I go back and add just a tiny bit more green. It really was just a matter of mixing until I got a color that I liked and that I felt matched the decoupage paper. I ended up giving the handles two coats of this paint and because it's fusion mineral paint I didn't need to seal it. I just had to let it dry completely and then I used my finger sander to distress it and added some darkened decrepit liquid patina to finish the project off. I love how this rolling pin turned out. It has a very old French country look to me. The botanicals on the decoupage paper are beautiful and I love the way everything blended together. The green paint on the handles, the darkened decrepit around the ends, the French wording on it, everything about it I love. If you're still watching thank you so much for joining me on this road trip. I had such an amazing time. It was so fun to meet so many new people at Royce's Retreat and to learn some new things and see old friends and the thrifting was amazing this year. I only upcycled a few of my finds for this video so make sure to watch for future videos as I continue to upcycle all the amazing things I found. Also I am hoping to have a second video this week. As many of you know IOD is going to release their new summer line to the public on Thursday May 7th and so it's going to take a bit of work on my part but I would like to upcycle a few of the things I found on this trip using the new IOD release and have a video ready for you on Thursday. If you are new to my channel my name is Marla and I am the owner and creator behind From Rust to Roses Vintage. I live in Las Vegas Nevada and I have a small booth in an antique mall here. If you're not yet a subscriber I hope you would consider subscribing to my channel and for those of you who are thank you so much for all of the comments the thumbs up the hypes I truly truly appreciate it. Enjoy the rest of your week and I hope to see you on Thursday.