There's nothing like finding the real deal at a flea market. It could be a vintage globe. Or perhaps some rusty old industrial pieces you just have to have. Or maybe it's architectural salvage. Sometimes it works out perfectly like that. And sometimes you end up taking whatever's available to you and turning it into something almost as amazing. That's what happened to me recently after I picked up two brand new plain jane storage crates at my local home improvement store. They seemed almost too pristine for me, although I did see the potential in them for something greater.


Here's one of the crates. I paid $5.00 each for them. While I loved the price I did not love their newness and the plain jane look of them. I wasn't sure what I'd be using them for but I knew I would figure that out later.


Enter one rolling plant stand ($2.99 from Goodwill) and I had my light bulb moment. Why not attach these wheels to the storage crate and use it in my pantry? So that's what I did. But not before I took my paintbrush and some stencils to it first.

First I gave the crate two coats of white paint. The wood soaked it up so well that I actually ended up with only a dull white finish. But since I was going for a vintage look that was fine. Still, though, I felt that it was sorely in need of something. Enter my vintage-inspired Folkart Farmers Market laser stencils.    


Courtesy of Wal-Mart. Sometimes I am so amazed at the things they carry in their arts and crafts aisle!





I couldn't fit all the words from the stencil onto the crate, but that was ok. I liked the way it happened to fit. I also knew even before I bought the stencils that I wanted to stencil some numbers onto it (I always stencil numbers on things) and lo and behold the package itself showed a design idea for that so I went with it.


I obviously didn't try to make the stencil job look perfect by any means. That's one of the perks of being a self-proclaimed vintage junkie! ("But I like it like this!") I was going for a rustic look, and I think I achieved that here.



For the photo shoot I had fun styling my Pellegrino water bottles along with my vintage bottles and my vintage seltzer bottle. As an aside I was absolutely thrilled to receive the vintage seltzer bottle for Christmas from Mr. CBD.


The change was not dramatic, but it was just enough to turn this plain jane crate into a more rustic, vintage-inspired storage cart for my pantry. It may not look as impressive once it's filled with cereal boxes and Costco-sized pancake syrup, but I'll love it just the same. Now all I have to do is stumble upon some more wheels for the other cart and I'm good to go.