Vintage wooden salad bowl sets make great holiday gift baskets, and there's no shortage of them at yard sales and thrift shops.
Here's a vintage salad bowl set which I recently cleaned, painted, sanded, and stained ~ ready to use as individual holiday gift baskets. I use them to hold gifts of various themes, such as guest soaps & rolled wash cloths, kitchen spices & spoons, or hot cocoa & tea packets with candies, etc. I use cellophane gift basket bags from Dollar Tree & tie with jute twine for fast and easy gifts.
Did you know you can remove grease & grime from vintage wooden wares with baking soda? (Not for use on valuable antiques, of course!) I mix baking soda
& warm tap water to form a thick paste & rub it over greasy wood surfaces, allowing it to dry. After rubbing the paste off with a dish towel dipped in hot water, I put them in a sunny spot to dry. You might want to test a small area before completely covering your wooden wares in baking soda, sometimes this causes the wood to crack.
For this particular set, I painted the outsides only ~ using various colors of latex flat interior paint, sanded the edges for an aged look, then rubbed oil-based wood stain with sealer over the entire surface including the natural wood interiors.
redshedvintage.com© copyright 2014
Wedding season is approaching, so I'll feature some uniquely inexpensive wedding décor and gift ideas in the next few weeks!
A great wedding décor or bridal shower gift idea is a simple mailbox for holding cards and/or gift cards on that special day.
You can place the 1st card inside to demonstrate, so guests will follow.
While thrift stores are a great source for cheap vintage mail boxes, you can still find them new & Made in U.S.A. at local hardware stores such as Ace Hardware.
I found this slightly rusted & dented vintage metal mailbox for $1.00 at a thrift store, and gave it a good soap and water cleaning before covering with 2 coats of flat red wall paint (To Die For Red, Better Homes & Gardens paint from Walmart) which I later sealed with a hand-rubbed coat of Walnut wood stain. copyright 2013 www.redshedvintage.com
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