Americana Primitive Kerosene Heater

I first started with a very old & rusty kerosene heater. It's pretty rough and needed a major makeover before I wanted to display it in my Booth #555 at the Peddlers Mall. Here it is on the day I bought it at a yard sale for only $10.00.

But if I was gonna keep it for myself, a quick clean up and some lights would be all it would need, lol. So to get it ready for sale, here's what I done.


I first tried to make it a more primitive themed by adding some reds,whites and blues. But I got sidetracked and forgot to paint the top part white...... UGH! But I'll get back to that.....

And then, Still not realizing I hadn't painted the white part, I went on to add some stenciled stars......

And it was finally then, when I stood back and looked at it, I realized I had somehow skipped painting the white part..... WEW! That is way too much BLUE! And so I set back off to do so, painting over the blue.... ugh! Sometimes, I think I've smelled too much craft paint. lol.

And so here's a pic after the first coat of off white (FINALLY) to the top. lol. A long time coming...

Okay, I was happy that it's finally starting to come together.... And that I got some white on there. Oh, I really mixed some off white with some brown I had to kind of make an antiquey older white. I just tend to say white when I'm writing. Same goes with the blues and reds. They are really a navy and a colonial red.

And now for the more detailed painting with the smaller brush and stencils. I thought since it's a red white and blue theme with stars, that adding 1776 to it would kind of add a cute touch. So here's what I came up with.

I decided to add a weeping willow tree to the front. And if you look close, you can see some sheep grazing under it. I just free handed these, but if you don't feel comfortable doing so, I'm sure there are plenty of stencils available on eBay.

And here's another shot of it all lit up. Oh, let me tell you how I made it electric... SUPER EASY! I just looked out in my garage for a holiday prop, like the plastic pumpkins or plastic santas, until I found a pumpkin that had the plug in type. It was just a basic light bulb on the end of a cord. And it had little clips on it. It slid right out of the pumpkin with a pinch! And I just inserted it into this heater by opening up the top. That's it. The cord comes out the side like this:

And here it is all lite up:

To get the better looking finish, I applied one coat of all purpose sealer, found in the craft section of paints. One coat was plenty for me. And it gave it the better, medium gloss finish. I like it way better than the flat. And that's it.

Here's the before and after pics one more time:

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AMERICANA Guitar for Display

This was first brought to me by a friend who won it in an auction for $2.00. It was plain, light colored wood, no strings, no knobs, and no tuning knobs. I mean plain Jane! It had been handmade by someone with a lot of patience lol.. I could not have taken the time to make this, that's for sure.

Anyways, my friend wanted it to be painted somehow so that they could display it for Fourth of July at his new house, on the porch.

And here's what I done to it. Let me say this, he did not want the "rustic" look on the guitar. That made me soooo sad, cause I know with some scuffs and such, it could have had a real nice worn look to it. I just don't care for the "just painted" look. I do wish he woulda wanted the ruffer look....oh well...

I even had to take some dowel rods and cut them with an exact o knife to get a ridge that holds the strings up. Oh, the strings I made from that crafting wire. The thin kind that you can hang ornaments with. It was kinda rusty in color.

In the pic above, you can see the black knobs holding the wire/strings. Well, those are from a black and white beaded necklace I had broken. I put a dab of hot glue on the inside, and then tacked them in with a tiny nail. The hot glue adds extra hold.

The ends of the wire, I just twirled with an ink pen. Wrap wire around it and slide out the ink pen. That's it.

It's a super long guitar. You can't really tell it when it's laying down so here's a pic to show just how long the neck is on it.

Oh, I took a cutout from a magazine of Uncle Sam and traced around him with a star. Cut it out and glued it on the top, red part for decoration. I used that modge podge to seal it.

Hard to see above, but then I just stenciled on some off white stars around Uncle Sam.

But if it were gonna be mine, I definitely would have finished it up a lot differently. A LOT! I may have even added some tiny strings of barb wire as the wires. If I could have found it, that woulda been cool! Oh, he added a guitar strap so he could hang it up on the porch. :-)

I just think most items look better roughed up.... What about you?