Sunday 16 March 2014

A spoonful of milk paint...

... is all you need to start painting !

When you visit our store, you will be able to see all the cool projects we have painted with either Miss Mustard Seed Milk paint or van Gogh fossil paint.

To give you more information that will help you decide which paint will work best for you, we will make 2 blogs about these great paints.

Let's talk Milk paint !
            Miss Mustard Seed Milk paint !

Milk paint comes in a powdered form.
Yes, you can not paint with just the powder alone.  So we have to mix it with water.  By doing this, you can turn the milk paint in either a stain or a thicker paint.  Just add more or less water
To mix the milk paint, you can use a whisk.
Now that your mixture is ready, you have to decide if you want the paint to"naturally chip" or that you determine where you want the paint to chip.  (to give a distressed look)
Definition of "to distress" : to sand away paint to give your project a more aged and antique look
On all the projects we have done, I have always added the bonding agent because I want to decide where the distressing needs to happen.  When you do not use the bonding agent, the paint will chip in areas that maybe you did not want it to.  
That is why i call it "The adventurous paint".   
However you decide, it depends on the project and the look you want to create.

You can get a "distressed look" by using 1 coat of the same paint or with 2 different colors.
On this board, I used 1 color with bonding agent

On this board, I used 2 different colors.  

The result in distressing is a different look.  Once you have the feeling for distressing you can distress as much as you want to distress.  (i should stop saying distress because you may end up stressed and then you will have to destress)

When you are finished, you can decide what finishing coat you want to apply.

We carry all the Miss Mustard Seed products in our store and when you have any questions, we most certainly will do our best to help you out.

Hopefully this blog gave you enough basic information to get you started and you will enjoy this milk paint as much as I do.

The season of garage sales and auctions is upon us, so many potential projects are just waiting for you. !

Just to close off, a picture of our latest project done with milk paint.


Thank you for following our blog!




Sunday 9 March 2014

As promised !

Now that we are in the middle of seeding, it's the perfect time to show you our second type of seeder.

         This is our "Fast seeder"

The plug flat is placed under a "roller" which makes small dents in the dirt. (small detail: don't keep your fingers under the roll!)
Then our flat moves further on a conveyer belt and will end up under a seed tray.
In this tray we place all the seeds we want to seed.  
The system works like a vacuum cleaner.
Can you see the needles?  
These needles will pick up 1 seed and will drop them in the small tubes.
Normally the seeds will then fall on our plug flats.

This is what a seeded flat will look like.
Then our seeded plug flat will continue its journey and will end up under a box that is filled with vermiculite.  (when the grade 4 classes come to our greenhouse for their tour, we always have them pronounce it.  It often leads to interesting new words)
The flats are covered with this medium, to maintain the moisture better.



       ALMOST finished.  
Our flat will move through the water tunnel.  It is a fact that every one waters their plants differently.  To avoid this, this water tunnel has several water bars and waters the flats nice and equally.
THEN our flats are ready to go to the germination room.    
We place all the seeded flats on a cart and OFF THEY GO














To end our blog on a funny note, can you guess what plant this is?

We will give you a hint:  
it can be smok'n when you use this plant !

As many of you, we look forward to a nice spring.

Thank you for following our blog.  We very much appreciate all your support.