Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint. About it. About us. About our workshops.

We were ecstatic about being selected as a Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint Retailer last year, and now we're even more excited to be able to offer Milk Paint Workshops to our customers. We've only been selling the product for two months, so we know a lot of you might not yet be familiar with it.

We'll let you in on the big secret, and your home painting projects may never be the same again! {you're welcome.}  

WHAT IS MILK PAINT?

"Milk Paint is an ancient all-natural paint containing basic ingredients including milk protein (casein), limestone, clay and natural pigments. When absorbed into the surface, Milk Paint will never chip or peel when applied to a raw wood surface. It is suitable for both interior and exterior applications and is naturally mold resistant. Milk paint provides a completely breathable coating and is ideal for painting wood, plaster, drywall and a variety of other surfaces.  It is environmentally friendly, non-toxic and contains no VOCs.

With the Milk Paint Bonding Agent you can use Milk Paint on even more surfaces such as previously painted walls, varnished surfaces, ceramic tiles, metal, glass etc.  Without the bonding agent, Milk Paint will resist some prefinished or prepainted surfaces to achieve an authentic “chippy” look."  {thanks for the perfect description, Miss Mustard Seed}

WHAT ARE VOCs?

"Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are emitted as gases from certain solids or liquids. VOCs include a variety of chemicals, some of which may have short- and long-term adverse health effects." - EPA

WHY DID WE CHOOSE MILK PAINT?

1.  SAFETY:  The biggest reason we chose to start using and selling Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint is because it's completely natural and contains zero VOCs. While we have a workshop with great ventilation, we sometimes like to bring furniture right into our living room, and paint while we watch TV. We'd been mixing our own chalk paint previously, which admittedly worked great, and was quite inexpensive. But even when we used low-VOC latex paint as the base, it didn't feel good to be painting with it inside. Then, when we found out we had a baby on the way, we made an immediate lockdown on all the chemical products we use in our house {yes, we now realize we should be just as concerned about our own health, but it was a good instigator...}

2.   VERSATILITY:   There are dozens of potential ways to use milk paint, but the primary five are to use it as a stain on raw wood, as a "wash" over wood or another paint color, as an all-over solid color, with a chippy finish, or for a crackle finish. These techniques, combined with the variety of finishing products, make this one of the most versatile paints we have ever seen! 

3.   COLOR CHOICES:   With 18 different colors available in Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint, there is sure to be a paint for everyone's style. The colors are all natural, and reminiscent of primitive, farmhouse-style pieces. However, using the techniques listed above, they can also be very modern. {Have you checked out Target, West Elm or Pottery Barn lately? They are full of colors that look like Mustard Seed Yellow, Kitchen Scale, and Apron Strings}.  And what's even better? The paints can be easily mixed to create your own custom color. Many retailers even have "signature" colors that they have discovered along the way....be on the lookout for a Carver Junk Company "signature color" contest early this year!

4.   THE FEEL:   This might sound ridiculous, but stop in the store sometime, and just touch one of our milk painted pieces. They're smooth.....like butter. I seriously can't stop touching them...every time I walk by - don't worry, I wash my hands often. There is not another finish like this available with any other products. 

5.   THE SMELL:   Take a workshop with us.  In our small, enclosed, unventilated workshop studio.  We BET you won't even notice the smell. Try that with ANY other paint products, we dare you.  I mean, really, the wax products in the Miss Mustard Seed line smell GOOD. Like suntans and lavender. Like good, natural stuff should.

Yep, we drank the kool-aid. We love this stuff. And we'll be honest with you about where it might or might not work for you projects - cause we want you to love it, too.

HOW DO I USE MILK PAINT?

Stop into the store. We'd be happy to chat with you, cover the basics, and send you home with a How To Guide and the confidence to start your projects. Pick up a couple of our sample packs of paint {they each cover a couple of picture frames, a small box, or other table-top item}.   

Still not sold? Want to know more? Want to learn the basic techniques? Sign up for one of our workshops. We currently have a few Milk Paint 101 workshops scheduled, and plan to add more plus more advanced workshops in the next month or so. We'll also add some special, seasonal-type, workshops too - think Spring, Mother's Day, etc.

You can check out our workshop dates/times/details here: 

https://www.facebook.com/CarverJunkCompany/events

Stop in and check out the paint display in the Carver store - we'd love to chat more about it, help you choose some products, and we LOVE to see your finished projects as well {perhaps we'll beg you to do a feature of your finish project on the blog....}

Recycle. Repurpose. Relove.

Carver Junk Company

Collect Junk You Love!

Some of the things in our home that we love, and are authentic to us:

Los Angeles Pottery Co, "Cookies All Over" cookie jar. It's not beautiful, and it's not modern, but it was my grandmother's. It is the cookie jar that I used to steal those little rectangle-shaped waffle cookies with the cream filling from when I was four. And now it's a great spot to store dog treats!

Nescafe Vintage World Mugs. They are not hand-me-downs, but they are vintage. And they are the same as the ones my grandma {my Mamo} used to make chocolate pudding in when my cousin and I were young. I found two sets of four mugs at a vintage sale two years ago. I immediately called my Dad {before leaving the store} to make sure my six-year-old memories were remembering the same mugs. Before I even finished describing the "mugs Mamo used to make pudding in," he responded with "those Nescafe mugs with the World on them!"  I bought both sets, and gave one to my cousin. We use them as espresso cups in our house, and one day, I will serve chocolate pudding in them to our children.

Our styles are a mix of more traditional and rustic (Chad), and more vintage and modern (Me). Our compromises are many, in that we choose most things in our home together. And they are few, in that when we find the perfect piece, neither of us usually feels like we've compromised our own style. Our curtains are an awesome example. We looked for months for the right curtains for the dining room of our previous house. And found nothing. So, I convinced Chad to let me make some, if we could find the perfect fabric. He was apprehensive {admittedly, he'd never seen me sew anything at this point....}, but agreed. And then I went out on a limb and suggested {one of hundreds of suggestions} a fabric I thought he'd hate. He LOVED it! And now, this fabric is the basis of our living and dining room decor:

Oh yeah, we were SO ahead of the trend on the suzani pattern fabric. {and we're humble, too} See that pop of aqua in the fabric? We've pulled out a brighter version of that for our TV stand, and our soon-to-be kitchen island stools. This is our kitchen inspiration {apologies, don't know source, it's from Pinterest}:

The kitchen is a work in progress, but someday we'll get some photos up, so you can see how we're progressing against our inspiration piece, vs. what we've changed to be more authentically "us."

As far as other things we LOVE: white leather couches. Have I mentioned we have three dogs? Oh yeah, we have. And we STILL LOVE white leather couches.  We had these ones in our old house {you get a little peek at our old home before and after}:

And when we moved, the two separate, matching sofas wouldn't fit into the configuration of our new house. Boo!! We loved the setup the previous owners' had, which included a sectional in the corner of the living room. So we got this:

But it just wasn't "us."  It was one of those compromises where we both felt we compromised. And so we sold it, and bought this {whoops, only have photos of it that include the dogs sitting on it. proof that it's durable!! .....and proof that our house is sometimes messy well-lived-in}:

Ahhhh.....so much better. Oh yeah, and we painted the walls gray to make the white trim "pop." And yeah, we have a photo canvas on the wall of our three dogs sitting on the {old} white leather couch. Because we love them. And that photo. And that couch. And they are a huge part of our lives! 

So that's the rundown of just a few of the things that we collect and love around our house. We have moved twice in the last few years, which has provided us a great opportunity to de-clutter and remove the things we don't truly LOVE. Which has led to a house full of things we DO love, and a lot of things that tell our story.

What's your favorite, most-authentically-you, loved item in your home?

Handmade in Minnesota. We Love Local!

Each month, we bring in more and more handmade products. While the majority of our store is vintage, antique, or repurposed, we also love to support local artisans. And by "local" we mean Minnesota-based. Many of our in-house dealers make handmade items of their own to sell at the store. Others come from folks who specialize in a particular craft, and we work with them to provide specific products for the store.

Here are just a few of the handmade items carried at Carver Junk Company:

What other handmade items would you like to see at Carver Junk Company?  We're always looking for inventory suggestions!