Tray chic!

Happy Friday to you all!  We finally have some much appreciated sun and dry weather here in Michigan.

Tray chic??..................Tres chic!!!!!!!  Sorry, I just couldn't resist!  Looking around our home, I see that I have lots of trays.  Guess I just can't get enough of them!  Not only are they pretty to look at, but they are functional as well!  I love using them when we entertain.  Everything looks better (and more organized!) when it's corralled on a tray.  And since we love eating outdoors in warm weather, trays are really a lifesaver when it comes time to hauling everything out on the deck!  I thought I would show you some of my favorites.

This Parisian themed one is a shadow box style tray (you can't really see the handles in this photo), that I bought several years ago from Current catalog. The only finish it came in was a dark cherry, and since I prefer lighter woods, it sat in a corner gathering dust for years.  Every time I walked by it I felt guilty!  Why did I buy it?!  Why don't I do something with it??  So finally, I painted her my favorite creamy white and distressed her a bit.  This was before I met Ralph (as in Lauren.  As in antiquing glaze!), or I certainly would've used it on this project!  Anyway, I used scrap booking supplies and a reproduction French postcard, and now I love it!  The neat thing about this tray is that you can easily change it out. I made a fun display for Christmas last year.  This would be so easy to do with a pretty picture frame, too!

I got this pretty black and floral tray a few years ago at a yard sale (25 cents, I think).  It's advertising a store, and I think that it was a gift to customers.  Check out there phone number!  Only 5 digits!  I love this pretty yellow tray. I've not been to Provence (it's a dream trip of mine, though!), but I did find it in a cute little shop in Paris a few years ago.

The rose tray was alot of fun to make!  I decoupaged pages from a vintage French book, then decoupaged roses from a book of Pierre-Joseph Redoutes water color roses.  I found both books at our librarys monthly used book sale.  I was especially excited to find the Redoute rose book! If your local library has used book sales, I would highly recommend going!  You never know what potential crafting projects are lurking within the pages of all of those books! I showed you these toile trays before. They are in our bedroom.  My motto is: "You can never have too much toile"!

I also showed you this last one before, in our living room.  Bought several years ago at a moving sale for next to nothing!  I just love the floral design!

Why not add a little tray chic to your home??!

Well, ladies, I hope that you all have a great weekend!  I am hoping to find a few good yard sales this weekend.  You never know what you might find..............

Sea Shell Chic

It's been unusually cold and rainy here in Michigan, so I thought what better to do than go to the beach!  Well, not literally!!   But I can dream and imagine being at the beach, though!  I am an "aqua baby", and am happiest when I am by (or in!) the water!

I love shells and shell crafting, and I usually don't bring out my shell things til summer time, but felt the urge today to get them out.  Whenever we travel somewhere warm and tropical, my very favorite thing to do is walk by the ocean, collecting shells.  I could get lost in shelling for hours (and I have!).  I've been shell crafting for a few years now.  It's so fun to make things that bring back memories of wonderful trips!  I thought I would show you how I decorated the antique hutch in our living room today.


I'll show you a closer look.  I love the way these shells and sea urchins look in vintage glass creamers!

And here is a close up of a some of the boxes  I covered in shells. The one above (I've shown you two views of it), started out as a metal recipe box!                                                                                                                                                                                  

 

Of course, everything looks better under a glass cloche, don't you think?!  This sweet pink depression glass creamer was given to me by my Mom several years ago.  This picture frame is my first shell crafting project.  That is hubby & me at Lake Michigan.  I do love our Great Lakes!



This shell mirror took many, many hours, and tons of shells!

These are actually mirrors, but I thought that they would look pretty on our coffee table with votive candles in the center.  They look so pretty at night!  I have had these mirrors since I was a teenager, & tucked them away for years, almost forgotten!  Glad I kept them!  The last photo is another box, which started out as a lidded tin.  For some of these projects, I did supplement with a few shells that I bought at the dollar store, but most were gathered on our trips.  Lots of memories, lots of glue gun burns, too!   I will be sure to share with you in a future post more ways that I use and display shells!  I am linking today's post up with Faded Charm for White Wednesday 
and Cindy at My Romantic Home for Show & Tell Friday 
and Funky Junk Interiors SNS

Milk Glass and Lily of the Valley!

My lily of the valley has started to bloom its' heart out, so I picked several big bunches of it yesterday.  It is one of my favorite flowers (I think I say that about most all flowers!) and it smells heavenly!  I thought it would look pretty to fix some bouquets & put in my milk glass vases.  I have several pieces of milk glass, and I really love it.  It's funny, because I remember as a teenager thinking that my Mom's milk glass was so ugly!  Back then I don't think I appreciated anything old or vintage!!  How things change!  One great thing about milk glass is that it is pretty easy to find, and very affordable (at least for now!).

It was such a beautiful day yesterday that I decided to take my bouquets and have a little photo session on the front deck.  My Mom gave me this Fenton hobnail vase many years ago, and I just love it!  She brought it to me on my birthday with flowers in it from her garden, and told me the vase was mine, too!

I picked up this pretty vase this weekend at a moving sale.  I arrived 1/2 hour before they closed on the last day of the sale, so everything was half off.  Guess sometimes it pays to be late!  I got this beauty for 75 cents! I couldn't believe no one else grabbed her!  I'll show you a close up of the detail, because it's hard to see in the first picture.  You can't see it, but there are little stars going diagonally around the vase.  So pretty!

Here is a close up of another one.  Can you tell the pattern? It is lily of the valley!  I love the scallop edge at the top.  One of my girl friends gave it to me for my birthday a few years ago.  I think it's just gorgeous (it's heavy, too), and I have never seen one like it before.


I ran out of lily of the valley for this last one that I wanted to show you, so I just plopped some pansies and moss in for the picture.  I wish that I could keep them in it, but there is no drainage.  I picked this one up several years ago at a church rummage sale, and I think I paid around $1.25 for it.  Can't beat that!  I also included a closeup of the pretty trim at the top.  I keep this vase in our guest room filled with pretty soaps and little bottles of lotion.  It's also fun to decorate it at Christmas!

Hope you are all having a great day!

I am linking up over at
Faded Charm
for White Wednesday

And at My Romantic Home for
Show & Tell Friday

Vintage Postcards

Hello there, hope you are having a great weekend!

Yesterday as I was sorting through some things, I came across a set of 7 vintage postcards that I'd almost forgotten about.  I bought them last year from a neighbor's yard sale, and was first attracted to the fact that several of them were from Paris.  When I got home and began reading them, I was amazed at the stories they told!  They all were sent to a Miss Kate Lannen, who originally lived in L.A., then moved to Toledo, Ohio.  The earliest one was from 1935!  Kate's friend (or maybe a cousin?), named Annabel sent it from Edinburgh, Scotland, and said that she and her Dad had also been to France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, and were on there way to Wales. Now, in the 21st century it is so easy to hop on a plane here in the US and end up in Europe in 8 hours or less (depending on where you live).  Imagine though back in 1935, how long it would take!  I don't know when transatlantic flights became common, but I am sure it wasn't in the mid 30's!  So Annabel and her Dad would've taken a ship, which I imagine could take weeks!  Also, travel back then wasn't something the average person could afford, so one would have to be fairly well off.  That was also a time when travel seemed so exotic and romantic. Long security lines and pat downs were unheard of!

Five of the other postcards were from a Betty.  That Betty really got around!  It's hard to read the dates postmarked on all of Betty's cards, but it looked like she sent them from 1960-1967.  Betty sure was one adventurous lady!  She visited Paris, Portugal, Amsterdam, England, Germany, and Ireland, where she mentioned going to the Blarney Castle.I wonder if she kissed the Blarney Stone?!  In the postcard that she sent of Trevi Fountain in Rome, Betty wrote "Arrived here the other day and it's a glorious place! Had an audience with the Pope yesterday and I cried like a baby all get out, it was so thrilling."  Wow!  I bet that was one of the highlights of her life!

The one postcard that really stood out to me though was sent by a young soldier named Walter. Was Walter Kate's  beau?  He must have been, or at least I wanted to think he was!  He sent Kate a card from Paris June 29th, 1945, (soon after the war was over!).  This is what he said :  "Hello "Micky",  Suppose you are wondering what has happened to me since coming overseas.  It is quite a long story by now, for I have really seen beaucoup miles pass by. I was fortunate to spend a three day pass in Paris.  Sure is a lovely place."   Ok, the romantic in me really got excited!  I could imagine Walter returning to the states after his tour of duty was over, courting Kate, proposing, and settling down to raise a family.  I quickly scanned all of the postcards sent to Kate after 1945, but sadly, they were still addressed to "Miss Kate Lannen"! So much for that notion!

At any rate, I couldn't help but wonder what the lives of these people were like. People that I never met.  Betty, Kate, Walter, Annabel.........How quickly I was transported back in time!  Getting just a tiny glimpse into the lives of these people was really fascinating to me!  And I still can't help but feel letdown that Walter and Kate did not live happily ever after!

Vintage Linens

I just love vintage linens, don't you?  I have quite a collection that I have gathered over the years.  Most of them came from yard & garage sales for next to nothing, and my Mom also gave me some really pretty ones, too.  I thought I would share a few of them with you today.  Isn't the runner above gorgeous?  I just love it!  Here is a closer look at some of the detail.  The trim around the edges looks like tatting.   I really love this pretty tablecloth, featuring my favorite flower, violets!  Not all of my linens are in perfect condition.  Some of them might have a spot here or there that I could never get out, or a little tear here or there. I still love them anyway, and figure that I can always hide their flaws with a vase or something!

Check out the pretty trim on this peach bark cloth runner!  And the sweet sunbonnet Sue! And I do love my vintage hankies.  Can you tell that I like blue & white?  I especially love vintage embroidered pillowcases.  You just don't see this kind of workmanship anymore!  This one has some really pretty crocheted trim on the edges.  I really love using them, rather than just keeping them packed away in a drawer!  The last piece is a tablecloth from Germany, and is in near perfect condition.  I didn't show you more of it because it was really wrinkly, and I was all ironed out!

That's it for today!  Hope you have a great week!