Weekend Junk Finds: Vintage Tablecloths

Today's junk came from an estate sale that I mentioned a few weeks ago. It opened on a Thursday afternoon, which I (mistakenly) thought meant it might not be so busy as a Friday morning sale. The kids were out of school that day, so I hired the neighbor to babysit and drove over.

I arrived at the sale about 10 minutes after opening, but there was no line--they'd let everyone in at once. Normally I hate that practice because it's just painful to stand outside in line, imagining that the people in front of you are scooping up all of the goodies while you wait and leaving you with the junk. In the case of this sale, I think letting people in a few at a time might not have been a bad idea! Surely, if the Fire Marshall had seen the place he'd have shut us down fast! It was a tiny old house and it was just unbelievably crowded and DARK.

Despite the hordes of people and the gloom, I managed to find a few treasures. In one bedroom I found a pile of vintage tablecloths. Even in the dark I could see that they were stained, but honestly couldn't tell how badly or if I thought the stains were removable. However, they were priced cheap--cheaper-than-the-thrift-store-cheap--so I thought I'd take a chance.

Love the aqua scalloped border on this one! The pale pink dye on the roses is pretty faded, though.

Pretty red flowers with blue-green leaves.

This one has a label--St. Regis by Springmaid.

This tablecloth was not with the others--it was wadded up in the top of the linen closet. This linen closet was at the end of the hall, flanked by bedroom doors on either side. It was so crowded that it was nearly impossible to even get the door open--and then if it was open, you not only blocked the hallway, but both bedroom doors. Truly, it was ridiculous. The estate sale company should have been smart and just taken the door off the hinges. There could have been gold bricks under the sheets & towels in that closet and nobody would have been able to get to them! This tablecloth is in better condition than the others and I think the aqua and orange color scheme is unusual and fun.

This tablecloth was with the others, but in much nicer condition. It features a motif of those cast iron trivets in the middle, and copper gelatin molds around the outside. (And I swear I ironed it--where did that ugly crease come from?). The copper molds remind me of my Gram, since she had a whole collection hanging up in her kitchen. The colors aren't my thing, so this one will end up in my Etsy shop.

I soaked the cloths in Biz and hot water, but unfortunately most of the stains stubbornly stayed put, so I officially have cutters. Maybe I can find more chairs that need reupholstering...

I'm linking up to Thrift Share Monday at Apron Thrift Girl!

3 Picture-hanging tips

My recent decorating spree has included finally hanging pictures on my walls and moving some existing pictures around. Hanging pictures doesn't seem like too complicated of a DIY endeavor, but for some reason it always seems to go a bit pear-shaped for me. I hate making extra holes in my walls, because that means filling them and touching up the paint, which means multiple trips to the basement, and I'm just lazy. We do actually own a laser level, which I have never ever used because we have no idea how and have lost the instruction manual. For crying out loud.

Anyway, I found a couple of tips that made things easier for me so I thought I'd share. One involves a very high-tech tool:

I used this little trick on a grouping of three silhouettes that I hung in my front room. Instead of measuring and marking for all three, I simply placed a tiny dot of toothpaste on the sawtooth hanger and pressed the frame up against the wall where I wanted to hang it. The toothpaste left a tiny mark on the wall where the hanger touched it. I hammered in the nail, wiped off the remaining toothpaste, and was done!

I'm sorry, I just have to add this wherever I can because would you just LOOK at those sweet curls on Porter?

Another tip involves larger frames. I recently had some family portraits blown up and put into large, heavy frames that I purchased at Michael's. The frames came with two rings on the back for hanging. I knew that would be a hassle, because now I had to get two nail holes properly spaced and level for each picture frame, and that was assuming both hooks were installed evenly on the frame itself. I was talking about this to a friend, and she suggested that I use the hooks to install picture wire instead.

I'm so thankful to have clever friends! I just so happened to have picture hanging wire in my stash, so it took no time at all to convert the frames.

Because the toothpaste method doesn't really work on frames with picture wire, I use this slightly more high-tech tool instead:

This is called the Picture Placer. I bought mine on clearance at Target or JoAnn's or something a few years ago and it's meant for hanging large pieces that use a picture wire.

This is what it looks like out of the packaging. You place that center piece in the top middle of the frame, and then hang the wire in a little groove on top of the round piece on the bottom and pull the arm up tight until the wire is taut. The little round piece has a tiny point on the back, so when you press the whole contraption up against the wall where you want the picture to be, the little point makes a small divot in your drywall, which shows you exactly where to place your nail! It really is ingenious and works every time.

For smaller frames without wires, you could use this clever homemade tool that is floating around Pinterest:

Pinned here, Original Source: http://mmscrapshoppe.blogspot.com/2011/07/picture-frame-hanging-tip.html

It uses the same principle as the Picture Placer tool. The hardest part would be getting the nail straight through the clothespin!

Do you have any helpful tips for hanging pictures right the first time?

Recovering a vintage chair with a tablecloth

There may be a few of you out there to whom this post may cause actual, physical pain--I will just go ahead and apologize in advance. :)

I found this old oak chair at Goodwill for $7 to replace the cute desk chair that I completely destroyed last summer.

It's nice and sturdy and the perfect size, but it had an ugly fabric seat. I knew that recovering it would be a quick fix, but I didn't want to purchase any fabric for the project. While rummaging through the VERY full dresser drawer where I keep my collection of vintage tablecloths, I happened upon this beauty:

A darling square cloth with a yellow border and a pattern of red tulips. It's charming but unfortunately is also very faded, so I didn't feel quite so guilty about cutting it up! Plus I thought it was fun with the curtains I have in the office:

A hot steam iron, a pair of shears, a staple gun and 15 minutes later I had this:

I know that to some of you, cutting up a perfectly good vintage tablecloth is tantamount to painting a mustache on the Mona Lisa! I won't lie--I had to take a deep breath before I made that first cut. I figure that this way, I can actually enjoy my pretty cloth on a daily basis instead of having it tucked away in the dresser in my guest room, rarely to see the light of day. I'm not saying that I'm going to get all scissor-happy with the rest of my beautiful collection, but I don't have any remorse for cutting this one at all!

Weekend Junk Finds: Vintage Pink Shiny Brites and more

 I happened to be coming back from the grocery store with Porter one Friday morning when I saw an Estate Sale sign in a neighborhood not far from my house. I was leery because I live in a new area, so it was unlikely to be a 50-year accumulation sale with tons of vintage goodies. I've been lured into a few "estate sales" in my area, which turned out to be sales of newish furniture in houses that were most likely being foreclosed upon. I almost didn't stop, but I could see that the house was right off the main road so I could likely be in and out quickly.

When inside, I realized that indeed it was full of vintage goodies, even though it was a house no more than about 10 years old and the woman running it was not much older than I. Truthfully, it was a glorified indoor garage sale, but with goodies like this and low prices, I wasn't about to complain!

I love this vintage metal wastebasket! The colors are so bright and happy. This is a small can, much more practical than the big DecoWare cherry trash can I bought a few weeks ago. I haven't decided if I'll keep this one to use or sell it alongside the cherry can.

Vintage Christmas ornaments--PINK vintage Shiny Brite Christmas ornaments, to be exact! I think I paid $2 per box for these.

And more vintage ornaments, which are sitting in an old wooden soda crate that someone painted pale pink. I'm not opposed to pink (obviously!) but I love the graphics on old soda crates so much that I wish this one had been left alone! I can't decide if I should leave it pink and just distress it a bit, or just paint over it in another color altogether--since it's already painted, I have nothing to lose! Sitting on the crate are three vintage pink rose cloth napkins.

When I first walked in, I snatched up the Shiny Brites right away. I hadn't been prepared to go junking so I only had a little cash with me. The other thing that immediately caught my eye was a huge basket full of blue glass canning jars with zinc lids. There must have been close to 20, and they were marked $5 each. I had to cut my shopping time short because I was 1) out of money and 2) Porter was behaving like a bull in a china shop, so I left to go home and hand him off to Quin and get more cash and head back. I thought maybe if I offered to buy all of the jars that I could get them for a lower price but by the time I got back just an hour later, they were gone and the basket was too, so somebody else bought the whole kit and caboodle just like I had planned to do. Cardinal rule of thrift shopping: if you see something you like, buy it right away or risk being disappointed later! Rats.

Did you find any good junk this weekend? I'm linking up with Apron Thrift Girl's Thrift Share Monday!

Unicorns & Rainbows party: invitation

The invitations have been made and sent, so now the rest of the party preparations can proceed!

I'm speaking of Maren's 7th birthday party next weekend, which happens to have a Unicorns & Rainbows theme. A theme that I may or may not have talked her into, because I really wanted to plan a rainbow party! Good thing she's such an agreeable little girl, because my inner 7-year-old self is having an awfully fun time planning!

The invitations were easy--the rainbow paper came from Michael's, and we cut the unicorns using my Cricut (Once Upon a Princess cartridge). We added a gold wing and horn and sparkly iridescent glitter to the pink mane and tail. I typed up all of the party info and printed it out on white paper and glued it to the inside. Not up to my usual standards, but we were having problems with the brand-new printer, so I had to make-do. (FYI, the HP Officejet 8600 WILL NOT print on card stock. #Areyoufreakingkiddingme? That useless hunk of plastic went back to Best Buy the very next day.)

I've been collecting party ideas on a pinboard, if you'd like to see what's inspiring me for this party: Unicorns and Rainbows Party. And if, like me, you just really love seeing colors all lined up in rainbow order, here's a board for that too: In Rainbow Order.

How to make a Cookie & Gumdrop Flower Bouquet

Monday was Maren's teacher's birthday, and since I'm one of the room moms I volunteered to bring in a little something fun for her. I knew just what I wanted to make: a cookie and gumdrop flower bouquet. It turned out so cute that I wanted to share it with all of you in case you'd like to make one as well!

I remember my mom making these when I was little, so I can't take credit for the idea. The supplies you'll need:

• 12" wooden skewers
• a container
• a lump of floral foam or other Styrofoam
• shredded paper or Easter grass to hide the foam
• a package of cookies that have a hole in the middle
• a package of large gumdrops
• a package of spearmint leaves (optional)
• knife, cutting board, clean wet washcloth, wire cutters

 A note about the cookies used in this project: when my mom used to make these, she always used a brand of butter cookies that were shaped like a flower and had a hole in the middle. I don't think they're available anymore because I haven't been able to find them for years. I did see a sugar-free version at my commissary, but I was afraid they'd taste odd or contain artificial sweeteners. I used Keebler Fudge Stripe cookies, but you can use anything with a hole in the middle. You could even make your own,as long as they're firm enough to hold up on the skewers.

The first thing to do is to prepare your container: cut the floral foam or Styrofoam to fit in the bottom of the container. You can use just about anything you can get your hands on for a container--I used a little cardboard basket from Target's Easter clearance last year. You could use a clean flowerpot, or a vase, or a mug, or a bucket--anything! Target's $1 Spot always seems to have cute little containers for every season.

Assembling these flowers is so easy that your kids can help with most of the steps! First, cut a gumdrop horizontally across, making two parts.

It's important to use the large gumdrops for this project, because normal-sized candies are too small. I found my large gumdrops at Rite-Aid.

Next, slide the bottom half of the gumdrop down your skewer about an inch. The sticky cut side will face up. You're making a little ledge for your cookie to sit upon.

Then simply slide on a cookie and the top part of the gumdrop! You can slide the two pieces of gumdrop together to hold the cookie firmly in place. You can even place the bottom slice of gumdrop on the skewer at an angle, so that the cookie flower will be slightly tilted. This adds some variation to the bouquet, like real flowers!

Now, my mom didn't use the spearmint leaves and I never have either, but they were hanging right next to the gumdrops in Rite-Aid so I grabbed a package to give them a try. I found it was best to poke a starter hole in them using an extra skewer. I slid it onto the skewer from the bottom before I added the cookie to the top. If the spearmint leaf leaves sticky green stuff on the skewer, you can use the clean washcloth to wipe it off. I only put a leaf on about half the flower skewers and tried to vary the height of each one.

As you complete each flower, stick it into the foam in your container. I tried to make them tall in the middle and shorter around the sides, turning the container frequently to make sure it was equal all around. You can use a pair of wire cutters to shorten the skewers for the flowers on the sides.

Once you have all of the flowers arranged, tuck the shredded paper or Easter grass down around the base of the skewers to hide the foam. I do this step last because sometimes it's hard to get the skewers in through the shredded paper.

Because this bouquet was for a birthday, I added a cute little "Celebrate" banner tag onto the end of an empty skewer.

The finished bouquet was so bright and happy (and delicious)! It attracted quite the crowd as I carried it into school on Monday morning, and Maren reported later that her teacher simply loved it. This is a great project for Teacher Appreciation day, a birthday, an anniversary (what about taking a bouquet of these flowers to your husband? He might appreciate them more than real flowers!) or any occasion where you need a cute, easy gift!

Weekend Junk Finds: Vintage Christmas

These fun goodies were actually from the same estate sale as last week's finds, but I saved them to show on their own because vintage Christmas goodies should never have to share the spotlight. :D

Everything that I bought was thrown into couple of box lots so I couldn't see exactly what I had until I got home and pulled it all out. I was definitely pleasantly surprised! I love the big snowman--he's a cardboard candy container but he seems to be covered with a layer of wax. I'm not sure if that was intentional or accidental, but either way, he's charming! His snowman compadres are of the pinecone and styrofoam ball variety. There were several Styrofoam crafts among the items that I bought. The green trees were attached to their bases with toothpicks and decorated with tiny mercury glass balls whose wires had been poked into the trees.

Here we have a giant version of the green Styrofoam tree, and a smaller version that has no ornaments, only a dusting of tarnished German glass glitter snow on the branches. In the other part of the forest is a stand of bottlebrush trees, a pair of foil angels with shocking hairdos, and another pinecone snowman sporting a strange blue paint job and resting on more Styrofoam.

Pink vintage Christmas gets its own picture. :) This guy is made from a spun cotton head, a fuzzy chenille stem body with a pipe cleaner candy cane and a pair of pink glass ornaments, all anchored into --you guessed it--more Styrofoam.

And last, the best kind of Christmas flotsam: spun head angels, tiny pink-tinged reindeer, sugar bells, pipe cleaner snowmen and a tiny skier, a bunch of small-sized mercury glass picks, and a pair of fantastic corsages made from foil leaves, mercury glass beads and shiny candy canes.

This weekend I went downtown to a beautiful historic mansion to visit a craft fair. I bought only a few things, but the place was hopping and it was nice to see that buying handmade hasn't gone out of style! Did you find any treasures this weekend?

I'm linking up with Apron Thrift Girl's Thrift Share Monday!

The power of spray paint

Since I've been on this redecorating kick, nothing is safe! We had near-70-degree weather on Monday and Tuesday, which meant it was finally warm enough for spray painting! I'd been eyeing a shelf in my kitchen for a few days and figured that it was high time for a change.

The shelf is nothing fancy. It was constructed and put up by the previous homeowners and because I'm always short on display space that is out of reach of little hands, I left it up. It sits above the pantry in my kitchen and there's really not a whole lot of clearance between the shelf and the ceiling, so I am limited in what I can display. The shelf was just a sort of nondescript golden brown, a color I have in abundance in the kitchen because of my golden oak cabinets and honey-colored wood floors.

When we first moved in, I had a cute display of vintage red wooden-handled kitchen utensils, a green Pyrex bowl, and my grandma's old BHG red gingham cookbook. When I found my huge Jadeite score back in 2008, I decided to use the shelf to display some of the pieces in the collection.

I combined the Jadeite with some of my Ovenex starburst pans and posted about it here. (Ironically, I made that post on March 6, 2008--so almost exactly 4 years ago, as I am writing this on March 7, 2012!) And that is pretty exactly much how it has looked since then.

On Monday afternoon, I unloaded all of the Jadeite and gave it a good washing (even though it's not anywhere near the stove, it still had a layer of that greasy dirt that stuff in the kitchen seems to attract). I took the shelf outside and gave it a few coats of black glossy spray paint. Easy as pie!

When I put the shelf back up and loaded in my Jadeite, I decided to try it without the Ovenex pans. It looked too naked, but I remembered some of the red and white polka dot melamine plates in my cupboard and set a few of those up there instead. I love how it looks! I've always wanted to add more red to set off the Jadeite green but couldn't figure out how to do it before. I like how crisp the black shelf looks with the pale green and bright red. It was a fun, no-cost, simple change but it makes me so happy to look at it. Hooray for the power of spray paint!

Is there anywhere in your house where a bit of spray paint and little rearranging could make a big difference?

How to camouflage a poorly-placed outlet cover or light switch

I mentioned last week that I did some furniture rearranging in my front room (in my pjs, at 7:15 am--hey, when inspiration strikes, you have to jump on it!). Unfortunately, I was not able to move the blue dresser  so that it would cover up that darn ugly outlet.

Because I couldn't completely hide it, I did the next best thing to make it disappear: Camouflage!

I used the same technique that I employed on an ill-placed light switch plate in my living room last year.

For my red wall, I used a piece of cute scrapbook paper from Jenni Bowlin that is printed with old soda water labels and was the perfect shade of deep red.

This truly is a five-minute project. It takes longer for the Mod Podge to dry than it does to put the whole thing together, and that includes finding a tiny screwdriver to remove & reinstall the outlet cover, and digging the Mod Podge and a brush out of your craft closet.

The outlet cover is still visible, but now it's not quite so obvious, and I love the tiny bit of extra detail that the vintage-style paper provides. It's nice to add a bit of flair to something as utilitarian and ubiquitous as an outlet cover!

Weekend Junk Finds

I went to an estate sale on Thursday afternoon, which was only possible due to the fact that all of the middle & high school kids were out of school so I could get a baby-sitter for mine, who were also out of school. I thought perhaps a Thursday afternoon sale might be a bit less busy than a Friday morning opening sale. I was so very laughably WRONG about that!

The sale was in a typically small old house and it was probably the most crowded sale I've yet to encounter. I got there about 10 minutes after opening and there was no line--they just let everyone in. It was nice to not have to wait out in the snow but golly, this was one house where it might have been in everyone's best interest to only let a certain number go in at a time. There were places in the house that were literally shoulder-to-shoulder, and I think the Fire Marshal would have shut us down if he'd seen. It was so dark and crowded so it was really challenging to shop. I found a few things but they need ironing before I can photograph, so I'll have to share those another week.

This week's finds were from another estate sale from a few weeks back.

When will I stop buying old canning jars? Apparently the answer to that is never. I am going to have to get a grip on that little obsession. Also a cute Shawnee yellow flowerpot, which although I have two other yellow vintage flowerpots, I do not feel one bit guilty for buying.

Another cute little flowerpot, this one unmarked. Love the little polka dots! The time book is unused and has a great graphic on the front. The teeny orange notebook has calendars for 1951 & 1952.

Because I'm Mad for Plaid, I couldn't pass up these little jelly jars with plaid lids. They came filled with flower seeds, and I think when it gets a bit warmer, I'm going to go dump them outside and cross my fingers. Maybe I'll be surprised!

This fun little assortment of junk was inside a box that I plucked from the back of a high shelf. In addition to the fun colorful dice, there is a tiny Future Farmers of America pin, a US Navy Honorable Discharge button, a cool heavy metal tag advertising Monarch Ranges, a 1947 lucky wheat penny horseshoe keychain from Ernie's Club Cafe, and what I think is the neatest treasure: two Indian head pennies from 1905 & 1906.

And last, two old metal refrigerator baskets and a very cool Decoware cherry-painted wastebasket. As much as I love it, I think it's destined to be sold. It's an odd size--too small for use in a kitchen, but too large for use anywhere else. It would be cute to use for storing rolls of wrapping paper or vintage wallpaper, but I don't have any that needs storing right now. I'm hoping to sell at a craft/vintage show in October so I think I'll hang onto this until then, as bulky as it is.

Did you find any goodies this weekend? I'm linking to Thrift Share Monday over at Apron Thrift Girl!

Decade

Forgive me if I'm a bit sappy, but today The Mister and I celebrate 10 years of being married!

Our wedding day was the first Saturday in March, right after the end of the 2002 Winter Olympics. Sometimes in Salt Lake City in March, you get lucky and have an unseasonably warm day that feels more like Spring than the Winter season that it technically still is. Our wedding day was NOT one of those days. The sun was bright and the sky a deep blue, but the air was cold and it was windy.

If you look closely, you can see that in most of our photos our noses and cheeks are awfully pink!

Today we're celebrating by getting dressed up and going out to a new place for dinner. Afterwards, we're going to watch our wedding video and drink the last remaining bottle of the personalized sodas that my sweet mother-in-law had made for our wedding breakfast.

We haven't watched our wedding video in YEARS so it should be entertaining. :) And I've never drunk 10-year-old soda either, so that could be interesting as well!

Ten years of happiness, adventure, disagreements, making up, fun, tears, deployments, kids...and I wouldn't trade it for anything. I look forward to what the next ten years have in store for us. I know we can face anything if we do it together!

If you give a DIY-er a cookie...

I've been on a decorating tear for the past week and half and I love it! It all started simply enough--I was sitting on the couch one morning with Porter and couldn't help looking at my cute vintage chalkboard:

and thinking how it has never really *worked* for me where it was hanging. Can't put my finger on why exactly, but it has never been quite right. From there on out, it has been the decorating and home improvement version of this:

One thing has led to another: moving the chalkboard meant taking down the antique window:

which meant filling holes in the wall and touching up the paint. And while I was at it, why not fill the holes in all of the other walls and touch up the paint on those too?

--There were two trips to World Market to buy curtains; curtains that I've been meaning to buy for a year or more. I also found a website to buy replacement clips for the moulding on my faux-wood blinds, a fix I've needed to make for years.

--I brought in a 'new' lamp--actually a lamp I bought at TJ Maxx last year meaning to put it in my master bedroom (which I still haven't redecorated). It looks perfect in my front room with the $4 Target clearance shade I found a while ago.

--I rearranged my front room furniture one snowy morning at 7:15 am while still clad in my pajamas and I can't believe how much more I love the room now! I'll take a photo of that one to share soon.

--I hung the silhouette of Maren that I had made at Disneyland nearly THREE years ago. (In my defense, I was waiting to have a silhouette made of Porter so I could hang them together. That finally happened last April so really I'm only 10 months behind, right?)

Would you just look at those sweet curls? I die.

--I hung portraits of Maren and Porter that I had taken last May. (are you getting the idea that I'm not the most motivated picture-hanger out there?)

--Heck, the productivity buzz has even spilled over into other areas: I fixed the bag-holder in Porter's closet, something that has been on my list for months. I repotted the sad-looking little succulents I bought last summer that were just barely clinging to life. I FINALLY finished putting together my wedding photo album, which is timely because my 10-year anniversary is tomorrow. Now that's some procrastination, folks!

I have a few more projects on my list that I'm hoping to complete before I lose steam and go back to my procrastinating ways. Hopefully I can ride the wave of my productivity and get them tackled this weekend!