Monday Is Fun Day - Vintage Nut Container

What catches your eye when you're in a store?  For me, the first thing is color, then style, then function.  Kind of sad that function comes last, but that's the way it is.  And when I'm buying decorative accessories, those priorities seem OK to me.

Anything aqua, pink, or mint green gets my attention right away.  When it has more than one of those colors, even better.  

This is a vintage plastic box that somebody decorated.  I found it at my favorite "Parisian flea market".  It's 9" from one pointy edge to another.

It originally held a "deluxe nut mix", consisting of five kinds of nuts roasted in oil and salt, with an additional five chemicals as preservatives.  One of them is used to make polyester resins and is also used as an aircraft de-icing fluid.  Hmm. 

The gold inner border is original - I can tell based on the scuffing.  The paper and spiffy pink flower are recent additions.

This is how I display it on a bookshelf.

Making It Mine - Vintage Floral Lamp

Making It Mine is about buying a new or vintage item and changing it up to make it mine.

This was my latest project - a lamp base from an antique store.  The sign said "it works" which was good to know, since it was missing some parts.  Just to be sure, I had them try it out with a light bulb before I bought it.

As you can tell, the main thing missing is a lamp shade.

Another thing missing was the knob to turn it on and off.  Luckily it was in the "on" position when they put the bulb in.  Who wants to turn a lamp on and off with needlenose pliers?  Not me.

When I took the lamp to the hardware store to see if they sold knobs that would fit, they told me there was a piece missing from the center, too.  You're not supposed to have just that piece of cardboard.

The hardware store man found a lamp kit, opened it, added the gold center part and put on the knob.  How easy was that?  

I still needed a shade, though.  As you can tell from this picture, it probably originally had a glass globe for a shade, sort of like what goes on a hurricane lamp.

The store didn't have the right globular shape that I needed.  I didn't like the skinny clear ones they had, either.  I liked the looks of this pendant shade, though, so that's what I bought.

 

Here's what it looks like now.  The shade is not the right proportion, but the color is nice.  And that circular band looks a little odd, but so what.  It's definitely not as matchy matchy as it would have been with the original shade.

When I turned the knob, I got a nice surprise: there's a bulb in the base.  So with one click, the base turns on, with two clicks it turns off and the top bulb turns on, and with three clicks you get both.  I like the lamp even more now.

Monday Is Fun Day - Elephant Pin Cushion

Here's another from my collection of vintage ceramics turned into pin cushions.  I gravitate towards animals, but only certain kinds.  Up to now it's been only cats and dogs.

  But now I'm excited to welcome this cute elephant.

It lives in this little shadow box with elephant button "pictures" on the wall.

Monday Is Fun Day - Dog and Cart Pincushion

Over the weekend, I bought more pin cushions made from vintage ceramic planters.

Here's a dog pulling a cart.  I have it paired with a vintage postcard...

... and some other fun objects.

Monday is Fun Day - Vintage Cat Pin Cushion

The last time I was at the place that I bought my vintage dog pin cushion from, I found lots and lots more of them.

This time I bought the cat.  

It wasn't until I took the photographs this morning that I noticed the scissors charm.

Monday is Fun Day - Duck with Egg on Head

I have a set of wire cubbies on the edge of my sewing table, and I swap things in and out according to whim.  

Right now, one of the cubbies has this duck which I bought earlier this month from my favorite "Parisian Flea Market", during their Easter-themed weekend sale.  The duck would have been cute unadorned, but I like it even better after the owner got done decorating it.  She has such creative ideas.

At the duck's feet, you can see a tiny ceramic figurine of two mice that I bought the same day.

Monday is Fun Day - Vintage Dog Pin Cushion

At the flea market this weekend, I gave in and bought a pin cushion I had been looking at for three months.

Now that I have it home, I wonder why I waited so long.

It looks like the pins are sticking in his head, but they're not.

You can see that there's a pin cushion that sits behind the dog.

It started life as a planter, but it's much happier now.

Vintage Trees and Deer

Last month I bought some really pretty vintage bottle brush trees and heavy, brass vintage deer. 

I bought them from two different places, but they all look good together.  The tallest tree is 14", to give you a sense of scale.

The trees are made by Connie Jean.  She used to have lots more of these trees, but most of them are gone now.

The small tree is 8" tall.  Both of the white trees sit in vintage ceramics.

The purple tree sits atop a bedazzled bottle.

The ornaments are extraordinarily small.  I don't know if Connie Jean added them to the trees or if the trees came that way.  The ornaments come in four sizes, ranging from 1/4" to  7/8".  If I had found any this small in the stores recently, my bird tree might not have had birds on it.  But that all worked out for the best.

I didn't buy the trees from Connie Jean's Etsy shop; I bought them at my favorite flea market.  That's where I also bought the large deer in the back.  The two deer in the front are from another place.  They're meant to be candlestick holders, but I popped a couple of ornaments in there instead.

The flea market owner had a sprig of red and green berries tucked into the bow.  I left that with her, me not being a red-and-green fan, but I kept the pink ribbon.

The deer kind of looks like it would prefer it wasn't there.

 I like shiny brass!

That flea market is open again this weekend.  I hope to find another batch of fun vintage goodies.