Accidental Collections and Boxes

Jayne at Country Cottage Chic wrote about her "accidental" terrier collection which got me thinking about some of my "accidental" collections. These are treasures that seem to find you and gather at your home! Things that you never set out to collect, but one by one they arrive until you have a collection. I have many of those! One of my favorites is vintage kitchenware in shades of light green. I include jadeite and things with green handles and linens. There are two reasons that I didn't plan on collecting these things - first - I'm not a cook and - second- I never really liked green! But, life changes you...... and the next thing you know ...you've moved into a hundred year old house with a green kitchen. And to my surprise, I Love the color! To be honest when I first saw the kitchen I thought that I would quickly paint over it. The kitchen needs a lot more than paint so we put that on the back burner. Then I began to find a lonely piece of jadeite at thrift stores or my Mom gave me a cookie cutter with a green handle. And there was the time a box of green linen tablecloths called my name at an estate sale....I began to notice a trend. And it grew....

These little jello molds just joined the crowd. My aunt in FL sent them by way of my cousin last week. Thanks, Marge!

Isn't it fun to come home and find a box on your porch? I did today. My cousin from NY sent me a treasure box of things that belonged to Mom's sister. She knew that I would love these things and I do! Three needlepoint books and a box of patterns from Woman's Day 1961, bunches of crochet and knitting needles and a half finished quilt - which is just perfect to go up in my guest room! She also reminded me of her invitation to come visit ....I'm working on that....I'd love to go...just have to convince Southern Boy DH to go past the Mason-Dixon Line!!

Details

Mary at Little Red House has asked for pictures of decorating details around the house that you love. I've had fun today taking tons of pictures and deleting most of them. It's a learning experience! I hope over time blogging teaches me to take better pictures. I finally picked two I liked. I've learned that I tend to take pictures with too much clutter and my hand is not very steady! The first is a picture of me with my parents in about 1956. I keep it in my dining room with the feather that is on my Mom's hat in the picture.

The second picture is some old English pottery I love. It is Upper Hanley Pottery in the Trellis pattern. The first piece I bought was dirty and chipped, but it was love at first sight. I paid very little for it but to me it is priceless!

Junk Attack

I took the day off sewing today to feed my junk addiction. Since one of my favorite thrift stores closed in March I had to stretch my usual route to include the next city up the interstate. I enjoy looking as much as buying so I had a good time, even though I didn't buy much. Everything I got was really cheap -most things $.50 - $1.00. I only bought one thing over $1.00 - the cute wire pot holder was $6.00 and I had just seen one at another store for $29.00!! One of my favorite shops has "Austin and Ashley" denim kids clothes-irregulars for $.50. I bought up a stack on an earlier trip and got a few more today. They can be appliqued and dressed up easily. They also had big bags of covered buttons for $1.00!!

Some other junk I brought home today:

6 books (buy one get 2 free)

3 hemstitched linen napkins

a sweet embroidered baby pillowcase

white sugar bowl

paper mache duck

2 Christmas ornament frames

2 tin planters

2 ceramic roosters

yellow Texasware plate(for a friend who has a collection of pastel

Texasware)

shabby plate and cup -to glue together to make a desert stand

small white ironstone bowl

3 bottle brush trees

2 paper mache angels

The Guest Room

Our guest room has had many lives. Long before we bought the house this room was part of an upstairs apartment. Three of the bedrooms upstairs are connected. You had to go through another room to get to this room. We put the boys in these rooms. Oldest boy sealed off the door to his room - so no cutting through. Youngest boy didn't care so his room was the passage for middle boy to get to this room. It was painted War Eagle orange and stayed that way for 6 years. After 2 more kids grew up and flew out of the nest we had some shifting. T moved to his sister's old room and B moved to T's old room. I got a sewing room and a guest room. We turned one doorway into a closet for this room by building a wall in B's room. We also made him a closet and a built-in desk and bookshelf area. It took 2 coats of primer and 2 coats of paint- Laura Ashley Spruce Frost- to cover up the orange.

This was A's vanity - it did not travel to Alaska with her. The lamps came from my Mom's childhood bedroom.

The fireplace wall had some major issues. The plaster was crumbling and the lathe had separated from the studs. DH performed a miracle by patching this wall with sheet rock. That was a perfect time to add lighting . The rest of the room still has plaster wall. My thrifting treasures gather on the mantle. We have not finished the hearth and fireplace surround with tile.

This chandelier moved from another

bedroom because it was too girly for

a boy's room.

The guest bedroom has some fun guests last week. My cousin and her husband stayed for night on their way home from Florida. What fun it was to reconnect with her and meet her husband! We had 32 years of catching up. It was proof that some things are genetic...we had so many things in common! Don't worry they didn't both have to sleep in the tiny bed-I took the pictures a while back- before we put another bed in there!

Kiss the Pugs

Since I'm just getting the hang of things in the Bloggy World, you can imagine the excitement in the Swamp when I won my first Bloggy Give-Away! I was the 50,003rd hit on RPM's site and she sent me a BOX OF GODIVA CHOCOLATE! Thanks so much RPM! She also sent the Pugs some kisses! You don't have to ask them twice! They are always ready to hand out kisses especially when Momma has chocolate breath!!
Eli gets his smooch!

Bitsey kissie, kissie!

Thanks again, RPM!!!!!!

Yard Pictures

Our house is one block from the Azalea Trail every spring in our town. I have a few scraggly Azaleas that do not choose to participate in this annual display. They only open up 2 weeks after everything is over. DH pulled a few up them up...they were embarrassing him.

I do have a few other things blooming in my yard. These camellias are the very last for the winter. We have 4 bushes. The first one begins blooming in early December.

The daffodils bloomed more this year than I remember ever since we have lived here.

The iris are multiplying.

But, only the white ones are blooming.

I had some yellow iris that have stopped blooming.

The peach trees are just starting to open up. The dogwood trees took a hit in the drought last year. Two of them are dead and the others are dull and not full.

The dogwood across the street is beautiful!

And finally...on my back porch....for my new friend "Pug Posse" I saw this little guy on her blog last year. So I searched high and low until I found one for DH. He wouldn't put it out front because it lights up at night and DH is afraid that he would get pugnapped!

Parlor Progress

The walls have a coat of primer and the fireplace surround for the tile has been constructed. We still have a few pieces of trim to strip of old paint. The ceiling has been painted and the medallion is up. Still looking for that perfect chandelier . I did find some tile on ebay and they sent a sample this week. It looks like this will work!

I've also got a project just getting started for the porch. I have a rusty, chippy ice cream shop table and four chairs that need some sprucing up. They seem to get hit hard by the rain and have gotten a little too rusty...they've gone from Shabby Chic to Just Plain Redneck this winter. I'm making a new tablecloth and some slipcovers for the chairs. I hope this weekend we can get the construction supplies off the porch and I start to put out some plants and pillows. I also found some cheerful outdoors fabric to recover cushions on the rockers and swing. I have quite a bit of sewing to do for other people...alterations, curtains, dust ruffle, pillows, embroidery......Never enough time!!!