Architectural Salvage "Ladder"

Hello everyone, hope you are having a lucky and fun Friday the 13th!

Before I start redecorating my corner cabinet for fall and Halloween I want to show the architectural salvage porch piece that I am using to display my dried flowers and favorite lace. My last post was about adding fall to the kitchen and I highlighted some of my primitive elements, but most of my style is "shabby-junky-chic-romantic cottage." Actually I just buy (or salvage, scrounge, repurpose, etc.) and use whatever vintage junk speaks to me, and if I like it I make it work somehow!

 Here is an example:

First off, I would like to apologize once again for poor picture quality. When I get the urge to do a post, it's just easier to snap with my iphone but the pictures aren't very good and as you can see from the light coming in the window, my dining room is very bright and it's difficult to get good pictures even with my real camera. I know you all are creative and talented people who can visualize how it all looks in real life and you'll forgive my lack of photography skills! Along with sewing, learning to use my camera is also on my to-do list!

 

Okay enough of that. Let's talk about this "ladder," which is actually an ornamental architecture piece  from a porch. I bought it from another junk lady simply because it was old and chippy, originally thinking I was going to hang above a door opening, but when I propped it up I decided to use in different ways. At Christmas, my vintage knee hugger elves are displayed on the "rungs."

 

http://junkaholicsunanimous.blogspot.com/2012/12/christmas-favorites-2012.html

 

 

This spring I got the idea to display my dried flowers on it since I usually get nice bouquets of roses from the cast on the last night of our musicals and I had been wanting a unique way to display them so the ladder works nicely.

 

I am an absolute sucker for vintage lace. I just can't resist it. The older, the better. I have found a lot of old intricate lace and tatting from the 1800's on numerous occasions and I just marvel at the skill it took to make it all. I like draping the lace over the spindles so it's easy to see the details.

                     Some of my shabby-junky-chic favorite things...

 

I love adding things to the house that are part of my dream homes. Although I love cottage style and the goal of our exterior look is to evoke a magical, story book cottage, I am also crazy about Victorian homes and farmhouses. Who says you can't have it all? I just add pieces of those styles here and there. In my dining room I have a rustic farm table, an old farmhouse salvaged door propped up as a divider, this corner display, and a very French chair that some people would never dare to put in the same room with a primitive farm table, but it all works for me and gives me a little bit of everything I love. After all, our homes should be a reflection of what we love. With a little creativity and imagination, it all comes together.

Now I'm off to party hop for fall inspiration. Thanks for stopping by!

Amber
http://frenchcountrycottage.blogspot.com/2013/09/feathered-nest-friday_3691.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed: blogspot/QoLtm (FRENCH COUNTRY COTTAGE)

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http://thethriftygroove.blogspot.com/

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http://jannolson.blogspot.com/

http://thebrambleberrycottage.blogspot.com/

http://ivyandelephants.blogspot.com/

http://www.homemakeronadime.com/

http://www.uncommondesignsonline.com/10-craft-diy-wood-projects-monday-funday-link-party-35/

http://knickoftimeinteriors.blogspot.com/2013/09/knick-of-time-tuesday-104.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:

http://elizabethandco.blogspot.com/

http://www.timewashed.com/2013/09/blissful-whites-wednesday_18.html

Fall Kitchen Tweaks: "Use What You Have"

Happy September! I am just getting started adding a few fall touches around the house. I started with the top of my fridge and kitchen cabinets. This year I decided to go with the "use what you have" idea and I just took things from around the kitchen that already had fall tones and added in some faux pumpkins, leaves and gourds. I am not able to go digging through my fall decorations because I am just too weak from all of my various health issues but I am really enjoying how it turned out anyway. I kind of like the challenge of being forced to be creative with what you have. If I have one of my "good days" this week I'm going to try to get my husband to get the totes out so I can start really decorating but I just couldn't stand it any longer! I love fall!!!!

 

                                                                          Summer

                             

                                                                        Fall

                            

 

 

 I collect vintage soda memorabilia and normally I have several coke items on display in the summer. For fall I swapped out the red, white and blue Americana themed accents for my orange Sun Crest crate and added some fall tea towels. I noticed the orange writing on the Maxwell House tin and decided it would work for fall with a pumpkin on top.

I like to use vegetables in my autumn displays since it is harvest time. My stepfather, Frank, passed away a few years ago. The canned veggies are the ones he grew and canned just a month before he passed. They are very dear to me. I was so excited when I found the vintage Frank's beverage crate! Perfect for displaying the jars! 

 

                                    

I found this old gumball machine a while back and have been intending to paint it a creamy white and fill it with pearls but for now I decided to fill it with festive candy corn for fall. Behind it is my favorite old ice cream bucket  filled with burlap scraps and topped it with a realistic faux pumpkin. I remembered the wooden blackbird in the basement and decided to add him to the bucket. I especially love his  rusty bottle cap eye. 

 

 

 

For the most part my decorating style is a "junky chic" potpourri of vintage treasures with the most focus on romantic cottage style, but I do love primitive accents, especially in the fall. Adding country primitive pieces to the cottage gives our home a bit of farmhouse charm as well.

 I recently found the large white duck for $5 at a rummage sale. I had been wanting one for years but couldn't bring myself to pay the ridiculously high asking prices in most primitive shops. Gotta love junkin'!

                                          

One the things I love best about primitive decorative is the ambience created by the use of lighting. I like how this strand of silicone dipped rice lights cast a soft, golden autumn glow and a grubby primitive candle placed inside the old grater creates interesting light.

 

 

 

                                   

Well after editing the photos and getting a good look at what I've done, I have decided that I like the look of my kitchen now  just as well as any of my other displays in the past using traditional fall decorations. I will probably add a few more things when we actually drag at the totes but I am really thinking about the stress and time it takes to keep everything in storage and I'm seriously considering purging some things since I have enough junk around the house to use in seasonal displays anyway.

 I hope this post inspires you to look around the house for things you already have that you can use in new ways. It's really fun!

Have a great weekend!
Amber


Great Parties!
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http://www.commonground-do.com/2013/09/be-inspired-156-here-comes-fall-ready.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed: blogspot/bCGJMl (Common Ground)

 

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http://elizabethandco.blogspot.com/

 

http://www.astrollthrulife.net/2013/09/182nd-inspire-me.html

 

Amber

Saying "Goodbye" To Summer Decor

 

It's the last weekend in August and before long summer will be but a memory as the excitement and beauty of fall takes over. I just wanted to do a post to say "goodbye" to summer and take a last look at the vignettes around my dining room before the pumpkins invade!

                                         

 

This is my favorite little cozy corner to decorate seasonally. It is very hard to get a good picture because I leave the window unadorned for simplicity and it's always bright during the day and at night I get glare, but it really is a charming area. The chair and chalkboard were both second hand makeovers I completed during Christmas (http://junkaholicsunanimous.blogspot.com/2012/12/christmas-makeovers.html) so this was my first time getting to use them for spring and "summer thyme." I had bought a vintage feed sack a while back but never really could find the right spot for it until I put the chair in the dining room. For now I am using it as "upholstery" ( it's just draped over the back and front). I recently found the most gorgeous antique lace feather pillow at an estate sale and it's perfect for the chair. It pairs beautifully with a toile yellow Ralph Lauren pillow that I picked up this summer at a yard sale. I love the romantic prairie look of the three textiles and my sweet little fabric-remnant heart sachets, and although the look is very summery, I think the colors are neutral enough to work for fall as well. I can just swap out the hearts for my velvet pumpkins. 

 

 

 

 

                  

On the shabby end table beside my chair is a vignette with my favorite decorating books and my cake stand cloche. In the spring I filled it with my favorite vintage McCoy pots and a pretty blue bird figurine and have kept it on display for summer. I "planted" antique tatting, a vintage hankie and vintage canister in the pots. I enjoy pops of robin's egg blue, teal and aqua for summer displays.

                                    

 

                            I love birds and design my spring and summer themes around them.

 

 

                                       Everything pictured is a yard sale or second hand find. I really do decorate
                                       on a dime!

                                                           Vintage door knobs anyone?

 

Here's a last look at the summer dining room for now. I'm getting ready to swap out the white dining table for an amazing antique farm table I found for $15 at a yard sale, and it's time for a change anyway. I do love this one, but I figure it's always easy to create another white dining table with a flea market table and white chalk paint if my blancophilia gets the best of me and I must have more white in the dining room again.

 

 

My love affair with ironstone and vintage silverplate is in no way dying down and I almost always use it on my dining table. My summer tablescape has been simple this year: an urn full of very old tarnished silver plate utensils, some favorite ironstone and silverplate pieces and a faux wax pie (purchased for .25 at a yard sale). A large ironstone pitcher holds a prim greenery spray. I have scattered a homemade potpourri of fragrant rosehips, dried herbs and spices on my most beloved ironstone platter and used a vintage Vernor's soda crate for the base. I have many other crates but I liked the green writing for spring and summer.

 

 

 

 

 

I'm going to eventually get around to doing a post about some of my favorite junk in this corner and take some better pictures, but for this post I just wanted to show how it looks for summer with seasonal accents, such as a collection of favorite shells and dried roses from the garden hanging on a piece of architectural salvage "ladder."

 

 

 

On top of the corner cabinet is probably my favorite vignette right now. I love "Grace," my vintage jewelry bust, and I use her in my decorating all year round. I can't wait to dress her up for Halloween again!  Here is how she looked last year:

(See more of last year's shabby Halloween here: http://junkaholicsunanimous.blogspot.com/2012/10/its-halloween.html)

 

Well that's all for this Friday evening! As you can see from my altered sign, "The Early Bird Gets The Junk," so it's an early bedtime for me!

Have a great weekend!

Parties:
http://www.commonground-do.com/2013/08/be-inspired-154-4th-anniversary-give.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed: blogspot/bCGJMl (Common Ground)

http://frenchcountrycottage.blogspot.com/2013/08/feathered-nest-friday_29.html

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http://thebrambleberrycottage.blogspot.com/
 

http://www.frommyfrontporchtoyours.com/

http://shabbyartboutique.com/2013/08/shabbilicious-friday-link-party-20.html

http://www.threemangoseeds.blogspot.com/

http://jannolson.blogspot.com/

http://www.adelightsomelife.com/2013/08/home-and-garden-thursday-44.html

http://thethriftygroove.blogspot.com/

http://www.homemakeronadime.com/2013/09/creative-bloggers-party-hop-126.html

http://www.timewashed.com/2013/09/blissful-whites-wednesday.html

Outdoor Fall Decorating From 2012

 

 

It's fall y'all! Not exactly, but for those of us who live for autumn, this is the time of year we start getting ideas together since it's just a few weeks away. I never got around to doing a proper post of my outdoor displays last year and I didn't even get good pictures, but I wanted to show you some of what I had thrown together for the outside in 2012.

 

 

 

This is a scarecrow I purchased at a rummage sale for $2. I did repaint his face for  a more modern primitive country look. I wanted to make him look spiffy so I gave him double layer flannel shirts, popped his collars and made him a burlap tie! My son had had enough of the purple plaid shirt so I happily took it off his hands used it on the scarecrow. I love incorporating purple in fall and Halloween decorating so it was perfect. Makes that autumn kale really pop! After I took the picture below I added more pumpkins and gourds around the front but unfortunately I didn't get any photos, but I'm sure you can imagine them!

 

 

 

 

 

 

On my porch I stacked a trio of my favorite picks from my friend's pumpkin patch. I really loved this combination, especially the colors and how the gray striations on the top gourd is almost identical to the faux patina on the urn. The Spanish moss looked perfect but since my porch is uncovered it got pretty soggy after a few rains and made a bit of a mess. I'm going to try something different in between this year.

 

Here is another corner of my porch. This was in mid-September. I think I eventually ended up rearranging this wagon and adding more pumpkin varieties later. I love filling the old rusty Radio Flyer with fall goodness!

 

 

Well that's all for now. I'm off to search for more fall inspiration!

 

Amber

 

Parties:http://www.commonground-do.com/2013/08/be-inspired-154-4th-anniversary-give.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed: blogspot/bCGJMl (Common Ground)

 

http://thecharmofhome.blogspot.com/2013/08/home-sweet-home-134.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:

 

http://frenchcountrycottage.blogspot.com/2013/08/feathered-nest-friday_29.html

 

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Back To School Mantel

As Labor Day approaches and summer comes to an end, children and teachers everywhere are returning to school and saying goodbye to the joys of summer. I always find this time of year a bit tricky when it comes to decorating because I'm really excited about fall and it's oh so close, but it's still 100 degrees out. So this year I decided to do a little back to school mantel display using things I already had around the house. I was pleasantly surprised today when I discovered PicMonkey had added the school effects, just in time for this blog post!

 

This was actually thrown together quite quickly since I just needed to remove a few summer things and replace them with vintage school items.

I can always find vintage and antique books fairly inexpensively at sales or the flea market and I hardly ever pass them up. I love the artwork and lettering, and sometimes I actually even read them. I always imagine how many little fingers have turned the pages in wonder long before the days of iPads, iPods and Kindles.

 

 

 

I am a music teacher but I always loved art class just as much as music. I loved coloring and cutting things out, especially little shapes and making collages. Not much has changed, since I now enjoy scrapbooking, and creating altered art and paper crafts.

 

 

 

 "Time For School" cloche. Truly a "use what you have" decoration, since the apple was starting to go bad in my crisper drawer.

 

 

 

Here is the picture that gave me the idea to do a school-themed mantel. I am always buying antique cabinet cards and vintage photos (another addiction) and although I do put some of them for sale in my antiques booth, I usually keep group photos. I just find all the faces so fascinating! This amazing photo of a teacher with her class outside of a one room school house is definitely a keeper! I have it displayed in a vintage flower frog along with a replica of a colonial alphabet chart purchased at Colonial Williamsburg.

 

 

I took a close-up so I could see the kids better, and I realized the kids are barefooted, just like my Grandfather always said: "Back in those days we had to walk to school barefooted!" It's true! They did!

And then I noticed that the teacher is showin' some skin! Not at all what I imagined from those days. I would picture a blouse with a lace collar  buttoned up high and a long sleeved black dress! I guess a 100 degree one room-school house full of a bunch of kids of all ages would make any teacher sweat! I'm thinking this picture was from the 1920's based on the style of her dress and haircut. Maybe she was a flapper by night! Have teachers always had to have two jobs to make a living??? 

Hope everyone has a happy and safe school year, and if you know of a good teacher be sure to give them lots of encouragement and support. It's not an easy job and judging from the old photo, it never has been! 

Have a great weekend!

Amber

I was featured here:http://thethriftygroove.blogspot.com/2013/08/features-from-ttf-123.html

Parties:
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Visit me, "The Junky Chic Queen" on Hometalk!

I have been "out of it" for several months due to chronic illness and have just returned to the blogging world full-force this week. I discovered Hometalk.com on Angie's blog,  http://knickoftimeinteriors.blogspot.com/.  Hometalk is my new obsession! I have been working on starting a new blog on blogspot entitled, "The Junky Chic Queen" http://junkychicqueen.blogspot.com/ ("junkychicqueen" is also my pinterest name) but I wanted to keep Junkaholics Unanimous as my main blog. I have had a hard time keeping up with it due to my health issues. Obviously managing two blogs isn't  a realistic goal, so I have decided to dedicate The Junky Chic Queen solely to a weekly party, but I am not sure when it will start! For now, Hometalk is the perfect solution for allowing me to keep up, since I can do quick posts and link here when I have time for longer posts, which will allow me to "blend" my ideas for each of the blogs and my pinterest account.

 

 I just love the welcome community on Hometalk and feel like I am "living" in a decorating and home improvement magazine! If you haven't discovered it yet I think you'll really love it too. I hope you will stop by and follow me there as well, since I will have some different small posts on hometalk which may not end up in a full blog post here.

Hope to see you on Hometalk! http://www.hometalk.com/1736i