Finds from the Prairie

October 14, 2013 by Cynthia Leave a Comment

Two pieces, one a towel and the other a table runner. I see feather filled pillows in their future.

I just can’t restrain my enthusiasm for the Round Top Antique Show held twice a year in the Hill Country of Texas.

The sights and sounds give me true joy. Endless tents of treasures. The seasons transitioning from one to the next. Walking through fields softened with a layer of hay.

I would trade ten exotic vacations for just one trip to Round Top. My Shangri-La indeed.

My treasure hunt started out with one list, but I came home with an entirely different set of finds: vintage glass, ironstone, vintage textiles, Christmas Stockings, European Sinks and wall fountains.

It was a happy trip indeed.

I hope you find some inspiration.

Always,

Cindy

xoxo

Found these from a lovely dealer who hailed from Bucks County Pennsylvania. Since that is where I grew up…it was only right that I buy them.

Again…not sure what I am going to do with this, but at $15…I’ll figure out something.

Right now, holding my candles…but they will be filled with guest soaps and sea sponges in the new cottage bathroom as part of my renovation.

Maybe a home for my vintage ornaments?

Not sure what I will use this for, but I will figure out something. Most likely a table centerpiece.

A lovely footed bowl, it has a great profile.

A rare find a few months ago was an ironstone punch bowl. I was in the market for a companion ladle and found a lovely one at Marburger Farms.

A full twelve came with the set which only cost 32.50.

I am on the hunt for another plastic ladle (this came from another vintage punch bowl that I have) but the hunt is half the fun!

At just over 6 inches tall, the diminutive size of this gem is what I was attracted to.

Another vintage kitchen helper, I am using it to hold my vintage spreaders.

One of my surprise finds, love the vintage pattern.

Lovely for the upcoming Holiday.

One is cast iron, the other is porcelain. Not sure what I am going to do with them…but the price was so good, I couldn’t pass them up.

Wash stand with an ironstone bowl for my new cottage bathroom

Wooden Christmas Stars from Leftovers in Brenham.

Filed Under: Antique Finds, Uncategorized Tagged With: antique, basin, cottage, fountain, glass, Ironsont, ironstone, round, Round Top, round top antique show, show, textiles, top, vintage, wall

The Cottage Bathroom

September 25, 2013 by Cynthia Leave a Comment

I love the idea of the curtain divider….very ethereal.

Forgive me. This week’s posting was to have been of my Halloween/Fall outdoor decorations. But I am feeling a bit under the weather and I wasn’t able to take pictures, so I thought I would share my cottage bathroom look book with you for my upcoming renovations.

The bathroom is not an existing bathroom, but rather an existing space. Upstairs, I have a large stair landing area. Not large enough to be a bedroom, but plenty large enough to fit a small bathroom with room leftover to serve as a pass through to the upstairs bedroom.

The bathroom will have a walk-in shower, a vanity and toilet. The vanity will be an antique table I acquired months ago and will be modified to fit a bowl sink. Simple white subway tiles for the shower, white octagonal tiles for the floor and wood planking every where else. The rule of thumb as throughout the rest of the house will be the same for the bathroom: simple, unpretentious and soft white tones and natural textures.

One finishing touch will be a pair of French, ornate cream and green wall sconces I found in an antique store years ago. I fell in love with them and bought them without a clue as to where I was going to put them. I think they will look perfect flanking an old, white painted mirror that I am sure I will find at some point in my weekly antiquing haunts.

I hope you find some inspiration.

Always.

xoxo.

Cindy

Love these old photos.

A lovely footed bath.

Love the antique pine table with the crisp white bowl sinks.

I always thing being able to see the pitch in a roof makes a room feel tucked away and cozy.

I always think being able to see the pitch in a roof makes a room feel tucked away and cozy.

I won’t have room for this in my new cottage bathroom…but I love it anyway.

It’s doubtful I will have room for double vanities…but I love this look.

This bathroom probably best emulates the size, shape and space of my bathroom…down to the pitch in the roof.

Although doubtful, I will have room for a full sized armoire…but this is lovely.

More contemporary than is my style, but I think this room blends old and new very well.

I like the neutrality of this bathroom. The décor is probably more ornate than is my own style.

I love the old fixtures in an old home. Doors, floors and windows. Nothing opens like an old window with weights in the wall or swings like an old wood door. Just perfect!

Filed Under: My Home, Projects, Uncategorized Tagged With: antique, bathroom, beadboard, cottage, renovation, vintage, white

Summer’s Last Hurrah.

September 3, 2013 by Cynthia Leave a Comment

Some end of summer Hydrangeas add the personal touch for the end of summer visit.

Mother Nature had the last word this weekend. The warmest days of the summer were upon us. My hope is that it will segue into a fine, fine fall. I am already thinking about my fall décor and the Round Top Antique Show…two things that bring me an incredible amount of joy this time of year.

Just one last summer post before we all move on. My house re-design that I have blogged about previously included completely changing my guest room. As I transition my home to a lighter, coastal feel…this room was a great opportunity to showcase the simplicity of my style.

I’ll be the first to say the room isn’t particularly refined…but that is what I like about it. It sort of feels like a room you would find in a beach cottage.

Here are the before and after photos.

I hope you find some inspiration.

Always.

Cindy

Before.

A collection of architectural objects.

Guest Room.

After.

Late summer guests are greeted by lavender infused water, ocean scented candles and simple surroundings.

With an antique table, heirloom cotton towels and a vintage enamel pitcher and basin, why not create a modern day wash stand? Still every bit as beautiful and useful as it would have been when my old cottage was built.

Simple white is my philosophy when it comes to dressing beds. Seasonal quilts, pillows and lampshades are the opportunity for color and change when you want something new and different. These light weight quilts were a steal from Kohl’s at $32 each.

A mostly soothing, white room, I can’t resist well placed doses of my favorite color, red.

The room formerly had a single queen bed. Now using two twin beds with white cotton sheets and a light, summer quilt for when the ceiling fan makes the room a little chilled, this room has a simple and quiet countenance.

Direct from local lavender farms, this essential oil is a treat for my guests.

Lavender pods along with Lavender essential oil in a vintage basin ready for summer time guests.

My grandmother’s vintage towels, lavender infused water with thick terry washcloths for a soothing sleep time compress on a warm summer night.

What used to house a television in another room, now stores quilts for cold winter nights and a small flat screen for guests who wish to squire themselves away to relax and watch Pride and Prejudice.

Imported Soap, Burt’s Bees Balm and a lovely Ocean scented candle for pampered guests.

Bedside refreshments for overnite guests. A glass and carafe are left bedside for guests and refreshed every evening.

Filed Under: Before 'n After, My Home, Uncategorized Tagged With: antique, bedroom, coastal, cottage, guest, room, vintage

The Renewed Home

August 9, 2013 by Cynthia Leave a Comment

A reproduction vintage alarm clock perched on my coastal design books make for great bedside reading!

Post before last, I blogged about having to re-design my downstairs in order to accommodate being able to care for my special needs dog. I had to move the master bedroom downstairs so that I wouldn’t have to physically carry her up and down stairs during the night as she weighs 47 pounds. The truth is that I love the new downstairs. Creating a bedroom that has adequate clothing storage on any day is a good day in an old house. After living out of plastic storage containers in a small guest room, the day I completed the re-design was an over-the-top good day. It is the little things, some times, that mean the most.

True to my word, here are the “after” photos. What used to be a television room, is now my master bedroom. All-in-all, a great improvement. If I were forced to critique one thing, it would be that this room is a pass through to two other parts of the house. But, we who love old houses, learn to accept the quirks in exchange for a time worn interior. A more than fair trade in my book.

I hope you find some inspiration.

Always,

xoxo

Cindy

Before

You will see a number of navigational markers with the decorative items that are given new life in the new Master Bedroom.

Den.

Den.

Den.

AFTER

A reading nook with a comfortable old wicker chair and lamp is perfect for curling up with a good book.

An old quilt, pillows made from vintage fabric and a ambient lighting make this one cozy bedroom.

This, believe it or not…is the only closet in the house and I don’t even use it for storing clothing!

A basket in the corner with a vintage basket cover is a great place to keep extra blankets and quilts.

I formerly used this cabinet to house a television, it now is used for clothing storage in lieu of a dresser.

This lovely white, weathered armoire doubles as my closet.

Can you pick out the two Pottery Barn market items? The poet’s lantern on the left is vintage PB and the mercury glass task lamp is a new item.

A small table is the perfect fit for this little space.

Filed Under: Before 'n After, My Home, Projects, Uncategorized Tagged With: antique, antique wicker, barn, bed, bedroom, chair, cottage, country, french, master, master bedroom, pottery, pottery barn, redesign, wicker, wicker chair

The Slow Days of Summer…

June 3, 2013 by Cynthia Leave a Comment

Sun Setting. Breeze blowing. Sunlight dancing through the leaves on the big towering oak tree.

It’s here…almost. Where I live, save for the occasional cool morning, warm days are upon us and they will quickly speed up and become hot days. Not quite yet, though. For now, the weather is forgiving enough where we can sit on our front porch and watch the world go by. Children out of school playing in the distance, weather still quite tolerable outside, cold beverages that quench my thirst, American flags blowing in the breeze and altogether, some time to breath.

Summer is here and I couldn’t be happier about it.

Safe travels for the season.

I hope you find some inspiration.

Always,

Cindy

Filed Under: Holiday and Seasonal, Uncategorized Tagged With: antique, breeze, cottage, country, flag, hydrangeas, memorial day, outside, summer, vintage, white

At the Corner of White and Pine.

March 3, 2013 by Cynthia Leave a Comment

Home is where the heart is.

White. Pine. Or Chippy White and Patina Pine. Both of those finishes are the finishes that I am transitioning the antiques in my cottage to. Yesterday while strolling through downtown McKinney on a beautiful crisp winter day, I found this little market item: a little white heart. Painted white it is made of stone or something and has some weight to it. A heavy heart, you could say.

So I brought it home and found a special place for it. So it goes that home is where the Heart is.

I hope you find some inspiration.

Always,

Cindy

The Corner of White & Pine

Filed Under: Antique Finds, Discoveries, My Home, Uncategorized Tagged With: antique, chippy, cottage, country, heart, patina, pine, soul, white

Vintage French Monogram Linen Sofa Slipcover

February 19, 2013 by Cynthia Leave a Comment

Pieced together to showcase the lovely handwork with a decorative stitch for some flare.

When I go to the Round Top Antiques Show, one way I treat myself is to pick up some vintage french sheets. The trick is figuring out a way to use them wisely and showcase the lovely hand embroidered initials. Last year, I did a monogram headboard slipcover using my special vintage finds.

One of my other projects is a love seat slip cover, along with a side table slipcover. In the case of the love seat, I had to cut and sew the fabric and piece it together in order to keep the embroidery front and center. The side table is a simple IKEA side table that I slip covered with leftover fabric from the sofa project. Some piping and antique lace helped to upgrade this unremarkable modern table.

Since this is a transitional time between Winter and Spring (spring if you go by our weather for the last couple of days) the rest of my decor is refined and edited as we look ahead to warmer weather. In the living room with the slipcovered sofa, I styled the fireplace mantle by using vintage mercury ornaments as vase filler along with the (now) dried pepperberry branches leftover from the holidays, I feel like I am keeping a nod to winter, but looking ahead to a crisp clean spring time.

I hope you find some inspiration.

Always,

Cindy

Vintage all the way around.

White 1750’s cabinet set against the contemporary IKEA table.

Piping detail and vintage lace make this slipcover very special and turns a run-of-the-mill table into something with great vintage styling.

Matte White Potter, Ironstone Pitcher and candles wrapped with velvet ribbon.

Old linen runner that is a family heirloom along with an antique alabaster lamp.

Old onion skin typewriter paper with a german glass glitter starfish for a paper weight.

She is a big, silly sweet girl.

Simple and edited. Rustic against the refined.

Filed Under: Antique Finds, My Home, Projects Tagged With: antique, berries, cottage, french, living room, pepper, pepperberries, round top antique show, seasons, sheet, slipcover, spring, vintage, winter

Mercury Glass Patterned Votives – How To.

January 31, 2013 by Cynthia Leave a Comment

Re-posting this blog article because it is one of the most requested articles from my site. I am still thinking about the variations on this technique and when I will have time to share them…

In the mean time, I hope you find some inspiration.

Always,

Cindy

Twinkly Light. Just lovely.

I like a little mercury glass for that touch of elegance that it brings. Flash photography can’t quite showcase the twinkly quality of the mirrored paint effect, however, in person…it is just lovely.

Since my post yesterday, I have gotten quite a few emails asking about the technique used to make this antiqued, mercury glass votive. I was planning to post this later in the week, but have moved the post up a couple of days because of the requests.

Let’s get started!

Here is what you will need for this project:

Glass vessel
Looking Glass Paint (online or at Walmart in the spray paint section)
Embossing folder/machine
Paint tape
HVAC tape (also called foil tape, it is 2″ wide and is found at home center stores, like Lowe’s)

Before you get started there are two important things to follow explicitly in order to have success, and trust me on this…I made these mistakes a few times:

When you have applied your foil tape to the glass: BURNISH, BURNISH, BURNISH. Simple finger pressure will do, but if you don’t press down on every part of the foil, you risk not having a clean image remain when you pull the tape off.
When you paint the glass vessel, go very, very lightly on the paint. Micro bursts of paint with very thin coats. You don’t want more than two coats and don’t try for heavy coverage…the tape won’t be able to remove the negative space so that the image emerges.

Lastly, no worries. If you mess up, just scrub the inside of the glass with a sponge and some elbow grease and the paint will come right off and you can start over.

As a foot note for this project, I tried this technique with other paints…but it doesn’t work. I tried using a copper paint for a fall project and regular spray paint has different properties and the tape usually takes the entire spot of paint off with no image remaining.

Just have fun. This is a technique that has a lot of possibilities…only limited by your imagination!

Send me pics of your finished product and I will post in a future blog article!

Always,

Cindy

Remember to click twice to bigify!

: Twinkly Light. Just lovely.

: Before. During. After. (“After” image with a light background insert for photo only)

: Step 13: Once the tape has been burnished, pull away from glass. The embossed image will remain.

: Step 12: Burnish foil tape down with your fingers. Burnish every centimeter of the foil in order to get a good image transfer

: Step 11: Press the foil (stick side towards glass) on the inside of the glass vessel, right on top the paint.

: Step 10: Peel off paper tape on back of foil, exposing the adhesive.

: Step 9: Embossing Completed. Foil is the right thickness to accept the embossing pattern very well

: Step 8: Emboss.

: Step 7: Place seamed tape into embossing folder.

: Step 6: You have now created one, almost seamless piece of tape.

: Step 5: Repeat with the second piece of overlap paper: fold back in place and burnish.

: Step 4: Replace the adhesive backing paper and burnish the overlap seam as you go.

: Step 3: Overlap the two pieces of tape about an eighth of an inch.

: Step 2: Fold back adhesive paper, lengthwise, about a half inch.

: Step 1: Cut two pieces of tape.

: Prep:Tape top edges of glass vessel and coat with two VERY LIGHT coats of Looking Glass Paint.

: What you need to get started.

Filed Under: Projects, Uncategorized Tagged With: antique, antiqued, candle, candlerholder, cottage, country, DIY, glam, glass, holder, looking, looking glass paint, mercury, mirror, votive

Brownies that Mrs. Patmore would approve of

January 24, 2013 by Cynthia Leave a Comment

I am a fan of baking. In fact, I may like baking more than I like eating the sweet treats I make! It is just so much fun and homey and at the end of the day, if you do it right and make something delicious…you are bringing joy to others.

The weather was a balmy 70 degrees, VERY unlike our normal weather during Winter. So I threw open the windows and doors, let the old screen door snap shut and decided to make the most wonderful brownies in the world: Ina Garten’s Outrageous Brownies. Her trick is using coffee grinds in the batter; it brings a depth of flavor to the chocolate. Sure…that is common knowledge now, but when she first introduced this recipe, it wasn’t so common.

Fair warning, this recipe makes loads of brownies…so make sure you have a good and hungry crowd to serve them to, neighbors you can give them to or be prepared to scarf them up yourself. No one can resist these bad boys when they are sitting in the kitchen…any effort to try is futile.

Recipe is after the pictures.

A pound of butter.

Eggs. Chocolate. Flour. Simple.

Brownies ready for the oven.

If only every piece had crusty goodness like the corner piece.

Vintage Ironstone Cake Stand and Brownies. Two of my favorite things.

Brownies. The finished product.

Outrageous Brownies

Ingredients

1 poundunsalted butter

1 pound plus 12 ounces semisweet chocolate chips

6 ouncesunsweetened chocolate

6 extra-large eggs

3 tablespoons instant coffee granules

2 tablespoons pure vanilla extract

2 1/4 cups sugar

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

3 cups chopped walnuts

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Butter and flour a 12 x 18 x 1-inch baking sheet.

Melt together the butter,1 poundof chocolate chips, and the unsweetened chocolate in a medium bowl over simmering water. Allow to cool slightly. In a large bowl, stir (do not beat) together the eggs, coffee granules, vanilla, and sugar. Stir the warm chocolate mixture into the egg mixture and allow to cool to room temperature.

In a medium bowl, sift together 1 cup of flour, the baking powder, and salt. Add to the cooled chocolate mixture. Toss the walnuts and 12 ounces of chocolate chips in a medium bowl with 1/4 cup of flour, then add them to the chocolate batter. Pour into the baking sheet.

Bake for 20 minutes, then rap the baking sheet against the oven shelf to force the air to escape from between the pan and the brownie dough. Bake for about 15 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Do not overbake! Allow to cool thoroughly, refrigerate, and cut into 20 large squares.

I hope you have found some inspiration!

Always,

Cindy

Filed Under: Recipes, Uncategorized Tagged With: antique, baking, brownies, butter, cake, cakestand, coffee, cottage, eggs, garten, ina, ironstone, outrageous, stand, vintage

Pleasant Christmas Surprises…

December 13, 2012 by Cynthia Leave a Comment

An Old Fashioned Christmas.

What a pleasant surprise for neighborhood kidlets, visitors and maybe even the mail man if he dares!

Using an antique Victorian wire plant stand, we lined it with white burlap and added a festive red ribbon and filled it with peppermint treats. It was placed right by the door on the old front porch and welcomes one and all.

It is an easy idea that can be accomplished with almost any vintage container and ends up being such a sweet, unexpected gift for everyone.

I hope you find some inspiration.

Always,

Cindy

A Merry Welcome Threshold.

A Sweet Holiday Treat.

These holiday ideas are supported by our sponsors. Thank them by giving them a visit. Merry Christmas.

GOOD LOOK, Inc.

Filed Under: Holiday and Seasonal, Projects, Uncategorized Tagged With: antique, candies, christmas, cottage, holiday, merry, peppermint, plant, porch, stand, surprise, victorian, vintage, wire

Before.

After.

Before

AFTER

Remember to click twice to bigify!

Outrageous Brownies

Ingredients

Directions

the little cottage

become a friend…

Notification

Previous Posts in Random Order

Blogroll

Grab a Button

Archives