mercury

It’s been a while, old friend.

June 24, 2014 by Cynthia Leave a Comment

A constant rotation of vintage items make them seem fresh when the context of seasons change.

Folks…I have been remiss in posting lately. Life is very busy right now and now that I have (finally) chosen a contractor for my renovation, the next month will be off the charts busy between closing, packing, storing and finally, a tag sale to get rid of many things I don’t want or won’t have a place for, post renovation. Then I move into a rental cottage and hopefully, it will be somewhat less stressful once the work starts.

For now, however, I am just trying to keep things easy at home. Where as this time of year, I would be doing a lot of things to the exterior of the house for the summer and also creating a lot of craft projects, I am purposely foregoing all that to keep life simple. So it is easy, breezy summer for now.

I have just added a few summer touches to the house.

I hope you find some inspiration.

Always,

Cindy

I just love vintage alabaster lamps because they easily fit the neutral palette and are still very reasonable priced online and in antique stores.

A table with a canvas top was the perfect size for my found vintage, European bulb trays. A very rustic and rough hewn element against the more refined alabaster lamp and vintage white pedestal pottery.

My design books are never very far away.

Vintage tin with a bouquet of dried, white berries and pencil starfish with tarnished German Glass Glitter.

Vintage Ironstone Pitcher and basin with a vintage, hand embroidered linen runner. Perfection!

Vessels with maritime rope with mercury glass globes

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: alabastar, antique, breazy, cottage, glass, ironstone, lamp, mercury, starfish, summer, vintage, white

Transitional Vignettes

March 4, 2014 by Cynthia Leave a Comment

An old lab beaker with thick glass that diffuses the candle light.

Spring can’t get here soon enough. This weekend, Saturday was a lovely 78 degrees and the next day, Sunday it didn’t get above freezing. Since hunkering down and staying in was the best option, I refreshed some of my interior vignettes. If you look closely, you will see a number of antiques and vintage items that used for my holiday decorations. Change the context a bit and it looks more winter-into-spring than Home for the Holidays.

One more thing. My followers and regulars have probably noticed I haven’t posted a lot of blogs that feature crafting projects, which tend to be my more viewed postings. It’s because my crafting supplies have been packed away in anticipation of my renovation. Instead you’ll see a lot of features about cooking, antique finds and when my renovation gets started, I’ll copiously document the process and share it with you.

Speaking of which, I am waiting on drawings for the renovations as we speak. If I had to guess, the renovation will get started late next month or early May. While I am anxious to get started, it is more important when I finish. I want the work to be complete for the holidays, so there is time. Mostly, I want to enjoy the process and not be so anxious about it which is how I feel about most projects. I’ll keep you posted.

In the mean time, I hope you find some inspiration with the latest pictures from my home.

Always,

Cindy

xoxo

Textural elements with a tarnished tin vessel and a vintage paper accordion vase cozy

a variety of neutral toned items arranged on a shelf.

Starfish on a bed of moss that is the color of driftwood.

An old column base, alabaster lamp and a German glass glitter starfish

Mercury glass globes in an old ironstone bowl with linen slipcovers in the background.

Mercury glass globes on a bed of packing hay in an old ironstone bowl with linen slipcovers in the background.

An old lab beaker with thick glass that diffuses the candle light.

Old tin forms in the form of circus clowns in pointy hat that are treasured items passed to me by my mother.

Filed Under: My Home, Uncategorized Tagged With: alabaster, antique, cottage, country, glass, lamp, mercury, neutrals, spring, tarnished, tin, white, winter

One Room or Another…

July 19, 2013 by Cynthia Leave a Comment

Before: Den

After in the same spot: New Side Table/Night Stand in the new Master Bedroom.

The beauty of an old house is that each room can be anything you want it to be. Just as antiques can be moved from one room or another based on fancy and feeling, rooms can be re-purposed out of whimsy or necessity. For me, necessity dictated some changes.

I have a special needs dog who often requires care throughout the night. For the better part of three years, she wakes me up 2 to 4 times during the night. The original master bedroom was upstairs, so it required me to pick her up and carry her up and down two flights of stairs (she is blind and can not walk down them on her own) which was difficult, not to mention dangerous.

About two years ago, I felt it was better to sleep downstairs in the guest room because it was easier to take my dog outside without having to navigate two flights of stairs. However, the guest room has no closet and is hardly large enough for decent clothing storage.

The solution was to re-purpose each room downstairs in order to create a master bedroom for myself. Indeed, it would help me feel less like a guest in temporary quarters as I did, storing my clothes in stacking plastic storage containers.

And so it goes, I had a major antique sale to get rid of the furniture that would not fit in the new arrangements and I set out to re-design each room in a way that was more suitable.

I will share the pictures in future posts, but I thought I would start out be sharing the old and new floor plan along with a sneak peak of the results.

I hope you find some inspiration.

Cindy

A guest room, den, dining room and sitting room.

A guest room, master bedroom, dining room and den

Filed Under: Before 'n After, My Home, Uncategorized Tagged With: after, antiques, arrangement, barn, before, before and after, cottage, glass, lamp, master bedroom, mercury, pottery, pottery barn mercury glass lamp, redesign, room

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

Discovery: Wire and Linen Lanterns from Lunabazaar

January 27, 2013 by Cynthia Leave a Comment

Wire and Linen Lantern

I am forever perusing the Internet for fun and interesting websites with products that inspire me. Lunabazaar.com is just one of those sites.

Particularly this Wire and Linen lantern. I am already thinking towards spring when there is this transitional time between spring and summer when the weather is quite glorious. It isn’t cold like winter or hot like summer, but rather just right. I love it when I can throw open the windows and doors and really enjoy my little old cottage in the way it was intended.

Being able to light candles and lanterns and enjoy some sitting time on the porch is one of my favorite things.

Lunabazaar.com has many things to look at like mercury glass ornaments and candle holders, paper parasols, glass vases and many different colors, cut glass small decanters and string lights. They are a great source for accents for your home styling or items to support a color or a theme for a party or gathering. Take a look, this website has a lot to offer and I think you will enjoy it. I have embedded some of their wonderful merchandise below.

I hope you find some inspiration.

Always,

Cindy

Pearl Opal Glass Vintage Candle Holder

Mercury Glass Candle Holder

Gilded Glass Candle Holder

Glass Votive Holder

Cotton Lace Parasol

Perfume Bottle

Paper Parasol

Filed Under: Discoveries, Favorite Shops 'n Blogs, Uncategorized Tagged With: candle, cottage, decorations, entertaining, gathering, glass, holder, linen. lantern, lunabazaar, mercury, outdoor, paper, parasol, party, patio, spring, vintage, votive, white, wire

Floating Holiday Centerpiece

October 21, 2012 by Cynthia 2 Comments

A recurring theme in my blog is always about making things easier. Around the holidays, I try to work with what I have so I got the idea to hang mercury glass ornaments of varying sizes from my dining room chandelier with vintage seam binding. Cut at different lengths, the vintage seam binding helps hold the ornaments at different heights and gives the “floating” centerpiece great visual interest.

The light itself is an oversized single burlap drum shade from Potter Barn. It has this great fabric ledge on the inside that turned out to be a great place to tuck twinkling string lights that show through the burlap to give this great softened twinkling holiday light effect. To make this happen, I found a screw in lightbulb socket with a plug and just screwed it into the extisting bulb socket, added the normal lightbulb and plugged in the twinkle lights.

The result is this great floating centerpiece with a soft, holiday lighting effect. A simple project that has maximum impact to the entire room.

I hope you find some inspirtation for your house for the holidays!

Always,

xoxo

Cindy