One word, Cloche

I love cloches. Why? Because even the most common place objects look special under glass. When I first started collecting cloches I would watch and watch until I found one that was reasonable enough at a home discount store or a decorating boutique with a sale going on. Big ones, little ones, I ogled them all. So now I have a little collection. Notice I said "little". I'm still ogling the big ones. I'd still like to have a large cloche. Well, maybe one day, but what has really caught my eye lately is creative cloches.

So, a month or so ago I found several items on a trip to a local thrift store that I thought would make great cloches. All of the items I found were candle accessories. And super cheap about a quarter a piece.




Ok, I have really been wanting to display old class rings in a creative way. Don't they look cute under this little cloche?

I thought I would include some of my apothacary jars today also. I love changing the display in my apothacary jars with the seasons. I showed you a little bit of that in this post. The jars are still decorated for summer with sand and shells. I mean lets face it here in Texas we're still in the throws of summer, but next it'll be Halloween. Ooo, I'm excited about that.

Hope you enjoyed my cloches. I'm including these in the Cloche party at A Stroll Through Life. Check out what everyone's doing.

Amanda

I'm making cloches today

These are glass pieces I posted several weeks back that I bought for a quarter a piece at one of our local resale shops. I thought that I would get them ready to use for the cloche party at A Stroll Through Life on September 11.

Each of these 3 pieces are intended for candles.

I searched through my extra previously used hardware that I have strored in a drawer in the guest room and came up with these pretty knobs. What a shame they were in storage. I used these in my first that I lived in on my home. I loved that little house.

I simply placed the knobs on top and secured them with a little hot glue so that I could easily change them out later if I wanted to.

Or if I could ever figure out how to get the brass piece off the bottom of the door knobs. It looks ok. I'd rather have all clear glass though.

Thanks for stopping by. BTW, I'm adding this to The Shabby Chic Cottage for transformation Thursday.

Amanda

Mad Hatter Tea Party Invitations

Princess #1 turned 9 in August. School doesn't start until a couple of weeks after her birthday so most families are still entrenched in Summer while preparing for the upcoming school year. In past years we've simply had family parties or done something special for her birthday. This year we really want to have a kid party for her. Since the party will take place after her actual birthday how about a very merry "unbirthday"? Tea anyone?

First order of business: Invitations. What do you make for a Mad Hatter Tea party for an invitation? How about a "mad" hat.

I found a package of brightly patterned cardstock. (50% off at Hobby Lobby!)

Raspberry colored paper, because you have to be able to read the invitation.

12 envelopes in a scrumptuous teal that coordinates with the cardstock.

Various supplies that I already had on hand.

I found a kooky top hat on the internet. It wasn't the size I needed for an invitation so I used the outline of the hat to help me sketch a larger hat.

I traced the outline of the hat onto the cardstock and cut it out. I made a hat band out of a sort of coordinating cardstock and tucked the raspberry paper with the invitation on it behind the hat band to look like the tag that the Mad Hatter has tucked into his hat band. And voila a mad hat invitation.

I'm linking this to Maman Tattoo's $15 project link.



So did I accomplish $15 or under for 12 hand made custom Mad Hat invitations? Here's the break down.

Cardstock (50% off of $19.99): $10

3 pieces of raspberry paper at 29 cents each: $0.87

Envelopes (package of 12): $2.99

Total materials: $13.86

8.25% tax: $1.14

Grand total: an even $15

I could have used plain invitations for less. Or maybe I could have used the plain invitations with the origional hat that I used to help me make my template pasted to the front, but once again I made it complicated.

Thanks for stopping by.

Amanda

PS. I added this to Kimba's ASPTL DIY Thursday link party.

Trash under glass

I love apothacary jars! I've eyed these lovely little sweeties for years, and just last year I finally lucked into finding some that I felt were reasonably priced enough for me to spend hard earned money on them. Since then I have found a few more, one here, one there, and my collection keeps growing.

I have several of these beauties scattered throughout my home, but my favorite grouping of them sits atop a pie safe in the dining room. These apothacary jars ended up on the pie safe, because it seemed to be a safer position than grouped in the middle of the dining room table. They would be beautiful on the dining room table, but I had vivid visions of my children pulling the tablecloth from the table along with all of these fragile ladies. So on top of the pie safe they went, and I am so happy they ended up there. It's a position of honor that sits above everything else in the room.

Now the question is what's in my jars? Well, the jars in my dining room change with the holiday or season. During the Christmas holidays they contained glass ball ornaments (of course I forgot to take a picture of that). For Easter I filled them with various colors of Easter basket grass and chocolate bunnies.


Before Valentine's day I needed to fill them quickly. It was late at night. We had guests coming the next day, and I didn't really want to spend any money. So, I went from room to room in my house and collected all things red. Ribbons, pipe cleaners, gift wrap, toys, marbles, and silk flowers if it was red it went in the jars.

So for Summer I was inspired by the dining room itself and my shell collection. Shells, sand, and sea glass set a beachy tone.

Thank you for stopping by to meet these curvy ladies. I'm so excited that Jen at Pear St. Studios hosted a linky party so that we can all see see how everyone fills their jars.

I'm also linking this to Reinvented for Trash to Treasure Tuesday , because I think I've proved that everything's a treasure under glass, even left over gift wrap and pipe cleaners.

Happy blogging.
Amanda

Recycled details

We all know that it's all about the details. So many of us make sure that even the details in our home lend themselves to the story of our rooms. I mean sometimes a detail is simple and easy so why not go ahead and do it. Right? One of my easy details in kitchens and baths is soap dispensers, but how many times has it happened that I go out and buy a cute soap dispenser, of course the plain plastic ones won't do, and the soap dispenser is broken during use? Or you decide to bite the bullet and spend $15 buck on the oil rubbed bronze, hammered metal number that would just look great in your sophisticated rustic bathroom only to have it corrode after a few weeks of use, I ask you? These little suckers are too expensive to have to replace them often. Then of course there's the fast that alot of them are cheesy and it hard to find one that goes in your room.


Well, here's my solution to spending a fortune on those little details, and it's a green solution too. I use glass bottles and pumps that I already have. The bottles may have previously been water bottles or lotion bottles. They could be from anything as long as they have threaded tops. Just pair the bottle with a pump top that you aren't using anymore. Again it could be from a lotion bottle or a body wash bottle. The trick is to find a pump that fits the bottle you have, and you need to make sure the tube that goes into the bottle is long enough to reach the bottom of the bottle you are using. It's that simple, if you can find the pieces that fit together. You're recycling and you have a unique, elegant soap dispenser that you can taylor to your own design scheme.


Glass lotion bottle and water bottle that dispense soap in my kitchen.

I have not yet updated the new liquid foaming soaps, but if I could find the right bottle I would.

Thanks for visiting. Now head over to Twice Remembered to see what everyone else did for the Make Your Monday party.

Amanda

Move over Elizabeth Arden

Last Fall we were sprucing up the front of the house for the holiday season, and it became glaringly evident that we needed to repaint the front door.

So off to the store I went to pick out the perfect shade to snazzy up our front door. Red! Definitely red. Here's where the wrinkle in my plan reared it's head. We live in a suburb. Which has a neighborhood association, and I didn't want to wait for color approval. It's just a front door anyway. I mean you could change the color of your front door like you change your nail color right? But our problem was that we wanted a red door and that means primer. Not just any primer, pink primer. So, if I thought I might have trouble with my neighbors when I painted my door red when they see a pink door first they're gonna freak. Hmm, how to get this done without everyone seeing the process. We could errect a tent in front of the front door. No I don't think that will work. Oh, I know I can just wiggle my nose and it'll be done in the blink of an eye. Is that too old school? How about "Reddus Front Doorus." Oh if only. So here's what we did. We painted under cover of darkness with spotlights on the front door in the middle of the night. Yeah, I know crazy, but it looks good doesn't it? I love the red!

That's my front door transformation. I'm adding this to DIY day at A Soft Place to Land and Transformation Thursday at The Shabby Chic Cottage.

Amanda

An Outdoor Chandelier

Today I'm joining Kimba atASPTL for her DIY day link party.

Back in April we found this tractor wheel at the AntiqueWeekend in Warrenton, TX (my heart's beating faster just thinking about the one coming up in October).

I immediately knew where I wanted to put it. We've needed better lighting on our back porch and I've had boxes of lights sitting in my laundry room for a year. I wrapped the wheel with Christmas lights first then added another layer of small globe lights. My wonderful hubby wired it to the light switch and helped my hang it from the porch awning with chain.

I looovveee it! We've had so much fun sitting out underneath the light and just talk or watch the kids play.

I think it's such an neat repurpose. I can't wait for it to cool off here so that we can spend time out on the porch again.




Amanda

*I'm adding this post to Twice Remembered's Make Your Monday party.