Randomness

Hi everyone!

 

You may remember the post about this market basket  I found at an estate sale. To reach the basket I climbed over a lawnmower and other tools.   I am sure everyone thought I was a crazy lady in high heels climbing all over the packed shed.  I was determined to have the basket!

You haven't seen the other Market Basket I bought at auction last July.  The pictures are not great  (that is an understatement).  I knew I wouldn't be home for quite a while and I was running around taking random pictures quickly for future blog post.  These were taken literally as I was rushing out the door to catch my flight to Dad's.

Lastly,  I can't believe I forgot to show you one of my Christmas gifts from Steve.  After a lot of research we decided on the Canon T3.  It seemed to have good reviews and we found it at a great price.

 

 

 

The camera came with the 18-55 lens and we also ordered the 55-250 telephoto lens.  It has been fun playing around with the camera but I still have so much to learn!

Thanks for visiting and I hope you have a great weekend! 

xx,
Sherry

Partying this week at:

Coastal Charm

Common Ground

French Country Cottage

From My Front Porch To Yours

Savvy Southern Style



Christmas Tablescape - French Style With A Touch Of Silver

The other week I was wandering around Le Monde, one of my favourite Auckland homeware stores. First I was awed by a gorgeous room setting with accents of a deep, lime green, then I spotted their beautiful Christmas tablescapes. Le Monde is one of those stores you can't resist walking into, displayed cleverly into room settings, but never cluttered, I'm always inspired by the ever changing colours and designs.  A few weeks ago I was inspired by their blue and white setting and dashed home to bring more blue and white into my sitting room. Today I feel inspired by another of their beautiful settings with accents of lime green and seriously thinking about introducing touches of this colour into my living area next Winter. 

While I was browsing, I spotted two gorgeous Christmas tablescapes which Le Monde kindly let me photograph. Today I'm sharing a silver tablescape, with a French feel, and tomorrow, one a little more rustic, I hope they  inspire your own table this Christmas.  If you live in Auckland and you haven't visited Le Monde, I encourage you to visit this beautiful shop. oh! and its right next to La Cigale French Market, so makes a great Saturday morning shopping and eating ☺

Hope you've been inspired, please come back tomorrow as I will be sharing Le Monde's gorgeous rustic table setting, sneak peek below.

Sharing this post with:

I Should Be Mopping The Floor

Wow Us Wednesdays at Savvy Southern Style

Open House Party at No Minimalist Here

Time Travel Thursday at the Brambleberry Cottage

Show and tell Friday at My Romantic Home

At The Picket Fence

I Did Tell You

The Dedicated House

Disclaimer: 
This is not a sponsored post, these are my own thoughts and images. Photography by Lee Caroline - A World Of Inspiration

Bedroom Tour

Hello Blogettes.  I have shown you bits and pieces of our bedroom in previous post. Today you get to see the entire room.

Gosh, I hate those cords!

These pictures make the paint color look so dark! It is actually a medium gold color.

The armoire bought at auction and I painted and distressed it to match the bed. 

I purchased two identical Pierre Deux dressers at auction that sit on each side of the bedroom.  I am beginning to sound like a broken record but Richmond has a great auction every Thursday night and I have gotten some fantastic deals there.

So sorry about the blurry pictures. I think my camera is on it's last leg..or maybe it's the operators lack of skill!

Another auction find! A very upscale shop went belly up and the remaining items went to auction. I bought five signed Deruta lamps for pennies on the dollar. Two of the lamps sit on each side of our bed.

Sitting room off the bedroom... I don't think anyone has ever sat in here. I would rather have had a larger master bath and closets instead. This may be a project for down the road.

I transformed these chairs with paint, distressing and drop cloths. You can see the post I did on this transformation HERE.

The little silhouette is of my son and was made approximately thirty three years ago.

More sitting room.  Love seat was made by Room and Board. For those of you that are familiar with this line you know they are pretty pricey. This piece retails for $1200 on their web-site. I bought two identical love seats off of Craigslist for $125.00 each. The other one resides in our living room.

This painting is one of my favorite things. It is an original 19Th century painting with the most beautiful colors.

I love the precious little cherubs.

Don't they have the sweetest faces?

I will be linking to the following parties:

How Sweet The Sound

Faded Charm Cottage

Romantic Home

Thanks for taking the tour and I hope you have a great weekend.

xo, Sherry

Casual Dinner At The Beach

Okay you got me!  I am really not at the beach...a girl can dream!  I had to show off my recent wins.  I won this fabulous sand pail from Low Tide High Style, and isn't it just the cutest thing?  I also won these adorable place card bubbles from Maureen at Inglenook Decor. These glass bubbles have a hole to hold flowers and a slot for the place card or pictures. I think this is the greatest idea!  I have never won anything in my life and now I get two wins in one week. Thank you both for these wonderful giveaways.

Bubble place card holder with photo of hubby in Hilton Head, SC

Sorry about the poor quality of this picture. but I had to show you a photo of me diving with the stingrays

My table is set for a casual dinner with a beach theme. My new sand pail is holding a beautiful piece of white coral and the tall glass vase is filled with water and a sea fan. The water magnifies the sea fan and floating candles are also placed in the vase. I have used an antique ships lantern, telescope and large glass float to set the beach mood.

I absolutely adore these wood charges from Pier One. Hubby bought me these for my recent birthday.  The dishes are from JC Penneys Chris Madden collection.  I love them because they are so versatile and can be mixed with so many of my other dish collections.

I am linking up with  Marty at  A Stroll Thru Life  for Table Top Tuesday.

Creamy White And Roses

I had been looking a while for a mirror to go above a dresser. The problem was I needed a very large mirror and everything I found was hundreds of dollars.

While digging through a local antique mall junk store I came across this very sad mirror. It was exactly the size I needed and for $15.00 I knew I could make it a beauty.

 I cannot find the before picture...time to clean out Picasso.  This is a picture I borrowed from Craigslist of a very similar mirror. Sorry about the quality.

Before

I painted the mirror a creamy white to match our bed. I added appliques of roses to the top and bottom of the piece. Distressed with sandpaper and then applied Ralph Lauren glaze in Smoke. I love the way this project turned out and it works perfectly with our other bedroom pieces.

Visit these wonderful sites for more inspiration:

Making The World Cuter 

The Girl Creative

Naps On The Porch

Twice Remembered

Thrifty Decor Chick

Get Your Craft On

A Soft Place To Land

Reinvented

Snippets of my home

This is an older post that I did of our Master bedroom.  Debra over at Bungalow is having a Parade of Bedrooms party and I thought it would be fun to join in. There have been a few changes to the bedroom since these pictures were taken. I have added a matching toile duvet cover folded at the bottom of the bed. There are also a couple of new pictures and accessories added. I will have an updated picture in a future post.

January, 2010

Over the last couple of months I have been showing you Christmas, silver and blue but very little pictures of the actual rooms. Today I plan on changing that with little snippets of  our master bedroom

Hubby and I moved to Virginia from Florida a little over a year ago and we brought only 4 pieces of furniture with us! No, this is not a typo! Who would have thought at my age (which we won't discuss here) that I would be starting over decorating a home. It's a long story and one I'll post about at a later time.

Anyways, we bought this new home in June and I had to start furnishing, and decorating, 4000 square feet from scratch. We didn't even have a mattress, lamps, cooking utensils ect.  On top of that we knew we were going to have lots of company visiting starting in just four months.

I was on a tight budget but I also knew I could be resourceful. I  am a strong believer that you don't have to spend a lot of money to have a beautiful home. Auctions turned out to be a blessing, Craigslist and I became the best of friends, garage sales, estate sales and thrift stores became my go to places.  That is not to say we didn't buy some pieces from furniture stores. You can bet I was able to negotiate some excellent prices.

Yes, the house was completely furnished and decorated within four months and I was able to stay within a tight budget.

.
Bed was bought on-line for almost half of the furniture store price. Two matching nightstands bought off Craigslist for $10.00 and I painted them to match the bed.

Toile bedskirt and shams bought new and still in the package for $12.00 from a yard sale. The owner told me they were purchased at Country Curtains so I was able to purchase matching curtains.

Country French dresser bought from auction for $175.

And here is his twin brother.

This French armoire is one of my favorite pieces in our home. When I purchased it from the auction the armoire was painted black and I painted and distressed the piece to match the bed.

I hope you enjoyed this little tour of our bedroom.  I'll be posting more pictures soon so please check back often.

Ballard Knock-off

I am joining Happy to design  for Sunday Favorites which is a chance to re-run your favorite post. I chose the Ballard Knock-off post because it seemed to be my readers favorite. This post received twice the comments of any others.

The first two photos below are of a print in Ballard's catalog which sells for $349.00 plus $100.00 in shipping cost.  I knew I could replicate the look for a lot less.

First I searched the free sites for a antique style document I could download. I could not find exactly what I was looking for.  I then found this copy of a french birth certificate dated 1816 at http://www.digitalcollagesheets.com/ and purchased the digital image for my project.

My local copy shop was able to enlarge the print to poster size, approximately 24 x 36. Make sure the printer quotes you a price for a poster rather than an enlargement. The enlargement is normally significantly more expensive. I selected a matt finish since I wanted the print to look antique. Lowes had the perfect board in their scrape pile and they cut it to size for free.  I had the board cut 1.5 inches longer and wider than the actual poster.

I then stained just the edges of the board and burned the edges of the poster with a match. Yes, I am doing this on my kitchen counter. It was a really cold and rainy day and I wanted this project done now.  We just won't tell Hubby I started a fire in our new kitchen 

I applied Mod Podge to the board and the back of the print and then used a credit card to smooth out the wrinkles. Once dry I applied a coat of Mod Podge to the front of the print and added two hangers. Here is the finished product and a cost breakdown.

My cost break down for Ballard style print:

Digital download   $ 3.75
Enlargement          $12.00
Board                   $12.00
                             ______
Total cost             $27.75

I had the stain and Mod Podge left from another project .          

I love the results and it was a really easy project!  Thanks for looking and I hope this has inspired you to try
your own knock off.

Sherry