Trash to Treasure Chairs

I've been going through all of my photos in my house recently--and I do mean ALL my photos. Even the ones that pre-date my digital camera. I'm trying to get them all organized so they're easier to pull out and look through whenever the mood strikes. Of course, most of them are older, since more recent digital photos only get printed if I want to put them in an album, which is really the nice part about digital cameras--you only have to print the ones you want!

But anyhoots, in going through all of my photos I found a photo of some Adirondack chairs that I transformed several years ago. I thought they'd be a good Trash 2 Treasure feature here on the blog. The original (before) version wasn't really "trash." It really just needed a little TLC and a facelift, so that's what I gave it.

I had two of these chairs, both made by my father-in-law, and I loved them, even in the "before" state. But I was doing an all white theme on my front porch at the time, so I decided to paint them white, and then use some floral stencils to make them a bit more decorative. They almost had a Shabby Chic look about them. I loved how they turned out and I used them until the day my husband tore off the porch because he was putting on siding AND planning to redo the porch itself. Unfortunately, the chairs got put in storage and basically got ruined. I was not happy. But I did love them for the time that I had them. And they sure looked nice on my porch!

Yard Art Flowers

I was in the studio yesterday and worked on quite a few different things. I got some primitive crafts done for my Tattered Sisters Blog. Got two paintings started. Did some planning for future projects. And I somehow came up with this idea for some Yard Art Flowers. I was trying to think of a different way I could use some candle pans and tart molds that I always have on hand, so I came up with flowers.

I had several sizes of candle pans in different finishes--some are the plain tin color, some painted white, and some rusty. I punched holes in each of the pans and just layered them together to make them look like flowers, and secured them with brads. I added some rusty wire to create the stems--although the wire wasn't heavy enough for the larger flower and it kept falling over. So I reinforced that one so it would stay vertical. :) The smallest shape on the small flower is a tart mold, and the smallest shape on the larger flower is a bottle cap.

In a way these are kind of Altered Art, since I altered the the pans to make them. Maybe it's a sort of way to upcycle too. But not matter what it is, I had fun making my Yard Art Flowers.

Window to the Past

The Hubs has had a couple of old windows saved here and there from our 1890-built home. I didn't want him to throw them away, thinking that one day I would do something with them. After living here for 15 years, I've finally done something with one of them. And now I can truly say it's a Trash to Treasure window I will keep forever.

I have filled each pane of this old shabby window with vintage photos, scrapbook paper, and assorted ephemera to make it sort of a Window to the Past. The upper left pane features of photo of my mother when she was a little girl. It's one of my favorite photos of her; she's wearing a dress my great grandmother made for her. The upper right pane features a photo of Nana, my grandmother when she was a young woman. I love how happy she looks in the photo . The lower left pane shows my mom when she was a very little girl, on a boat with Nana (my mom's mother) and Nana's mother. Mom was very close to my great grandmother, so I love photos of them together. And the bottom right pane features my mom and her grandmother. My mom is dressed up like the cutest little cowgirl, and she's holding her grandmother's hand. I just love that photo.

Here are some larger versions of each window pane so you can see the details a bit better.

This came out looking rather Shabby Chic, which wasn't exactly my intention since my home decor leans toward country and primitive, but I love it either way.  Nothing wrong with adding a little Shabby Chic flair, right? I love that it's kind of crusty and old looking. And I love that it was a part of this house in the distant past. This window is going to hang above my couch so I can see it everyday. Just have to get the Hubs to help me hang it!

Footsteps of the Past

I almost forgot I wanted to post a Trash 2 Treasure item this week! And my Trash 2 Treasure item started out as a very old shoe. What's left of it has become a treasure for the Hubs and me, because he found it digging in the yard during some renovations one day. So I decided to frame it and keep it.

I don't know what the story is behind the surviving sole of the shoe, but I like to imagine that it belonged to a child who lived in our 121-year-old house way back when it was built in 1890. Perhaps the child was playing in the yard and wanted to feel the grass between her (or his) toes, so she took off her shoes to run. But then maybe her mama called her in for dinner, and she forgot about her shoes...and one can only guess what happened to it after that. But then my hubby found it, many years later, only to have it become a treasured peek at Footsteps of the Past.

Wooden Crate and Milk Bottles

Time for another entry on the Trash 2 Treasure challenge on the Sassy Sites blog. This time I'm showing off an old wooden crate and some vintage milk bottles that were destined for the city dump when my husband got a hold of them. One of his customers was going to throw them out! So he gladly brought them home for me. I put my creative touches on them and now they sit in my kitchen.

I didn't want to do too much to these treasures, because I love the vintage look of them already. But I did want to do something to jazz them up a bit. So I took some fabric I had with sunflowers on it and cut out various sunflowers. Then I decoupaged them onto the wooden crate, and also added one to each milk bottle. And then I just added a bit of stippling using acrylic paints to add some yellow and green around the flowers on the crate, just for a little pop of color.

I love how these turned out. They are a fun conversation piece, and they fit right in with the country prim and vintage feel of my kitchen.

Vintage TV Accent Shelf

I'm joining in on a new linky party this week over at the Sassy Sites blog. It's the Trash 2 Treasure Tuesday party. For this party we share items that might have gone into the trash that we have turned into a treasure instead. My first project here is something my husband and I did. It's what we use as a Vintage TV Accent Shelf.

This "shelf" actually use to be the cornice over our home's front door. Our home was built in 1890, and we have completely gutted and remodeled every room in its interior, and we've installed new windows and siding on the exterior. It's only taken us 15 years to do that. ;)  When the Hubs was getting ready to re-side the house, he had to take down the original cornice, which we decided to keep and use later on inside the house...even though at the time we had no idea what we'd do with it.

Since the living room was the last room to get remodeled, it took us until then to figure out what to do with that cornice. We decided it would look great as a shelf under the flat screen TV we bought when we finished the living room. So the Hubs cleaned it up and put a poly-finish on it, and then we picked out some hooks to put on it. I figured it would be the perfect place to hang Christmas stockings each year, since we aren't lucky enough to have a fireplace.

We both love our Vintage TV Accent Shelf.  It doesn't look too shabby (*wink* actually it does look a bit shabby chic) for being 121 years old. You can see there's a rectangular shape in the middle of it, where we assume an old street number plaque used to be (though it was nowhere to be found when we removed the cornice). At some point I'm going to make a decorative plaque for it, and I'm going to put 1890 on it--since that's when our home was originally built. But for now that little space is just a little ghostly shape, echoing our home's vintage past.