Hold These Please.....

We just love finding treasures

that we can use for other purposes....

Doesn't this piece of silver fit these glasses perfectly?

In what ways have you used a treasure

for something other than what it was intended?

It's Friday & We're in Love...

T

time for something we're in love with....

Care for a cup of alphabet soup?



P
possibly one of the cutest things we've come up with!
We had some lovely old ironstone tea cups & decided to initial them

L

Love.....it's Friday & we're in love with our initial cups tied with a bow....

What are you in love with today?

Table Service for your Plants

This year, not only will we be putting our broken dishes in our plant stands & garden....


We'll have these new vintage stamped silverware as well - forks & knives that are ready to serve up some style in your vegetation!!
(available with "flowers", "fleurs" and "herbs" printed on them!)

Mirror Magic

Last week we were preparing for Karla's son's first communion. We had a dilemma while getting the house ready. This window just won't do!

A couple of weeks ago the wind blew the window back and glass went everywhere - so, cardboard went up to keep the bugs out.

The dilemma:

Well, I really don't need to tell you that - it just looks plain UGLY!

So, we thought & thought and had an "Ah-ha!" moment

Karla collects lots of mirrors, and she remembered about one that just might be long & narrow enough.....

Ta-da!

We were pretty pleased with ourselves!

No one noticed a broken window was over there - mission accomplished!

Not only is this a great solution for our broken window....use a mirror in front of a window to block an unpleasant view on part or all of the window!

Today we are joining Metamorphosis Monday over at Between Naps on the Porch.
Although it was the simplest thing in the world to do - it really did change the looks of that little office nook! Oh, ya....and it cost us $0 - got to love that!!
Now.....any brilliant ideas for this??!!! HA!


Enjoy your Monday!!

"Good Boy!"

It's not so "ruff"
Take a charming old planter...

...and plant your cell phone...or glasses in it
don't you just love using old things?
(We knew you did!)

What's On Your Drawers?

If you didn't know it already - we love wallpaper
Since we don't have anything to wallpaper on the walls in our homes at the moment, we're looking for some furniture, because we love this!

image from Better Homes & Garden
The wallpaper just makes these drawers pop!

One roll of wallpaper is all you'd need for something so pretty - just imagine the possibilities!

This decoupaged dresser from Martha Stewart
How about vintage botanical, floral or bird prints? Look on eBay or estate, or garage sales for wall paper remnants, pages out of books, blueprints, anything to put on the drawers - you just need some wallpaper paste - and voila!

Fast and fabulous decorating projects article from Better Homes & Garden

Pick your paper out first, then pick out a fabulous paint color that compliments the paper.

photo from Better Homes & Gardens

Don't have a dresser?
How about a cabinet or shelf?
Wallpaper makes anything pop!

Decorating with Silver

Golly, we just love using silver pieces in the store and at home.
Many customers love it, but just don't know how to decorate with it,

so we thought we'd show you two ideas of how we like to use it:

We love grouping little vignettes together on silver trays....no matter what the size!

We also love putting things into our silver pieces - like this darling little chick in a nest - it fits perfectly inside this old silver gravy boat!

So....we ask

How do you use your silver?

Planting Some Love

Challenges.....
we love them!

Our Grandpa has entrusted a shelf to us that we must decorate seasonally over at Bethesda Care Center.

Fall: Pumpkins, black vases with wheat in them
Christmas: Wrapped Presents
Winter: ______________

{Well, we wanted snowballs to carry us through till March, but Styrofoam balls were soooo expensive}

We're on a budget, see, so we looked & looked and decided on a Valentine theme.

So,

we grabbed

our trusty

Mod-Podge,

Paper Doilies,

Left-over

Christmas

Wrapping paper,
and cardboard heart boxes....

We created

We love creating

We patiently love creating

Hey...who's idea was this to do all of this creating again???

Oh ya....me!
We pieced

We glued

We pieced

We glued


Until we got all four boxes patched up & glued

{We'll interrupt here and note that this is NOT the greatest craft project for kids...why, I barely made it through it all!}

While the boxes were drying we worked on our LOVE

No, we are not fighting right now!

We were painting some cardboard LOVE letters

We planted those LOVE letters into pots {painted of course!} and mossed them up and put some sparkling heart garland up them

After we placed the boxes around we tool some left over doily hearts out & placed them about with some rose garland, which we cut up and placed around.

We think it turned out cute...what about you?

Pillow Power

So...these Pottery Barn sweater pillows are just really cool - we love the texture & that cozy look that it gives....but we've found sweater pillows that you can make yourself that are far superior to these (we just love it when that happens!)

image from potterybarn.com






The first pillow is from Country Living - the new issue just came out and we loved all of the ideas for old sweaters - the flower embellishment is just too cute!

image from countryliving.com

The next two pictures are from Martha Stewart - we love the details in these pillows - how the sleeves are even used in these - very clever Martha!
Image from Martha Stewart

These puckers are so adorable - can't you think of a million places to put these pillows? We can!

image from marthastewart.com

For a basic sweater pillow, we found instructions on the cutest blog Make It and Love It - cute, cute things over there!

So, what are you waiting for? Get some sweaters & make some pillows....go on....what do you have to loose?

"An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail." ~Edwin Land

Hot Products for a Cold January

This week we found some "Hot Products" in Home Decor in our email box.


Imagine our surprise when the first thing we see...is what we are expecting anytime this week! You know, that is the best feeling in the world - you order something months & months ago...and when time comes around - it's on the "Hot" list - yea!!



The next thing we see is so happy - we just had to show you!
With the grey sky of winter - its great to see a cheerful punch of color!
Last year we saw a lot of these colors coming about...and with Turquoise being the "color of the year" according to Pantone - we'll be seeing these bright colors more!

photo courtesy of Manual Woodworkers



The last thing that made us ooooohhh and aaaahhhh was this lamp...more like the shade made from burgundy, olive, beige and gold organza ribbons - isn't that fun? The lamp is hand painted,and, unfortunately, the lamp is $750.
photo courtesy of DB Sources




Well...we don't know about you - but that price isn't quite in the budget! So...we thought a bit, and figured that you could find your own base - preferably from a garage sale, junk store - what have you & "hand paint" it yourself (or spray-paint...however you like to paint.)
Then we make your own ribbon-covered lampshade like they did here.

There you go - a fab lamp...without the fab lamp price!

photo courtesy of Craftstylish

Endless Possibilities

1. It seems that we have magazines everywhere...yes, we are addicted, but we need to do research...but what to do after we tear out all the articles we need?
2. Whenever we need to send a note to someone, we never seem to have note cards!

Today on Design*Sponge we found the answer!
This argyle patterned note card has truly inspired us today! How about silhouettes of animals, trees, flowers. You could make your initials or some fun squiggly shapes...there are so many things you could do! This would be a great gift too....get the kiddies out and have them make some for their teachers, babysitters (just think how much the grandparents would love this!)
What else? Well, why not paste things on paper or canvas to make a piece of art with? The possibilities are endless - just look at the fun you can have with old magazines, making them into something so useful!

photo courtesy of Design*Sponge

Sweet Dreaming

It was 1904 and Mr. Halter was building his home. He furnished it and brought his new bride home and she loved it. Upstairs in the bedroom was a grand and beautiful bed. fit for a queen, and Mrs. Halter thought she was the luckiest lady around!

The bed lived in the house until Mr. Halter died. Several years later, Mrs. Halter rented the house out and put the bed into storage in the great attic upstairs. There the bed stayed until.....the attic needed to be cleaned out because the newest owners decided to create a room up in that big, old attic. Now....what to do with that headboard that had been in the house for 105 years?

Well....the bed is Karla's, and it has been moved several times from one side of a room, to another to endure work in the attic, and now we are happy to say, that there may be a happy ending to our story! We have thought that this headboard would make a great headboard for a king sized bed...how do we utilize the foot board?

Well, Monday we're taking it over to the wood repair shop and are going to finally see if the dreams we have for this headboard will really be able to happen! We need to make it bigger, paint it...and maybe we can add fabric...we've scoured the Internet on information about making a full headboard a king sized, but haven't found much....but we did dream quite a bit with some fun ideas for headboards - so come along and do some dreaming with us......



We just love, love, loved this idea {of course we tend to collect old doors here at The Summer Kitchen!}
How cute would this be - an old door, on it side with trim work above, painted and distressed - perfect and easy to do...not adding those little lamp holder on the side - quite creative, don't you think?

photo courtesy of Better Homes & Gardens

Goodness....we've died and gone to heaven - isn't this mirror gorgeous? What a great headboard this makes....we can't imagine what it would cost us...but it is sweet to dream girls, isn't it?

photo courtesy of Country Living





When we saw this picture in Better Homes & Gardens we squealed with delight! We love old hankies - and just how darling is it to frame them and put them above your bed...or anywhere for that matter!

Also love those snare drums - what a fun end table for a room {and be sure to take notice at all of the fun vintage things at the end of the beds in all of the pictures posted.....great uses for fun pieces!!}





We love old shutters - and think this idea is a fabulous one - that doesn't need anything but a good wash down and some nails to secure above the bed! What a fun idea to bring the outdoors in!

photo courtesy of Curbly.com





How about windows? You can find plenty of them laying around the neighborhood. See anyone replacing their windows? Ask if you can take some of their old windows and create a unique headboard. Here they took out the panes of glass and inserted boards covered in fabric that compliments your room.

{wouldn't this make a great screen for your living room too???}

photo courtesy of Better Homes & Gardens




Now...hanging art above your bed is great - but hanging ART above your bed...large art with a light above it....how great is this?

{Not to mention the great mirrors on either side of the bed...and the lamps....!}

photo courtesy of HGTV




We love how they took an old headboard and insert fabric into it. If this could somehow work on the headboard after it is done - it would be fun....but we will just have to wait and see how it comes together first!

photo courtesy of Country Living

Isn't it exciting to figure out something fresh & fun - while utilizing something that you have at the same time?!

Look for the final results of Karla's headboard....sometime down the road {we're not fast workers when it comes to our own homes ya know!!}

Sweet Dreams!

The Flowers of the Florist

Well...you'd never guess that she is a florist when you pull up to her house (ya...right!)

This weekend I was out to Karrie's house to take pictures of this container....you'll remember this great find here! It's blooming like crazy!


Karrie loves pots....any & all! These terracotta ones line her back steps (she has three sets of steps to decorate)

This side is by her patio and she always has her potted tomatoes & peppers here...of course along with lovely flowers!





On the other side of the patio is a wonderful shady spot for the best find of the year 2008....a wicker plant stand for $4.....



















Here is one of two cement planters that are just gorgeous!





There are more plants & flowers, but I had to snap this picture.

When our grandmother moved out of her house to go into a smaller home, we found this plant stand in her attic.

No one really wanted it at first, but we'd never let anything escape....we might regret it!!

Karrie had it for a while and a couple of years ago she painted it. It is a pretty neat, old plant stand....look at the detail of the woman on the bottom of it..

We were very glad that we kept it - now where would we find something like this in the stores?





A couple of years ago we got this pot and another like it at a flea market....we loved the design & the leaf stamping on it (not to mention the general chippy-ness of it!)

This licorice plant is such fun...we planted some in our planters at work. It loves the shade on Karrie's front porch!

The last picture I took was of this sweet crock filled with impatients.

So many ways to create color & texture outside during the summer....what do you like to plant your flowers in?