Beach Baby, Beach Baby

Summer may be over, but I have yet to put away my bikini: there's a beach vacation looming in my not-so-distant future. Perhaps that's why I'm finding myself so drawn to these charmingly embellished images from Parisian design team Ma + Chr.

And you thought vintage beach photos couldn't get any more delightful.
Have a good one.
xo

{all images Ma + Chr, via Design Is Mine}

It's All About The Washingtons

This is a dollar bill. It won't get you very much, or take you very far. If you have two of them, and you turn them into quarters, you can buy yourself five minutes on an air hockey table, or a few songs on a jukebox.

This is a lovely glass light fixture that I found during a recent trip to the fleas. This little lovely's a rule breaker: she cost a single dollar.

This is an old seltzer bottle. I love them, as I do most pieces of vintage bar ware dating back to a time when cocktail hour was a daily ritual. And required fancy dress. It's cost? A dollar.

By now, you're probably guessing that these fabulous old shoe trees were a mere dollar for the pair. You'd be guessing correct.

Then, though, there's this wonderful old TV tray that I am currently using as a bedside table. It was two dollars. But I got it for one.

Stay thrifty, my friends.

xo

Little Pieces

I can think of few things more dainty and feminine than a fine bit of china, dotted sweetly here and there with little pink flowers. And I can think of no starker contrast to such sweet dainty-ness that a cold concrete basement floor, Iggy and the Stooges playing loudly in the background. However, that is exactly the scene I plunked myself right down in the middle of, armed with tile cutters and a devilish grin.

You see, the devilish grin was because I had big plans for these old plates. I had a new use for them, one grandma could never have imagined while serving Sunday dinners upon them. Nope, no longer would they be used to eat off of. Uh-uh. These plates, well, these plates were about to become accessories.

So, after a day with my trusty cutters, Iggy, and a good amount of tile adhesive, and another morning with my old friends Grout Bucket and Sponge, I had me some lovely new pendants. All that was left to do was add a bit of chain and some pretty what-nots, and then, just like that, grandma's old china has been turned into a little special something that can now be worn.

 Have a fancy day, my dears!

xo

Certain A'Peel

So I've got this thing for old stuff. Old stuff has character. Old stuff has quirk. And, quite often, old stuff has chippy, peely paint. Nothing can set my heart all a-flutter in the middle of a junk-filled flea market quite like a bit of perfectly peely paint.

I have tried, with varying degrees of semi-success, to recreate an authentically peely look, with everything from sandpaper to wax to a hair dryer. But let's face it: nothing, and I do mean nothing, has that heart-fluttery goodness found in the flakes of authentically old and peely paint.

Hoping the day holds much appeal for you, my dears!
xo