|
Who is in the mood for strawberries?!  Image from Pixabay. Thrift shops are heaven on earth for creative people like myself. I constantly find new and exciting pieces of unique, vintage glassware and dishware. On one such trip a few years back, I found a couple of slightly rusted metal dessert cups, simple votive glasses with vertical ridges, and some beautiful glass dessert plates with an elegant vine design.
0 Comments
Hello, summer! I don’t know about you, but warm weather always inspires me to be creative. I do love my thrift shops (as some of you may know already)! In particular, I love finding used and vintage glassware and dishes to turn into creative decor.  Faux florals, miniature birds, and repurposed thrift store finds…Three of my favorite things! The weather is warm, and the sun is shining brightly today—the perfect day to reflect on a couple of previous “make me happy” projects.   Photo by Diane M. Lilly, 2020. I’ve had an outdoor herb garden with mint, sage, and chives for several years. And boy, are they flourishing this year! Lavender and rosemary were also planted, but neither ever came up. Finding an empty spot in my garden, I decided to pop in some carrots. Time will tell whether they will grow!
 “Obsessed by a fairy tale, we spend our lives searching for a magic door and a lost kingdom of peace.” Eugene O’Neill
Ever since I was a little girl, I have been fascinated with fairy tales and mystical worlds. I would spend my time in quiet reveries, letting my imagination go wild, thinking about secret little worlds that exist under our noses, and we don’t even notice! Little people, fairies, even animals, living in hidden nooks and crannies, under leaves, in tree stumps, under rocks, and in worlds in miniature where magic is the norm, and the inhabitants are surrounded in ethereal bliss—this to me was heaven!  Photo by Diane M. Lilly, 2018. Oh, how this tiny little piece of furniture challenged and frustrated me!!!! I spent many more hours on this project than I had planned, and each stage of the process brought fresh vexations and doubts! Let’s just say this stool almost ended up in the trash more than a few times during the refinishing process! But I persevered…and I’m glad I did!  Photo by Diane M. Lilly, 2018. If you’ve been following my latest blog posts, you already know the battle I went through during the stripping stage of this project! Needless to say, I was glad to have that chore behind me! I was looking forward to having a pleasant day trying out this tea-staining technique I found online. Anything all-natural is right down my alley!  Photo by Diane M. Lilly, 2018. In the previous blog article in this series, I showed “before” photos of a tattered vintage footstool I purchased a few years back. Over the past few weeks, I managed to strip, clean, and sand this decrepit little stool in preparation for a fresh new stain and finish. Here’s how I did it… For the past few months, I’ve been feeling creatively stagnant. I’ve been racking my brain, trying to find a project to embrace that will help change my current dismal perspective. Don’t get me wrong, I love my wood-burned art and decorative candleholders, but I need something fresh, new, and different to help brush away the cobwebs. But I’ve been struggling to come up with anything inspiring…
Then, suddenly, I remembered this ratty little footstool hidden in my basement for three or four years and thought, why not? |
Author
Some of the posts on this site contain affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. 
Categories
All
Archives
June 2025
|
RSS Feed
|
Major credit cards accepted through Square. Apple Pay option available. This site also accepts PayPal payments for better online security, and it's free to sign up! Gift cards are now available for purchase!
Copyright 2025 |