Antique French Letters and Documents

Hello dear friends.


In my quest for beautiful materials to use in paper collage I discovered a lovely Etsy shop in Canada and purchased some of the prettiest antique French letters and documents that I currently own. They were waiting for me when I got back last week, and I was so glad that they were!

First of all, I could barely bring myself to open up this beautiful

packaging.

The seller must have taken so much time to cover this 

standard shipping envelope with such gorgeous collage work.

Even the postage stamps were chosen with such care.

(Pardon me for covering up the seller's and my adresses

with ugly sticky notes,

but you know how it goes on the internet!)...

I tried to capture in my photo that these items were all

glued onto the scripted background paper.

I hope that you can see that the hat is dimensional...

Even the back of the envelope had more ledger

paper on it,

along with pretty coordinating black and 

white striped washi tape to hold it all together...

  I very carefully cut opened the envelope to

remove the contents.

As you can imagine, I saved the envelope! 

And inside was the most beautiful collage material wrapped 

together as shown below

and tied with delicate twine.

A freebie postcard copy was on top,

with a thank-you written on back...

Do I love this beautiful bird-themed beauty?...

I had ordered two different sets,

and each was tied up separately...

I love the stunning blues of this one...

And the creamy color of  this set, 

along with the stunning blue stamps and postmarks.

They were all unusual in that the envelopes were

the outside parts of the letters themselves. 

Don't you love the gorgeous handwriting on them?

If you are interested in checking out this shop,

the link is here.

Will I ever use the originals of these in any kind of art?

Nope!!!

But I will make copies of them!

Have you found anything stunning lately?

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We will be heading up to The Nest shortly,
so you may not hear from me for a bit.
One of these days I will master posting from my cell phone or iPad.

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PS. Is there anyone besides me that finds that spacing after paragraphs
in Blogger has gotten wonky lately?

The Wren's Nest: The Guest Bathroom (Part 2)

Hello!

Moving right along in the saga of the guest bathroom, here is Part 2.

Now we are getting to the fun part,

though perhaps Hubby would not agree.

In this room we had no old paneling to work

with.

You may remember that when we did the master

bathrooms both at Birdsong and in this place,

we only made it LOOK like there was beadboard 

by putting up chair rail molding,

and painting the top of the paneled walls

 a different color from the bottom.

Here there was only old painted wallpaper,

so we put in actual beadboard on the bottom.

Since the old wallpaper was already painted,

I later followed suit with another coat of paint, 

and was actually 

happy with the way it came out.

In this photo you can see how little room

there was to work.

Good for me, as no room in there to help, 

so I got off easy.

Bad for Mr. Perch...

Here the beadboard is in, 

and flooring is being installed.

You can see where he also started sizing

the baseboards in back of the toilet...

The vanity (you may remember that we

bought this last year in Lowe's on close-out,

and stored it in the guest bedroom all winter)

was the biggest joke,

as we knew when we bought it that it was 1/2 inch

wider than the allotted space.

After a lot of cussing and swearing

(sorry, readers!)

we finally got it in.

Here you see it with the faucet that we also 

bought last year..

You can tell that the walls are not yet painted

nor has the caulking been done...

Here is the new fixture,

which replaced the junk that was there

(see yesterday's post).

And the walls are not yet painted,

evidenced, again, by the lovely wallpaper...

Here is the almost-completed room.

You will recognize the bird print on the wall

from Tuesday's post.

We used the toilet that was originally

in the master bathroom,

as it was in perfect condition.

(We purchased a slightly higher one for the master). 

I also re-used the sweet towel rack from

Birdsong.

The beadboard was painted with a basic

trim white, since the vanity was too white

to be up against my favorite color,

Simply White, used in the rest of the place.

The upper part was painted in another 

Glidden color which I will supply the 

name of later,

as that information is up there,

and I am home right now.

It is a light taupe-ish color,

which blended better with the vanity top

than any shade of grey would have,

though it is in the same tone as what

I used elsewhere in this home.

In the upper right you can see the raw framing

of the window, which we replaced on

our second trip.

Oh, did I tell you that there will be a window 

saga to come?...

I must confess, that aside from painting, 

I did not play much of a role in remodeling

this room.

But, I did have fun playing with 

this dingy old antique 

mirror that was being ignored in the attic

here at Plum Tree.

It was chippy white, but not in a good way.

So I taped it off...

...painted it with the same white semi-gloss
paint used in the rest of the room...

...and voila,
after turning it sideways
we had a pretty mirror that kind of matched
the room, but not too much.
Only enough to give it that cottage look
we desire...

By the way,
brushed chrome knobs came with the vanity,
so I sprayed them with oil-rubbed bronze paint
and they match everything else now.
This room is so small that there was not enough room
to step back far enough to take a picture of the whole thing!
You have to love it.

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Thanks for coming by.
As always, I so appreciate the time you spend reading my posts.
Have a wonderful day!

The Wren's Nest: The Guest Bathroom (Part 1)

Hello to all! I hope that you are having a great week.

When we went up to The Wren's Nest in April (the first trip of the season), we finally got on with remodeling the guest bathroom. To say that this room was small would be a gross understatement, so wiggling about in there trying to install beadboard, replace old flooring, and install 3-1/2 in baseboards was a real challenge for the Mister, since he did most of this work. We started by gutting everything to make may for the new.

I think that I shared some photos last year

of what this room looked like.

It still had the original harvest gold toilet, 

though you can see that the toilet seat had

been replaced.

The funny part was that though it used

a ton of water and took forever to fill,

it was actually in perfect condition...

Here is a very dark and bad photo of the old

aluminum awning window,

original to this 40-year-old trailer.

Don't you love the country blue valance

with the yellow stars on it?...

The medicine cabinet was particularly interesting.

The light was built into it,

and it was painted aluminum 

with sliding mirror-doors. 

Underneath it was a stick-on-the-wall

paper towel holder.

You would not appreciate the irony in this

unless you could have seen the four 

(yes, I said four!)

chrome towel holders that had been fastened 

to the walls.

How many towels would be needed in 

a half-bathroom that was little wider than

the toilet and had no shower?...

As with those in the master bathroom,

there was a harvest gold sink and counter top,

and original faucet with crystal knob

sitting on the built-in vanity.

The flooring was faux wood vinyl,

which was throughout the unit

and which we replaced last year

with laminate,

which you can see below

on the right outside the door...

 

Below you can see the wall after hubby removed

the toilet.

Gee, how can we tell that the wallpaper

(originally green and yellow as you see)

was painted cream, but not behind the toilet?...

And this is the corner after we ripped out the

old vanity.

The plumbing came in from the side

of the home,

which you see in the torn out portion below.

Mr. Perch is a fanatic about replacing 

old plumbing with shut-off valves. 

And yet more of the old wallpaper

(actually wallpapered wall panels,

which is what they did in those days).

On the floor you can also see

the base for the flooring that we were

getting ready to install...

Stay tuned for a look at how it turned out!

The Bird Book Print and an Old Picture Frame

After our recent community yard sale, we were stuck with quite a few things that didn't sell. Most were donated locally, but I did keep a few of the old picture frames thinking that I could diddle with them and use them down the road.

I still have a few places at The Nest that need a little decorating, so decided to put a few things together to bring up there, and here is one of them.

This was originally a bronze-brass metallic

wood frame.

I sprayed it with Rustoleum

in an oil-rubbed bronze color

(the same one that I used on the knobs

for the kitchen cabinets up there)...

...and left just a little of the original finish

showing through...

I recently discovered a source for vintage prints

that were cut from old books.

The shop sells at very reasonable prices,

and I don't have to tell you what some

sellers charge for these.

This one was the title page from a vintage

bird book.
The seller has a water colorist on staff,
and he, or she, gently colors some of the
illustrations, as was done with this one.

I made a copy of it,
(of course, saving the original)

and fastened it to a nice piece of burlap that

I then used to cover the cardboard that came

with the frame.

Vintage-looking prong fasteners

hold the print to the burlap...

Here is a close-up.

It was hard to get a good photo due

to the reflections on the glass...

It took about ten minutes to put the whole thing together 

while waiting for the paint to dry on the frame.

What could be better than this

for a vacation place called "The Wren's Nest"?!

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I had also ordered a few other prints from this seller,
and I will share them with you on a future post.
If you're interested in browsing this shop on eBay,
the name of the store is Interior Elements,
and you can find it here.

Have you created anything "on the fly" lately?

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Today I am linking with Wen's Simply Neutrals Tuesday Party
and you can find it here.
I hope that you enjoy your visit!

A Blue-Eyed Spider and Some Vintage China Plates

Do you remember me? The summer has begun, and of course, I am too busy for words. Or at least, too busy to blog. I still think of you, though!


We have been back from the Wren's Nest for almost a week, and have spent most of the time working on our poor yard that had been neglected for 12 days. Need I say more!


While we were in Hendersonville, we went to the annual Garden Jubilee, and though I purchased a thank-you gift for our friends who watched our house while we were gone, I was so proud of myself for, in addition to a few Iris rhizones, buying only two other things, one of which was something we really needed and I specifically hoped to find there (I will share the other one with you in a future post.)

We needed a doorstop to hold open the door

that goes from the screened porch into

the enclosed porch,

as the wind keeps blowing it shut.

I thought this guy was the cutest little thing,

and he is very good as his task

since his body (a rock)

is quite heavy.

There were all sorts of artisans there,

and I was amazed at how crafty

they all were...

And speaking of clever artisans,

I loved this display of broken china necklaces.

The vendor actually used the plates that she cut the pieces

of china out of to display the pendants that she made 

out of said plates.

If you click on the photo below to enlarge it,

you will see what I mean...

 

We attended this event with our friends who recently bought the unit next door to Birdsong Cottage and had a great day. Of course, this was the only "great" day we had, since most of our time up there was spent doing hard labor on The Wren's Nest. Who can figure? More on that saga later.

I'm hoping that your week has gotten off to a great start!