Recent finds for the home

The rest of my family teases me about my "pillow collection", I just love new pillows though, and I'm happy with my blue and white ones on the couch.  The 2 matching ones I picked up a few weeks ago at IKEA, the floral / bird one is from Pottery Barn outlet (do you have a Pinterest account?  I pinned a picture of this pillow and I think it is the most "re-pinned" picture I have on there), and the chevron stripe one is from Target.

The fiestaware and vintage dish collection is my other little obsession.  I have been changing out the displays in this cabinet,  but right now it has the gray / blue theme going on.

I re-painted my foyer recently and like the reflection in the antique mirror - this was a $5 junk store find

Our little Emmy enjoying the sun.

I got this little black A letter for my office, it was already painted black.

I have been looking for a vintage globe for a while and finally bought one recently.  It has moved around to various places but at the moment it's at the top of the shelf in my office.

I've had a collection of the blue jars for a while and they have been in the kitchen, but I brought some into the office to use as frames for favorite pictures.

This art piece was from a goodwill in San Antonio.

the other side of my office, I have my green chairs all in here now.

And last weekend I found this little art piece at an antique shop for $3 (alongside it is a garage sale planter, I think it was 50c!)

and my latest piece to the fiestaware collection is this little teapot.  This gray color is not one of the original colors, but it is not that common to find as it was only made from 1999-2001.

I see I have not had a blog post since December, I will try to do more soon.  It's spring break for me and the kids, we are off to the beach tonight for a few days.

Foyer

I wanted to join the party at Cottage and Vine.   This little area is pretty plainly decorated.

Our "foyer" is decorated at the moment with some of my favorite thrift store plates, an old shutter, and some other little art pieces.

Eventually I would like to paint the walls, but as this is open to the stairs, and then the upstairs hallway and kids playroom, I have to find a neutral color I really love that I want to paint through the whole place.

These little cross stitch pieces - the one on the left is from Goodwill, and the orange flower one was $5 in an antique shop.

 Not sure the story behind this little picture below, but it came from my parent's house and was in my room there.  It is very heavy and old.

This plate I found at Goodwill, it is poppytrail by Metlox

I really like the pattern on this plate.

a favorite (candid) family picture taken at the farm in east Texas

The chair is a garage sale find.  I like the natural wood right now, but it may get a paint job one day.

The foyer is open to our living room

Click the link below to check some more inspiring foyers and entry ways, I know I need some inspiration for mine!



More painting and spring decor

Another small painting project this week, I started painting our downstairs hallway.  It is hard to tell the difference in the pictures, but the new color makes the white woodwork of the stairs stand out.

Before (taped and ready to paint):

After - eventually I need to paint that other wall going up the stairs,  but that leads to the upstairs hallway / playroom area, which = a lot more work so I will wait a couple of months to make sure I want this color or something a little different.

The color is similar to the color my kitchen is painted.

Kitchen and cabinets is Sherwin williams softer tan, wall under the counter is Seashell gray (Lowes) and wall to the right is Chatham Green (Home depot).

 Fiestaware and other vintage dishes. in my kitchen cabinet.  I have a combination of the newer and old fiestaware.

This yellow bud vase (below), Chris found at an antique shop for me on one of his little trips for work.

My little collection of milk glass vases.  The one on the left I just picked up yesterday for $4 at an antique shop in La Porte, TX.  They have some nice shops there.

My owl cookie jar and some bird friends also moved to the mantel.

The coffee table I bought a couple of weeks ago from Goodwill also moved back here to the family room.  That ladder shelf to the left was also from Goodwill and the vintage side table on the right from a garage sale.

The coffee table has matching "legs" to the dresser we use for a TV stand.



Owl Cookie Jar

I saw this cookie jar in an antique shop a few weeks ago.  I love owls and I have collected them since I was a young girl.  At the time I saw it I was just not looking to buy something big.  But I had been thinking about going back to see if it was still there, so I dragged the family back with me on Saturday.

Here it is - matches perfectly with my corner cabinet that I painted last year.

with some thrift store dishes and fiestaware I've bought over the last few months......

 It does have a small chip near where the lid fits on the jar, but it just adds to the character of it I think :)

This cookie jar is marked "Poppytrail, California".  Most of the ones like it I've found online are selling for about $100 like this one and this.

I paid $25 for mine.

I never knew that cookie jars were so "collectable", but it seems like they really are:

Vintage Metlox Cookie Jar Prices

As is true of all collectibles the "law of supply and demand" controls prices, and Metlox cookie jars are no exception. Some of the more common jars, such as "Wise Owl" and "Puddles the Duck" can readily be found for under $50, while the harder to find jars like "Pinocchio" or "Drummer Boy" have been known to command prices in the $400 to $600 price range.
see here for more info.



With all my google searches for owl cookie jars, I found a blog dedicated to everything owl related, and one of the topics was owl cookie jars.

this one sells for $128

 and this one for $98 from Anthropologie

Anyway, these are pretty, but I still like mine better!

The Christmas tree

Here is our tree all decorated in the house.  It is a Virginia pine.  Hopefully it will still be green in 3 weeks for Christmas day.  It has been soaking up a lot of water every day.  We have no theme for decorating.  The last couple of years I did 2 trees - one for me to decorate and one for the kids.  This year we have a mix match  

of everything on one family tree. 

 I had to add some extra pictures of our family room and kitchen because I took the day off work today and the kids were at school and the opportunity to have the counter totally clean and free of clutter needed to be documented!

One last Christmas project was these wreaths I made and hung on our front windows.  I used plain grapevine wreaths, wrapped with garland from Dollar tree, and I added silver poinsettia ornaments (from Dollar tree too.)

I have wanted to do wreaths like this since I saw these at the Guenther House in San Antonio last year