Simple Stylish Solutions: Breakfast Tray

I’ve had these giant glass jars forever. They were left sitting outside the recycling dumpster at my old apartment complex and were just too cute not to bring home. They’ve been used for various things over the years, including a display of Christmas ornaments, a collection of river rocks, and a failed terrarium. And they’ve been stored, unused, taking up precious cabinet space. I even moved with them, which felt somewhat ridiculous, packing up someone else’s trash and all, but I just love their size and proportions and you know what they say about one man’s trash. When the cat destroyed my laundry area/pantry and I did some rearranging along with the cleaning up of his mess I decided to pull these babies out and use them for cereal and granola bars. Rather than put them back on my shelves, I arranged them on an old wicker tray and had them sitting in the middle of my table, along with some ironstone bowls and spoons so morning cereal or midnight snacks are super easy and convenient to grab and I have just a bit more space in my cabinets and pantry - and who doesn’t need that. Plus it looks darn cute too.

This picture was taken after I had set up my table for St. Patty' s Day (coming soon) so I've moved the tray into the kitchen temporarily.

It's Smurfalicious!

I did a quick makeover of the thrifty candlestick I told you about here using Rustoleum spray paint in Lagoon. I love the ease of spray paint, but sometimes the selection of colors isn't that great. This came out just a tad brighter than I was really looking for - I think I needed something with a bit more gray in it to tone it down just a bit, but it isn't a bad match with a small blue glass bottle I have in there too so I'll most likely leave it for now - it is certainly way better than what I started with, which  you may remember was a bad, streaky brown.

I'm still wanting to wallpaper the ceiling because the room is kind of blah without much color, so I'll try to tie it in that way, and if not, well, it is easy and cheap enough to repaint.

I could not get accurate color in my photos and the swatch from the Rustoleum site wouldn't copy over, so here is a close approximation of the color.

I also lucked into a brand new, still in the wrapper pillar candle at one of my favoirte thrifts for $1.40. Originally I was thinking of a shorter one, but I'd just spent a crazy amount on fake, battery operated candles for the fireplace and the dollar store didn't have anything, so I was happy to get such a deal on this and now that I see it put together, I do like the taller size. 

Summer Dreamin'

This year I'm hoping to do something with my balcony to make it a little more useable when the hot weather rolls around - it is in direct sun with no awning or roof. I'm not crazy about the idea of a market umbrella - I love them in theory, I just don't think it is the right solution for my space. We're not allowed to attach anything to the building exterior so any type of retractable awning is out. I've had a framework in my head that I think I can build and attach a homemade awning to, so I'm hoping to do something custom, which I think will be pretty easy and relatively inexpensive. More on that later, but this evening I spent some time perusing fabrics and paint colors hoping to come up with a color palette.

The siding is James Hardie Boothbay Blue, similar to the solid blue swatch and the trim and balcony are similar to the solid tan swatch.

I am really loving the idea of adding some marine blue and kelly green to the rather dull colonial colors I have to work with and have found two fabrics I love that incorporate the blue. The one on the left is Sunbrella's Matouk Regatta ($20/yard) and the one on the right is Solarium's Imogen Pacific ($10.95/yard). Ideally I'd like to find a stripe that mixes the blue and the green but haven't come up with anything yet.

A few other fabrics I considered were P. Kaufmann's OD Slick in Navy and Palm, which I still might add for accent pillows:

and Waverly's New Twist Aquamarine, which I think is a little too modern for me, but pretty nonetheless:

I also briefly considered yellow or purple for accent colors in place of the green, but after viewing fabric swatches I think green is the way to go for me. I also may throw in a bit of an orangey-coral for fun - we'll see.

I'm linking up to Centsational Girl's Home May'd Outdoor Link Party. Hop on over and check out all of the great outdoor ideas.

Branching Out

I’m not sure if I dreamed this or was awake in the middle of the night and thought of it, but I awoke the other day with the idea, obsession really, that I wanted a tree branch in my china cabinet with some of my cups hanging from it. We’ve had a lot of ice and snow in the past few weeks so there were tons of branches down and I found just the perfect Sycamore branch right outside my front door. I tucked it into the cabinet and it fit well, but I’m still rehabbing and didn’t have the doors back on yet, so to keep Mr. Curious Kitty from chewing it all up and making himself sick, I stuck it up on top, where it perfectly filled in the space between and above the vintage wicker picnic baskets I have up there and gracefully arched out over the front of the cabinet by just the right amount.

I pulled out some small vintage milk glass cups that I think were probably part of a child’s tea set, and the only halfway appropriate ribbon I could find, which was black satin (and trust me, way better than the alternatives of bright orange or yellow, not even sure why I have that) and set to work tying my cups onto the branches, making sure to choose spots where the branches were thick enough or the cup would rest on something so nothing would come crashing down. I L.O.V.E. how this turned out.

I'm linking to Faith, Trust and Pixie Dust's Fabulous Friday linky party (ok, so I'm a day late, that's pretty good in my world.) Pop over and check out everyone's favorite projects.