Things aren't quite what they seem around here

What do you get when you combine a vintage light fixture and a glass candle holder?   Two less things in the neighbor's trash, and a cool pedestal bowl.

I remember once trying to explain almond butter to a friend, as "kinda like peanut butter, but..." At which point she started laughing and said "Everything in your life is kinda like something normal, but not exactly."

As long as we're gluing together glass, this hatstand is two vases and a round glass candle globe.  You can do these as garden ornaments and candle sticks, too.  To create the illusion of a single piece of glass, stick to one color, or graduated color.  I use loc-tite 5 minute epoxy.

Help, I'm gluing, and I just can't stop!  This one's a vintage metal light fixture (turned upside down), topped with an old china bowl, and a drift of seashells.  A great way to make use of a china pattern  you love that doesn't match any other dishes you own.  Pedestal bowls can hold all kinds of things, including candles like this one, in every room of your house.

Fast forward twenty years, to a friend who after five minutes in a junk shop with me threatened to have my headstone engraved with what she swears is my favorite phrase: "Oh, look, if you turn it upside down, it could be a..."  I had planned on "Gone to the Grand Perhaps, back soon!", but hey, at that point, I'm sure I'll go along with whatever.

My upside down piano legs are second only to my Teddy bear on the list of "what would you grab if you had five minutes to vacate".  They are willed to my friend Cindy, but  I plan to live to 100, and she's a bit older than me, so feel free to request second dibs.

Seriously, I do have an inability to let things be.  It's too much fun to transform them into something more useful, especially if they're headed for the dumpster. 

This mantle, made of two salvaged headboards and a broken mirror mosaic, would have been made of an old piano top, but that ended up being a breakfast bar in a client's home.  Careful, the junk bug is catching!

Why buy poster frames when vintage storm door windows, painted black, have so much more character, and cost little or nothing?  Watch for dumpsters outside homes in old neighborhoods, where remodeling is commencing, then don't hesitate to ask if you can salvage.  It's trendy, now, and you will very likely meet interesting people who will give you all kinds of unexpected treasures (complete with vintage stories and homemade cookies), if you are charming and polite.  And the pink satin pointe shoes?  Mountain Girl didn't always live in hiking boots.

How many uses can you think of for a wrought iron candle sconce?  Here it holds towels over the sink in my garden themed kitchen.  If I hadn't had this, I probably would have used my wrought iron garden hose holder, since I rarely roll the hose up, anyway.

Edison said, "All you need to be an inventor is a good imagination and a big pile of junk."  If a big pile of junk is Edison's heaven, I wonder if that's him I hear thumping around in my basement full of salvaged treasures!

Need help on projects in your home?  Click on over to my website theartofthehome.com for information about how to hire me, and to see my full portfolio.

Want to do something yourself, but don't know how?  Please feel welcome to email me.  If it's handmade home decor, party decorating, cooking, or sewing, I just might know how to do it, and if I do, I'll be glad to share what I know with you.  dawnmariedelara@gmail.com .  Really.  Just ask.