thrifting, crafting, and mantle

This is my mantle, I ask that you pardon the smudgy, dirty looking glass. No matter how often I clean it it doesn't seem to come clear. My husband says it is cheap and blames it on the previous owners of this house (no comment). As you can see, I made a bunch more lace doily candle holders. All the doilies are thrifted and nearly all the vases were.

I was going to put the candle holders in my shop but now I am not sure because a.) I like them and b.) the glue doesn't seem to hold well on a couple of them. I will probably post individual pictures of at least several of the holders later this week because I really like how they turned out.

The mantle looks gorgeous at night with all the candles lit.

Here are three holders, along with the clock that I made and you can see a bit of my really nice Kaliedoscope.

I bought this wrought iron stand at GW last Friday. It was 2 dollars. I had hoped the glass insulators would fit better than they do. The clear ones are a bit wide so must sit with a slight tilt. I put electric votives in the insulators. You can see the other side of my kaleidoscope (hubs gave it to me years and years ago). And you can also see the salt and light candle I made.

I bought the little resin sign at a yard sale ( a beer sign yard sale of all places and no I didn't buy a beer sign and I wasn't there for beer signs) for fifty cents!

Below you will see what I find hardest to share.

About eight years ago, we had a leak down the wall in the corner of this room (can you see some of it?) We were blessed by one of the men I called when getting estimates for repairing the roof. He came out on a cold drippy Nov day and told us the beam was rotten and that the roof would need repair and the shingles on the entire roof would need to be replaced (which we knew because the roof was that old) but said he would repair the leak for no charge and come back in the spring. He did.

He gave us a first rate roof and came to check on us that fall after a severe storm that destroyed many roofs in the area. Ours came through wonderfully. He had a theory about quality and the demands of roofing and he was very vocal about sharing it. He was competitively priced but not as cheap as the gang places. He is probably our best contractor experience we've ever had.

Unfortunately, we've not had time or money to fix and repaint the wall (I really hope to paint this summer/fall). You should have seen the shameful condition of my last attempt to disguise it. I won't describe it.

The woven piece is the lid of a trunk I bought for two dollars on a yard sale on Friday. The trunk now stores my girl's cardboard bricks. The two doily pieces on the wall were both thrift buys that I've had for a while. Both had their tags on them yet and both were under two dollars. The cross is one of the silverware crosses I made at Easter. I used a s-hook and pushed it through the weave of the lid and hung the cross on it.

You can also see that we listen to tons of audio books from Little House on the Prairie (if you love the books - Cherry Jones narrates these and her voice is the voice of Laura in my mind) to Lord of the Rings (another good recording). And from Alice in Wonderland and Anne of Green Gables to The Five Little Peppers and Pollyanna.

Hubs won't listen to any of the books narrated by Rebecca Burns as her voice annoys him. ;)

I will be sharing this at:

Made By You Monday at Skip To My Lou

Modern Craftswoman at Tools are for Women Too

Just Something I Whipped Up at The Girl Creative

Motivate Me Monday at Keeping it Simple

Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch

Debbiedoos New Linky Party at Debbiedoos

Nifty Thrifty Tuesdays at Coastal Charm




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