Summer's Little Flower Visitors

Even as this hot, dry summer is winding down, butterflies and bees are busy in the flowers that have survived.

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

Honey Bee

Variegated Fritillary

Carpenter Bee

Monarch

Carpenter Bee

Painted Lady

Spicebush Swallowtail

Silver Spotted Skipper

Peck's Skippers

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Summer White and Silver

Today's post is the collection of things I have gotten either at garage sales or thrift stores this summer. I just arranged it all in the hutch. It is a collection of white ironstone, silver and a little green.

A little Boston Ivy  and Tansey and a little silver baby cup with animals marching around it.

This was my favorite find this summer, the champagne bucket. I have Tansey in it. Tansey makes a nice bouquet on its own, but is really super as filler with blooms.  There is just nothing blooming in the yard in this third week of 100+ temperatures.

This Bishop's weed is on the north side of the house and it still is going strong.

Little birds bathing in a silver tray.

This pitcher and platter have a nice hunt scene on it, and sits on top the hutch.

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Headboard to Blackboard

I wanted a big chalkboard for my kitchen, and wanted something different. Being a teacher, why want a blackboard at home? Because if you have been in most classrooms these days, you couldn't find ANY kind of chalkboard if you tried. Technology has replaced them with first green chalkboards then "white boards" and then "Smart Boards".

I just wanted a plain ol' black dumb board! Keeping an eye out at garage sales and Goodwill, I found a nice, twin headboard for 5 dollars. Here's the after:

Here's the before:

With a little sanding, white paint, and blackboard paint, I was on my way. Legs were cut off and knobs were added.

A litttle votive holder with handle doubles as a chalk holder.

I'm NOT ready!

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Drawer Fronts Before and After

My mom and I stopped at a yard sale recently and it turned out to be a kind of estate sale. The people had brought a lot of things from "the farm" to sell. I saw some old drawers full of scrap lumber stacked up on the side of the garage and the man said they were free if I would take it all.  I wasn't even sure what I was looking at in the beginning. There were cobwebs and muddy raccoon footprints on the drawers, and I was thinking that my mom would have a fit if I put that stuff in her car. But I did. I kept the drawer fronts and threw the rest of the scrap wood away when I got home. Believe me, it was scrap wood, not worth saving.

A little research revealed that the drawers were probably from a dresser, walnut, built between the 1860's and the 1880's. Just the hand carved drawer pulls sell for $29.00 each. Yikes! This is an example of what I found online:

Walnut Victorian chest of drawers

Fancy Carved pulls
42" w x 44" tall ~ ca. 1885
$725

 Here are my three drawer fronts before:

I wanted to paint at least one white, but I just couldn't do it to all the drawers.

After:

It seems odd there was a lock for each drawer, not just a small jewelry drawer.

This white one is going to my daughter's house to hang above her white french doors on  yellow walls.

The second drawer I did in a walnut stain.

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