Before and Afters

So, its pretty obvious that I love collecting vintage goodies, but I also love to hunt for things that I can re-design or re-purpose into useful and beautiful things for my home. I enjoy browsing in trendy home boutiques and catalogs, but I can't stomach the prices! Additionally, I like my home to reflect my personal taste and unique style and that means weaving in all the quirky collections and sentimental "stuff" that brings me such joy each day, and giving more standard household items my unique spin. I'm always looking for things that I can tweak to be more "me." Of course, I also love that re-purposing helps our planet in just a tiny little way. I'm making a concerted effort to reduce my consumption, and while this is far from easy, shopping secondhand makes me feel like at least I'm heading in the right direction.

Here are a couple of projects I completed this weekend. I found this candlestick at a thrift last weekend and brought it home to join two similar candlesticks I already owned. When purchased, all three were this brown color.

The color was fine, just nothing special. I've recently seen sets of antique white distressed candlesticks in stores and catalogs like Ballard's Designs, and I knew I could replicate them for much, much less than they were going for. Using heirloom white spray paint I already had, I gave them a good painting and distressing with coarse sandpaper. They now look like this:

Don't worry--this is not how I plan to display them! I am in the process of pulling out all my Christmas decorations and this funny vintage music box just seemed to land here. It will soon find a more appropriate home.

Here is another easy project that I completed yesterday. I also bought this--whatever it is--at a thrift shop last weekend. As soon as I saw it, I knew what I would do with it. It appears that it was meant to hold candles or tealights or something of the sort, as the base was covered with wax drippings. And it might look nice as a candleholder. But I had other plans. I absolutely adore this aquamarine color, and use it a lot throughout my home, especially at Christmastime. I knew immediately that I would clean it up, keep the base color, change the bow accent color, and use it to display vintage glass ornaments. This is the "before" picture.

And this is the "after" :

I'm pretty happy with the results and I'm now itching to finish up a couple of more complicated projects that have been sitting around for awhile. What do you think of my handiwork?