Spring Cottage Decor

 

No matter how long the winter, spring is sure to follow..

Awe, I can’t believe its here again, my favorite time of year! The sight of the earth bursting forth in color, the smell of “green” in the air and the sound of birds singing their hearts out. Today I even heard a frog croak in our garden pond! It was a bit rusty sounding at first, but he finally found the right note. :)

I have been working on getting some spring decorations up that I will share with you here. I am not quite finished in the living room, so that will be a later post, but for now, I will give you a tour of the dining area, all springified …

Some changes I made to our dining area are the drop cloth curtains, which you can read about here. I also added the little cabinet in the corner. It was a left over from the vintage fair that I didn’t let go. I do that sometimes, if it’s something I’m kinda in love with, I’ll put a good price on it and not back down. :) The cabinet was a mint green color during the fair last year, so that may be some of the reason it didn’t sell. I then painted it duck egg blue, thinking I would have it in the vintage fair this year, but plans changed and I ended up painting it white for our dining room. I painted the inside back a charcoal gray. Here is the before picture of it..

Below is a picture that has the different decorations numbered, along with a short explanation of how I did it or where you can find the object, if your interested. :)

1. Drop Cloth Curtains that you can read about here.

2. A chandelier that I found at a garage sale for $15.00. ( I am still looking for bulbs that will look better than the ones pictured. Maybe a jar for a shade? We shall see:))

3. A restored barn wood sign, which I sell on my Etsy shop.

4. The glass terrarium is really just an upside down vase with the lid of a glass canister glued to the bottom. (or top now) The bunny is my son’s piggy bank, which hasn’t seen any coins for years that I painted white. The little plant in the pot is fake.

The eggs are a whole other story! I read a tutorial on how to use real eggs for decorating purposes and so far I’ve been quite impressed with how they’re holding out. I used a t-pin to prick a hole on each end of the egg. I wiggled the pin around to make a larger hole. I then straightened a paper clip and used that to stir the inside of the egg, to get the yolk thinned. Then, I blew into the one hole, blowing the insides out of the other hole. It was really not that hard, though I felt a little light headed at times. :/ I ran a little water into the egg and blew that out too. After draining them a bit, I painted the white shells with acrylic paint. I’m hoping I  can store these eggs and reuse them next year.

5. I made this little wreath out of Boxwood sprigs. Using thin, green wire, I attached the pieces to a larger wire circle.

Inside the cupboard there’s a cute print of a bird cage that I got off of The Graphics Fairy website.

I think there’s a peeping tom (literally) photo bomb in this picture. :)

Now, on to the buffet..

Designing paper scrolls is a big part of my life since I opened my Etsy shop, but this one I can’t sell since it’s a song title. If you are interested in a scroll, visit my Etsy shop to see more. I also do custom work.

I made the little cage out of chicken fence and the birds are from Dollar General. (They were bluebirds until I claimed them. :)) I snagged the cute little Daffodils at Aldi for a few dollars and the Carnations are from Walmart. I am loving the cheer real flowers bring to a room! :)

I hope you are all having a blessed spring. (yes, we can say that now! :))

Thanks for visiting!

-Mary

Drop Cloth Curtains

 

Hello everyone! I know I haven’t been posting regularly this winter and I apologize for that. I’ve been caught up in getting my Etsy shop up and running, spring cleaning, and just the usual every day tasks that never cease.

Some of you have messaged me wondering whether all is okay and I assure you it is! I find that I have less furniture makeovers going on during the winter since I do a lot of my painting on the outside. So hopefully once the weather breaks I will have more makeovers to post about!

Yesterday I had a lot of fun making new curtains for the dining area. Last winter I had made burlap valances for these windows and I still remember how much time and muscle I put into them! You can read all about it here.

I still like the look of the burlap feed sack curtains but felt they were a bit too rustic for the rest of the kitchen/dining room. My favorite décor and about all I pin is farmhouse style décor. I am sure if you follow me on Pinterest you probably know that, but seriously there’s nothing as inviting and down home as this style! I love neutral combinations of whites, grays and natural wood. I also have dreams of adding shiplap walls to our home someday, giving it that fixer upper look. :)

So yesterday I set all Etsy and spring cleaning things aside and focused on getting some spring décor up, which I will share with you later on. But for now, we will focus on these very simple, inexpensive valances that I made.

First let me ramble a bit on my newly discovered fabric that I’m sure I’ll be using a lot in the future.. drop cloth canvas..

 

 

After doing a little research online on how to work with this fabric, I decided to bleach it to a lighter color first. I filled our laundry room tub / sink about half full with cold water and added around five cups of bleach. I then soaked the canvas for three hours, making sure it was all covered with bleach water. (I set soap jugs and other heavy things on the fabric to get it to stay down)

After the three hours were up, I washed it in the washer at a regular cycle, with the usual laundry detergent, and dried it at a normal setting.

I fell in love with this suddenly soft, light, lineny fabric that smelled so good! Before, it was very stiff and too tan for my liking.

You may not be able to tell by the picture but here it is after it was bleached..

After hemming the valances, they were ready to hang. I basically just made rectangles, without even making a pocket for the rod. The fabric hangs so nicely, there was no need for one.

It’s always hard to take good pictures with the focus being the window, but hopefully you can tell how light and farmhousy this fabric is!

I will definitely be using more of this fabric in the future! I’m thinking pillow covers, table runners, etc..

I hope you are all having a great week! Thanks for visiting!

-Mary