Put a Cork In It

As usual, I find myself with lots of little projects going on and very little time to blog about them. I didn't want to leave you hanging too long, so this hodgepodge of a post will just have to tide you over for a bit.

One thing I'm uber excited about showing off are our fabulous finds from an estate sale we visited on Friday. Normally we don't find many usable accessories for our staging business at such places because most people don't own big chunky accessories. And if they do, they very rarely get rid of them. To luck into a large, stylish/classic item is awesome. On Friday though, we found THREE! Take a look at what we got for less than the price of a Kimberly fern at Walmart . . .

 

It's difficult to grasp their scale from the photo, but the cloche is 14 inches tall. I didn't measure the obelisk, but I'm guessing it's about 28 inches.

Speaking of that cloche . . . the next time you see it, it will look completely different. Its total transformation is one of those little projects that's been keeping me too busy to write a real blog post.  So definitely check back in a few days to see how I bring it into the 21st Century.

Another project that I am working on is a "gift" of sorts for some of my readers. In the past year or so of touring lots of your homes, we've learned that one of the greatest decorating dilemmas for people is hanging art. Sounds crazy, right? I mean, what could be so hard about hanging art? From what we've seen out there though, a whole bunch of you are having trouble getting it right. That is why I am working on a primer for anyone troubled by scale, composition, color, pairing, grouping, and all the other trouble spots that befall would-be art lovers. I don't want to call it Hanging Art 101, but that's what it is. So stay tuned for that too!

Lastly, the folks over at my very favorite winery in the whole world, Chateau Montelena Winery, asked their Facebook followers what they do with their used wine corks. I've used old corks in a million different ways, but my favorite thing to do with them is this:

Memorable use for old corks

Whenever we have a dinner party, a celebration, or just get together with family and friends, I write the date and event on the cork(s) from the wine we share. Then I toss them "under glass" beneath my favorite cloche.  It is so much fun each year to go back through the corks and recall the good times.

Again, I apologize for this schizophrenic post. It went in a lot of directions, but hopefully you can find some useful information in there somewhere. If not, check back in the coming days to see the transformation of that old timey cloche and my primer on hanging art.