A Place for Everything

So, you hit some great sales today. Your car is loaded with things you couldn’t pass up. You haul them all in to your house and look at them, beaming over the great deals you made. But now what? Those precious items you were so excited about acquiring a few hours earlier are now staring you in the face, all asking the same question.  “What are you going to do with me?”  Buying was easy, but now comes the real challenge. You now have the chore of finding a place or a use for your new items. Here is an example of a typical box of items I might acquire on any particular Saturday morning. Let's dump it out and see what we've got.

 Ok. We’ve got an old apron, some balls from a croquet set (the rest of the set long gone), an odd shoe, a women’s handkerchief, a string of beads, an old book, a doll with only one unattached arm and no legs (couldn’t pass up the cute face, even though she was limbless), and several generic looking small plastic dolls. Like many of us, I buy what I like and figure out what to do with it later.  Here are 3 examples of ways to decorate with some of the items in my particular box.

The limbless baby.  So cute, ... but so without legs and an arm. I decided to place her in a watering can supported by an old handkerchief to keep her from falling over. I made sure to put her on the side where her “good arm” would show, which I gently put in to place. To see more of the room with the appendage-ly challenged baby look under "Kids Rooms". 

Half a Croquet set. Love the balls, ... very bright and colorful. I put them in an old Hoosier jar I found at a previous sale.  If you don’t have such a jar, there is an easy fix. Target sells new jars that are very similar to the vintage ones.  A new jar this size will cost you $5.99. The jar comes with a shiny silver lid that gives it’s newness away. But that’s nothing that a little spray paint can’t fix!   

Shoe, handkerchief, and assorted babies.  At first there would seem to be no connection between these items.  But ideas quickly started swirling in my brain.  I love nursery rhymes and have a vintage print of the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe hanging in my daughter’s room. This inspired me to make my own whimsical shoe full of children.  Voila! 

I’m happy to report that all the items in my box have now found a happy home. And best of all, I have an empty box to fill up next week!