HOLIDAY TABLESCAPES AND GOLD FLATWARE

The changing seasons and the feeling of the holidays approaching have me thinking of one of my favorite aspects of these fall and winter months...holiday table settings! I'm a goner for a pretty tablescape, and I start dreaming of color schemes, flower arrangements, table linens and placecard holders literally months in advance.

Gold tone flatware is one of my favorite things to add to a holiday table. There's just something so festive and special about setting your table with warm and lustrous gold instead of the daily stainless typical of every day use.

(Blogger is STILL not working properly for me and I can't really format text and spacing, caption photos or provide links...so I'm sorry for the odd sized pics!)

Last year I spent some time scouring ebay for gold flatware, and did indeed find and buy a set of gold-tone bamboo utensils. I used it here on my Christmas table with lots of cobalt blue.

Since I often seat a big crowd I splurged on a large 12-person boxed set of the vintage gold bamboo flatware for about $200. But a quick search for "gold flatware" on ebay just now turned up these options and a whole bunch more for under $100, and some for under $50...

(How gorgeous is this gold with black enamel?!? It's here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/VTG-27-PCS-RETRO-MID-CENTURY-ELEGANT-GOLD-BLACK-ENAMEL-JAPAN-STAINLESS-FLATWARE-/380733926140?pt=Flatware&hash=item58a582aafc)

West Elm has also begun carrying the gold flatware above which has nice, clean lines. DWR carries some also, albeit both priced significantly higher than you can score it for on ebay.

And it's certainly not only for the Winter holidays...it's pretty fantastic paired with any saturated jewel tone for a really eye-catching tablescape year round...

So what do you say...are you half as obsessed with gold flatware as I am?

LONNY LOVE

Do read the online interior design mag Lonny?  If not, you probably should.  I find so much inspiration in their photo spreads!   I count on them for great room shots, but also really wonderful detailed close-ups of well-styled vignettes.  Here's some eye candy for you today....Lonny images that I love...

Now back to work, the lot of us!  :)

DIY FAUX OSTRICH OBELISK LAMPS

Remember that time I was waxing all poetic about obelisks in decorating?

Well I happened upon some cool vintage obelisk lamps, and they immediately came home with me, in spite of their chipped and scratched finish.  As you know, I'm a fan of the shape, so I figured I could do something with the messed up finish.

The lamps are brass with recessed panels that had been painted white.   I kind of don't think the white finish was original because it was shoddily done, but either way it was old and funky and all bubbly and crackled in places.

Because of the slight recessed panels, I came up with the idea of "inlaying" the lamps with some material to cover the icky surface.  My first thought was shagreen.  Are you familiar with Shagreen?  

It's basically the leather from a shark or a ray and you find it in antiquity and also today on very fancy furniture and pretty little boxes and accessories.  Here's what Wikipedia has to say about why it became so highly prized: 

Wikipedia: Shagreen was first popularised in Europe by Jean-Claude Galluchat (d. 1774), a master leatherworker in the court of Louis XV of France. It quickly became a fashion amongst the French aristocracy, and migrated throughout Europe by the mid-18th century.  

There you have it...ol' Louie was a trendsetter.  History lesson of the day.  These days shagreen is generally of the faux variety, which I much prefer anyhow from a humane perspective.  So downtown to the fabric district I went to see what I could come up with.   I brought home a variety of samples of textured faux leather, including a decent approximation of shagreen.

I actually preferred the ostrich (the upper left sample.)  That crocodile skin was much too scary, and the lower samples were pretty but a bit on the subtle side.  The faux ostrich texture seemed about right.

All I did was press a sheet of paper up against the lamp to crease it in the shape of my template, cut the faux leather to fit, and inlay it with glue.

The last step of my lamp makeover was to spray paint a pair of drum shades gold on the inside and brush them with watered-down black acrylic paint on the outside.  (The gold spray paint trick only works on shades with a hard plastic inside surface.  If it's fabric on the inside it won't work.)

 

And here's the end result!

I love the contrast of the black shades on the ivory lamps....and that bit of gold peeking out from the inside elevates the whole thing.  It's all in the details, folks!  I think it was Charles Eames who said "The details are not the details.  The details make the design."

JUST A LITTLE DIY WHIMSY IN THE NURSERY...AND BEYOND

If you've ever shopped around for kid's room decor, you know that the invariably limited colors and thematic cartoon characters plastered all over everything can be pretty limiting!  Which is why it's great that it's so easy to bust out little DIY projects that allow you to put your own stamp on the look and feel of the room. 
This is just a little kleenex box cover I made that I think is super cute.  I bought a cheapie square plastic one at the thrift store, and a sheet of decorative paper at the art store, a little decoupage gel, and boom.  

You'll find the same vintage illustrated alphabet paper here, and tons more decorative paper options here and here.   Decoupage is the sort of thing you literally cannot mess up, so don't be daunted.
And here's a hint: this little DIY isn't for the kids only...If you, like me, also have trouble finding attractive little waste baskets and kleenex boxes for adult spaces too, and this little trick works just as well for that.  
I know I've been on a malachite kick lately, but truly, how pretty would this little wastebasket be?  With this malachite fabric (which also works great for decoupage...see my fabric box project.)   

Or check out Jenny from Little Green Notebook's agate waste basket (reminds me of my swirly agate wall project.)




This mod vintage set went on 1st Dibs for $350!
I could see using a marbled "nonpareil" pattern paper to achieve a very similar look...





Perhaps something floral?  Ikat?  Geometric?





The possibilities are endless, people....have at it!