how i Decorate with Jewelry

I never realized how much I depended on my jewelry to glamorize my house.  I'm not exactly sure when it started but the other day I noticed the trend.  Although I buy lots and lots of constume jewelry, I don't always wear it, however, looking around, I see where my house is benefiting from my jewelry  ;)

Maybe it was the earth tones that lured me to use these necklaces on my breakfast table...

My kitchen counter vignette has a old wooden cross dangling from wool twine...

...that trails from my Jamaican Mountain coffee

This anklet was made for me by my son years ago

I have it encircling my kitchen clock

This old pearl necklace adds a tidbit of elegance entwined in the floral arrangment I have sitting ontop of my dining table.

And the dining chairs were adorned with pieces of sheer fabric held together by a big decorative ring

I gracefully draped these necklaces around this crusted jar to give it more eye appeal

I took one of my bronze metal necklace's and dangled it from the cup holder in my bath

I used pearls to adorn my Armoire

Then there was the necklace that I had to tarnished to make this clock a little more "grandfatherly".

There you have it.  Like I said I can't remember when I started this trend, and I guess some might think it's a little unorthodox, but it's definitely a cheap economical way for me to add a little "umpf" to my decor.  LET YOUR CREATIVITY FLOW!

My Old/New Clock

I use to have a little bench outside that I use to use for all sort of stuff eventually the elements took its toll on the bench and became of no use.  Over the year it just sort of laid there and each time I meant to have it trashed, something came up and I forgot.

When I was looking at my foyer wall the other day I kept looking at my clock. 

 I think it's a nice clock but I always felt something was missing, it was just hanging there....and then the other day I thought about that lonely worn out bench outside.

It was the perfect for what I wanted to do.

I cleaned it up and managed to tone down most of the red.  I then took some ocher & sienna pigments and washed over the board to make it appear even more rustic.  

With that done I took a neck chain that I had purchased while away on vacation but hadn't worn for a few months and...

... spray painted it to look old & rusty using brown & then hand painted sienna in various spots.  I love the statement my new/old clock now makes.

BEFORE

AFTER

If you look closely at the top left, you can see the sand that's embedded in the wood.  When I showed this off to a friend they queried why I didn't patch it up & painted it to make it look new; you should have seen their eyes when I mentioned I painted over it to make it look older...(smile)

I love the character it has added to my clock.  So the next time you see an old piece of wood just lying around LET YOUR CREATIVITY FLOW!

My Kitchen Clock

One of the project I've been working on at home is trying to get my kitchen counter arrangements coordinated.  They're mostly minor projects, but I'm beginning to realize with a full time job my time is extremely limited, and with the time change I can barely keep my eyes open when I get home.

Here's a clock I had on my counter.  It was given to me by a friend several years ago.  It was originally in my Study, but when we started experiencing a number of power shortages I became irritable having to reset my microwave clock 2-3 times weekly so I moved it from my Study into the kitchen.

While I know it isn't a kitchen clock, it's battery operated and I no longer have to worry about setting the time, but it's out of touch with my kitchen decor.

So after some thought I decided to paint it. 

I used chalk paint  (homemade) for the base coat.

Then I went over it with a gray blue paint...

"

While this was okay, the white was a bit too "clean" for me and the gray blue needed to be played down, so I decided to dirty it up with ocher.

Here's a close up

My kitchen clock all dirty-up!

Sometimes it's okay to dirty things up when you LET YOUR CREATIVITY FLOW!