The Apple Street Cottage

Happy New Year! I'm back for a new year of 'Just My Style'.  It's that time of year when everyone is talking about Resolutions, Color of the Year, and Upcoming Trends.  My answer to all of that is:  Nope, Nope, and Nope!  I've always steered completely away from all of that.  I gave up on New Year Resolutions in my early 20's and believe me, that was a long time ago!   Color of the Year?  Who cares?  I use colors I like.  And upcoming trends...hmmm, there's never been a buffalo check, tiered tray, or shiplap wall in my home.  I decorate with the things I love giving me a very eclectic style that suits me, and, isn't that what it's all about? Do what makes you happy and surround yourself with the things you love!  That being said, lets move on....   Christmas is packed away for another year at the Cottage and there are still a few more months until Spring, so I decided to do a little winter decorating with my mini dou...

I'm feeling a crispness in the air. The apple trees are are loaded with fruit, the pumpkins have turned a beautiful orange, and the trees are showing their gorgeous red, orange, and yellow hues.  Yes, it's Autumn and it's time to bring some of that beauty indoors.   Welcome to the Autumn on a Tray Blog Tour hosted by Katherine at Katherine's Corner.   She's gathered a group of bloggers to share how to decorate a tray for Autumn and the results are amazing.  If you're coming from Sandra @ Dinner at 8 , welcome to the Cottage!     I created my tray with things I have around the house.  Let's get started, shall we? I started with a teak tray and this fabulous bird I found last year on sale.   Clearly the tray has seen better days, but that won't matter once I'm done decorating. I added my enamel coffee pot , a yard sale find, filled with hydrangeas. At the other end of the tray, I added a pewter candlestick for a little balance....

It's important to say that I don't do much decorating for Spring.  I thought about looking for some bunnies in the thrift stores, but we all know what happened to that plan.  In the meantime, I thought some carrots might be cute, so I made a pattern and cut it out of some pallet wood that's been laying in the basement. I cut two and gave them a good sanding. They needed a good sanding too!  You may notice two jigsaw blades in upper right corner of the picture.  They were used blades and were not as sharp as they should have been.  These two carrots were their last cuts. After sanding, the carrots were painted with acrylic paint. Two coats of clear and they were almost done. I found some pretty green ribbon to dress them up. One went in my china cabinet with this cute little chick: The other one went on top with my bear/bunny: And that is the extent of my decorating for Spring/Easter.  I guess I should try a little harder next y...

If you've been following me for a while, you'll recall this 'lovely' ceramic tree I found last summer: It had a pink pearl finish. It was dirty. It had fabulous blue lights - not! But it was only a $1.50. This post may contain affiliate links. Did I mention it was dirty?? The first order of business was getting those blue lights out.  Some of them were loose and came right out, but most of them were glued-in.  I was a little concerned about breaking them, but, I got out the vice grips and started twisting. I'm happy to report that all of them came out with a little encouragement.  A few broke, but the small pieces popped right out. The tree went into the sink for a good scrubbing and came out looking like this: Clean, but very pink! Ceramic trees are very popular right now.  I've even seen reproductions of the originals. Since I was never a big fan of the green ones with multi-colored lights, I decided this one would be white.  Off...

Halloween is almost here and I wanted to make something new, but didn't want to spend a lot of money.  While walking through the dollar store, I spied this witch's hat frame and knew I'd found my project!   I still had fabric left over from my pumpkin project that would be perfect for this one, too!  If you missed the wire pumpkin, click HERE .  A few more items were added and I was ready to create. Here's what I used:  witch's hat wire frame, witch's 'legs', purple boa, black roses - all from the dollar store.  To that, I added the lace spider fabric and some bias tape. The first step was to attach the lace fabric to the frame.  I used the same method used for the wire pumpkin - 'sewing'the thread through the fabric and around the wire.  I did this all the way around the frame. Next, I sewed the legs at the bottom of the hat. There was no need to be neat since the stitching would be covered by the feather boa. ...