A new use for silver

I don't know about you but I rarely use those baroque-looking Oneida silver-plated trays I received as wedding gifts. Nor do I have much call for sterling silver toothpick holders these days.
However, I've found the perfect use for these items in my master bathroom -- as perfume trays and makeup brush holders.
Sometimes you just have to look at an object in a new light and view it with a new purpose. My eyeliner pencils and makeup brushes were always getting lost in my makeup drawer. The sterling toothpick holders were the perfect means to store my pencils and brushes so they wouldn't get lost. And the decorative holders with the lion's heads on them are so pretty, you don't mind leaving them out on the counter for display. I keep my cotton balls in an antique glass and silver powder jar and my cutips in a larger glass and sterling jar that may once have held cold cream for some Victorian lady. My barrettes and pins go into an antique Art Nouveau covered jewel box. And they all sit beautifully on a tooled silver tray I was going to throw out because it was taking up too much room in my china cabinet.
Yes, the pieces do occasionally require some polishing. Fortunately, I'm one of those people who don't mind polishing silver. The look is well worth it.

Dress up plain wood furniture

When I told you I like to do things cheap, I wasn't kidding you.
I picked up my kitchen table and chairs for a song at an unfinished wood furniture outlet because they'd been on display and were a bit battle-scarred. My kitchen china cabinet, where I display my collection of beloved 1930s and '40s Fiestaware, was a yard sale find at $50. Both were plain pine, but not for long.
I began collecting colorful pints of paint I found on discount on the "Oops Shelf" at Walmart. That's the paint that someone had mixed and decided they didn't like the color. Walmart marks it down to half price so a $6.97 can of paint is less than $4. I chose '50s colors that would complement my Fiestaware and painted each of my four chairs and each leg of my kitchen table a different color. Then I chose my favorite paint color, kind of an aqua blue, to paint the cabinet. I trimmed it out with a rose-red color.
I added a 1950s tablecloth with matching colors, and the result was exactly what I was looking for. Mundane wood pieces were given a colorful facelift, and took the spotlight away from my detested kitchen floor, tiled in a pastel pink and blue. In fact, it helped make the floor fit in with the room's color scheme, which is really no color scheme at all, just color.
As for time, the entire project took all of three days so the results far outweighed the labor. Now I'm gathering up the courage to do something similar to my cream-colored outdated kitchen cabinets. I'll let you know if I decide to take the plunge.

In a fix

It all began when I acquired a beautiful, rare 1940s Fiesta turquoise footed bowl that would have been worth $150, except it had a big chunk missing from the foot. To the Fiesta collector, who prizes perfect pieces, it was virtually worthless.
"You know, I think I can fix that," said Mr. Fix-It, aka my husband.
He took some putty, the kind you use to fill holes in walls, and filled in the spot where the chip was. When it thoroughly dried. he sanded it down and then, using the paints he used on his model airplanes, painted the chip to match the rest of the bowl. He then finished it off with a coat of polyurethane.
His match was so perfect, you could hardly tell where the chip once was.
But the real test was its durability. Would the repair hold up to the periodic hand washings the bowl would undoubtedly get as it was used?
Well, the repair was done 13 years ago, and the bowl is still as good as new. In the interim, I've become quite the ceramic restorer, perfecting the techniques my husband developed when he repaired that first bowl.
I now have people bring me beloved religious statues, marble busts, heirloom ceramics and other items to repair.
I recently repaired a very heavy 3-foot chalkware statue of Abe Lincoln for a couple. Their granddaughter accidentally knocked it over and Abe's arm broke off. It was a challenge. The piece was so heavy that my usual method of first gluing the pieces back together with Super Glue just wouldn't suffice. I went to Home Depot to seek advice and was told plumber's cement would do the trick. But, no, the arm was still too heavy. So I cut pieces of a wire hanger, drilled holes into the plaster shoulder and side and inserted the wire into the holes to anchor the arm. Once anchored, the glue held. Then I packed the cracks with putty to further strengthen the breaks. Once the putty thoroughly dried, I could mix the paint, blending it to match the existing paint on the piece. Once completed, you could hardly tell it'd been repaired at all. I was pretty pleased with myself.
I was able to perform miracles with a majolica teapot with a broken spout. I inserted a pencil in the remaining spout and molded the putty around the pencil to lengthen the broken spout. I discovered the ideal tool for sanding and shaping the putty afterward is a battery-operated manicure file. The various attachments allow me to sculpt lines into the putty or smooth it out, depending on the effect I'm after.
The artistic, and tricky, part comes with paint. It takes a lot of experimentation to find the right colors and then an artist's concentration to blend the paint to match the existing piece. A coat of polyurethane helps it to blend and gives it durability.
When I finished with Mr. Lincoln and the owner came to retrieve him, he asked how much he owed me. I was momentarily baffled. I'd never charged for my work before. I'd always done it for the challenge of making something broken beautiful again. I didn't know what to charge so I suggested he make a donation to my favorite charity.
It just didn't seem right to accept money for having so much fun.

Saints Alive

Italian-Style Devotional Art Collection:...History of Wax DollsI was at a church tag sale when I happened upon the most beautiful statue I’d ever seen. Carved of wood, it depicted a black woman wearing a vibrant blue dress with the heads of cherubim around her feet. On her head rested a gold metal crown.
“How much” I asked the elderly woman standing nearby as I reverently eyed the 18-inch-tall statue, running my fingers over the intricately carved robe the statue wore.
“Oh, it’s not for sale,” she said. I looked up at her, disappointed, wondering why the statue would be on display if it were not for sale. “It can’t be sold because it’s been blessed by a priest. You can give me a donation for her.”
Being Catholic, I was familiar with the practice of not selling items that were blessed. If you sell them, the blessing does not remain with the item. Being ignorant of the value of such a statue, I offered the woman a $20 donation, thinking that was a fair price. She accepted. I should have offered 10 times that amount.
After some research, I discovered the statue is an excellent Spanish colonial hand-carved example of the Black Madonna, or Our Lady in Czestochawa, Poland. The image is sometimes called Our Lady of Jasna Gora after the name of the monastery site in which it has been kept for six centuries. Its origins are unknown. According to legend, it was created by St. Luke the evangelist who painted the portrait of the Blessed Virgin on the cedar table at which she had taken her meals. St. Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine, located the portrait and had it transported to Constantinople in the fourth century. After there for five centuries, it made its way to Poland where it came into the possession of St. Ladislaus in the 15th century. St. Ladislaus was determined to protect the image from an attack by the Tartars so he took it across country. During the journey, he stopped at Czestochowa for the night and placed the portrait in a small wooden church named for the Assumption. The following morning, he put the portrait in the wagon to proceed on his journey but the horses refused to move. The portrait had claimed its home.
I’ve since seen similar statues of the Black Madonna selling for thousands of dollars. But my statue has an honored place in my home amongst a growing collection of saint statues known as santos or bultos.
After acquiring my Black Madonna, I became fascinated by these beautiful pieces of art. Some in my collection are newer folk art pieces and some are hundreds of years old.
Like many of my collectibles, I began picking them up for a song before they became highly collectible. Today, I couldn’t afford to purchase my collection.
My collection includes various saints including an Infant of Prague with real human hair, carved wooden Simon and Peter statues with ivory faces, and a wood-carved St. Francis of Assisi with articulated arms.
I love the simple painted folk art wood pieces made in Guatemala and Peru depicting St. Francis and Our Savior. There is something so beautiful about their crude simplicity and bright colors.
My greatest find, however, is a collection of 15 6-inch wax saints with cloth dress, cotton hair and beards, many accompanied by the saints’ relics. They were most likely made in Germany where wax dolls such as these are common in nativity scenes. I’ve never seen another set of saint dolls. I donated $85 for the set.
In South America, residents will create home altars around santos at which they will pray for the saint to intercede on their behalf. Contrary to some opinion, Catholics don’t pray to saints. We ask saints to pray for us just as you’d ask a friend to pray on your behalf. I wonder about all the requests, large and small, these santos have heard throughout the years.
Catholics are known for their love of great devotional art, i.e., the Sistine Chapel. Even the most modest ancient Catholic churches were filled with elaborate statues and stained glasswork.
That love of art carried over into the home with collections of saints and devotional wall art that included elaborately carved Black Forest crucifixes from Germany, intricate copper engravings of scenes from the Bible and richly decorated leather-bound Douay Rheims Bibles.
I’ve been lucky enough to have acquired quite a few pieces of devotional art, which gives me double pleasure for its beauty and spirituality.
Remembering the Infant of Prague statues in their fancy handmade gowns that my grandmother owned, I’ve also become a collector of these more kitschy baby Jesus figures with their satin, sequins and jeweled crowns.
I didn’t realize these were a hot collectible until I saw them displayed in Country Living magazine. I thought I was the only one attracted to these statues from the ‘50s and ‘60s.
It just goes to show, there’s a collector for everything.

I became attracted to Staffordshire pottery while living in Milford, N.H. and working as a reporter.
I was interviewing a couple who were living in an 1800s colonial townhouse in a town called Wilton and saw these huge pottery dogs sitting on an antique drop-leaf table. I asked the owner about them, and she told me they were Staffordshire Romantic Staffordshire Ceramics (Schiffer Book for Collectors)mantle dogs modeled after the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Cavalier King Charles Spaniel: Your Happy Healthy Petthat Charles the II, king of England, Scotland and Ireland, was so fond of during his reign from in the 1600s.
The Staffordshire Potteries began making statues of the esteemed royal dog when they began producing ceramics in the 17th century due to the availability of local clay, salt, lead and coal.
Staffordshire is actually a generic name for an industrial area that included the towns of Tunstall, Burslem, Hanley, Stoke, Fenton and Longton, in the area of Staffordshire, England. Hundreds of potteries were in operation during the 1600s through the 1900s, producing everything from dinnerware to the toby jugs and figural spill vases that became the hallmark of the Staffordshire potteries.
Some pieces were marked with the name of the pottery. Others were unmarked but the style defines them as Staffordshire. The intricacy of the design of the spill vases, the bawdy humor of the toby jugsA Century of Royal Doulton Character & Toby Jugs, the subtle political derision of the sculptural figures, the delicate hues of the pearlware Anglo-American Ceramics Part I - Transfer Printed Creamware and Pearlware for the American Market 1760 - 1860 (Anglo-American Ceramic)and the intricacy of the designs of the transferware pieces make Staffordshire pottery highly collectible.
There are Staffordshire potteries still producing dinnerware, collectible figures and toby jugs and mugs today. Some are pretty pricey, too.
But, if you know what you’re looking for, and you search thrift shops, yard sales and estate sales, you can find bargains out there.
I can’t resist those mantle dogs I first saw more than 20 years ago in Wilton, N.H., and have been collecting them ever since when I’ve found them for an affordable price. I have both original and reproduction pieces that I display throughout my home. I’ve also managed to pick up a fair share of spill vases and toby jugs when I could find them for reasonable prices. I love the charming scenes played out on the spill vases, and the colors go well with my collection of antique majolica.The Collector's Encyclopedia of Majolica
I don’t pass up pieces with chips or cracks if I can get them cheaply enough. I become quite an expert at repairing ceramics and pottery. I fill in the chipped area with spackle that you’d use to repair walls and let it dry overnight. Then I use a battery-operated manicure Nail Care Plus Personal Manicure/Pedicure Setto gently sand off the excess spackle and shape it so it matches the rest of the piece. Next I mix acrylic paints to match the piece’s existing paint. Once I have a match, I just dab the paint onto the spackle to hide the chipped area. Once dry, I go back over the chipped area with a small brush containing some polyurethane to seal the repair. Do this enough times and you’ll become such a pro, no one will know there is a repair. I like to challenge my husband to try to find the repair after I’ve completed a job.

Lapping up Staffordshire Pottery

I became attracted to Staffordshire pottery while living in Milford, N.H. and working as a reporter.
I was interviewing a couple who were living in an 1800s colonial townhouse in a town called Wilton and saw these huge pottery dogs sitting on an antique drop-leaf table. I asked the owner about them, and she told me they were Staffordshire mantle dogs modeled after the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel that Charles the II, king of England, Scotland and Ireland, was so fond of during his reign in the 1600s.
The Staffordshire Potteries began making statues of the esteemed royal dog when they began producing ceramics in the 17th century due to the availability of local clay, salt, lead and coal.
Staffordshire is actually a generic name for an industrial area that included the towns of Tunstall, Burslem, Hanley, Stoke, Fenton and Longton, in the area of Staffordshire, England. Hundreds of potteries were in operation during the 1600s through the 1900s, producing everything from dinnerware to the toby jugs and figural spill vases that became the hallmark of the Staffordshire potteries.
Some pieces were marked with the name of the pottery. Others were unmarked but the style defines them as Staffordshire. The intricacy of the design of the spill vases, the bawdy humor of the toby jugs, the subtle political derision of the sculptural figures, the delicate hues of the pearlware and the intricacy of the designs of the transferware pieces make Staffordshire pottery highly collectible.
There are Staffordshire potteries still producing dinnerware, collectible figures and toby jugs and mugs today. Some are pretty pricey, too.
But, if you know what you’re looking for, and you search thrift shops, yard sales and estate sales, you can find bargains out there.
I can’t resist those mantle dogs I first saw more than 20 years ago in Wilton, N.H., and have been collecting them ever since when I’ve found them for an affordable price. I have both original and reproduction pieces that I display throughout my home. I’ve also managed to pick up a fair share of spill vases and toby jugs when I could find them for reasonable prices. I love the charming scenes played out on the spill vases, and the colors go well with my collection of antique majolica.
I don’t pass up pieces with chips or cracks if I can get them cheaply enough. I've become quite an expert at repairing ceramics and pottery. I fill in the chipped area with spackle that you’d use to repair walls and let it dry overnight. Then I use a battery-operated manicure to gently sand off the excess spackle and shape it so it matches the rest of the piece. Next I mix acrylic paints to match the piece’s existing paint. Once I have a match, I just dab the paint onto the spackle to hide the chipped area. Once dry, I go back over the chipped area with a small brush containing some polyurethane to seal the repair. Do this enough times and you’ll become such a pro, no one will know there is a repair. I like to challenge my husband to try to find the repair after I’ve completed a job.

Nothing Chintzy About It

I was captivated by the all-over pastel flower pattern of chintz china the first time I spotted it at an antiques auction.
Fortunately, no one seemed to know what it was so I was able to acquire the Royal Winton cup and saucer and square-shaped bowl for less than $20.
That was years ago. Today, true chintz made in the 1920s through the late 1960s fetches hundreds of dollars.
Royal Winton is just one of dozens of English manufacturers of the floral dinnerware that was popular for more than 40 years. Others includes James Kent, Crown Ducal, Shelley and Lord Nelson, all producing different patterns of chintz. But they all are generally characterized by an all-over floral pattern similar to the chintz cotton fabric produced in India in the 17th century.
Most of the true English pieces are marked on the bottom. If the piece isn't marked, it's most likely newer and made in Japan.
With the rise in popularity, Chintz is being reproduced now. You can purchase beautiful reproduction chintz dinnerware sets in retail stores. Just don't pay antiques prices for them. The picture frame I show in the photograph below is a reproduction. The quality isn't quite the same and a discerning eye can tell the difference. But, if you check out ebay and thrift shops, you can still find bargains on the real thing.