A few weeks ago I went to a yearly sale at our local Methodist church.  It’s held once right before summer and again in September right after school begins.  I look forward to them every year and alway’s find stuff to use or re-purpose.  This year was no exception!  I scored not one, but FOUR of these old spice racks…I grabbed them up quickly and couldn’t understand why they weren’t already gone..I saw tons of potential there…just waiting to be resurrected into something fun, but not for spices…. for sprinkles. I decided to paint them in pastel colors; cream, soft vintage green, baby blue and butter yellow. I am going to load them up with jars of colorful sprinkles…If anyone wants a custom one, let me know!  I will be selling these in my Etsy store in a few weeks…I still have to find the jars though and that might prove to be a bit more difficult.  I’ll begin with E-bay.

the next score were these dishes.  I found lots of hand painted plates from the 1950′s and 1960′s.  My mother said she remembers when that was a popular thing to make with groups of ladies.  My grandmother made some of her own hand painted dishes . They are so beautiful..peachy colors and gold.  I was lucky to have received them from my mother. I love to get them out for tea and scones.This tea cup in the foreground is beautiful beyond words, and has several markings on the bottom.  I am sure I will not be able to part with this.

 To the far right are some great glass luncheon dishes.  When ladies played bridge in the 1940′s they used these.  I am seriously not sure why they went out of vogue, but I LOVE them and plan to use them!  

All of the crystal candlesticks will be put to good use; I am repurposing them into tiered cake stands.  I like to paint them with glass paint in different colors so they look like hard jolly rancher candies. I have a set of these for sale at my Etsy store now. They are shades of green apple and blue raspberry.

Off to the right behind the candlesticks is a really cool creamer.  It’s very retro.  I plan to use it for syrup…and of course cream. In the back is a small glass pedestal that I just used this weekend to display Raspberry and almond Parisian Macarons. The bride displayed their wedding rings on top of the Macarons for her wedding photos. It must have looked great.

In the back is also a beautiful green dish that is split in half; I  imagine it is for pickles and olives.  I plan to use it for lots of things, but for now, I am using it to hold my bracelets and rings.

I can’t wait to show you how I use or repurpose these goodies.

Great jars for jimmies, caramel and fudge sauce, and some cute little candy dishes and mini silver trays. There are also two different sets of custard dishes.. I use those for things like coloring Easter eggs, mixing small batches of colored frostings for cookies and separating eggs...even for measuring out small amounts of spices for a recipe. They are SO useful. I can never have enough small glass bowls and custard dishes around.

"Kake Server"- a totally retro cake-keeper...comes with a cut glass base, still has it's original tag on it. l

This awesome cake server was esciting to find...comes with its original glass base too! I just have to polish up the top a bit.

 These are Pope Gossner dessert plates, cups and saucers..I also scored serving platters, a sugar and creamer and serving platters and bowls.  It’s time to have a tea!

Before I leave you…I wanted to share a before and after picture of some chairs that I repainted.  These were left in the cottage that we purchased a few years ago.  They had been painted the most God-awful colors of green and yellow…and under those colors, deep red and some orange-ish color…what a job sanding those things…I’d be seriously surprised if I didn’t inhale some lead paint dust with that job. Although the chair that’s sanded isn’t the same chair that I refinished (oops!) it looked just the one pictured before I painted it.

Sanded chair...great bones, but in need of some cosmetic enhancement!

Painted chair with a cute birds nest rub-on and a sweet little honey bee and dragonfly in the corner.

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