Tuesday, January 11, 2011

A study in Textures

I bought myself this fun little "tree" when I bought three for my good friends.  Mine is a grain sack.  Two of them were plain burlap and one was feed sack with writing.  At the top of each tree is a piece of vintage jewelry.  I love it so much I'm keeping it up all year because it doesn't look that Christmasy!  Isn't it wonderful?  A very talented woman from a small town in Nebraska makes them.  I'm calling this shelf my "mantle" because I don't have a real one in my den. 


My talented friend, Helen, made this darling iron snowman.  She makes incredible ironworks and I love this snowman.  I found the burlap garland at Michael's--huge roll for $3 or $4.  We use it in our staging and I love to decorate with it.  I am crazy about pinecones too -- there are so many different varieties.  I picked these up at one of my seller's homes.  I like the softness of them and the lighter color.


What was a big booboo on my part actually turned out to be a good thing.  My mother-in-law gave us some Morel mushrooms a couple of years ago and I set them in a dish on top of the frig.  And of course I forgot about them until they had completely dried up!  But . . . I looked at them and thought they would look good in a glass container and I added a few other tidbits.  It looks great on my "texture" shelf.

I then added this darling little brown birdie--because I love birds and the color & texture fit right in with the theme.  You can't see the little brown case very well that the tree and bird is setting on but I picked this up at a garage sale.  It's very old brown leather.  Not sure what it was for--maybe a file of some kind.   It has that rustic old look I like so much.

Well that's it for my makeshift mantel.  Hope you liked it.  I wish I had a fireplace setting under it . . . .

I'm linking up with TheStoriesA2Z.