Summer!

We have been having the most amazing luck unearthing treasures all around New England! We found a divine stack of nineteenth century newspapers, perfect for projects. We are lining an old mercantile drawer with a sheet with great graphics and turning it on end to make a shadow box. Antique millinery feathers have drifted down from the heavens and have landed at our feet in all their glory! We even found an entire bird used to decorate a Victorian lady's chapeau! Check out the wonderful tintype of the family photographed on the Jersey shore in Edwardian times!

We love the look of this stack of antique boxes and trunks that we found at the flea market. The small trunk that tops the pile has an abfab wallpaper lining and dates to the 1820's! We have been drawn to antiques with numbers on them!

This letter box is incredible! The writing on the top, the glass front, the rich colour of the rattan make this such a FIND! Now we have a new quest...FIND A KEY TO FIT THE LETTER BOX!!

There is such an easy gracefulness to this diminutive Parian statue! We photographed it in the small trunk and topped it off with a starfish!

We tucked the statue into a mini greenhouse and surrounded it with the frothy netting from a vintage veil!

I can just picture the pure romance of powdering your nose in this divine mirror! Being an early bird at the flea sometimes pays off! The mirror has two places for candles to light the face of the gazer! I think everyone and everything looks better by the soft and flickering glow of candlelight! (Although you have to be careful not to hit fluorescents afterward if you've been heavy-hande with the rouge!

We found a great wax sewie in the shape of a shell and decided it would look great photographed with vintage shells that we found! A pot of chives in the background cast the perfect underwater shadows on the page!

This gorgeous wing came from a London millinery shop and seemed with its few loose feathers to be perfect photographed with this litho of winged Cupid!

This photo of the multi tiered veil in the waning light of a summer eve reminds me of a graceful swan!

We made time to stop to have fun while finding treasures! The coast of Maine is so gorgeous this time of year! Next stop Ogunquit!

Peace & Plenty to you! May all your summer days be sunny with a parasol to keep you cool!

Fresh Market Picks!

A great French print in a shabby gold frame! We hung a ring of prisms off the edge of the frame...

ABFAB tin frame with elaborate surround styled with an antique letter!

Love the cow bells with the original metal numbers on them! Our fav dealer saved these out for us!

A tintype framed in a prism!

A close-up of the cowbell!

An antique frame painted with the prettiest shade of celery green against the backdrop of an antique grain sack!

This antique rusty door makes a fab spot for corralling letters!

Two antique tape measures with handwritten numbers!

Antique straw hats reflected in a celery coloured mirror topped off with the little frame!

An antique blue drawer styled as a shadow box!

A charming antique cream satin covered First Communion prayer book!

An antique horse show ribbon displayed in the shadow box on a bed of hay.

We stumbled on this early carriage parasol that folds up for convenience. The parasol not only keeps the sun off your porcelain complexion, it serves double duty as a great display piece!

A photo of the great grate!

A wonderful tin box overflowing with prisms. More photos to follow! If you are interested in any of the items pictured, please email us at shemariemurphy@aol.com

Styling The Week-End Treasure Trove

We found this great antique sack and decided to sew it onto an old Ritz Hotel hanger. We filled it with a beautiful bouquet of lavender and an old newspaper from 1868, with the owner's name scrawled on it in sepia coloured thick ink. We added a charming copper framed tintype of a young man and finished off the look by decorating the edges of the sack with hay.

The sack makes such a pretty statement hung on an old wooden door!

We composed this vignette from our week-end antiquing forays. We found this great antique ink-stained document case and displayed it with old specs, early nineteenth century documents and a top hat!

We love the prairie chic look of these vintage cowboy boots paired with this abfab fancy pintucked petticoat, with a ring of rusty keys thrown in to complete the cowgirl look!

We found this ornate lamp, with hanging prisms in the bottom of an old box. Now what shade would perfect the look? Something ultra simple to offset the gilt?

One woman picked up this darling diminutive cup after unearthing it from the bottom of a trunk, sneered at it and tosses it aside. I guess that it didn't sing to her the way it does to me! Love the color and the scene of two lasses and their sheep. we styled the lavender cup atop a stack of wallpapered boxes and used antique New England newspapers as a fun back drop!

We found this beautiful sea shell on a table on our last pass through the market. It is such a delicate pretty depiction of a bird! I can't imagine it being ignored by all the other shoppers, but was glad that it was!

What better to display a pair of fancy cowboy boots than a fancy footed silver tray! Love the look ot hte vintage horse shoe ribbons!

Don't you love the simple shape on this Shaker tinware?! We styled the can with simple vintage dance shoes.

We thought that this antique hand blown buoy would look divine in the garden! Can hardly wait for tomorrow to start treasure hunting again!

We composed this post- brocanting vignette of an antique French planter filled with a salt sack, a silver crucifix, a nest and old letters. We hung the planter on an antique crib bed rail turned on end and decorated with a white Edwardian era long apron.

Our Great Finds

We had the best time these last two week-ends getting back in the swing of brocanting! We found the most amazing antiques including a tin sign from a Church; a linsey woolsey with funky old repairs that we used to frame a tintype; a primer turned into a recipe book; a blue and white gingham apron; a cream net hoop skirt that we used to cover a bird cage; two black bottles; a feed bag; a statue of St. Anne and stacks of nineteenth century primers.

We have spent the last two week-ends brocanting and have found the most amazing antiques! We set up post-marketing vignettes, so you could enjoy perusing our finds! If you see any item that piques your interest, let us know!