Summer seems to have flown by this year and I certainly am not ready for Fall yet. My mindset is still with the summer breezes wafting by me as I sit on the patio and watch the hummingbirds at the feeders and admiring the August beauty of the flower beds. We only have one baby hummingbird this year. It's a boy, the ruby mottling has already started around his throat. In a week or two the Jewel weed will start to bloom and the parent hummingbirds will start their journey south and Junior will follow a few short weeks later. To me, that is when summer ends. There have been some wonderful lighthouse tablescapes over the summer. I loved each and everyone of them. I so wanted to do one myself but had been lacking items to make a pretty tablescape. The items that I needed to complete a lighthouse tablescape kind of fell into place over the last couple of weeks of thrift shopping. The sailboat glasses were the a thrift store find last year, I had found a set of Lighthouse Melamine plates at the Salvation Army Family Store sometime over the winter. There were twelve of them taped together for four dollars. The plates and the glasses were great, but it takes more that that to create a tablescape.
As luck would have it I found the some lovely nautical elements to
enhance this table setting while out thrifting and garage sale-ing over the last couple of
weeks. Several weeks ago I found a wire birdcage lighthouse that was finished in oil rubbed bronze. Cute, but not quite what I wanted. I spray painted it in Rust-oleum's Seaside color and then lightly sprayed it down with a bit of Heirloom white to brighten it up.
I did end up buying some crushed seashells pieces and some tumbled blue glass at Pat Catan's, a local craft store whose regular prices are the same or less than the big chain stores "sale" prices.
The blue glass reminds me of the color of the ocean water on the plates and the crushed shells remind me of the rocky shore that lighthouses are built on. Dear sweet hubby chose the napkins (also from Goodwill) and I modified the Double Sails napkin folding technique that I saw at Susan's Between Naps on the Porch tutorial you can find it
here. Because the hems were thick on my napkins I folded both sides to the middle instead of to one side and proceeded with Susan's directions. They kind of look like a sailor's hat.
I found the the sailboat glasses at The Goodwill near where I work. Glasses are fifty cents each at the Goodwill, less whatever discount I am using (usually 10 or 20 percent).
The lighthouse candlesticks, the sailboats, shells, and the captain are all thrifted.
The lighthouse in the lighthouse and the lighthouse salt and pepper shakers were bought at the Volunteers of America on the last Tuesday of the month in July. On the last Tuesday of each month everything is half price. Luckily I was able to go back to part time for a couple of weeks and was able to be there when they opened and made off with all of the lighthouse decor (which had just showed up on the shelves the night before)
More pictures.
.The black eyed Susan's are in full bloom around the patio, here are a few pictures, notice how the morning glories have managed to sneak into the other flower beds.
August 18th will be the first anniversary of my blog "Plum Creek Place". I would like to share an anniversary present with someone out there that would be interested in some lovely late Summer/fall table decor. I had bought a set of Park Design Sunny Day salt and Pepper shakers and a Sunny Day divided server plus the Sunny Day dip Bowl with Spreader and Some Fall Pattern Raymond Waites napkins for myself (from my favorite store Marc's). I was so pleased with them that I went back and bought an extra of each of those items and thought it would be nice to share the extra set with someone else.
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| Park Design Sunny Day Divided Server and S&P shakers. |
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| Raymond Waites Napkins |
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| Park Design Sunny Day Dip Bowl With Spreader |
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| Brand new and ready for a home. |
Of course I can only share with one person. I would be very happy if that person were you. If you are a follower and have a shipping address in the lower 48 states of the U.S.A., and you would like to be the person I share this extra set of selected of Fall items with, just stop and leave a comment on this post by August 26th. I will announce whose comment was chosen at random to share my lovely extra set of Fall items with when I post again on August 27th.
********* Laurie Ritchie's name was drawn by my friend Gloria at work to be the winner **********
I am participating at Cuisine Kathleen's Farewell to Summer Table challenge.
Until then Remember what Kathleen said in her last post about the
Official Halfway Mark of Summer.
"IT AINT FALL Y'ALL" - Keep Summering on
But
Until then, You know what I say - Thrift on Ladies, Thrift on.
Sharing at the following Link Parties:
