"Heart & Flowers" Valentine's Table

Happy Valentine's Day!

My Valentine's Day table features a gorgeous Leacock "Hearts & Flowers" tablecloth that I purchased from fellow collector and  good friend, Leslie at Uncle Bunks Trunk. I already had this tablecloth in the blue colorway, but when I saw it in in red, I had to add it to my collection! 

 It's perfect with Scarlet and Valentine's fiestaware!

 

 Here it is in the blue colorway.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Valentine's Day! 

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Not only do I collect vintage tablecloths, I sell them on my online shop, The Pink Rose Cottage. Looking to start a collection or to add to one? I invite you to take a peek! 

Please feel free to leave a comment! I love talking tablecloths!

Warm and Sunny Fiestaware Tablescape

As with all my tablescapes, the cloth dictates the settings. I choose my tablecloth first and then choose the dishes. This one was no exception. I'm so excited by the warm and sunny colors!

This beautiful vintage tablecloth was one of my gifts from last year's Secret Santa exchange at The Vintage Tablecloth Lovers Club. Bee Cee had my name and she choose 2 gorgeous tablecloths. I'm not sure of the maker of this one, but it has polka-dots so it's the tops in my book! 

 The flowers are great. They could be anything from dahlia, to zinnia, to chrysanthemums. I love the fern that are mixed in the bouquet. Oh and that oooooo border! Makes me want to say Oooooo!

Isn't she a beauty? I love that the yellows are orange are soft and almost creamy. It has a terrific rich brown too. 

You would think this tablecloth was made persimmons and yellow Fiestaware in mind. But this Fiestaware is Post 86 and the tablecloth is much older. 

I'm thinking that I need to get a few settings of chocolate Fiesta to add to this tablescape for fall!

Thanks Bee Cee! I absolutely love my tablecloth!

I'm participating in Table Top Tuesdays again. So please stop over to see everyone's tables!

Table Top Tuesday!

This is my first time participating in Table Top Tuesday hosted by Marty from A Stroll Though Life. 

As you may know, I'm passionate about vintage tablecloths! It's hard to choose a favorite, and I never could. But this one would be at the top of my list. It's called "Rock Garden" by Wilendur. It took me years to acquire it for my collection, but it was worth the wait! I LOVE it! I love the sweet little flowers that you can just imagine blooming between moss covered rocks. 

Because it's a breakfast cloth, I layered it over a soft pink cloth. I always have to add a little Fiestaware. And this time my vintage wicker tray.

 

 This unusual winter and spring weather has allowed me to have both daffodils and lilacs at the same time! If only you could smell them! It's such a treat.

 

And of course, I put my matching "Rock Garden" tea towel in my frame! So even though our beautiful spring has turned back to winter, I'm enjoying it from inside!

Please go over to A Stroll Thru Life and enjoy all the other table tops!

Thank you to my sweet friend, Pam of Virginia Retro & The Vintage Tablecloth Lovers Club for letting me know about this fun event!

And thank you to dear Leslie of Uncle Bunk's Trunk for helping me identify my Wilendur. Leslie holds the title of Database Maven over at the Vintage Tablecloth Lovers Club.

Thrift Store Cabinet Redo

As promised here's our kitchen cabinet redo.

Looked like this piece may have been to a more formal dining set. My husband removed the finial, sanded, and sanded. Then sanded some more. Lots of Kilz primer and then the paint.

TA DA!

I'm just so happy with the results!

I had purchased "new" vintage hardware but it just did not look right. So the original went back on. I think it works well with the dark floor and the dark frame from the tea towel picture.

I'm so thrilled to have a safe place to display my favorite vintage Fiestaware pieces and of course my Wilendurs!

Our Budget Kitchen Redo

Welcome to our budget kitchen redo! We started our "little" project back in April and recently finished in October. Can you believe it? My husband and I are not do-it-yourselfers by choice, so things move slow for us. I'm easily intimidated home improvement projects and it shows in my procrastination. But I'm happy to say that we are officially finished with our little redo.

This dated wallpaper had to go!! What was I thinking when we put it up? I don't know but times do change so maybe it was in style at one time! LOL. And that old linoleum floor - YUCK. Outta here!

Before:



We loved this solid oak corner hutch when we purchased it. But it's too small and was just a catch all. While our Fiestaware collection is small, we still needed something better to display our favorite pieces.

The louvered doors on the pantries were awful. They seemed to attract all the dust and kitchen grime.



The first thing we had done was to have hardwood flooring installed. It was our biggest expense but money well spent. We hired out the work and didn't attempt this ourselves. A wise choice I'm sure!

Choosing a color was hard, but I'm very please with the end result. The rich deep brown of the floor offset the honey oak of our wainscoting and kitchen set.

After the busy wallpaper I was set for nice soothing creamy white walls.

While we are due for new and improved cupboards, the originals will have to do for a few more years. For a splash of color (and I love color) we painted cabinets in soft country green. We changed out the old brass hardware for brushed nickel.

After:

Replaced the old louvered doors with solid and painted them to match the walls.

We painted the shelves cream and changed the brackets to brushed nickel to blend with the cabinet hardware.

We replaced the corner hutch with a small cabinet that was a thrift store find. I'll show you the before and after another day. It really is amazing! I love having glass doors where I can mix my collection of vintage tablecloths and Fiestaware in one place!

New, updated lighting.



I had a frame made for a vintage tea towel. I can easily change the towel to match the season and my tablecloth! Other then the hardwood floor, this is my favorite change. I LOVE it!


The only thing left to do is to find a window treatment. I'm not sure what I want, if any.

I'm very relieved to say that we really are done! Someday it will be a complete bare to the studs redo, but that will be awhile. And nothing we will attempt ourselvers! LOL! So this redo is not too bad for two not-so-handy folks on a budget!

A Special Find and The Tablecloth Fairy

I didn't go to that many garage sales this past season, but when I did go, I was pretty lucky! A few weeks ago I picked up MY ALL TIME FAVORITE Fiestaware color ~ Lilac! An entire service for four, in the unopened original box! I also picked up some serving pieces from the same sale!

If any of you are Post86 Fiesta junkies, you know that Lilac is somewhat rare and hard to get. I started collecting Fiestaware after Lilac was retired and only was able to obtain a few odd pieces until now! This find had me over the moon!


Since I am a member of The Vintage Tablecloth Lovers Club I'd bet you can guess that next concern would be which tablecloth to use! Luckily my fellow club member and dear, sweet friend Pam came to the rescue and surprised me with this fabulous vintage tablecloth!



The shade of purple is near perfect and with that stripe of pink I can easily add Rose Fiesta into the mix to create a different look!


I only have one set of Lilac flatware but I used Rose and Evergreen and that worked out nicely.



This tablescape was a huge hit with my entire family!

Thank you Pam (my personal Tablecloth Fairy) for making my exciting find even more special!

Beat the Heat ~ Root Beer Floats

Just about every where in the good ol' USA, it's HOT! Staying cool is tough and air conditioning is a blessing!

Need a little low cal pick-me-up during this hot weather? Try this light and cold root beer float:

Use a nice tall chilled glass
Add 3 generous scoops of frozen, fat free Cool Whip
Fill the glass with diet A & W Root Beer

That's it! Now you have a refreshing, low cal, low carb, yummy float!

How about other variations? Diet orange soda? I bet that tastes like an old fashioned creamsicle! Any other ideas?



These vintage iced tea or parfait spoons would be perfect with that good (healthier) old fashioned float! Cheerful Fiestaware colors too!

You can find the spoons at The Pink Rose Cottage!

Stay cool my friends!

Weekend Finds ~ Wonderful Wilendurs!

I'm always excited when I find vintage tablecloths during my weekend treasure hunt! But a stack of Wilendur just makes me plain giddy!

This pretty gingham was designed by a Vintage Tablecloth Lovers Club member's father, John Madsen. The color is amazing. Unused condition. I gave it a little soak to remove the age yellowing. Isn't it just gorgeous? I can't wait to use it! Thank goodness for red and yellow post 86 Fiestaware. LOL!

While, this beauty is going to be added to my collection of Wilendurs, I picked up six more! So look for those soon at The Pink Rose Cottage! They are beauties too, just duplicates of some in my collection already.

If you are stopping over at The Pink Rose Cottage today (Monday), check out the items in the Monday Markdowns category. All items are 50% off. Lots of great vintage items left. And if you'd like advance notice of all our Monday Markdown sales, make sure you sign up for our newsletter email. You can find the link on the home page, bottom left.

Happy Monday my friends!
~Holly