The little birds...

If you watch little birds you will see they are busy and happy! Using whatever they can find they create the most gorgeous little nest.
I would be the little bird with some glittery thread in her nest!
We can be like this. Happily working away with the things that are available to us to create a beautiful and happy home.
All the while with a little song in our heart.

Banner by Free Pretty Things for You.

Sunday, 26 January 2014

The pretty pantry.

I have collected glass jars for a long time. I love the really old ones with a greenish blue tinge to the glass and if you look carefully there are little bubbles in the thick part of the glass. Love!

We are doing up our kitchen and my big thing is to make a pantry which I haven't really had in this house. I will be able to display my jars! 

So just now I am repainting some of the lids and adding new jars into the collection.

Once I went to a party selling pantry storage and it cost hundreds to deck out and organise your pantry. And in plastic that now a few years later would not even be considered food safe. I'm so glad I thought badly of plastic as food storage then. Nan always made biscuits for us. She always gave them in a big jar or a tin and they always were so fresh and crisp. But once I stored them in a plastic container and they went ick and soft and tasted weird. So I stopped using plastic and since most plastics have been proven to get into your body and be a health problem!

So my good old jars are appreciated even more than ever. I just love them. The most I have ever paid is a few dollars but most have been 20c or 50c. I have giant ones for flour, sugar, pasta, rice etc down to tiny ones for spices. 

These jars had really ugly lids so I tackled these last night with some very pale pink paint. I put a few drops of red into left over white paint....



They dried over night and this morning I added my transfers. I get these from Arwen Moore Design Studio. I had trouble once but in the US transfers are water slide decals. Once you know this you have a huge choice! But I love Arwen Moore the best as my supplier. They also sell on etsy. 


I use a little clear varnish under and over them. This just makes them so much tougher. 


I am about to do a set of eight in palest blue with hydrangeas for Chloe's kitchen. Hydrangeas are her favourite flower. And pale blue is her kitchen colour. I think they will be so sweet.

While the kitchen is happening I am repainting all my jar lids and adding little roses. I can't wait to have them on shelves where I can see them and reach them easily. A well stocked pantry and things where you can see what you have is another whole subject. I love pantries! But building up a great storage system is so inexpensive and fun to collect too.

Once in an op shop I found a little jar with a pink lid and a tiny rose on top. It was obviously very old and hand painted. This made me think of the lady who had decorated it and her kitchen. That is when I started doing the same. Ladies also painted tins and decorated them for their storage. Remember baby formula tins being turned into canisters? I think women have always tried to make things lovely from what they had. My Mum used to cut pretty pictures from magazines and cover boxes with them. I think that was my first craft when I was little! These simple little things are just so lovely! 

Our holiday Monday is very relaxing. I hope everyone has a little rest and enjoys their day off.



1 comment:

  1. Annabel, You have the best ideas! I've told my girls that this is the year I will try to unleash my inner "crafter" It is a joke here, as I am not really very good at craft. I do love beautiful things though, and derive a lot of pleasure from them.

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