Vintage Silver Adds Personality to Decor

Silver adds personality to vintage decor including candelabras, Champagne buckets, vases, coffee and tea service, silverware, and jewelry.

An easy way to add instant personality and character to your decor is to find nostalgic items and intersperse them throughout your room.  Keeping with the same material or theme will create a cohesive look.  Also, make sure the items reflect your personality.  If you love them, as time goes on you will not grow weary of your selections.


Silver adds personality to vintage decor.  Tarnished silver pieces like candelabras, trays, champagne buckets, vases, coffee and tea pots, and water pitchers look great in shabby chic, farmhouse and vintage settings.  The shiny items above are now tarnished because I don't have time nor the inclination to polish silver with regularity. 

Feature a silver tray on a dining room table or coffee table layered with other finds like old books, figurines, votive candles and flowers in a silver vessel.

Add  mixed height candlesticks to a shelf or mantle.  Candelabras are stunning, especially when lit. One of my favorite items is diminutive tea pots with lots of detail work. 
 

These look lovely as flower receptacles tucked in here and there in any room. Consider using them as vases at bridal showers and vintage weddings.  We threw a bridal shower for my niece at the Rose Garden Tea Room at the Huntington Library and Gardens.  Since we were in a beautiful historic garden setting it seemed appropriate to have beautiful flowers in the little tea pots on the tables.  The guests wanted to take the arrangements home when the party was over.  Silver water pitchers are great for flower arrangements too.


Think outside the box and use your silver pieces in unusual ways.  I put my Yorkie Raleigh's dog treats in a silver bowl on my mantle so they are available when he comes in from the backyard. No one knows the treats are there except Raleigh, of course.

Pearl's Cottage has beautiful silver items for sale at Etsy including my favorite mini coffee pots.  https://www.etsy.com/shop/pearlscottage?ref=si_shop

Vintage Shelves Are Great For Displaying Treasures

This shelf is the first thing that I painted.  After the shelf I moved on to bigger furniture items.  I wish I had a before picture when it was a dark wood, which was pretty, but of course I wanted to paint it white.  It has screws in the back which holds the entire thing together.  When I bought it I didn't notice the screws and planned to just paint away, which would have been a nightmare getting into all the little cubbies. 

Thankfully I took the back off after I removed the screws and all the little parts just slid out.  If it didn't come apart, it might have been the last paint project that I attempted.  On went the primer and the paint and soon it was ready for reassembly and distressing.

Using Annie Sloan Chalk Paint is an option that will cut out the priming step, however a final wax coat will be needed.  I think the shelf would look good in all sorts of colors.  The shelf holds all sorts of decorative treasures like perfume jars, old postcards sent from Europe to America, and a prayer book that my grandmother gave my uncle when he was a little boy.  I've added shelves to other areas in my house like the one below that hangs by my front door.  I caught my daughter putting her make-up on there before she ran out of the house the other day.

I put a painted bookcase on the wall of my kitchen because it was the right size.  I filled it with milk glass because I like the white color against the mid-tone paint.

See the bookshelf in the corner

Interesting shelving is hard to find.  When I see a piece I like, I usually buy it and find an empty wall in a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen or hallway.  They are nice to have where people pause or sit because it offers the opportunity to appreciated collected pieces. 

My business partner, Michelle, has all sorts of shelves filled with beautiful things.  She has a talent for displaying items so I often copy her ideas.  Michelle's grandfather made the lovely shelf below.   Look carefully at the top where there are two little birds on the shelf backing.  He made all sorts of custom items for her house before he passed away.  Not only are they beautiful shelves and furniture items but a wonderful memory of her grandfather and his talent.

Michelle's kitchen shelf made by her grandfather

Shelves are decorative on their own and provide practical and pretty ways to display collectables and practical things.

Crystal Cruets Are Beautiful and Functional

A cruet /ˈkruː.ɨt/, also called a caster, is a small flat-bottomed vessel with a narrow neck. Cruets often have an integral lip or spout, and may also have a handle. Unlike a small carafe, a cruet has a stopper or lid. Cruets are normally made from glass, ceramic, or stainless steel.

In the Victorian era cruets were made of highly decorative cut crystal and were made to be both ornamental and functional.

Pearl's Cottage features a collection of cruets on Etsy at https://www.etsy.com/shop/pearlscottage?ref=si_shop.  They are in impeccable condition and reasonably priced at $20 to $25.  I like to group three or five cruets together on a shelf, hutch or table.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/pearlscottage?ref=si_shop