The Shoes of My Dreams for $8.50

My Clark's shoes

Last year as my family struggled along under reduced circumstances, I did something that I swore I'd never do - I bought a pair of shoes at a second hand store. Previously repulsed by the PU factor as well as the idea of ruining my feet with the wear patterns of a total stranger (why, back in the day I wouldn't even wear my sister's shoes!) I suddenly switched gears and hit the ground running. 

When I was young, shoes were, as they are for many young women, a passion. But as I aged, shoe shopping became tedious. I bought a few good shoes for $60 - $80 at DSW; shoes that lasted for years and years. But as our income dropped and cost of living rose, it killed me to spend money on shoes. 

A friend confessed that she bought shoes at Goodwill. My locally A-list boss bought a pair of used sandals on ebay. I was frankly shocked. 

"You'd think nothing of wearing rented bowling shoes worn by hundreds of strangers, why not a pair someone wore once or twice?"

So I now look long and hard at shoes on the rack at my current favorite second hand shop, 2nd Ave. I scan the display for interesting shoes. Finding what I like, I inspect them for wear. Honestly, some shoes look brand new - clean lines on the sole, inner part and labels looking fresh and bright; that new shoes stiffness.

I wanted a pair of Clark's shoes. I just did. As happens to many of us, I fell in love 
 with a particular pair of Clark's. At DSW and several other stores that I visited in my quest, I found the ideal pair. But in black. This time I wanted brown. They looked like urban moccasins but with nice soles and cute little side zippers. 

And there they were, at 2nd Ave. In my size. In brown. With very little wear. (The scuff on the toe is my own and so it the muddy smear from my own back yard). The shoes of my dreams for $8.50. Life is sweet!


 

Fixing Up Some Trash - My Free Settee

Settee found in trash

 I found this ugly little settee set out by the curb one day and carried it home thinking it would make a nice piece of extra seating when we had guests instead of the folding metal chairs with someone else's name scrawled in sharpie across the back.
It needed a redo, sad as it was, and I thought that I'd just cover the seat and give it a quick paint job. All sorts of fanciful ideas floated - silver paint with blue and gray fabric, antique white or French gray with a piece of grain sacking. Of course I put if off, stuck it in the basement with the rest of the projects waiting to happen.

Then a party loomed and I was in the mood! The fast, emergency chair redo went like this:

Rummage through the fabric scraps to find something big enough

Clean off the wood and wicker

Glue loose parts with wood glue (I just tied it all up with rope for support til the glue was dry)

Cover bench seat - wrap like a gift, tack, and staple (whoops, the bench seat was cracked so I just filled the crack with glue then taped over it)

Cover the seat with fabric

Spray the fabric with Scotch Guard

Screw the seat onto the frame (through the screw holes below)

Once I popped the covered seat onto the frame I realized that it looked just fine without a paint job. The wood that had looked so horrible was now perfectly acceptable paired with the attractive new fabric. 

It looks so refreshed!

I was so happy with the quick change!
My family likes it too! They want to keep it upstairs instead of relegating it to the basement to bring up for company. My son no longer accuses me of stealing chairs from the people whose names were on the backs of the old ones. 

Instead of sitting on cold metal, ugly folding chairs left behind (or purloined) my honored guests can sit on a cute little settee that I pulled out of my neighbor's garbage!

Ice Candle

When the days are cold and the nights even colder, you can make one of these beautiful ice candles. Or you can make a lot of them. They are practically free! Brighten up winter nights or illuminate a pathway with these luminaries created with a block of ice and a tea candle. 

Here's how to make an ice candle:

• Grease the inside of a bucket. 

•  Fill the bucket with water.

• Set outside, away from the house (it's usually a few degrees warmer close to the house).

• Make sure the ice bucket will not be sitting in the sun.

• After 2 or 3 days (depending on how cold it is) upend the bucket. The water freezes from the top and sides, leaving a  hollow at the bottom. 

• Set the ice block on top of a couple of bricks, or raise it from the ground some way. You want it elevated so the fire gets oxygen.

• Set a lit tea candle below the concave bottom of the ice block. 

When the ice melts, water droplets follow the ice walls down and do not drip onto the candle. 

Of course, it must be below freezing for this to work. Temperatures just slightly above 32 degrees F during the day should not melt the ice. If the temperatures are not freezing, or in warmer months, you can do the freezing in a large freezer. Wouldn't that be pretty in summer?

Ice Candle

The Beautiful Art in Every Day

SKY

Every New Year, I try to think about some way to improve myself. As many of us do, I ponder all sorts of resolutions. The problem with New Year's resolutions is that most of them fall by the wayside within a month or two. So this year, I thought, how about a real easy one! A resolution with little or no real commitment. Something that costs not one red cent. Something that will not deprive me of any pleasure. 

For the year 2013, my resolution is to look up at the sky every day. Go ahead. Laugh. But how often do we look up into the sky? Look at that photograph. Nothing special about the day. Nothing special about the area. Just a beautiful damn sky. In fact, I can't think of anything that could be more gorgeous and there it was, right over my own humble home. 

The Sky

You can try this yourself! Every single day, pause and take a good long look up. Clouds put on a crazy show. And a plain blue sky, one huge swath of blue, it's incredible and serves to show you how little your stupid problems are in the grand scheme of things. It's so relaxing!

Now I could make all sorts of demands on myself. I even thought it would  be a neat idea to take a picture of the sky every day, sort of an art project, something that I could easily fail at. But no. Keep it simple. Just look up. You may surprise yourself by realizing that you don't really look at the sky at all. 

Last week, I came down with a case of the flu and spend most of the week laid out on the sofa under a pile of blankets. Well, there goes the sky, I thought, then had the brilliant idea of opening the curtain! It wasn't easy. And believe it or not, there flew a Bald Eagle right over my house! No doubt about it, the big white head, the huge wing span. 

The beautiful art of every day is right there over your head.

 

Blue Mystique Orchids - Sorta Hideous

Blue Orchids

Am I the only one to be shocked by the electric blue Phalaenopsis Orchids that have been popping up at garden centers? Though I do love blue flowers, there is something eerie if not hideous about these bluer than blue blooms. 

It's kind of like when you pass an accident on the highway and you have to slow down for a look-see even if you realize that what you are looking at is something that you should not. Some horror that will hunker down in your consciousness for the rest of your life, creeping to the surface at unexpected moments.

Blue Mystique has created a product that is not a hybridized plant, nor has it been painted with color. While the process is top secret, I imagine that it has to do with the plant sucking up some blue fluid shortly before the blooming period. Blue Mystique will eventually return to it's natural white color but the blue supposedly returns for 2 - 3 bloom cycles. 

Okay. Maybe for a little fun. Maybe for a blue themed party or (heaven forbid) wedding. Maybe your dear auntie loves the color blue and the plant would make a fun gift to use as an accent in her mostly blue home. But if you really want to purchase an orchid for someone and you are not sure of the perfect color, why not go with white. White goes with blue. White goes with everything. 

It's not that I have anything against blue. My shutters are blue. The sky is blue. The ocean is, at times, blue. I wear blue shirts. I love the song "Blue Suede Shoes." And it's none of my business what other people enjoy, color-wise, in plants or any other venue. I am certainly no plant snob. I don't have the education, the wisdom, or the skill to boast any kind of plant elitism. But I can't help but think that I am not the only one to find these wild blue orchids anything but ugly. Maybe that's what really offends me, the fact that I find a flowering plant to be so awful. 

I love plants and flowers of every ilk. Except these monstrosities. I find myself turning away from them. I was afraid someone would catch me taking the photograph of the bloom produced by a top secret process like I was a plant spy.  I am embarrassed to be caught near them. Sorry, blue orchid lovers, but this one makes me gag.

19th Century Landscape Painting Found in the Attic

Old landscape painting by Alfred Cookman Leach

We all have our favorite old things, old dishware, silverware, old paintings. I have always loved 19th century landscape paintings, perhaps I've been looking at the one on the right for over 50 years. 

The painting features a man herding sheep on a cold, wintery day and was painted by Alfred Cookman Leach, a descendant of John Penn (a signer of the Declaration of Independence). Alfred Cookman Leach was an architect who had a hand in the design of Baltimore, Maryland's Revolutionary Monument in Mount Royal Plaza. He also designed a home at the north east corner of Saint Paul Street and 31st Street in Baltimore. 

The painting is signed, "C Leach."

I remember, when I was young, my mother and I laughing at magazine articles that featured beautiful old things that people found in their attics or basements. How could that be, it sounded ridiculous. Yet my home is filled with the artifacts of my ancestors. Nearly everything in my living room once belonged to a dead person. 

Alfred Cookman Leach on the Right

The old things are beautiful, yet are significant with memory. The old trunk, the furniture, the chairs, and books were handled by people that I never met. I touch the things my ancestors touched. I feel the gentle spirit of Alfred. I can see what Alfred wanted people to see, how he saw things and interpreted things. I never met Alfred, yet here is a representation of him here with  me always, remembered in a way that I imagine he would want to be remembered with fondness as I sit in my kitchen trying to paint landscapes that just look old, that remind me of a man long gone.

(For more on this painting and Alfred Cookman Leach, you can read my story by clicking this link)

Garden Art - Make it Personal

Savannah Bird Girl in my garden

After spending some years working on my garden by adding and rearranging plants, I decided to amp things up a bit by introducing some art. Sculpture, attractive stepping stones, amusing junk displays, and other man made items personalize your garden by creating a space that reflects your interests. 

My first little statue, found in a catalog, was a replica of the Savannah Bird Girl that was featured on the cover of one of my all time favorite books, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (John Berendt 1994). So maybe the famous Bird Girl no longer graces Savannah's Bonaventure Cemetery, but a smaller version stands in my yard, a testament to my love for birds and novels.

Glass Flower

But not all garden art costs money. Or at least some garden art can be had for very little. My friend, Leola, has created some adorable glass flowers from cups and saucers, bowls, and candle holders that she picks up at thrift shops. When the real flowers start to fade, these glass flowers hold the spirit, catch and reflect sunlight, and are just plain pretty.









I like to place certain items inside shrubs, or under trees, almost hidden from view to add a whimsical surprise. I found a ceramic doll head at a thrift store and just knew she would wind up tucked between some evergreen boughs. She reminds me of a faerie peeking out of the greenery, an elvish face studying on passersby. I figured that few would even notice her, which somehow made her more interesting to me. Well, someone did notice her. They stole her away. I wonder where she is now and hope she found a good home. She'd become a bit weathered and her hair had gone ratty. I still miss her and am glad that I took a photograph.

Garden Art - Doll Head

Garden Art made of salvaged material

A young friend of mine made this attractive piece from salvaged bathroom tiles, rebar, and chain. The piece hangs on the edge of the garden, sometimes obscured by plants, but revealed when the growing season passes and in Spring when this picture was taken.

Bike and book fountain at a garden show

I'm not sure if you can see this but the books in the bike basket on the right is spewing water. If you look at the right side of the book pile, you may notice water dribbling down. Now, I hate the idea of ruining books, and this unique fountain probably would not last very long, but it charmed the heck out of me.

Container that is not a container

I love how this looks like plants growing in a pot. Actually, the pot, one that I loved, a gift from my mother, broke in half. I could not part with it, so upended it in the soil to mimic a standing container. The plants are growing in the ground, but seem to burst out of a container that is much too small. I like containers but hate the constant watering. Using salvaged material is a great way to add interest and a bit of humor into a garden design.













I would not want to use this lovely mosaic stepping stone to actually step on, so have set it on the edge of a garden. Mosaics like these are simple to make using concrete and broken tiles. Craft stores offer kits that you can try out to see if you enjoy creating your own unique stepping stone. It's best to bring them indoors for winter storage. 

Upended bottles used to edge gardens, hanging unusual objects from tree limbs, incorporating architectural salvage as an art form - you can create a personal space in your own back yard. You can add one or two art objects, or go wild and turn the place into one whole art piece. And when you think to yourself, that there is no place like home, you will be right.