SOMETHING SPECIAL, Vintage Alphabet Party Brought to you by the Letters, L&M

Welcome to the Alphabet letter party from Etsy Cottage Style. This month we were challenged to showcase our vintage wares showcasing with the letters L&M. Very special vintage treasures near and dear to my heart and for more vintage fun click HERE to visit the many more participants joining in today.

So with camera in hand, I will share the letter L, which for me means, LAMPS, LACE,LOCKETS AND LETTERS! The letter M means MUSIC BOXES, MIRRORS, MUSIC SHEETS, and METAL BOXES.

This cherished lamp graces my studio and was given to me by my dear friend Ann, from Ann's Finds. I added the toile to the unique shade and when it is on, it makes the studio feel so cozy. I believe the lamp is from the late 40's or early 50's.

Beautiful and also cherished, is my 40's floor lamp, owned by my parents when they first married in 1945.

This lamp treasure was a gift to me from my mother as a house warming gift. I will always remember how dear she was when she gave me this.

Yards of handmade vintage lace edging made by my grandmother and other creative and talented ladies over the years when this was something you embellised all your gorgeous linens with. So glad we are seeing these beautiful pieces in pillows now and altered art designs. This lace has outstood the test of time as these linens have long been cut away from age, but the gorgeous lace lives on.

~~L~~~ can also stand for Lockets such as the vintage pieces I cherish.
The heart locket was my mother's, the silver oval was a gift from my mom and the small gold oval was a gift from my dear and best guy when we first started our life together. I have since added that one to my charm bracelet.


Now sharing the vintage M's. I have a music box, shaped like a piano, given to my mother from her God daughter. It plays, Somewhere My Love. She loved it and so do I.

The next M subject is this dear to my heart, hand mirror. It is from a metal dresser set belonging to my parents and one of the first pretty treasures they owned. I use it everyday on my vanity and have added some of my antique roses to the front.

Another smaller hand mirror found by my sweet friend Ann. It is wooden and has a small metal decoration in the center.

One of my favorite pieces is the swinging mirror that sits atop my vintage dresser in my shabby rose guest room.

Moving on with the M's brings me to vintage sheets of music. Cherished vintage music scores from the late 30's through the late 50's. I still play these piano arrangements now and then for fun.

From my studio store room, I couldn't leave out these vintage medicine bottles, just waiting for a redesign.

And, with it's age showing and rusty lid, I treasure this old metal round box used by my mother to hold vintage buttons. Love this one and the gorgeous rose on the lid graced by rust.

Another favorite metal box is this pretty round treasure that my dad loved and kept his keepsakes inside.

Lastly, and my very favorite, going back to the L's is my treasured album filled with 145 love letters written to my mother from my dad during World War II.

Here is his picture that mom had in the front of the album and every letter with their original envelope inside. The letter I share here, is one of the first he wrote while in boot camp in Lousiana. The rest are from England, France, Germany and Belgium. They are so wonderful and beautifully written sharing the love between two special people from 1942 through 1945. They start and end with my dad going off to war and coming home to ask my mother to marry him. It is a real romance in rare form and when I read these gorgeous letters, I know I hold something very special and dearer to me as time goes on.

Hope you enjoyed this portion of the vintage alphabet sharing the letters L&M
Till next time, thank you for stopping by and blessings to you always.

Hugs, Celestina Marie

VINTAGE VILLA CHIC REDESIGN!

For those that stopped by on the 18th, when this post first published, I thank you, but you probably noticed the page was distorted and off the background with no side bar. I think blogspot was glitching, so I had to delete everything and start over today. Oh~~ that is so aggravating, but had to be done. I am sorry that I could not publish the comments last night. So I tried again to post and thanks so much if you are stopping back by. The writing, I was lucky enough to copy from the draft. Now to replace the pictures. The following is my original post. Let's try this again. LOL!



I know, I have been MIA for a few weeks working on 2 rooms and a bathroom for redesign. Finally, I can share what I have been doing. It seems each year after Christmas, I catch the bug to redo some area of my home before I start back to painting in the studio. So usually the first few weeks in January I take the time to do just that. It also seems, I can never really get done. LOL!!

As a Decorative Painter/Designer, I always have something I want to change or refresh. This year I changed 2 guest rooms and a bathroom. You may remember a blue room with coordinating bathroom from past pictures, well, this is one room that I changed to reflect a vintage villa style retreat and the bathroom that goes with this room. This room is located on the first floor of our two story home and right off the entry. Making this change keeps the rooms flowing throughout the first level with color and style.
I also did another bedroom on the second floor in a pink rose shabby cottage tea room and I know that one will probably be more interesting to most, so I saved it for later this week. I hope you will stop back to view that room especially if you love pink and pink roses and all things old, vintage and collectible.

So before that post, I will share the following pictures of the Vintage Villa Chic Bedroom and Bath.


The wall color was transformed from a coastal blue to a Mediterranean Caramel painted by my DH, with rustic roses, shades of sage, terra cotta, warm ivory, aged copper, and an anchor of black in the fabrics and accents around the room.
The sconces on the wall above the bed where white in their old life. They light up with a soft glow and dim from a light switch on the wall, that DH installed. I painted the sconces an aged copper to look old and I used that same paint on the headboard which was a great find for $19.99 at the thrift shop in my area. This headboard was white and brass in it's original form. The furniture is hand painted a warm ivory and I added aged copper drawer pulls. The spread is a vintage style chenille in a soft warm rusty tone with lots of details all monochromatic. It is so yummy. I had this for years.






The window is a double large floor to ceiling style and requires 95" long for the panels. There is a narrow wall between the two windows which I covered over to give a feeling of one window.














Lastly I painted and decorated the closets making them stocked and ready for our guests.
By the door, I painted a rock from my garden for a door stop. Inside the long closet is a guest greeting on the wall painted by Gail Brown and written by Ken Brown.





Now on to the bathroom, which is part of this guest room. I also used the same wall color in here and brought the accents to reflect an aged style. All the hardware and accessories were white which I also used the same paint in aged copper. They look like old metal now and saved a ton of money in replacements. The sink faucet was installed by DH in an old world antique finish. He also installed the decorative molding near the ceiling in white to coordinate with the finish on the sink and cupboards. The door and drawer pulls are the same aged copper like the furniture in the bedroom. I used a shower curtain to soften the shower doors, that had to stay. Not fond of those, so the curtain did the trick to conceal and soften the hard edges of the doors. I raised the cutain rod for the window to give height to the room and bring in lots of light. Just as the bedroom furniture, the mirror cabinet over the sink and toliet area are old pieces that I had for years.
















These re-decorated rooms were so much fun. I am so happy to be finished with everything and get on to new projects in the studio. I hope you can visit again when I share the shabby rose room. I hope it will be worth your time to view, as this one was the most work and took the longest to complete. I have so missed visiting everyone and please forgive my absence the last few weeks. I look forward to getting around blogland this week and seeing what everyone has been up to as well. As always, thank you for stopping by and see you again soon with 88 steps to shabby cottage rose tea and retreat. Till then blessings and blue skies be yours. Celestina Marie