So here's the project I worked on this weekend. :-) It was so much fun! And i have to admit I'm so thrilled with how it turned out. Totally how I invisioned it. I have to tell the story of how it came about. A year or so ago, I was reading Heather Bailey's blog (who is not inspired by her?!) and saw the CUTEST chandelier that her and her husband (i think it's so cute how she and her husband work on creative projects together... how fun is that?) embellished with vintage brooches and jewels. I thought the idea was brilliant.
So soon after that I started collecting a few vintage brooches. But I never really got around to doing the project as I wasn't sure where I'd get the chandelier.. thrift? hardware store? Then i just sort of forgot about it. Then I went to my favorite antique/thrift store the other day and saw the PERFECT chandelier. It was even painted already. A perfect green that would go with the color palette in our living room, where I wanted to hang it.
And the seller (this particular market has booths set up permanently, and the sellers bring stuff in at random times. Some things aren't even "antiques" really, but stuff they find and then fix up.. like this chandelier.) She had replaced where the bulbs go, with these wooden dowels painted white. And then on top of the dowels she flipped over glass tea cups (vintage?) and glued them onto the end of the dowels. I didn't even notice this til I had the thing in my car.. "oh! they are upside-down cups!" Der.
So basically I glued the vintage brooches on with epoxy glue (boy that stuff stinks) and strung glass and plastic beads and buttons onto plastic see-through jewelry cord and hung them all over the chandelier. The cup handles actually provided another place to hang the beads from. Most of the plastic beads I got from Hobby Lobby, the glass beads I got at a bead store, the crocheted beads and others were from 2 necklaces that i don't wear anymore.. they were cheapy costume jewelry. 2 of the brooches are vintage, 2 are vintage LOOKING (but new) and the 2 pink smaller jeweled flowers are actually flip-flop emellishments I got at Hobby Lobby!
I had the bird already that I was going to attach to my pompom wreath (that i'm putting off til this coming Christmas to finish.. lol!).. but attached to the chandelier instead and i think it's a perfect place for it. Cooper had never seen a fake (but very real looking!) bird like that. I was like "look Cooper, a bird!" and he was like "Cool!".. then a couple hours later he was like "Mommy?... he's not moving." ;-)
I was inspired to add the silk flowers after seeing this chandelier on Flickr (which is so amazing!). Instead of gluing them I just threaded embroidery floss through the 3 flowers, connecting them together and they just sit in the middle like that around the base.
I haven't hung it yet where it's really supposed to go, in this room, because I need Ethan to secure a hook to hold this very heavy thing... so I hung it from a couple hooks in 2 other rooms so I could take photos. And i also hung it on a tree branch outside.. ha-ha.. my brilliant idea. Thank goodness that branch didn't break! And oh, did i mention there was still snow everywhere and I froze my ars off taking photos of it? Lol! Oh the things we do for photos. :)
This first pic is in our "mud room" with our fabulous 70's (painted) wood paneling. Don't laugh. But i needed a room where there wasn't so much on the walls so you can see the whole thing. (if you look closely, you'll see that the bird has fallen over, bless his heart.) The rest are from outside and in our dining room/kitchen area which is kind of busy, but you can still see details pretty well.
