Fishes & Chips

*Last week I spent my sunday at the Philadelphia International Flower Show, collecting beautiful images of floral displays, rare orchids, and (my favorites) terrariums and succulents. I also took home a few air plants for myself and found a very unique way to use them in my house.

But first enjoy all the beautiful plants…

There were so many orchids it was a bit overwhelming, each one was so unique and beautiful!

That’s an entire wall of lettuce!

I loved this itty bitty flower, I think I felt that I could relate to it ^_^

Terrariums… love em

There was a bonsai tree there that was over 80 years old…

*Now onto the project. So I brought these beautiful air plants home from the flower show and after being inspired by all of the amazing displays, I felt they deserved a unique home. 

Once again I set off to the Philadelphia Indoor Flea Market (it never fails me) and I found these two antique wooden wire stretchers. Originally used by furniture makers to get the right tension on their springs and wires, I thought they would make perfect little floating frames to have my air plants grow out of, while staying true to our rustic, industrial aesthetic.

I also purchased these white ceramic hanging pods, from Ikea, to house the rest of my plants and finish out the vinyet. I think they look great and help to bounce around the white elements in our room more evenly. The glass orb was purchased at the flower show, which I highly recommend everyone check out next year.

*This sewing machine table has been a bit of an on going building and collecting process. It took just about the entire summer to collect all the parts from various flea markets and its finally all done. Below is how we built it…enjoy…

This was the piece that started it all, my very first trip to the Golden Nugget flea market, in Labertville, NJ, (now one of my very favorite places to find a deal) and I made it through the whole place with out buying a single thing, not because I didn’t find things I that I wanted, but because I was trying to be good. However, on my walk past the indoor building, towards the car, I past this awesome, antique, cast iron, sewing machine table, missing its top and drawers. As I stared at the piece a very nice man asked me if I was interested and after a bit of haggling I got him down to $40 and he helped me shove it in the back of my Honda Civic. 

A few Saturdays later I found these drawers at one of the summers outdoor Philly flea markets,and I knew they would be perfect.

After finding the legs and drawers I needed a top and so I called up my friend Anthony and asked him if he knew of a good place to pick up some reclaimed wood and he very kindly offered to give me some pieces that were taking up room in his wood shop. So I took a trip over there and he showed me these beautiful pieces of wood that he had reclaimed from an old church pew. I loved that they had such history to them and so he cut them down to size for me and I took them home to sand and stain. 

After the wood was stained to the shade that we wanted I used these brackets to hold the pieces together.

I then screwed the top to the cast iron legs and got started lining up the drawer frames.

Putting the drawer frames on was not easy. It was really difficult to get the drill in that tinny space, however, this gave me a great excuse to buy a fancy new drill attachment to extend the length of the drills reach, it worked like a charm!

And I found these beautiful tiny glass knobs at the Philadelphia winter indoor flea market about a month or so ago.

Once I cleaned them all up they were good as new.

And now that I was moving the table into our new studio I needed just a little more length. So I added a fold out leaf to the right side of the table. 

Just had to add on some hinges and we were ready to go.

Since I decided to use the table as my computer desk I thought it would be funny to thread my computer wires through the wheel, it worked perfectly and took up all the extra slack so I didn’t have to use twist ties to keep the wires in order. 

*Nick and I went to a few great flea markets last weekend and got some amazing deals. We went to the indoor Philadelphia Flea Market on Saturday and the Golden Nugget in Lambertville, NJ on Sunday and we came back with all kinds of treasures. But we were good, I like to make a list of things I’m looking for to keep me on track, otherwise it can be extremely overwhelming.  

I felt very lucky to find two great jadeite pieces for a nice price! I’ve recently started my own collection after my mom got me my first piece a couple of months ago. My love for the Fire Wear stems from vacationing at Little Red (for those of you who don’t know Little Red is the little cabin on the lake that we used to rent in Maine each summer) it was filled with tons of Jadeite and now the green stuff brings back my best childhood memories. 

A lot of people were questioning this purchase, but after I turn it upside down and weave some muslin through it, I will have a great light fixture for the living room.

A beautiful old man pipe for Nick.

And Prince Albert in a can.

A gold monogram ring with the letter M on it, to stand for Mosher, my mom’s maiden name.

Some great old prints to frame.

A collection of antler.

Nick found these great wooden soda crates that hold his home made beer perfectly. 

And finally we found this beautiful old wooden office chair, which Nick cleaned up and oiled for me. Isn’t it handsome!