Cranberries, Cookie Cutters, and Cloth Bits

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Yesterday my friend Eloise, pronounced E - Lois, met me for lunch and then took me round to a couple of antique/collectable shops.

I had this "blank-slate" wall in my kitchen, next to the refrigerator, for which I had been keeping my eyes open for "just the right" thing to hang there.

Of course, I had no idea what "just the right thing" would look like, but was pretty sure I'd know it when I saw it.


In one of the little shops, we found this ladder. Oh, it was never a utilitarian ladder, but had been fashioned for decorative purposes out of old bits of rough barn-siding-ish wood.

It doesn't even need to HANG on my wall, but is instead very content just to LEAN there.


Hanging down one side of the ladder was a swag, which I rather liked, until Eloise found this cranberry swag in another corner of the shop.

Cranberries!!! Imagine that!!! How PERFECT for this county in this state since we produce more cranberries than any other county in any other state!!

I brought the ladder and swag home with me and stood them up against that nekked wall in my kitchen.

I attached a few tin cookie cutters to the swag.


And from the rungs of the ladder, I hung some bits of vintage linens.


All of these pieces of linen came from my paternal grandmother's stash. Some of them I collected when her things were being distributed to our forty-some first cousins, some of them Sister Pam collected but then gave to me to keep in their mid-west roots when she moved to the beaches of Florida where she thought they had no business living.

The LINENS had no business living at the beaches of Florida, Sister Pam and Joe find they have much business there indeed!

We speculate that a good many of these pieces were made by grandma's own hands - - -


And quite possibly for her hope chest since several pieces have "F" embroidered onto them and her maiden name was Foster.


I am quite pleased with the final result - - - though I must say, my little photographs simply do NOT do it justice - - - you'll just HAVE to come and visit to see it live and in person!


There was one more little "bit" that I found in one of the shops and brought home with me yesterday, where it found it's home atop my china cabinet.


It's this dark blue tin pitcher with a very happy little spray of cranberry fluff sprouting out of it's top.

Now - - - there's one more nekked wall in my living room to which I must turn my attention - - - I'm thinking maybe an old window frame - - -

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