TIME-WORN
My enduring love of ‘country antique’ kitchenalia and gardenalia has always been viewed as quaint, even quirky, by close family and friends. Every time I bought home yet another time-worn object, my family would audibly groan. As I lovingly placed my latest ‘find’ in pride of place, my family would avert their eyes and ‘ignore’ yet another ungainly and unsightly object. My love for time-worn, useful objects was never seen as fashionable, and definitely not on-trend.
SILVER JUGS
Now, of course, all things ‘vintage’ are seen as not only fashionable,
but highly desirable. Tarnished silver
tea pots and jugs, arranged to capture the eye, would have been viewed not so
long ago, as needing a good polish! Today,
tarnish on silver is carefully nurtured, seen as honouring the advance of time
on beautifully crafted silver tea-wares.
MILK GLASS
Coloured glass has long been recognised as lovely enough to
hold floral bouquets and posies. And colour
themed glass is gorgeous enough to display in its own right. What could be prettier than a range of pink
glass, or green glass, often simple in design?
Milk glass, sometimes rare and difficult to find now, is also prized for
its range of colours and textures.
CRYSTAL
And coloured glass’ more glamorous cousin, crystal, outshines
any coloured theme. Add a lovely vintage mirror and the effect is
magnified many times.
LUSTRE-WARE
Once pearlescent and lustre-ware china was seen as gauche. Now these treasures from the 1950’s and ‘40’s are highly sought after. Vases of all shapes, sizes and colours, dusted with a pearl sheen, act as pretty vessels for flowers. These vases are gorgeously coloured, shaped into cornucopias, or stylised leaves. Some are short and squat, or elongated. Others are fan shaped with a broad mouth.
Such vases were designed to hold flowers picked fresh from
the garden. Flowers with short, knobbly
stems; flowers with heavy heads that need support on the lip of a vase; flowers
sweetly perfumed; flowers coloured soft or bright; flowers that have not
travelled across oceans; flowers that are free from sprays and safe to sniff;
flowers untouched by cold-storage for weeks on end; flowers left to softly drop
their petals.
JUGS OF FLOWERS
And jugs, staunch and functional, can now be re-purposed as
flower vases. Oh, the simple joy of a
fat bunch of just-picked flowers pushed into a chipped, once loved jug. A jug filled with water only, no fancy flower
food or chemicals, just fresh water. Flowers just picked from a country garden are
perfectly suited to such humble vessels. And of course, in a country garden, flowers are a-plenty and
... seasonal.
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