This Week’s Vintage Finds #15 at Habitat for Humanity Re-Store

As we wandered through the warehouse, I kept finding these trowels. Having no idea what I’d do with them, I kept putting them in our cart. By the time we got to check out, I had three–a lovely, “correct” number. I’m thinking clean them up a bit and stencil letters, or maybe numbers on them for some cool, original wall art? What do you think? What would you do with them?

Below the spatulas lies a four foot baluster ($3.50), that I’m hoping to cut up and use as connectors and a handle for a three tiered server, using the cake pans I bought in a January Vintage Finds. Remember them?:

I’ve gone a bit server and pedestal crazy; they’re piling up all around me! One very important recommendation: For some reason, I thought I could eyeball the center of every dish I wanted to attach a pedestal to–wrong! More times than not, I glued them off-center. Sigh. And mostly the E6000 glue is permanent. Good. And bad. Sigh. From now on I’m measuring for the exact center of each dish/pan/plate before I glue (or nail).

Beneath the balluster is nice, rusty hinge. I’ve seen lots of ideas for using them as angel or fairy wings, so I scooped it up for 50 cents.

So, pretty anxious to get started on the lantern, I detached the bottom portion from the glass top–by just removing a few screws.

Then I pulled out all the wires and cleaned up the glass lantern portion, and all the other parts as well, since I wasn’t sure what I’d need to use for the finished project.

This is the bottom plate that held all the electrical parts and which served as the base for the top. Unfortunately, it’s also held the glass in place, but because it’s so bent up, it won’t screw on properly. Oh, and yea, some of the screws are missing.

Here’s a downward view of the cleaned-up lantern. The metal cap is all antique-y and mottled–I like it!

You can see that I reused the metal casing by turning upside down and using it to hold the candle. Overall, I am in like with it, but I feel it needs a square dish or something on the bottom to bring balance to the whole piece. I may work on straightening out the original metal bottom and finding some screws. Right now, the glass is held in place by means of some cleverly hidden wire.

I enjoyed the process of dismantling, cleaning, and reassembling the whole thing. It was very satisfying. What about you? What kind of work do you like to do with your hands? Would you have bothered with this hunk of dirty metal and glass?

Bye for now,