Vintage Sunglasses as Wall Art

As some of you know, my sisters and I lost our mother in April. When we were going through her things we found that she had taken the time to write little notes on items that held special meaning for her. In the bottom drawer of her dresser, I found two pair of vintage celluloid sunglasses in a baggie. The note on these said, "June 1946 - His & Hers Honeymoon Glasses".
How sweet is that? 

I knew that this memory was a little gift from Mom to us and that I didn't want to hide the glasses away in a drawer. So I found this shadow box frame at Michael's, lined it with vintage-looking scrapbooking paper, and framed them.

To give the shadow box a sense of place and to add a little color, I put an old postcard of Wells Beach, where Mom and Dad spent their honeymoon, in the frame, along with Mom's note . . . and hung it in a grouping in my living room. With a little creativity, I've found that you can hang almost anything on the wall as art. (In fact I'm currently working on cleaning up and hanging my grandfather's 100-year-old violin; but that's another post!)

Here are Mom and Dad on their wedding day in Bradford, Massachusetts, June 29, 1946. . .

And a couple more old postcard views of Wells Beach back in the 40's.

Don't you love the cars?

Although we grew up in Connecticut, our parents rented a cottage for our family vacation at Wells Beach every summer. Those days were some of the best of our lives and left each of us with such a love of Maine that all four of us eventually moved here.

 

Mom left us more than one gift when she tucked that little note away with the old sunglasses.  She left us a glimpse into her youth as well as a love of the ocean, and Maine, that will last each of us a lifetime.  And that's important enough to hang right out there on the living room wall!

 

 

 

This post is linked to:

Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Cottage

Wow Us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style
Show & Tell Friday at My Romantic Home

Updating Mom's House: #1 The Living Room

My sister Joanne and I are updating our Mom's condo. I convinced Joanne that we needed a little "occupational therapy" to cope with the stress after Mom's stroke. As usual with the "Smith sisters", things soon took on a life of their own. Two months later, we're still at it...redoing the whole condo that is! 


THE LIVING ROOM
 

Mom's living room was off-white and she likes the color. We color-matched her paint and put two new coats on all the walls and trim. Her color scheme still worked with her "shabby chic" things but relied heavily on 80's rose and blue. We chose to update it by eliminating the blue and heading toward orangy-red instead of pink for accessories. That way, we could still incorporate most of Mom's things, but with a new twist.

 

 We went a little crazy and decided that Mom really needed a colorful accent wall to set off her fireplace and mantle. A quick trip back to Sherwin-Williams and, before we could second-guess ourselves, it was done.

 

But then, Mom's TV stopped working.

 Off to Best Buy we went. The next day the Geek Squad arrived with this baby. We decided Mom deserved a 46" Smart TV mounted over her fireplace! 

 (See what I mean about one thing leading to another?)

 

 

Years ago, Mom cut roses out of her living room curtain fabric and decoupaged them to the wall as a border over her fireplace. When it came time to paint the accent wall, we felt bad taking them down.

 

Our solution was to frame them in a shadowbox and display them in the finished room.

We got all of the carpets professionally cleaned and started to put things back in the room.

Joanne bought a slipcover for Mom's faded wing chair and added a textured throw cushion the color of our new accent wall.

 

She also replaced the throw pillows on Mom's couch.

 

 

 Mom loves wall groupings so it took quite a while to carefully replace all of her artwork after painting the walls. Luckily, Joanne is a perfectionist.

 

 

 

We moved a few pieces of furniture around and edited the accessories...respectfully decluttering and organizing where we could.

  

 This clock has told time in the Smith household for over 60 years...it was always in Mom and Dad's living room.

 My sister Joanne definitely inherited Mom's decorating gene. She arranged this vignette on the top of Mom's piano...it's one of many she has carefully arranged since we painted.

 

 

We thought we were about done redoing, refreshing and repurposing Mom's living room when we saw this rug at the Curtainshop last week. Yup...it came home with us.

 

It pulled together all of the colors in the room, old and new, and provided the finishing touch. Mom's rose is there...along with the oranges and reds we added.

The fabric swatch on the chair is the start of yet another DIY project!

Joanne found the foot stool, made in India, at Home Goods.

 

We hope that Mom recovers enough to enjoy her "new" living room. We're pleased that we were able to update it while honoring her amazing sense of style.

 

I guess that with a view of Portland Harbor like this, the living could have stayed empty and still been beautiful.

 

Next up? The Master Bedroom...
 

 

This post is linked to:

Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps On the Porch

p.s. Meet my "little" sister Joanne...here with our Mom in 2009...