Vintage Finds and a Home Decorating Idea

Sundays we do anything we can to be outside. This weekend that involved a trip to see maple syrup being boiled down at an old mill. Since that was pleasant, but over quickly, we decided to take a trip further outside the city to a place we had been told was pretty cool. Turns out, it really was.

This is outside the Old Lucketts Store. I would only loosely call it an antiques shop, because it is anything but a crusty old junk shop. On the property they even have a 'design house' which is really nifty, and so cool I wish I took more pictures because I would decorate my house JUST LIKE THAT. If I had a house.

So I behaved myself, but walked away with a few gems. Like these iron pieces from an old fence. Can you just see the potential?

We happened upon a box of old keys too, so I picked a few for a little project. There's a lot you can do with old keys, according to Pinterest. So I came up with this:

It took me just a few minutes and about $25 to find a few pretty frames, some light batting, and a scrap of Waverly fabric at the craft store. I think a cream brocade would have been really cool, but I wanted to get this done so I grabbed what caught my eye.

People must have thought me a bit strange as I walked around, waving rusty old keys at the bolts of fabric, though.

I removed the glass from the picture frames. Then I cut a piece of batting slightly smaller that the cardboard inset and glued it directly to the cardboard. I cut a generous piece of the fabric and centered it carefully over the cardboard and batting. Flipping it over, I glued it to to the back of the inset, keeping it taught.

After I did this with both picture frames, I replaced the now cutely upholstered inset into each frame. Then I got to play with the placement of the keys.

I didn't want anything too orderly, so I decided to display the chunky key by itself.

Glue gun the keys in place, being careful to not use too much so it can be concealed behind the key. I used a piece of tweezers to remove any stray pieces of glue, and they were ready immediately to display. A very cute and conversational reminder of our adventures in Northern Virginia.