Funky Find Friday: Personal Finds

For this week's Funky Find Friday, I want to show you funky stuff I've found and what I did with it in my own house. Some things I refinished, others I just used in different ways and some things I use exactly as they are meant to be. On with the show and tell:

I found this neat vintage blue shelf at an auction. I knew it would work great in my blue and yellow bedroom, but it needed a little something. So, I painted the outside of the frame a grayish white and distressed it a little. Now it holds my cobalt glass collection and a few yellow accents above our bed. (Please ignore the awful wallpaper behind it. We rent this house and the paper in the bedroom is very dated.)

This has to be my favorite find ever. The town I went to college in has "spring cleaning week" every year. You can throw whatever you want on the curb and it will be picked up for free. I used to relish that week! I would spend hours driving around with my friends scouring for "upgrades" to our collage furniture. (My Mom and I actually still like to go curb shopping here if we can make it!) This is the front off an old piano that was smashed to bits. It made me sad to see the piano in that state, but on the other hand, I took this front and ran with it. I screwed in four ordinary coat hooks and TaDa! Instant alternative to a full hall tree. Other notable finds from spring cleaning week include(don't have pics right now, will get soon): a stained glass window (that's right!) with only one tiny broken piece of glass, antique dressers, blue mason jars...the list goes on! Incidentally, my Mom and I went to spring cleaning this year and found no less that three piano's thrown out!

I guess I find my entire setting above the kitchen cupboards fun and funky, but the best find has to be the tea kettles. One is copper and the other aluminum. I got a whole box of these babies at an auction for $1 and split them with my Mom.

I made this funky find (formerly a vintage pillowcase) into a great over the shoulder bag. This bag works great for a green shopping bag or library books. It's hard to tell in the pic, but there is a tabbed pocket on the front. The straps are simply the sides tied in knot and it's lined with yellow and white gingham.

These cute owl bookends I found in a thrift store. They are plaster and were formerly painted 70's gaudy gold (you know the one I'm talking about, they put that color on everything from mirror frames to wall sconces. Blech!) I spray painted them black and now they hang out on the bookshelf in my office.

That's all my funky finds for this week. Have you had any funky finds lately? What did you do with them?

Happy Crafting!