rePURPOSING Things: An Old Lamp Sheds New Light

This faded photo is the only one of a lamp beloved by the family matriarch. When she died no one wanted it. It was outdated and did not fit with the decor of any of the survivors' homes. But it was such a treasure to her, no one could bare to give it away .

Luckily there was an artist in the family who transformed it. Now it's a treasure in the home of the youngest generation.

Saving the Shirts

This client had a baby while she and her husband were on assignment in London. When they moved back home his button-down business shirts were far too formal for the casual California life style. They decided to commemorate their happy time in London by commissioning a quilt for their baby.

Here are the shirts...

cut into strips...

pieced...

and quilted.

The fee for this transformation was donated to Shakti Rising http://www.shaktirisingnp.com, an organization that transforms the lives of young women. Their motto is "Create Change" and this is just what we did with these shirts.

Digging Out the Paper Piles

If you are like most people I bet you have a least one stack of papers waiting to be dealt with. This client had several with sentimental family papers she gathered over the years.

She tackled a pile, sorted them and surprised relatives with a package of memories selected just for them.

Photos Under Control

The picture below is pretty typical of most homes I visit. Memories are stashed away in boxes and bags and you can't lay your hands on the one photo your want for the upcoming wedding or memorial service. The photo collection has grown too large to even begin to try to organize it.

This is a case where technology can be your friend. If you scan your photos, when you import them into your computer the organizing possibilities are limitless. The same photo can go into multiple albums. A photo of Cousin Ryan at the Coliseum can go into albums for Summer Vacations, Italy, Family, Ryan, etc. And sharing them with friends is easy and free by posting them on-line or emailing them.

You may be tempted to balk at paying for scanning but ask yourself how much you spent developing all those pictures in the first place. It is wasted money if you can't find the photo you want. And scanning them on a home scanner would take a lifetime.

The service I like for photo scanning is scanmyphotos.com. They have a pre-paid box that holds about 2,000 photos. Just put them in size order and in no time at all the pile above will be reduced to a single CD.

For slides I had great results ScanCafe.

When you get your order back, hard as it may seem, toss the originals. And then enjoy your new free space.

rePURPOSING Things: for Good!

I recently helped a client move from this spacious home.

They needed only a fraction of the furniture in this house for their new home - and you can imagine how much furniture a house like this can hold - so they did a very generous thing. They held a family and friends furniture sale and donated ALL the proceeds to the Parkinson's Foundation.

What an ideal way to dispose of unwanted items and do some good at the same time. Hats off to them!

rePURPOSING Things: Wrought Iron Dish Towel Rack

Moved from the kitchen to the dressing area, this towel rack has a new life as a cool sculpture holding jewelry.

The jewelry is visible and easy to select and the towel rack is destined to become a useful family heirloom.

Vacation Home Straightening

This vacation home on the coast of Maine has hosted generations of the same family and has enough dinnerware to serve dozens. As you can see, the shelves are overflowing. There was no rhyme or reason to what each one held. Gorgeous blue and white china was scattered throughout all the shelves

Because the home is jointly owned by several family members, I was not allowed to toss anything so I simply follwed the  "like with like" rule to clean it up.  See how pleasing it looks with the blue and white china clustered into a focal point on the top shelf? Total straightening time: 40 minutes.

rePURPOSING Things: Gold Jewelry

Some inherited jewelry is gorgeous; you may have coveted it for years. Others you would not be caught dead wearing. You can keep the memory of the giver alive by rePURPOSING what you won't wear into a new piece of jewelry you will wear.

This thick gold bangle bracelet was made from a set of thin, dented ones. It gets lots of compliments and the wearer can tell the story of how it come into being.

rePURPOSING Things:Grandmother's Hankies Part II

The quilts on the last post took lots of hankies to make. Here is an idea if you only have a few - baby quilts!

rePURPOSING Things: Grandmother's Hankies

Cleaning out a parent's possessions to move them to assisted living or to close up house after they have died is very painful and exhausting. There are so many of their memories, and some of yours, tied up in every little item.

Here is how I transformed a surprise discovery at the bottom of my mother's dresser to a family heirloom on my daughter's bed.

When I was packing up mom's things I found dozens of hankies with goodbye notes neatly folded and preserved under her lingerie. Apparently when my parents moved in the 40's my mother's friends gave her a hanky party.  She had carefully saved them for 60 years!

I unwrapped,  laundered, and ironed each one.  Then I sewed them into a queen size quilts for my two daughters.

The older daughter got the fun, colorful ones in her quilt.

And the younger daughter got the sweet white ones with little flowers embroidered in the corners.

This labor of love linked our generations and warmed my daughters with memories of their grandma.