Just Smashing

It's not very often that pictures of knick-knacks catch my eye. Usually I am more drawn towards rooms as a whole rather than the individual items that are in the room. But because my tastes have just a bit of an eclectic and whimsical bent to them, occasionally I'll see something that grabs my attention. That's what happened a couple weeks ago when I saw this display on a blog or site somewhere (I never remember where I get my pictures from - gotta do better with that).


I was drawn toward a few elements about it - the grouping of boxes, the items they placed in the boxes, and the contrast between the paper or fabric inside and the natural wood outside. I never set out to recreate something like this, partly because I've learned that that's impossible and partly because, in this case, something like this just wouldn't really "fit" in my house.

But what I will do is keep the idea in mind, mulling over whether or not I could do something similar. In this case, my favorite parts of the vignettes were the animal head and the branch vase. I know Anthropolgie is selling white animal heads right now for $20, but, as I said, even though I like this, I'm not trying to recreate it. So they will stay at Anthropologie.

However, something at the thrift store did catch my eye a few weeks ago. I saw this:

Wow, right? Not something that exactly screams "great home decor" to me. In fact, I never would have looked twice at it before, but now I was wondering if I couldn't make a vase with that tree.

So I paid the pittance they wanted for it, brought it home, and took a hammer to it. Because the bear had to go.

The tree also got a little smashed, seeing as how it was joined at the hip with Grizzly, but it wasn't anything a little glue wouldn't fix. Well, sort of. Here is the back of it, all glued together and painted white (although I'm currently contemplating silver). Not very usable, right? But never fear, my pennies weren't wasted.

Because here's the other side of it. Broken side turned toward the wall and no one is the wiser.

At first I was thinking it would just stay like that. Just looking pretty, but not being very useful. Form without function. But after I did all the repair work and painting I remembered I had this little tiny vase. And it fits perfectly into the tree.
Voila!

Off to find some flowers...