It’s been early January since I’ve tweaked the vignette on top of the china cabinet in the dining room…

Here’s how it looked. So… apparently… it was time.

And since I’ve been in a bit of a sanding frenzy lately, I pulled down the frames and dragged them out in my front yard to sand them back. [Is it odd that I love to take old things and reinvent them to be something fresh and new…. But I love to take new-looking things and sand them back to look old?? Go fig.]

Although my hydrangeas have been doing quite well up there for an age and a half, I decided to cut some new ones from the garden.

I stripped the stems of their leaves and arranged the flowers in the two vases. [On a side note, I made a simple DIY floral “frog” over the openings of the vases to hold my arrangement in place. Have you ever made one? Easy-peasy to make a grid with just scotch tape!]

Then I set and preserved my arrangements with a little handy-dandy spray gloss. Now they will not brown. [I wrote a post on this simple way to preserve hydrangeas here.]

The frames now have the perfect bit of age and patina for me. WIN!

I love the more abundant bouquets, too. Umm… even though every time I look over at them, I think, “Those vases have green afro wigs on.”

I pulled this covered dish (and a similar-style jug and tray out of the cabinet because I never use them and they aren’t really my style. I thought about (and am still considering) turning the top of the covered dish over and using it as the top of a three-tier tray, with the bottom of the dish as the middle piece, and the tray as the bottom… I still may… We’ll see…

But I decided to add the tray and jug to the top of the cabinet for now. [Um, and yes, I am using granola bar boxes to prop up one of the frames and the tray so more of them shows above the lip of the top of the cabinet.]

And I like it! Who knew?

So there you have it! The whole shebang.

Wheeeeee!

So here’s the before…

…and the after. Just a little freshen up. 🙂

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You might like to follow the other china cabinet adventures…