Tuesday, October 11, 2011

"They can sing, they can dance...

... after all, Miss, this is France!" Yes, indeedy, the silver items I was cleaning in yesterday's post were, in fact two silver(ish) candelabra, which got me singing along with Lumiere here:

The smell of eggs confused a few of you - you don't actually use eggs to clean the silver, but the reaction causes a sulferous smell - that's how you can tell it's working, actually! If you don't know how I cleaned up these candlesticks, here's a post I did when I first discovered the technique.


Last week I cleaned up our silver napkin rings, and this week it was the turn of my mother's candlesticks - I put them all together in this photo so you could see Son 1's new napkin ring, which belonged to my dad. He had it engraved with all the ships he was on (Royal Navy) up until around the time I was born. When Son 1 started taking an interest, my dad got the napkin ring updated and gave it to him - now it's back in daily use, and even kept fairly clean! (Thanks to bicarb of soda...)


Here's an unstaged shot of the table area - scary heaps of school-type plastic pockets sticking out of the bookshelf.
The 'true crown of King Dagobert' has been unrolled (it's actually some vintage shelf edging) and I threaded it with a bit of vintage ribbon to fit in with the red theme around the table. PS That England flag has been taken down now. Nuf said.




And in line with the 'thrill of what I already have' I was delighted to find the hurricane candle that Ben made years back in the UK. He used a mould which allows you to set things into a hollow candle-shape. Here he used shells we'd collected with our teeny-tiny boys on a Brittany beach.


You put a candle inside it and everything glows in a beautifully candle-lit way, without actually destroying your hard work.


The shells I put around it on the wooden stand were from our most recent beach holiday in the Basque Country. I think everyone in the family is pretty chuffed with this combination of warm light for autumn with summery shells for remembrance of holidays old and new. It's been a real talking point with the boys. Clever dad!

5 comments:

Serenata said...

The candle that Ben made is great, what a lovely idea, I bet the boys love it.

I knew they were candelabra - I have one the same! Not sure where it is, but we had one on our table at our wedding and when I saw one in an antique shop I bought it. We used to used it regularly. Will have to find it and give it a good clean up so we can use it again now the darker nights are drawing in.

Elizabethd said...

How pretty your candles look, and so nice to have kept the Breton shells as memories.

Jane and Chris said...

I thought it was a garter across your mirror!!
What will the neighbours think!
Jane x

Floss said...

Oh la la! Quite a painful garter, that would be...

Pomona said...

I am glad to see that you still have the lovely spotty tablecloth!

Pomona x