Quince Cottage

Sunday, May 29, 2016

Spring to Summer - 6 Tips for Vignette Styling

Welcome to Quince Cottage!
When it comes to seasonal decor, which part of your home do you most enjoy styling? For Rhiann, it's the mantel.
Follow along as she creates vignettes for spring and summer. Oh, and by the way, some of the items pictured here are available in our brand new Etsy shop! Click here.

Tip 1: the "Power Of Three" is often employed when creating a new vignette. Vignettes work best using an odd number of elements. In other words, five is okay, four, not so much.

Tip 2-5: Mix heights, round shapes and angled shapes, organic with man-made, and if possible, throw in something that is a bit of a surprise!

If you weren't here a few months ago, here's where we were in late winter, sort of a combo of snow and green...

Tip 6: Old books are perfect for adding height, play around to decide exactly what looks best. You can have the leather or cloth spines showing, or the page side, or wrap the books in white or craft paper, all depending on what look you want.

In this vignette on our dining room sideboard, the three primary vignette elements are the wire cage, the plant, and the shell. Broken down further, the two brass quail and the tiny plant form a mini-vignette with the books (showing their leather spines) acting as a base. On a macro level, the windmill head, the mirror and the cage/shell/plant grouping also create a Power Of Three composition. By the way, that mirror? A $7 score at Willie's (aka Goodwill)!
And this is why I'm linking up to Dagmar's Home Blog because she kindly featured us on her IG account for this particular pic! Thank you, Dagmar! If you're a blogger, please consider joining the link party, it's a great way of making new friends.

Dagmar's Home Thrifty and Vintage Finds link party

Here you see a vignette that straddles the counter between our kitchen and dining. It's got the "unexpected" in the form of a vintage toy tractor (Ron collects those). The organic element is covered by the flowers and cotton. Don't you just love cotton?

Here's another one, this time from our gallery wall. Three. Round and not round. Organic elements.

But now back to the mantel. In April, the mood switched to romantic. The left side featured a shadow box Rhiann made from an old clock, if you're interested in learning more about that, click here. Technically there are four elements in this grouping, but the books and clock read as one. Note that the page sides are showing, to create a softer, lighter look.

©Rhiann Wynn-Nolet

We have a nice collection of vintage floral plates that were just itching to be on display again.

©Rhiann Wynn-Nolet

There's one behind the pink hobnail glass piece on the left and she used them on the right side of the mantel too. That ornate gold frame is completely empty by the way, and we like it that way. It's such a gorgeous piece in and of itself, it really doesn't need any art inside!

Then Rhiann found a little brass bowl, and wanted to see how that looked with some shells and rocks. Note the organic (shells and greenery).

Then Mother's Day rolled around and Rhiann had to add the lovely milk glass covered box she received! That milk glass bud vase is holding one of our first New Dawn roses of the year.

©Rhiann Wynn-Nolet

She decided to turn the "pretty" to full volume on the left too.

Now that it's Memorial Day, Rhiann thought a summer-by-the-water vibe was in order. No, unfortunately we no longer live near the ocean, but it's still nice to remember those days. Here the three elements are the painting, the shell box, and the creamer with feathers. Aren't those feathers amazing? We found them on a walk with our dogs. They probably belonged to a turkey vulture. Those are both the "organic" element and the unexpected one. They add a little wildness to the composition that keeps it from looking too dull.

Here's the right side. Note that there's a bird here too. Have you noticed how brass is back in a BIG way? From knicknacks to lighting, brass is hot! Here we have five elements. The shell box, the brass crane, the books, the conch shell, and the mother of pearl necklace. There's that unexpected element again. Jewelry isn't normally part of mantel decor, but here it works because it's made of mother of pearl sourced from the ocean, and the color is harmonious.

Finally, here's the whole shebang...

This week there's no #MagpieMonday, but we hope you'll join us on Instagram June 6, when we'll be ready to see all your thingummies and gewgaws once again!

©Rhiann Wynn-Nolet

You can also play along with our #HometownCapture hashie any time. Follow us, post a pic of your hometown with the # in the text, and tag us!

Daisy and Buster have been enjoying the backyard. Literally. They both love eating grass. We don't love all the gacking that follows...

Daisy © Rhiann Wynn-Nolet

Buster © Rhiann Wynn-Nolet

Tell us how you like to decorate for spring and summer. We'd love to hear. Hope to see you again soon!

Quince Cottage Style is #agrarianchic - a mix of old and new, rustic and opulent.

Our goal is to make our new subdivision house look inviting, beautiful,

and as though it wasn't born yesterday!

Saturday, May 21, 2016

Instagram 5K Giveaway!

Welcome to Quince Cottage!
You've chosen a great time to visit, because you're just in time to read about our Fantastic 5K Giveaway!
If you've visited before, you know we love and collect milk glass. In fact, our collection has outgrown not only one, but TWO, cabinets. But we're not hoarders, honest. So, given that we can only hoard, er "display properly", a reasonable amount of milk glass, we've decided to spread the love to our followers.
So, this is the milk glass portion of the giveaway... It includes two footed pieces, a mini bud vase, and a small round vase. Oh, and a velvet bookmark Rhiann made using vintage beads!

Now, to make things even more WONDERFUL, our dear friend Lynn at Paris Hotel Boutique is helping us celebrate the 5K milestone by adding this spectacular hotel silver teapot AND antique French menu to the giveaway. Isn't that incredibly generous? She sells the most stunning antiques and fabulous jewelry from her website ParisHotelBoutique.com (be sure to wear a bib when you visit, because otherwise you'll drool all over your keyboard).

Now you're all grabby hands, right, wondering how to make all this marvelous loot YOURS?

Here's what you do.
1. Follow Quince Cottage on Instagram here.
2. Follow Paris Hotel Boutique on Instagram here.
3. Leave your Instagram name on both our posts about the Giveaway (those will go up Sunday May 22, 2016. Be sure to "like" the posts. Tag as many friends as you want, one per line, (each tag will count as an entry for you).
4. Contest only open to those 18 years of age or older, who live within the contiguous U.S. (sorry, the shipping costs too much otherwise).
Boom! Done! The contest will be open Sunday - Wednesday May 25, 2016. The winner will be chosen randomly. We will announce the winner Saturday May 28, 2016. The contest is not affiliated with Instagram in any way.
Buster passed out when he heard about this giveaway.

And Daisy, well she said you'd be a *bleep fool, if you don't enter! (Yes, she swears like a sailor).

See you on Instagram!

Quince Cottage Style is #agrarianchic - a mix of old and new, rustic and opulent.

Our goal is to make our new subdivision house look inviting, beautiful,

and as though it wasn't born yesterday!

Friday, May 13, 2016

DIY: Tiling the Kitchen Backsplash

Welcome to Quince Cottage! Or, welcome back, if you've visited before.
Today we're going to talk about tile. More specifically, how to add some visual interest without breaking the bank or taking on a monumental project.
In a later post, we'll show you how we handled the rest of our backsplash with thin-brick, but for now we're focusing on the short wall behind the sink.
We didn't want to carry the brick through here, because architecturally it wouldn't have made much sense. But a plain old sheetrock wall is so ho hum, not to mention it can get stained from all the sink activities AND it's not exactly waterproof.
We considered subway tile, but we've BTDT and wanted something more interesting. Pinterest has been peppered with cool tiles lately and after some browsing, we headed out to Traditions In Tile at Brier Creek in Raleigh. This is a specialty tile store so their selection was far more extensive than the big box home improvement places. The staff was knowledgeable and friendly and we'd highly recommend them!
Our kitchen color palette is soft creamy white, gray, and bronze, with stainless steel appliances. It made sense to choose a tile that was warm white and gray.

The tiles came in either matte or gloss finish. We went with the matte because it looked softer and older.
If your tiles are patterned and mixed, like ours, lay out the design you want before you start setting them.
Happily, these tiles come mixed in a box and one box was more than enough to cover the area. Obviously before you purchase anything you need to do the math, length x width, plus at least 10% over that for breakage. A 12" x 12" tile came fairly close to filling our space, but there was a sizable gap both top and bottom. You'll see how we addressed that later on.

First you'll want to remove outlet covers. Because the tile adds thickness to the wall, you'll also need to bump your outlets forward using plastic spacers. These can be found at any big box home improvement store.

After you're done with the outlets, draw a level pencil line along the wall, so you'll have a guide for laying the tile. Why yes, those are bats on our dining room wall - we actually did this project back in October...

Butter the back of the first tile with mastic adhesive. This is the adhesive we used.

Available at Lowe's © Rhiann Wynn-Nolet

Then you'll butter the back of your first tile with the adhesive.

Be sure to have a couple of damp rags available to take care of any blobs that fall off your notched trowel. Good idea to cover your counters with newspaper too.

Use the notched edge of your trowel to make grooves in the adhesive as seen above, and then stick the tile on the wall. Be sure it's lined up correctly and then press firmly for a few seconds. Repeat with each tile, using spacers between tiles and below them to keep them in place.

Cutting the tile to fit around outlets is best done with a wet saw. Measure twice, cut once! You can see that we used narrow stock trim pieces to fill much of the gap between granite ledge and the top of the tile, leaving only a reasonable amount to be filled with grout. We painted them our trim color first.

After the tile has set, (wait at least 24 hours) apply grout, wipe off the excess and any remaining "haze" with a dampened sponge and allow the grout to dry thoroughly (at least 24 hours is a good rule of thumb).
The final step is applying a bead of caulk between the counter and the bottom edge of the tiles. This fills the gap and keeps any water from getting between your wall and your counter.

Here's what it looks like all finished!

As always we like to share a cute Irish JRT photo with you before you leave. Here's Buster in his preferred sleep position...

Buster © Rhiann Wynn-Nolet

Don't forget to follow us on IG here and play along with our hashtag, #MagpieMonday where collectors share their favorite obsessions and we choose a favorite to feature in our gallery.

Quince Cottage Style is #agrarianchic - a mix of old and new, rustic and opulent.

Our goal is to make our new subdivision house look inviting, beautiful,

and as though it wasn't born yesterday!

Friday, April 22, 2016

Recipe: Lemon 7Up Bundt Cake

Welcome to Quince Cottage!
As you may already know, we like to mix it up a little. While the majority of our posts are decor-related/DIYs, occasionally we share a favorite recipe. Which brings us to this cake, which Rhiann first enjoyed quite a few years ago at a work party. Credit goes to "Karen", and honestly we don't know where Karen got the recipe. At any rate, it's a keeper! The crust gets almost crunchy like a cookie, while the inside is moist and tender. Plus, the lovely lemon flavor. It's all good!
Now that it's feeling spring-like down here in the South, a lemony dessert seems like just the thing. So, wouldn't you know, the one ingredient Rhiann forgot to buy was the lemon extract! She only realized this after getting all the other ingredients out of the fridge and pantry. Good thing there's a grocery store about five minutes away. And on a positive note, that gave the soda time to come to room temperature, so all's well that ends well, right?

Ingredients:

8 oz. whipped butter
1/2 C Crisco shortening
8 oz. 7Up (room temperature)
5 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp lemon extract
3 C flour
3 C sugar

Optional Glaze Ingredients:

1 stick butter
1 small package cream cheese
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 C confectioner's sugar
(Combine butter and cream cheese. Add vanilla and mix in. Add confectioner's sugar, 1/4 C at a time).

Directions:

1. Combine first 6 ingredients, in order (add eggs one at a time). We used a stand mixer with the whip attachment and if we'd had a splash guard, we would have used it. Don't worry if it seems like the soda and the butter/Crisco combo will never become "one". Once you add the eggs, things start to improve (but still look pretty funky).
2. Mix sugar and flour together and then add to wet mixture in batches. Once the batter is smooth, it's ready to pour in the pan.
3. Grease a bundt pan. We used cooking spray and it didn't work 100%, so greasing might be better.
4. Cook at 300 degrees F for one hour (put cake in when the oven is cold). Raise oven temperature to 350 degrees F and cook 15 more minutes.
5. Allow to cool 15 minutes and then remove from pan.
6. Allow to cool thoroughly before glazing if you do the glaze. We sprinkled confectioner's sugar instead, which did a fairly decent job of camouflaging the spots where the cake didn't unmold perfectly.

Here's what the cake looked like when first removed from the oven.

Here are a few more pix...

Would you like a slice?

We enjoyed just as much the next night! By the way, that stiped table treatment was an earlier DIY, if you want a closer look, see it here.

Isn't that rose pretty? Our rose bushes just started blooming a week or so ago.

Now it's time for a cute terrier pic!

Don't forget about #MagpieMonday on IG. Follow us here to learn more.

Quince Cottage Style is #agrarianchic - a mix of old and new, rustic and opulent.

Our goal is to make our new subdivision house look inviting, beautiful,

and as though it wasn't born yesterday!

Sunday, April 17, 2016

DIY - Upcycled Fountain

Welcome to Quince Cottage!
When you spend a couple of hundred dollars on a solar-powered fountain, you kind of expect it to last more than two years. Well, at least we did. When ours stopped working at the end of last summer it was hard to determine why. Was it the pump? Was it the solar panel? Was it the wiring?

We used our dead fountain for Halloween. It seemed appropriate...

It sat in our courtyard garden all winter, basically waiting for the upcoming neighborhood big clean up, when we planned to heave it into the dumpster. And then we had a bit of storm, and it blew over and pieces of it broke, so at that point we no longer had any guilt at all about tossing it.

But then Rhiann had an idea. Why not take the remaining intact pieces and use it for a container garden?
The steps were so easy it didn't even need documenting. Basically she filled the bottom with a layer of gravel, to add both weight and drainage. Next she added potting soil. Then came the plants and more soil, topped with a layer of mulch to retain moisture and keep the dirt from blowing out.
Ta-daaa! Done!

Let's pretend you don't see that folded up pile of old sheets in the chair (we had a frost a week or so ago and used them to cover up our roses).
There's still the top bowl of the fountain that we might do something with too - like a succulent garden. How trendy would that be?

Here's that cute Jack Russell Terrier pic you were waiting for!

Don't forget to follow us on Instagram here and join us for #MagpieMonday !

See you around!

Quince Cottage Style is #agrarianchic - a mix of old and new, rustic and opulent.

Our goal is to make our new subdivision house look inviting, beautiful,

and as though it wasn't born yesterday!

Quince Cottage

Design. Create. Decorate.

Sunday, May 29, 2016

Spring to Summer - 6 Tips for Vignette Styling

Saturday, May 21, 2016

Instagram 5K Giveaway!

Friday, May 13, 2016

DIY: Tiling the Kitchen Backsplash

Friday, April 22, 2016

Recipe: Lemon 7Up Bundt Cake

Sunday, April 17, 2016

DIY - Upcycled Fountain

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