Charmed, I'm Sure

Sometimes you go shopping for one thing and you find something else. That was exactly what happened when I found this little tiny frame filled with some of the most charming charms I've ever seen in my life. I was looking for antique glass bottles when I saw it hanging on the wall of a backwoods Connecticut antique shop. I snatched it off the wall and had bought it before I even realized I was standing at the register. My justification was that it would be a gift for someone else. (Who that person is doesn't matter....Mom...umm...happy Mother's Day! Hope you like the other gift I got for you!) By the time I got home, I had fallen in love and finally admitted that this was a gift for ME. And for Robb, too, of course! The charms are simply a perfect collection of the DIY tools we love and absolutely represent who we are.

Not to mention, who doesn't love miniatures of things that, by nature, are not necessarily "cute"? The wrench! The pliers! The screwdriver! The hammer! The pocket knife! Garden shears AND scissors! Every time I look at it I want to squeal. And so I thought I'd share this with you, too.

What I love best about this collection is that the charms aren't featured on a necklace or a bracelet. I love that these charms spoke to somebody as a collection, and that they opted to display them in a frame. (I strongly suspect that they weren't originally sold in this arrangement.) And that the person chose this lovely shade of green for the background. And that it's so adorably tiny. I've hung the charms in the kitchen, right in the middle of a string of pinecones that my mother sent to me last summer. The pinecones, incidentally, were thrown into a box of plums that she had picked from her yard and mailed to me. The combination of pinecones and plums transported me back to the summers of my youth. (Incidentally, the banner at the top of this blog is a photo taken from that very yard where I grew up. Fun fact!) Not knowing exactly what to do with a box full of pinecones, I decided to wrap yarn around each one and hang them like a banner. All that was missing was a centerpiece to fit in the arc. And now I've found it.