Sweet Silver Shell

As like most of you, I visit a lot of yard sales. We're all looking for treasures - things to make over, things to repurpose, things to add to collections. Sometimes pickings are slim as we wade through discarded toys, old floral bedspreads and particle board bookcases. But every once in a while we stumble across a yard sale full of treasures. And that's what happened recently at a yard sale in St. Thomas just down the street from a property we own there.  It's a majestic house with an antique Rolls Royce that sits out front as a "lawn ornament". You can see why I HAD to go. And I wasn't disappointed. Came home with an armload of silver treasures to put into my antiques booth. But kept one little treasure for myself.

The homeowner, a woman about my age, seemed to have a thing for shells - there were ceramic shells, shell-based lamps, china shells, wooden shells and a variety of silver shells. I grabbed 5, but kept this little one for myself.

I knew exactly where it was going to sit - on the granite counter in the guest bathroom right beside my old julep cup.  Yes, those are fake flowers. I don't do well with indoor plants so have to cheat a little bit.  And yes, that's a bar of ivory soap - we are Ivory people in this house. If I was a true decorator there is no way that such a utilitarian bar of soap would find a home in an antique silver shell. But it has to be done as we actually use this bathroom a lot.

Sometimes finding treasure at yard sales are like finding a needle in a haystack. Not this particular day - I found some beauties in the form of shells.