NQF: A silver plated creamer serves up some succulent plants

Last week's succulent+silver was a large soup tureen, this week's post is on the other end of the tableware size spectrum.  Check out the lovely detail on the handle of this silver plate creamer from the thrift store.

Small planters can still be lush. I love the way the green and white burro's tail plant (a.k.a. donkey tail) wraps around the silvery pink echevaria cultivar and then drapes over the end of the creamer.

Small planters like this can dry out faster than larger deeper pots.  

The succulents don't seem to mind, even a year later.

Happy gardening, thrifting, and freestyling!

NQF: Silverplate soup tureen to succulent display

 Let me start by saying that this is probably my favorite succulents+silver project to date.  

I found this large silverplate vessel at the thrift store for $8.99, so much shiny for so little coin.  Was it  originally a soup tureen? Perhaps a punch bowl?  There was no lid, but there is a maker's mark / hallmark.

eye catching 

If you have any insight into the age or original use of this silverplate specimen, feel free to share.

English Silver Mfg. Corp.

I bought it for the shape, but also the small nice details like the decorated handles and feet.

For a planter that has no drainage holes you can either use an interior container, or be lucky enough to find some free aquarium gravel at le dump. Yes, I took it before I had the planter, but who isn't always thinking about their plants?

So how did I transform this thrift store find into a lovely succulent planter? Read on for the bare bones tutorial.

Step 1 - Assemble your supplies: planter, gravel, potting soil, plants, and straws.

Step 2 -Pour gravel into container, this will allow for drainage.

Step 3 - Don't forget your straws, these will poke down through the gravel to the bottom of the planter. The dirt will go around them. My idea with this is to bring air down to the bottom of the planter, and possibly help with evaporation or ventilation. I don't know if they actually help, but they don't seem to hurt.

breathe easy baby

 Step 4 - Identify plants for transplanting, such as this little beauty who was outgrowing its present home.

Roots coming out the bottom, maybe time for a new home.

Step 5 - Place your straw, add some dirt, add a plant.

Repeat until you have all of your succulents into their new home.

Step 6 - Enjoy! (and water occasionally)

Happy freestyling!

NQF: Silver bowl into succulent planter

Remember the succulents + silver combination?

It hasn't gone away!

In going through my photo archives I rediscovered this arrangement that combined what were possibly free succulents, or at least some free cuttings, with a tarnished silverplate bowl from the thrift store.

big plant and little plants

Here is a photo of the final project in its original planter-hood in Cambridge.

soakin' up some sun

Happy gardening, no matter what size you have to work with, and always happy freestyling!

Not Quite Free - a case of the ooh shineeez!

Succulents + Silver = Sigh.

If you’ve read any of my postings since September 2012, you might have picked up on my expanding love affair with succulent plants. Thinking back I’d have to say it really started with the sad aloe plant that I inherited when I moved into the previous apartment.  Poor poor aloe, it sat neglected in a corner for who knows how long, slowly shrinking back towards the soil in the dim light. Not wanting to witness a plant death in slow motion I took responsibility for it and the little dude perked up after being moved to a sunnier spot and eventually repotted. 

  The apartment garden expanded again with the acquisition of a tiny fuzzy plant from a stand at the Harvard Square farmers market.  It expanded again to include a striped zebra plant I stumbled upon in the humid corner of a greenhouse. 

Zebra plant in summer sun

But the succulent container garden craze really took off in September 2012, after I got some from a friend's wedding centerpiece.  As a result I started looking around the web for tips on how to grow succulents, and that led to creative ways to display them in planters.  Enter the silver.  

I'm not the only one to adore this idea of combining succulents in silver containers, I think I actually cooed when I first saw it. 

via multiple sites on the interwebs

I've seen this same image of succulents in old silver champagne glasses here, here, and here.  Google it, you'll see, it is popular.  So whoever thought of it first, kudos, and thanks for sharing it, and thanks for giving me a reason to prowl the thrift stores looking for cheap silver-plate containers.  Back in September 2012 I went to a yard sale, not very common in Cambridge, but I found some silver cups in dire need of a new direction in life.  This where the not-quite-free part comes in, shhhh, they were $1 each.

I couldn't fit any of my existing succulents into the small mouths of these cups, so I got some other plants from the 'terrarium plants' section of Pemberton Farms.  The teensy plant pots had no labels and the one person working there couldn't tell me what they were. Exciting! Mystery plants.

Even after the move to a new city, the silver cups are still serving as planters, shiny shiny tiny planters.  More on that in another post.

Happy not-quite-freestyling.

NQF - Vintage ice bucket becomes a planter

[author's note: I thought I published this post earlier, but according to Blogger it was still a draft, so if you have seen it before, well, you know how it ends, if not, read on!]]

Say hello to the NQF.

Not Quite Free, a designation I'll use when there is something oh-so-worth-sharing that involved paying money somehow. Surprising perhaps, but it does happen.


I write this from deep within the throes of my succulent obsession.  Lately I find myself perusing the shelves of Central Square thrift stores with an intense eye for anything tarnished and ornately fashioned.  It can't just be silver, it has to be slightly aged.  It has to be ornamented, with some sort of scrolled, molded, or floral decorative motifs to have the right look I'm after to round out my vision for a shelf of succulents in silverplate planters.......

Behold the ice bucket!!

I thought the substantial depth would allow for a thick gravel layer at the bottom for adequate drainage of the plants.  Am I the first to post about re-using an ice bucket in this way? Probably not.  Did I know what I was doing when I decided to take out the old and crumbly lining/insulation that connected the ceramic insert to the silver? Most definitely no.  After my deconstruction I discovered that the white ceramic insert was just sitting on a rough wooden block to keep it from touching the metal.

I added planting materials (gravel, succulent/cactus potting soil) and my plants - a mix of purchases from a local florist and the Scandinavian superstore (who would have thought?).  Check out the results.

I should note that at first I thought this doohickey was a soup tureen.  It was Creative Roommate who said, "oh, it's an ice bucket, my Aunt ----- had one of those when I was growing up."  Nice.

Project costs
Ice bucket from the Goodwill: ~ $8.99
Plants (from 2 different stores):  ~ $15

While the planter and plants were not quite free, the inspiration certainly was.  Check out some the pictures that inspired me (below) or search for 'succulents and silver' to find your own favorites.

via Pinterest

via Garden Therapy featured on Shelterness

via Antiquechase
I'm impressed with the trophy cup on the left, it adds such nice height variation.

This won't be the last post describing succulents planted in silverplate containers, so stay tuned.
Happy not-quite-freestyling!

Freestyle on a silver platter...part 2

After investigating the hallmarks on these free silver platters (described here) I had to step back and see what I was really working with.  Here is what everything looked like at the start.
(I named them to help keep order among my files).

The Round Tray

The Scallop-edge Tray.
Looks like the silver plate has worn through to the underlying copper in a few places.

The Scallop-edge tray has these three little feet, a nice detail.

Scallop-edge tray foot, pre-polish.

The Rope-edge Tray

So what is a freestyler to do to clean these tarnished trays? I don't maintain a collection of antique anything that needs polishing, yet it seems that special silver polish is really the best way to clean silver plated items.
Solution: Creative Roommate convinced her mother to loan us some silver polish, lets all give thanks for established households with these sorts of random supplies on hand.
I found silver polishing to be rather meditative and satisfying in the way that cleaning something really dirty so often is. Also a bit magical, wipe on the pink cream, wash it off and reveal the shine!

After a few cleaning sessions the trays looked much better. Some of the scratches and spots were quite resistant, but I think they went from this side of shabby to solidly respectable.

The Round Tray

 The Scallop-edge Tray

The Rope-edge Tray













Now that these beauties have their shine back, all that remains is to find appropriate settings that can use a bit of glamour. Stay tuned for part 3 of this freestyle odyssey.

Freestyle on a silver platter...part 1

Some weeks ago at le dump I came across something almost guaranteed to be irresistible to me, 3 tarnished silver platters.  But why would these be of interest (besides being free)?

1. Tarnish = real silver in at least some small amount
2. Platters are useful for organizing things
3. They had cool designs, and were all different
4. One of them had a Tiffany hallmark on the back, always worth a second look

I put them in my bag, and clanging down the road we went, back home to the interwebs for research!
Antiques Roadshow has taught me to always look on the bottom for a hallmark or maker's mark, here is what I saw.







As it turns out, they were all silver plate, although Tiffany calls this "silver-soldered" (way to be clever with the re-branding there T&Co).   I would like to thank 'Silver Jim' (of the blog Silver Chatter)  who answered my email inquiry about silver hallmarks even though I was a total stranger and had nothing to buy or sell. The website Online Encyclopedia of Silver Marks was also informative in decoding these marks.

Silver-plate or silver-solder means some less precious base metal has been thinly coated with silver, and sometimes a design has been etched in.  Due to the small amount of real silver involved there is no real monetary value to any of the platters, not even to melt down. Knowing this was a relief, because it meant I could experiment with them and not feel like I was ruining some precious future heirloom.  It was fun investigating these little mysteries while learning a bit about the convoluted history of metalwork firms in the Northeast.

Next posting will have some before & after pictures, stay tuned!