Tag Archives: antique

How to Decorate Your Lawn with Pink Flamingos

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Plastic pink flamingos are very tacky but also very cool. It is one of those lawn ornaments that are very much associated with American iconic kitsch. The pink flamingo has been around about sixty years and ever since they were invented there has always been debate about whether or not they were eyesores.

Pink Flamingos were originally made by a company called Union Products that started making them in 1946. It was part of their “Plastics for the Lawn” series. The company did not just make flamingos. They also made ducks, dogs and frogs. These first flamingos were not three dimensional. They were more like “signs” with flamingos painted on them.

In 1956 a company in Massachusetts called the Leominster hired a designer named Don Featherstone who figured out how to make the figurines into three dimensional free standing sculptures. The flamingos were based on figures found in photos in National Geographic. The original legs were wooden but when they proved to be too expensive they were replaced by metal legs. They were very popular ornaments in the 1950s and today, whether fixed in your garden or on your wall as an object of art, they are considered to be part of retro-chic.

One of characteristics of the pink flamingo is that it is hot pink. Lurid colors were popular in the fifties but there was a reaction against plastics and false things in the sixties that made the pink flamingos less popular.

Decorating with them me simple and nowadays they are easy to get through mail order and in stores. If you want an authentic Flamingo buy one that has Don Featherstone’s signature impressed under the tail. A true pink flamingo has a yellow beak with a black tip and authentic flamingo sets are sold in twos. The pair should include one with a long neck and one with a shorter neck. The legs should be wire. If you are buying a single flamingo or one with an orange beak or wooden leg you are not buying the official antique.

When it comes to Pink Flamingos just two will do. However quite a unique effect can be created by decorating your yard with an entire flock of them. You can also put them on your condo or apartment balcony. Pink flamingos also make a humorous statement at the office.

Some people like to dress up their pink Flamingos for the season. They dress them up in Santa Suits and also give them Reindeer Horns.

How to Decorate With Lampe Berger Dreams of Exploration Scents

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Decorating to suit a beautiful scent is fast becoming a fad and if you are short on ideas then just burn one of the designer scents that are associated with Lampe Berger to become inspired. Lampe Berger makes a wonderful series called Dreams of Exploration that really do make one think of certain decors.

The Sweet Pear scent smells exactly baked pears coming out of the oven. It smells like pears, vanilla and cinnamon. This is a very seductive scent that is also a bit maternal. It suits a décor that is rustic, cozy and very domestic. It is also a very eighties type of aroma.

Another gourmand fragrance is called New Orleans. This is a smell that contains many fruit cents, cinnamon and vanilla. It has a rich, lush smell that suits heavy French decors with velvets, brocades, tassels and big old couches.

Crème Caramel is a scent that is also very nineties. It is also supposed to be one of the most seductive scents in the world and it is featured heavily in the Dreams of Exploraiton Scents. This type of smell goes well in a bedroom. It also suits antique and rustic decors as well as Victorian and Laura Ashlee type set.ups. Although it is a very sweet motherly smell it is not so sweet that it cannot be used to perfume the living quarters of a male.

Orange Cinnamon is an oriental scent. It is also sometimes associated with the Caribbean because oranges poked with cloves or cinnamon are part of a magic voodoo protection spell to ward off evil. In this particular scent you get the blend of orange and cinnamon smoothed over with touches of white musk, amber and sandalwood. The scent suits very old homes or homes with a bit of Cuban or Caribbean flair. This scent also goes very well with the deep red woods, golds and blacks that are associated Asian décor as both oranges and cinnamon are very Chinese in flair.

The Gingerbread scent in this line is very complex and a little sexier than the gingerbread smell fro Grandma’s kitchen. The fragrance smells like liquorices, rum orange peel, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, honey and vanilla. Although it smells rustic, this heavy scent would go well in very girly decors that are fifties and forties in style. It also suits rooms that are done up in Goth style too.