You don't have to be an artist or painter to be creative. As you put away all of your holiday décor, you'll want to bring a cozy but decidedly non-holiday look back into your rooms. Think of all of the surfaces in your home, from walls to shelves to tabletops, as your canvas.

The best way to bring your artistic flair into your home is to incorporate vintage items. Just as a bride needs "something old, something new..." to be complete, so does your home. Old things have texture, wit, and history, all of which bring a sense of continuity and warmth into your home. Set aside a weekend to scour antique stores and estate sales for pre-owned treasures you'll transform into creative accents for your home.

Think of the offerings at the next estate sale you visit as raw materials. Viewed in this light, almost anything is fair game, fit for another lifetime when transformed into something new. As Marie Proeller writes in Country Living's new book, "Decorating with Flea Market Finds," (Hearst Communications, New York, New York, $30.00, 2002) "When your eye sees a nice, fat rusted wire clam basket; your brain might tell you it's a hearth-side container for kindling, your heart might say its fate is to be spray painted and filled with magazines or stationed in the mudroom to collect the children's rain boots." The author has even more ideas for the use of this humble object, as will you for the things you find, once you learn to look at old things in a new way.

Here are some examples of items commonly found anywhere you would buy vintage objects, along with ideas for their re-incarnation.

Children's furniture: plain or worn children's size wood furniture can often be had for a song. A vintage baby crib is now deemed dangerous to use for its original purpose since safety standards have changed so much. But if the crib (or bassinette or play pen) is the right size, and made of wood, why not turn it upside down and turn it into a coffee table? Spray paint it if you like, then follow Proeller's lead and top it with a marble slab.

Likewise, plain children's chairs make useful end or bedside tables. And what about hanging one high up on a wall to create an unusual shelf?

On a related note, well-worn children's toys can serve in other capacities, as well. A wooden doll bed, re-painted, stands in for a vanity tray in a country bedroom, a rusty metal toy dump truck is perfect to hold the big geranium in the family room. Spray first with clear acrylic laquer to prevent more rust from the plant's drainage.

Architectural elements: bits and pieces that have survived long after the buildings they once embellished offer some of the best materials for enhancing your home's décor. Try using small terra cotta or ceramic tiles as accents on the visible sides of stir risers. Each one will be "framed" by its step.

Cast iron stars: once used on building exteriors to cap interior rods, these have holes in the center, just the right size for a slender taper. One backed with felt would make an excellent paperweight. These stars, just as they are, also add a great texture and shape to a shelf arrangement of books, collectibles, and framed photos.

A section of picket fence can become a headboard, a square of painted tin ceiling may be just the right size to cover the table in the sunroom. Strips of wide molding can become narrow ledges along a wall, perfect for displaying framed photos or paintings. A wooden corner piece from a doorway cries out for a hook in the center, and a place in the hall to hold your jacket.

Train your eye not to dismiss the sugar bowl because its lid is missing, the 1940's tablecloth because it has a stain, or the tray because the silverplate is worn off . Follow Proeller's advice and "look at objects in a vendor's stall as if they'd just fallen to earth." When you appreciate old things for what they are, instead of what you wish they were, you leave room for your creativity to step in and all of a sudden, your house feels like home.