Rest In Peace, Kelly

Our precious friend Kelly, perished in a car accident on Saturday night. She was dear to each of the members of our family. Read more about Kelly here. We are devastated.

Blue Eyes and Pruney Hands

I've just returned from a trip to Florida to see my dad. I brought along my two youngest, James (age 15) and William (age 10.) My sister Leah also came down from Atlanta with her youngest, Stanton (almost 2.)




This is Leah and Stanton.




Here are William and Stanton comparing pruney hands.

Click Here to See My eBay Auction

After cleaning out a file cabinet of craft and sewing patterns I had intended to give these to charity or maybe to the high school textiles department. Then I checked eBay to see if these might sell. The results were mixed, but I thought I would give it a try anyway. I started at .99 reasoning that if I were going to just give it to charity even a dollar would be nice. So, things are humming along. What a nice surprise!

Vintage Pinks

If this past week had a theme it would have been "Vintage Pinks." I had a lot of fun with a pink handkerchief, pink embroidery, pink buttons and laces.



These little Christmas ornament stockings are fun to make and a great way to use up vintage bits. I made some angels too.



The pinks are put away for now and I am working on something completely different. Please stay tuned. Thanks so much for reading my blog.

Shopping in My Own House

Often when antique shopping I would say "Oh, I think I have one of these somewhere..." or "I think my grandma has this..." Kaitlin may have been tired of hearing it because at one point she said, "Mom, we don't need to shop here. We need to go shopping in OUR OWN HOUSE." So that became our theme. Before we went out browsing the antique show or store we would first try to determine what we were looking for and - most importantly - what we already had!

So I am reminded of this now as I open up boxes and bins that have been packed away. I found this tin in a box on the top shelf of my closet:



I had completely forgotten what was inside, but I did feel like it was something "special." So I opened it up and found a handcrafted pine-needle basket filled with sewing-related ephemera!





What fun!

Also - I now have a scanner. I don't know what I was waiting for honestly. We found a Lexmark X5470 combination scanner, printer, fax machine and photo editor for $89.99 at Best Buy. I was able to replace the fax machine AND the printer from my desk with this one machine that does more.

I have quite gotten the hang of the scanner yet. The photo at the top is my first effort. More to come! Don't you love the bluebird buttons?

Precious Treasure

I read a lot of fun blogs and I enjoy seeing photos of the treasures that others find at the thrift shop or the flea market. Well, this has never happened to me. I have been to my share of thrift shops and flea markets and I have never found a treasure. Never.

I have not been antique shopping since January, but yesterday I realized that this was the last week of school for the kids and I had better take advantage of the time.

Since I have been purging I was determined not to purchase anything unless it was REALLY special. Ha - famous last words, right?

Well anyway, there I was checking out the case at my local antique mall when this little box caught my eye... Does it have vintage Christmas cards inside? Hmmmm... could be interesting....



Let's look inside....



GASP!!!!! My heart begins pounding. I check the price tag... you won't believe it.... $24.95. "I'll take it," I nonchalantly say to the salesgirl. Eager to examine the contents I open the box in the car. Let's look inside....



This is on the bottom. I am still learning my new camera so I am going to experiment with different settings to see if I can get a good closeup. Do you want to see the wreath?



There are about thirty of the little ribbon motifs in the box. Also a couple of yards of the trim. They are completely unused. Many still have the little price-stickers on the back. They are all either $.25 or $.35. Adorable!

Here I pulled a couple of them out:



The background looks a little busy, so I will try a solid:



That's a little better... Let me try to get really close...




Aren't they wonderful? Someone please tell me that you understand....

WIP Wednesday

Things I Hate

Inspired by this post, I have decided to try to come up with ten things I hate... Shouldn't be too hard, right?

1. Men's cologne. It gives me a headache.

2. Spaghettios. Again, the smell...

3. Anything "powder fresh."

4. Shopping at Abercrombie and Fitch. The music is too loud, the place reeks of cologne and the dressing rooms are locked. The people "working" there are too busy talking among themselves to actually help a customer. When it is time to check out the line is 20 minutes long because there is only one cashier. Also, the clothes are worn and torn - even though they are new - and they cost a fortune. Huh?!?! Dan used to like to shop there when he was in Middle School. Fortunately he is over it.

5. Stepping in chewing gun.

6. Cigarette smoke.

7. When I am sewing late at night and I run out of something.

Okay, that's it for now. I'll try to think of more.

Birthday Girl T-Shirt

I've been finding a lot of "buried treasure" during my cleaning out adventure. This "Birthday Girl T-Shirt" was in a box on the top shelf of my closet. I used to make these way back when Kaitlin was a little girl. This must have been one I was keeping "in reserve."

I happen to know a precious little neighbor who is turning six on Jume 20th. Perfect timing!

I actually sold this design to a craft magazine. I think it was "Creative Ideas for Living." I remember being very very disappointed. The editor took some creative license and re-made my design. She invented a boys version of the cake which was horrible and on a khaki-colored shirt. I think it had animal crackers on it or something. She also remade the girls shirt. It was completely awful and it had my name listed as the designer.

Well... at least they paid me.

I'll try to get a photo of my friend wearing this!