Shopping notes

I spent some time at our area's largest craft show this weekend; I hadn't attended for a few years and it's nice to know folks are still going strong with their crafting. It was interesting to me that I saw a lot of the "primitive" style of decorative painting, but absolutely nothing that I would put into the romantic/shabby style. I don't know if that means there's room at the show for this type of stuff, or if it's a case of "been there, crafted that, didn't make any money from it."

What eventually caught my eye, though, were the items made by a lady from Bayard, Iowa who repurposes stray pieces of silver flatware. I purchased a dinner knife in the Queen Bess pattern that had been honed down to become a letter opener, but she also had used the decorative ends of some pieces to make key fobs, rings and other small treasures. ("Spoon rings," of course, have been around for decades - but, I'd never seen these other ideas before.) I couldn't get a very good picture, but here's a bad picture of a really pretty letter opener:

On another note, I'm curious if anyone besides me buys garments at the thrift store just because they like the fabric and intend to use it in a craft project?

I recently bought a sweet little lavender skirt with a violet pattern...

and then this week purchased a blouse that's way too small for me because of the red toile pattern of the fabric.

And, although it's not a garment, I also bought a single curtain panel because of the soft, buttery yellow corduroy it was made of.

For some reason I'm envisioning pillows from each of these - it will be a matter of putting them each with the right coordinating fabric.

More soon!

Fab thrifty vintage clock

I'm probably over-reacting just a tad, but I was practically beside myself to find this nifty vintage electric clock at one of my favorite (super-cheap) thrift stores. It is almost all plastic, and I'm thinking it is probably from the late 60's or early 70's because it resembles some of the stuff we had in our home when I was growing up during that period. I am thrilled to report that I paid all of 49 cents for it - and that it works!

I love the scrolly detail of the frame...

I especially love the fancy numerals and hands. Even the sweep-second had has a sweet little finial on the tip.

Besides a quick color change to shabby off-white, I also added my own embellishments: a simple bow made of filmy green wired ribbon, and a little rhinestone brooch from Grandma Verdie's costume jewelry collection.

More soon!

Vintage christening dresses

As a follow-up to Sunday evening's post about the wall-hook rack that I painted, I thought I would just share a few pictures of the sweet little christening dresses that now hang from the hooks.

I will need to look for some photographic evidence to confirm, but I believe that this would have been my own christening gown. (My older sister was born premature and it would have been way too big for her.) I think that the little piece on the right may actually be a slip, worn under the piece on the left, because it is sleeveless.

A few photos showing some of the details...

I purchased these darling little hangers just for these dresses - hand-made embellishments on baby-sized plastic hangers. Very sweet!

More soon!

Bits and pieces

It's been an interesting week so far, and it's only Wednesday! LOL For starters, a stressful situation that's been dogging me for awhile was finally resolved in my favor, and I truly feel like a bit of a weight has been lifted.

Then, I attended a college-prep planning session Tuesday night with my daughter, who is a high school junior. Her school has a really good program that will walk her through every step of the process, from selecting schools to filling out financial aid forms. It is going to be an invaluable process, but it left me a bit weepy, thinking about how quickly the next two years are going to pass by.

And finally, it took me two years and three months but I finally got the last of the items removed from our rented storage unit. These included two antique cabinets with marble tops that were refinished by my grandfather, two rocking chairs that he also refinished (and for which his wife, my Grandma Verdie, re-crafted the caned seats), and a bit of memorabilia from the 1979 Des Moines visit of Pope John Paul II. It's a relief to finally have everything out of there, and it will save us almost $100 a month! I should have done it long ago, but - well, you can imagine how time gets away from us!

Hope you are having a lovely week!

More soon,

Decorative hook rack

I don't pretend for a minute that this is expert floral painting, but I like the way this turned out. I wanted to make a decorative hook rack to display a couple of infant christening dresses. This project cost me all of $1.76 for the two hooks - everything else, including all the paint, was on-hand. (It's not mounted to the wall yet - it's just leaning on my cabinet knobs to have its picture taken! LOL)

I started with a 1x3 and cut it to 18 inches in length, then sanded the surface and edges just a little. I was going to make it distressed white, but I didn't have enough white paint left. So, instead I sprayed the whole piece on all sides with a soft green.

I then used my acrylic paints to do the floral bits - I do NOT have the "composition gene" when it comes to this, so I just plopped them down wherever they seemed to be needed.

When the decorative paint was dry, I brushed the whole front with a layer of clear-drying matte Mod Podge (didn't have any spray sealer on hand), then screwed in the two hooks.

There are a few flaws/imperfections in the construction and materials as well as the paint job, but, I'm not complaining. Overall I really like it!

Now to get it mounted to the wall... I probably should have thought about that BEFORE screwing in the hooks! LOL *sigh* Just another day in paradise!

More soon!

Update 2013: I am linking this post to Nancy's "Oldies but Goodies" link party at her lovely blog, Do Small Things With Love. 

God's gift

We've got two fruit trees in our front yard, one apple and one pear (and a second apple tree in the sideyard); this year, we are having a bumper crop, though the pears are not yet ripe. This morning I saw two young deer enjoying what had fallen to the ground. (This is a tad remarkable considering that we live in the city.) I had been thinking about trying to make some apple butter, so I decided I'd better get out there and pick some fruit before it was too late.

As I spent time under the trees, it occurred to me that they really are quite a gift, and as I collected a tub full of apples I thought about the many benefits of the trees and their fruit. In the Spring, they bloom profusely and are quite simply stunning. I wish I had thought to snap a photo at that time! They also provide a home - this nest had robins in it earlier in the year.

Under their canopy, they offer shade and opportunities to quietly observe. They're also quite the gathering place, for sunning or feeding.

As the fruit matures, some of it falls to the ground before it's ripe. The deer aren't the only ones who enjoy it - it quickly begins to ferment and the bees and wasps cannot resist it. Since part of the pear tree hangs over the driveway, we have to quite literally shovel the smashed (run over) fruit back into the yard so we can get in and out of our cars without disturbing our stinger-bearing friends.

Finally it's time for we humans to enjoy the bounty. I'd been leery of using the fruit since we hadn't sprayed it with anything all year - most of the apples have dark spots covering them. I quickly learned, however, that this is a surface fungus. I washed and rubbed a few of them clean, and took a bite - they are wonderfully tart and a little sweet. I'm not certain, but I think they are Honeycrisp.

And speaking of 'crisp,' that's just what I made tonight, from apples picked fresh from the yard. Funny how the day led me to some really good apple crisp (recipe below) - and plenty of apples left over to make butter!

Easy Apple Crisp:

1 cup brown sugar
1 cup rolled or quick oats
1 cup flour
1/2 cup butter, melted
3 cups of apples, peeled, cored and chopped
1/2 cup white sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly grease 8 inch square baking pan. In a large bowl, combine brown sugar, oats, flour and butter.. Mix until crumbly. Place half of the crumb mixture in the pan and spread evenly around the bottom. Spread the apples evenly over the crumb mixture. Sprinkle apples with sugar and cinnamon, then top with remaining crumb mixture. Bake in the pre-heated oven about 45 minutes or til golden brown.

More soon!

Speedset: my covert table-setting operation

Let me start out by stating that my husband doesn't care what kind of dishes we have. If it were left up to him, since we have three people in our family we would have three dinner plates, three forks, three spoons, etc. (Nevermind that he has 14 sets of sockets and wrenches out in his garage - when it comes to dishes, he doesn't get it.)

So for me to spend any time fussing with setting the table would surely be considered by him to be... well, he might not come out and call it a "waste of time," but that's only because he's learned a thing or two in 19 years of marriage. I can guarantee you, he wouldn't even begin to understand my desire to participate in Tablescape Thursday over at Susan's wonderful blog, "Between Naps on the Porch." (Although, perhaps if there were a "Metric Wrench Wednesday" he would spend some time arranging his box-ends attractively on a fender or something...)

But, I out-foxed him again... I waited til the day of his doctors' appointment, and I spent my "alone time" not reading, not napping, not soaking in a bubble bath, but setting the table. Ha - take that, Mr. Three-Forks!

Anyway, because I only had about an hour to clear the table of its day-to-day crap, set it nicely, and then tear it all down again and re-set it to its original disheveled state, I'm calling my first-ever Tablescape Thursday submission "Speedset." It doesn't really have a theme (except perhaps for the soft rose and sage "botanical" colors), and it doesn't have a lot of accessories. (I WISH I could create something as beautiful as the bee-and-sunflower theme table at Stone Gable - I'm afraid hubby would have to go on a week-long vacation for me to have time to create something as lovingly detailed as that!) But it did give me the chance to see how a few of my mish-mash pieces would look together if I did decide to get fancy. (And by "get fancy" I mean "use a tablecloth.")

I'm so delighted to take you on a tour around the table!

Each place setting includes a dinner plate, pasta bowl, dessert plate and bread plate. More on those in a moment. First, though, I'm loathe to admit that I am woefully lacking in the cloth napkin department (horrors!). I thought about using paper, but then remembered these monogrammed vintage pieces I'd received from my great-aunt Hazel many years ago. I don't think they are napkins... they might be tea towels, or even very sturdy hankies. I have no idea whose initials are on them... oh, and I only have two: Peach...

...and blue.

So, since there are three of us, I used one of "Auntie Hazel's" own monogrammed hankies for the third place setting. Not really up to the task of an actual napkin, but okay as a stand-in for the photo shoot.

Here's a close-up of the peach napkin and its monogram, along with my Goodwill-find napkin rings (painted ivory by yours truly).

Remove the napkin and we have a pretty white pasta bowl - another Goodwill find, this one unmarked but with a very pretty scrolled edge.

Below that, a truly fab Ebay score: Homer Laughlin Glenwood dinner plates, which I had to have after seeing Susan's "100th Tablescape Thursday" post a few weeks ago. (Lord forgive my covetousness - these are even more beautiful in person!)

To your left are the bread and dessert plates. The bread plates complement the Glenwood, are another Goodwill find, but alas are unmarked.

The dessert plates are simple and lovely: bright white, with a gold rim. I found them at Pier 1 about 15 years ago.

To your right sits the drinkware. Each place has an Early American Pattern Glass (EAPG) goblet from my paternal grandmother Helen's collection, and a vintage tumbler from my maternal grandmother Verdie. My photo of the tumbler didn't show the pattern very well, so I photographed it against a less busy background.

Flatware is a set of high-quality stainless I received from Auntie Hazel - these are Oneida Community Stainless in the "Chandelier" pattern. I love them and use them daily. (Also photographed against a plain background to show the pattern.)

Serving pieces include two soft green plates from Goodwill, marked "Crown Devon, Fielding's, Florentine Green, Staffordshire England."

And a Haeger pottery bowl, again from Grandma Helen.

For a centerpiece, I used my frosted pink Diamond Point vase (Indiana Glass - Ebay) filled with muted-tone silk florals from Goodwill, flanked by my Goodwill purple glass candlesticks that have been added to the Lavender Shelf.

Here's a more-visible shot of the candlesticks...

... and another look at the finished "speedset" table!

I hope to do more tablescaping soon, and I hope I won't have to be covert about it in the future - I've started using placemats at dinner time, and so far no one seems to notice mind. I should be able to sneak in some fine china and my lace tablecloth real soon!

Cheers!



PS - It should go without saying that I'm linking this post to Tablescape Thursday. Be sure to visit there for literally hundreds of beautiful table-setting ideas!