Vintage flower pots and garden shelf

I didn't get around to planting a garden this year. After the massive disappointments of the previous few years, I just decided it wasn't worth the effort or the money just so that I can produce yet another Epic Gardening Fail. Some may call me defeatist, I call myself a realist. I've finally realized that my tiny yard just doesn't have a good, easy place to have a garden--and I need it to be easy. I just don't have the patience to deal with keeping anything else alive.

I do have one little spot of green growing things but mostly it's just an excuse to display more of my vintage and thrifted treasures.

I bought this darling little yellow wire flower pot rack last summer from a vintage store that was going out of business. I already had a few pots, but since last year have found enough pots to fill it up. The pots are from various sources. Here's a map to show what they are and where I found them:

I love all of the bright colors! They match well with the welcome mat The Mister picked out a few years ago. I will fully admit that it took me until about two weeks ago to actually buy plants to put in the pots! At least the empty pots still looked cute on my doorstep.

We've had terrible rainstorms over the past week and about two days after I took this photo, we had a thunderstorm so powerful that the rain water actually forced half of the dirt out of the pots! It was accompanied by hail that beat the flowers all to heck, so all that was left was a bunch of stems in half-empty pots. I've refilled the dirt and hopefully the blooms will return!

Like deja vu all over again

Last Thursday morning, I found myself feeling a bit of deja vu.

I dressed Porter and myself, then sent him downstairs to play with Maren while I took five minutes to put on my makeup. I didn't even get to the eyeshadow before Maren yelled up the stairs something about "Porter" and "food coloring".

And that is how I found my almost-two-year-old son following in his sister's footsteps, literally--he was sitting in the same exact spot on the kitchen counter as she was when I discovered her 'finger-painting'. (And I'd like to encourage you to click on the link and watch the short but heart-stopping video of almost-three-year-old Maren. I almost cried watching her and remembering how cute and little she was then. She just lost her first two teeth this weekend and is now officially growing up WAY too fast.)

Judging by the amount of blue food coloring on Porter's toes, I think he attempted to give himself a pedicure.

How on earth did he know where I kept the food coloring? It was on the top shelf of the cabinet (same place as when Maren discovered it) so he had to do some serious climbing. After the incident with Maren, the food coloring boxes lived on top of the refrigerator for about the next two years. Only in the last year did I move them back into the cabinet because honestly, the top of the refrigerator is pretty crowded with all of the other things we're trying to keep out of Porter's destructive (albeit sweet) little hands. But back atop the fridge they go!

The good news is that the blue came out of his cute little outfit and out of the pants I was wearing that day--a miracle, as far as I'm concerned! The bad news is that the next day while Porter was still blue from the food coloring incident, he managed to slather himself with about half a tube of A+D ointment and require another emergency bath, this time involving grease-cutting dish soap. Sometimes I think he's trying to kill me. Maybe I need to watch that video of Maren again and remember that in about four years, I'll be getting all misty-eyed thinking about his almost-two-year-old little self. Even if that little boy is covered in blue food coloring.

Weekend junk finds: vintage Christmas and linens

The Mister had to work this weekend, so I actually hired a babysitter on Saturday morning for four hours just for the pleasure of going somewhere BY MYSELF. Of course, my first order of business was a little junking, and I found a family-run estate sale not too far away. It was really good--great prices and good vintage junk. Here's what I brought home:

A monkeypod wood tray from Hawaii for my upcoming Tiki party, a pair of salt and pepper shakers destined for Etsy, and a piece of off-white Haeger pottery.

A pretty tablecloth & napkin set in bright green and orange, still in original wrappings! Those are headed for Etsy as well.

Embroidered vintage linens (I never fail to be delighted at anthropomorphic veggies!)

Printed vintage linens

And vintage Christmas! Here we have a large Santa candle (not sure he's a Gurley, he may be one of the other brands whose name I can't remember now), a fancy plastic tree-topper, tinsel, a very old jointed naked baby doll, two very old teddy bears, and a pair of papier mache containers (the little girl next to Santa and the snowman) that I think are much older than the rest of the stuff.

I bought a huge box of old outdoor lights just to glean those fabulous swirly bulbs. I tossed all the cords--vintage electric stuff makes me nervous! The front reindeer on the silver Santa in back needs a bit of glue and it will be good as new. Lots of teeny-tiny Shiny Brites and a handful of vintage ornaments rounded out the lot.

I did drive across town to hit another estate sale but it was a bust, especially since I'd just found all of this great stuff for cheap! Today, I'm linking up with Selena's Thrift Share Monday. Go see what other good junk bloggers found this weekend!

Ships Ahoy, the royal version, and Pinterest

Just a few weeks ago I posted about the Broadway musical "Anything Goes" AKA the perfect storm combination of nautical fashions, tap dancing and Sutton Foster. So you can imagine what I thought when I found this photo of the-princess-formerly-known-as Kate Middleton:

when she was visiting Prince Edward Island on Monday. Here again we have a perfect storm of things I'm obsessed with: nautical fashions, Kate Middleton, and Anne of Green Gables! To borrow an Andie-ism, I die.

I don't mind telling you that I have a girl crush on Miss Kate/Catherine/Duchess of Cambridge/whatever you want to call her. Although I've never been a big fan of navy (despite my long-standing love of sailor dresses), seeing her wear it so well is giving me a new appreciation. Inspired by Kate's fabulous Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen sailor dress, I've created a new Pinterest board specifically so I can collect nautical inspiration.

In case you haven't yet heard of the awesome and addicting Pinterest, it's a site that allows you to create virtual pinboards via a little button that you drag to your browser's taskbar. Anytime you see an image you'd like to Pin, you just click on that button and the application lets you choose a board in which to categorize it. You can designate as many boards as you like, you can follow other pinners, and you can repin photos from their boards to your own. Jennifer wrote a really good basic tutorial on how to use Pinterest on her blog.

To sign up, you do need an invite or you can get on the waiting list. If any of you would like to join, leave me a comment with your email address and I'll send you an invitation! I have 4 invites to give out. And if you're already a Pinterest user, leave me a link to your boards or your screen name so I can follow you!

Fourth of July--pretties

Just a few more photos from the Fourth of July:

We made our first homemade ice cream of the summer: vanilla with chunks of strawberries and blueberries. Delicious, and festive!

I finally got to use the beautiful red, white and blue plates I thrifted last fall.

Maren and I made these cute little treat bags to give to her friends. The red is Twizzlers Bites, the white is yogurt-covered raisins and the blue are Sour Patch blueberries.

Silly me, I put them 'somewhere safe' to keep them out of Porter's reach and then forgot to take them to the pancake breakfast! Now we'll have to find another way to disperse them all.

I didn't go crazy with my Fourth of July decor this year. I'm still quite limited as to what I can put out because most of my display space is within Porter's (destructive) reach. I put a few of my favorite bits of patriotic decor on my new aqua dresser (still need to blog about that!)

and made a little display on my vintage chalkboard.

I put out some Fourth of July-themed family photos in my living room. I found a few more photos that would have been cute, but didn't have any more frames to fit them so I couldn't display them. Another item to keep an eye out for while thrifting!

Normally I keep my patriotic decor up all through July, but I think this year I'm a little bored with it so it will be put away this weekend. I'm feeling beach-y instead...

Fourth of July activities

I know I'm days late, but I just couldn't get myself motivated to download my photos and blog anything, so better late than never!

We started out our Independence Day festivities with a pancake breakfast at the church, which included

a flag-raising by the Boy Scouts,

the children singing a patriotic song (Maren's right in the center in a white shirt),

and a first for us, a bike parade! We only found out about the bike parade the day before, but thanks to the internet and my crafting stash, we put together some pretty darn cute entries! Maren's scooter sported Patriotic Pom-Poms made from Target bags on her handlebars, a cool calligraphy medallion, and red tissue festooning from Shara.

Porter's wagon was decorated with Bethany Lowe tissue garland, two more calligraphy medallions, a pair of flags, and the ingenious hand-painted sheet music bunting that I received a few years ago in a swap with Cheryl.

I LOVE how the wagon turned out! This is the back. I printed out the Martha Stewart medallions and glued them to cardboard cake boards that I had spray-painted silver, then tied them to the wagon (and Maren's scooter) with red, white and blue striped ribbon.

That afternoon we hit the pool, then came home to meet some friends who were stopping in for the night on their cross-country move. We packed up the wagon and a picnic and headed to a nearby town to enjoy their festivities.

I had fun packing some of our picnic goodies in one of my vintage metal picnic baskets. It was a good excuse to bring out some vintage printed tea towels, thrift store silverplate, my red-and-white polka dot post-Valentine's clearance plates, and my estate sale vintage patriotic paper napkins.

It all looked so cute in the decorated wagon, and it was handy too--it would have been heavy to schlep all that stuff from the parking lot!

The weather was just perfect and we enjoyed a fun evening eating our picnic, visiting with our friends and enjoying some of the best fireworks I've ever seen. There were actually fireworks that spelled out U S A--how do they do that? Marvelous.

It was a wonderful celebration on one of my top 3 holidays!

Firecracker Cupcakes

Yesterday Maren and I wanted to make some fun, festive cupcakes for The Mister to take to work, so I was excited to see these fun Firecracker Cupcakes from Inside BruCrew Life via Tatertots and Jello. I just happened to have a package of Twizzlers Pull n' Peel licorice in the pantry that we could add to the top.

We had fun making the tri-colored cakes and decorating them with all of my red, white and blue sprinkles. I think The Mister's co-workers will like them!

Gram's estate auction

It is ironic that I should even be writing this post the day after I posted junk I brought home from the thrift store...I mentioned a few weeks ago that I went to Southern Colorado to help with my Gram's estate auction, and I wanted to write a bit about it.

My Gram loved pretty things, and she filled her home with them--lots and lots and LOTS of pretty things. We joked privately long ago that when it was time to clean out her house, we'd have some seriously stuffed closets to contend with, and we were right, although I think the extent of the stuffing of the closets shocked us all.

Originally, the plan was to hold a big garage sale. However, after eight 8" tables and the space under them were completely filled with just the Christmas stuff, they realized that a month of garage sales wouldn't be enough to clear everything out and contacted an auctioneer. The auctioneer recommended an estate auction where everything was to be sold in box lots, I imagine due to the sheer amount of items to be sold. My aunts and uncles and dad spent several weekends organizing and placing items in box lots, so when I arrived the day before the sale, there was not much work left to do.

I did have the opportunity to go through the boxes and choose some things to keep for myself, which admittedly was a big part of the reason I went down for the auction. On a previous trip down there to work, my Dad did try to choose a few items he thought I'd like to have, but the thought of all of my Gram's pretties being sold to strangers before I had the chance to choose for myself made me crazy! I'm so glad I was able to do it, because I rescued a lot of things that were special to me, that will remind me of my dear Gram.

The auction was held on a Monday morning. I thought that was unusual, but it didn't deter the shoppers. We had to have all of the boxes out on the lawn early because the sale started at 10:00 a.m. and the auctioneer said there would be shoppers there early to check out the boxes. Here's what the front yard looked like

And here's the back yard.

The auction started at 10:00 a.m. and the auctioneer sold off box by box. This was my first time ever at an auction, estate or otherwise, so it was interesting to see, but I'll admit that I just couldn't watch too much. It was disheartening to watch the things my Gram collected, the things she loved and used to decorate her home, go for pennies on the dollar. Even though we, the family, had our chance to take what we wanted and so what was left was obviously not precious enough for us to want to keep, it was still a bit hard.

There were a few sweet moments for me, however. One was my grandpa's birdhouses. There were dozens of handmade birdhouses in his garage, all made from scraps of wood.

Some of his birdhouses went for $12.50 each, which doesn't sound like much unless you consider that they were created from materials from the junk pile. I think he would have been pleased to know that people were willing to spend money on something his hands made--I know I was.

Another moment came when I was watching some of the boxes being auctioned, because I was waiting to see how much some particular items went for. Some women behind me were visiting, and one asked the other what she was shopping for. The woman (who I don't know and who didn't know who I was) said, "Oh, I just wanted to have something of Dorothy's." Which of course, made me cry! How precious to know that she regarded my Gram so.

The emotional moments were tempered by moments where I really just wanted to come home and clean out my closets! There was just SO.MUCH.STUFF. I'm talking boxes and boxes of rolls of ribbon, garbage bags full of unopened decorative paper plates and napkins, enough gift wrap to start my own  business. Really, it was excessive.

One thing my Gram was known for was that she wrote notes and cards to everyone, and she had enough stationery that she could have written to everyone in town for a month! There were boxes and boxes of cards and notes, stuff from Hallmark and Current that was 30 years old at least. And what makes me a little bit sick is that even though she had all of that, the notes & cards I've received from her over the past few years have all come from Hallmark at $2-$4 each. They were on a very limited income (my 87-year-old Gram actually worked up until quite recently), yet she was spending money on those cards rather than using up the impressive stash she already had.

It was definitely an exercise in the adage, 'you can't take it with you.' It did make me stop and think, just how MUCH do I really need? Because friends, I too like my STUFF. But I need to be wiser about how I use my resources--time, money, space in my closets.

From a buyer's standpoint, I learned that auctions are the way to go if you want a whole lot of stuff but not spend much! I've read about the goodies Barbara and Colleen have scored at auctions, but this was the first time I'd ever seen it for my own eyes. From a resale standpoint, that is the way to go. I have no doubt that if I visited any of the antique shops in my Gram's town, I'd find items from her estate in booths there. And why not? The price was right for certain. I'd love to attend an estate auction as a buyer but the only place I can find around here that does auctions holds them on Sundays, and I don't shop on Sundays so that's out for me.

The whole experience was bittersweet. It was sweet to be in my Gram's house one last time, to look at the things she loved that so expressed her taste and personality. It was sad to know that my Gram and Papa's house is really gone, at least the way we remember it. My uncle did have an outlook I found comforting--he said that he saw the auction as a way to spread my Gram & Papa throughout the community, for us to share them with others through their belongings. He saw it as a good thing, a joyous thing, not necessarily a sad occasion. I like that point of view! My Gram and Papa were lovely people, and I think their community was better for having them in it.

Weekend junk finds: Jadeite, rhinestones, vintage tablecloths

I didn't get much of a chance to go out junking this weekend because The Mister was busy and honestly, I just wasn't up to hauling the kids in and out of the car at every single garage sale. Maren has turned into quite the little garage sale shopper and she's good company, but Porter is, well...not as good company. ;) So I waited until Saturday afternoon when The Mister was home and set out for the thrift stores instead, as both Goodwill and ARC were having 50% off sales.

I did find a few fun things to bring home. There was a Jadeite mug which I'm 99% sure is a repro, but it will look just great in my collection and for 75¢, I'm not a stickler for authenticity! I also found two pair of earrings for the Box of Happy, and a pair of fun sparkly rhinestone pins for my collection including one that's a peacock with a red aurora borealis body. The goodies are sitting on a first for me--a 25¢ vintage tablecloth! That one was found a church yard sale. It's soaking in OxiClean right now but even if the few spots don't come out, I don't think I mind much for a quarter.

A bit later that day at the ARC store, I found a vintage Wilendur tablecloth in a pattern I'd never seen before. After looking at my tablecloth books, I now know the pattern is called Penn-Dutch and it was produced in a variety of color combinations--the one I found was turquoise, orange, yellow and green. Unfortunately, the condition was pretty bad, and even though it would have only cost $3.00, that felt like an outrageous sum after paying a quarter for a vintage tablecloth an hour before! I left it behind.

I know I've seen  Vintage Textile Soak advertised on blogs and in magazines--have any of you used it? Is it really better than OxiClean or Biz? I've been able to get most stains out with a good soak in OxiClean, but there are a few that are stubborn--I'm looking at the cutest aqua floral cloth right now with some yellowish stains that just won't come out. I'd love any feedback that you have about VTS.

What did you find this weekend?

Weekend junk finds and New stuff in my shop

This weekend's junk finds serve as another reminder that good, old junk can still be found in the suburbs! Sometimes I get so hung up on the old houses=old junk theory that I bypass my local sales, thinking they'll just be full of baby clothes and old VHS tapes (because frequently, they are!).

This jewelry was found at a sale within walking distance of my house! The sale didn't look like much from the street, but when I got up close I found a card table absolutely covered in little bags of jewelry that had belonged to the seller's aunt, a woman who ran a folk dance troupe somehow connected with the UN. I was able to find goodies to replenish my Box of Happy:

Which was running low in a few colors. I'll be keeping the bright red beaded necklace, and I'll have to perform some repair work on the pretty blue moonglow Lucite necklace at the bottom of the photo.

That morning I found another interesting sale not far from my house. When we got there, I thought I heard the sellers mention that everything on the driveway was FREE--and there was a ton of stuff! I picked out a few things--a vintage Christmas corsage, a few tiny pieces of vintage pottery--and approached the seller to pay, only to be told again that it was all FREE. When I asked why, she said that the previous day there had been a terrific thunderstorm while they'd been running the sale. They'd had to run for cover to the garage, leaving all of the merchandise out in the driveway to be rained upon, and the lightening was so severe that they were afraid to go out and get it all. Thus, much of the stuff got wet and they felt like they couldn't charge any money for it.

There were a few boxes of damp books, but most of the stuff displayed on the tables was perfectly fine! There were more things I would like to have taken (a few vintage items, a few useful items) but it honestly made me so uncomfortable to take it without paying that I just couldn't do it! It was weird. (I did take the corsage and the pottery--I think my total for those items would have been about $1 so I didn't feel too bad, and come on--who could leave behind a vintage Christmas corsage?)

I've been working hard to refill my sad, neglected Etsy shop with some fun items--go check it out! Here's a sampling of what you'll find: