Weekend Junk Finds: vintage hankies, Christmas ornaments, and buttons

Hello, friends! I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. We shared Thanksgiving dinner with some friends, which was wonderful--good food and great company! Then on Sunday, I cooked a turkey and all of the fixins' because to me, part of the fun of Thanksgiving is having yummy leftovers! I'm still washing dishes (love my vintage Pyrex, hate not being able to put it in the dishwasher) so I didn't get a post up for yesterday, but I wanted to share my latest junky finds.

A few weeks ago there was a rare estate sale not far from my home. I live way out on the south east side of town, and it seems like most estate sales are held in the opposite parts of the metro area--the older, more established areas, which makes sense. It's bad enough that I have to usually drag a kid or two with me, and driving 45 minutes to get there in the first place just makes it worse! So when there's a sale on this side of town, I'm there! This one was in an older home and although it was run by a professional estate sale company, the prices were really, really low! I found some fun things to buy and I know if I hadn't been trying to keep a certain 2-year-old from trying to break the antique toy trains, I could have bought more. Here's what I managed to stash in my bag before The Toddler Tornado went on his rampage:

This cool old astronaut pillow is perfect for Porter's vintage space and robot-themed bedroom! I believe it was $2. I also found two unused boxes of skinny red-bordered Dennison labels, a roll of old tickets in the perfect shade of pale aqua blue, and a pint blue glass canning jar, which is destined to become one of these just as soon as I find another zinc lid for it!

I cannot get enough of old felt and sequin Christmas decorations! This is a really fabulous example. What you can't tell from the photo is that it's about 3 feet tall! Rudolph is missing a red gem for his nose, but I can fix that up right quick.

More vintage Christmas: aqua blue Shiny Brites, and a pile of perfectly aged feather tree ornaments. I also found a pile of old velvet ribbons. Vintage velvet ribbons are so much nicer than their new counterparts!

There were quite a few cute vintage hankies at this sale, marked $1 each. I wish now that I had picked up more, but I had limited cash on me and a few items were unpriced so I wasn't sure how much I had to spend, and I played it safe.

Several of them were souvenir hankies. I chose this one because of our recent trip to Washington D.C. I love the bright apple green color!

Isn't this one charming? I love the airplane and the ship! It goes perfectly with my recent nautical obsession.

I've also found a couple of big bags of vintage buttons recently. For me, part of what I'm buying when I purchase the buttons is the total enjoyment of the time I get to spend sorting out the buttons.

After sorting these two bags, I was left with a good pile of mother of pearl and shell buttons, the charming baby card above, and lots of other fun little treasures.

What about you--did you have the chance to get out and find any junk this weekend in between cooking turkey and scouring the Black Friday ads?

Happy Thanksgiving!

George Washington's original "official proclamation," made at the request of Congress, establishing a day of Thanksgiving in the newly formed country:

Ghost of Blog Posts Past: Posh Squash

We're on our way home to Colorado today, so I have one last repost for you featuring a project I still LOVE!


This was originally posted in 2009:

Oh, how I love my Posh Squash!
Last November on our girls' weekend trip to Phoenix, I purchased the wee pink squash on the left. It's teeny and made of the most beautiful rose-colored velvet. I loved it so much that even though it's a pumpkin it has stayed on my desk for the past year, where I could admire it's soft pink sweetness. When I found out that Kim from Olive Juice & Company was selling kits on her blog for her "Posh Squash" you better believe that I hopped over there in a hurry and ordered! I received the kit back before Halloween but just haven't had the time to get them made until now.

The pattern and construction itself is ridiculously simple--in fact, you can probably find instructions for free on the internet by Googling. What makes these so beautiful is the scrumptious velvet in the loveliest fall colors that Kim hand-dyed and included in the kit. I did use a thrifted skirt to make the brown pumpkin, an idea I got from Amy. I'm afraid the kits are all sold out for this year but bookmark Olive Juice & Co, because hopefully Kim will do them again next fall.

In other news, we had an unexpected guest the past few days:

Awwwwww! Isn't that a sweet little furry face? We played foster parents to a little ferret for the past few days. On Tuesday afternoon we discovered him hiding beneath the steps in our garage. We put food & water out but he disappeared that night, only to reappear in our neighbor's arms the next morning--seems he bunked with them on Tuesday night. He was out wandering again yesterday around noon so we let him back in the garage, where he stayed until about 30 minutes ago.

Maren was obsessed with him, as you might imagine. He's really friendly and ferrets don't exactly roam wild around our subdivision, so we knew he was somebody's lost pet. I was all set to make "FOUND" posters this afternoon but the neighbors spotted a "LOST" sign one street over, so they called the ferret's owner and made a joyful reunion. Turns out they are our back-fence neighbors, so little Westley (his mate is Buttercup! CUTE.) probably did a prison break out the dog door and hopped the back fence into our yard. It was a fun little diversion and I have to say that he's pretty darn cute for a weasel!

Weekend Junk Finds

Today I'm still in Phoenix, but I have some new junk goodies to share!

One trip to Goodwill to look for vintage Christmas goodies netted this cool vintage hard plastic lighted Santa.

He's on a Styrofoam base covered with some really pitiful-looking fake greenery and apples. At first I thought I'd just rip him off the base, but now I believe he needs some Shiny Brite and sugar bell magic, don't you think? With my trusty glue gun, I'll have him spruced up in no time!

A great old souvenir plate from the Harold Warp Pioneer Village in Minden, Nebraska (which is apparently still there), and a Lu-Ray butter dish missing its lid. It must have jettisoned by a dealer, because it still had the remnants of an antique store price label. Even lidless, I'm happy to find any Lu-Ray I can get my hands on!

Vintage ornaments in all sizes and shapes, with a mini glass tree topper to round out the collection.

This cute little oak chair was $6.99. Ever since the Great Desk Chair Debacle this summer, I've been on the hunt for a new chair. This one was cheap and in great shape so I grabbed it. I had originally wanted a chair to paint a glossy red, but I think I'm going to leave the oak finish rather than chance messing it up with paint. Again. I do need to recover the seat cushion but that's a 30-minute fix. The hardest part will be deciding which fabric to use!

This find had the ladies at the cash register oohing and aahing! It just so happens to be a close relative of the pink Therm-a-Jug I picked up at the Horseshoe Market earlier this summer.

The lids and spouts are different, but they're both darling! The white one is in very good shape--often I find vintage jugs like these with huge dents in the metal sides. With the addition of this new jug to the pink one and the red plaid one I thrifted a few years back,

it looks like I have a new (unwieldy and space-hogging) collection on my hands!

Did you find any good junk this weekend?

Ghost of Blog Posts Pasts: Thanksgiving Bits and Pieces collage

Originally posted in 2009:

I'm getting all the Thanksgiving decor ready to put away so the Christmas decorating tornado can commence, but wanted to show you this before it disappears into a box for another year. I initially started this collage to put in my etsy shop, but 1) I took too long to make it so couldn't get it listed in time and 2) I fear I might like it too much to let it go!

I've said it before, but these bits & pieces collages are SO much fun to make. I love having a way to use up all the precious little treasures I've collected, and a 3"x3" square is a whole lot less intimidating to fill, even if there are a dozen of them to do. I think this is my 5th bits & pieces collage, and it certainly won't be my last.

Hope you're all enjoying the weekend. I'm going to try to get the house cleaned up today so I can start bringing up the Christmas boxes. I can't wait to get a look at all of my vintage Christmas pretties again!c

Ghost of Blog Posts Past: Autumn Yarn Wreath with Felt roses

Today we are heading south to the Phoenix area, where The Mister will be competing on Sunday in the big Ironman Arizona! While I'm gone, I have a couple of oldies but goodies posts to share with you, in case you missed them the first time around.


This was originally posted in 2010:
2010 seems to be the Year of the Wreath for me. Even though I'll be pulling out the Christmas tree on Friday, I was determined to get this autumn wreath finished so that I could display it for a few days at least.

I first saw this lovely wreath on the blog take heart back before Halloween. I've seen yarn wreaths all over blogland and I was struck by the gold, deep red and ivory color combination of Danielle's wreath. Yellow is not a color I'm normally drawn to but I just loved the warmth of the gold and the contrast with the beautiful russet color, so I decided to throw originality out the window and just copy Danielle completely! I purchased all of the supplies at JoAnn's while I was buying last-minute Halloween costume stuff, but there was one problem: when I got home, the golden yarn I had chosen looked too bright and along with the red, all I could think of was ketchup and mustard!

I meant to exchange the yarn, but my preparations and subsequent trip to London got in the way. I thought maybe I'd just give up and use the wreath form for another project, but last week on a trip to the thrift to check out the Christmas offerings, I found the perfect color of yarn so I decided to go ahead with the project anyway!

I've made a lot of wreaths so far this year, but this one was definitely the quickest and easiest. I followed Danielle's excellent tutorial so I won't retype it here. If I did this project again, I'm not sure I'd use a straw wreath form. I left the plastic wrapper on but it the wreath form itself was so lumpy! In some places the lumps were so bad I had to slit the plastic and remove the piece of straw underneath to get rid of the bumps. I've been using those extruded foam wreath forms all year and they're nice and smooth, so I would have preferred that look but I just wanted to get this one done so I used the straw.

I made my felt roses just like Danielle's and they were also really quick and easy to make. If you're curious about sizing, I used a circle almost the size of a whole sheet of felt to make the largest flowers. I had some green felt in my stash so I added a few leaves as well. I wrapped a piece of crocheted lace around the top to make a hanger and simply slipped the holes in the flowers over my hook to hang it!

This pattern would lend itself to a really beautiful Christmas wreath! What colors would you use?

Pinned it and Made it: Caramel, Pretzel and Chocolate Chip cookies

I woke up this morning dreaming of Pinterest. Do you think that means I spend too much time there? Nah!

This week's Pin is a recipe that originally comes from the blog Your Homebased Mom for Caramel, Pretzel and Chocolate Chip cookies. I found this recipe at the perfect time, because I had just finished packing Maren's school snack of pretzel sticks and noticed that although it was time to buy a new bag, there were still lots of broken bits at the bottom. This recipe was the perfect use for all of those little broken pieces!

I followed Leigh Anne's recipe and used a bag of these handy little Caramel bits.

I had originally purchased them with this cookie recipe in mind, but then I ended up using half the bag in these Mars Bars Rice Krispie treats. They melted a bit, but mostly added a nice chewy component to the finished cookies.

You might notice if you click over to the original recipe source that my cookies spread a bit more than Leigh Anne's did. That's a problem I've been battling in my chocolate chip cookies lately, and I can't figure out the cause! I always use all butter in my cookies, and I'm careful to make sure it's not too soft when I cream it with the sugar. Any ideas what might be causing my cookie spread? I prefer them to be a little thicker.

In all, these cookies were good and I liked the combination of the salty, crunchy pretzels, the chewy caramel, and the sweet milk chocolate chips. The next time you get to the bottom of a bag of pretzels, hang onto them and whip up a batch of these cookies!

To see more Pinned it and Made it posts, click here!

Vintage Christmas wrapping paper Scrap Packs

I've been collecting vintage Christmas wrapping paper for a few years now, and this year I finally did something with all of it!

I've put together several Scrap Packs that I think would be great for vintage-style Christmas crafting, whether it's card-making or scrapbooking or simply making your own cute gift tags.

 There are all kinds of patterns and prints. Jolly Santas, festive bells,

 dancing couples, snowy villages, glowing candles,

beautiful embossed foils, and more. Most of them are in traditional reds, greens, golds and silvers,

but there is one bundle with pinks and aquas

And one with greens and blues. Each Scrap Pack has 20 pieces of paper, ranging in size from 4" x 6" to 20" x 30" depending on the bundle. Some of the pieces are big enough to wrap a small gift, and some are best suited for cutting up and crafting.

In addition to the Scrap Packs, I have some full-size sheets of paper for sale as well. This grouping has really non-traditional colors of black, gold, orange and red.

This one is gold, green, aqua and purple.

I think this one might be my favorite, though--one sheet decorated with a snowy village, and one sheet decorated with darling little leaping deer!

These and more are all available right now in my Etsy shop!

SPARK Giveaway winner and Weekend Junk Finds

First, I forgot to choose the winner for the SPARK 3 Giveaway last week.

True Random Number Generator Min: Max: Result: 3 

Which means the winner is LYNN! Lynn, please email me with your address (you can use the link over on the left) so I can send you some goodies! 


After a long thrifting drought, things finally seem to be picking up around here! The thrift stores have followed the retail stores in putting out their Christmas wares in the days after Halloween, so I've ratcheted up my thrift store visiting hoping to score some of my favorite vintage Christmas goodies! I've already had some small success, which will hopefully set the tone for Christmas goods to come. :)

This doesn't look like much in the photo, but in real life it's a perfectly aged, worn antique ironstone plate. It's small, but it's pretty! This one will be headed to my Etsy shop.

This find was one of those examples of the need to see past the present and find the potential at the thrift store. This old Ball jar has been fitted with a socket kit to turn it into a lamp. When I found it, it was filled with dried beans and topped with an ugly late 80s-era blue lamp shade. I re-donated the lamp shade literally as soon as the cashier rang it into the register--popped that sucker off and walked it right over to the big donation bin, and then dumped out the petrified beans once I got home and was left with this! Just think of all of the fun things I could put into the jar--mother of pearl buttons would be beautiful, and there's always Shara's fabulous lamp filled with vintage Christmas ornaments. What would you put in the lamp?

Vintage Shiny Brites never fail to make me happy! This batch had some pink, some of the pretty ombre variety, and even a pink indent and a green one with stenciled stars. More, please!

And the last find, which was plucked off a to-be-shelved cart. I'm absolutely crazy for the cheery decals on both sides, the red painted rim, and the perfectly crazed glaze. It looks the right size and shape for a flowerpot, but the stamp on the bottom states that it's "Oven-proof Bak-Serv". I can't imagine what you'd bake in such a tiny pot. I certainly won't be using it for cooking!


Did you find anything good this weekend? Have your thrift stores started putting out the Christmas goodies?

SPARK 3: Day two and a giveaway

On the morning of Day two of SPARK 3, we were all moving a bit more slowly than we had the day before!

Our first class was with the very cool Amy Tangerine, a successful fashion designer who has just made the leap into the scrapbook and papercrafting world. She was great! She taught us how to do reverse applique, one of her signature fashion treatments. It was so easy and fun and I loved it! Here's the shirt I made for Maren:

I figured it would be easiest to do a small shirt first. I can't wait to use this technique on more items! I definitely know that I want to make Christmas shirts for both of the kids using reverse applique.

Our second class that morning was stamp carving with April Meeker, who was also one of the SPARK hostesses along with Margie.

I had done some stamp carving a long, LONG time ago but never using lino cutters. I designed a 'thanks' stamp that I can stamp on the bottom of packing slips for my Etsy orders.

No idea why Blogger wants this upside down again. Grr! And hey--there's my felted soap!

I found stamp carving to be really relaxing and I definitely plan to do it more often. I already ordered more supplies!

After another delicious lunch (seriously, I never put a bad thing in my mouth the whole two days), we were treated to a very interesting Blogging panel, and then we attended our final class. This one was taught by Donna Downey, another mixed-media artist

She taught us how to use a very interesting art supply called pan pastels. They're different from stick pastels in that they don't contain any binder, so they are very intensely colored because they're pure pigment. I forgot to take a photo of my finished canvas, perhaps I can add one in later. I'd never even heard of pan pastels before that, so it was fun to try something completely and totally new and out of my comfort zone. I can't say that I see myself ever doing it again, but I really enjoyed it!

That evening we had yet another amazing meal, catered by the same company as last year's final dinner. They even brought back the ENORMOUS rose cupcakes from last year!

I wish there was a regular-sized cuppie in this photo for scale, because these are simply the most enormous cupcakes you've ever laid eye on. They're easily the size of those giant muffins you can buy at Costco, and then there is another 3 1/2" of frosting on the top in the rose and leaves! They are pretty darn spectacular. And because we're women, there was a whole other table absolutely packed with amazing desserts!

After dinner, we were treated to a wonderful, entertaining concert by indie artist Sarah Sample, who in a funny sort of coincidence, was friends with my younger brother in college.

Sarah is a very talented singer-songwriter. Her lyrics are really beautiful and thoughtful, and she can play the heck out of the guitar! I can't wait to download some of her music.

Honestly, I can't think of a single thing I would have changed about SPARK 3! Every detail was perfect, the teachers & classes were inspiring and fun, the decorations beautiful, the food delicious to the eyes and to the taste. I met beautiful, kind, warm, creative women and my cup of creative inspiration was filled to overflowing! Margie has promised that there will be a Spark #4, and as far as I'm concerned--she can take my money now!

One of the messages at the heart of every Spark gathering has been that we must share our *sparks* with those around us, so I have a little bit of Spark to share with you:

If you'd like a chance to win some of the goodies I brought home from SPARK 3, leave a comment on this post telling me something that you do that helps to *spark* your creativity! I'll draw a winner on Thursday morning.

SPARK 3: Day one

Last September, my mom and I had the opportunity to attend Spark No. 2, an amazing creative event in Utah. It was so incredible that it took me three whole posts to chronicle the awesomeness. When registration opened for Spark 3 earlier this year, the decision to attend again was a no-brainer for both of us!

I knew going into Spark 3 that things were going to be a bit different. Two of the original founders had stepped down and another woman stepped up to join Margie Romney-Aslett in putting on Spark 3. I knew that things would have a different feel and quite honestly, I wondered if they'd be able to measure up to Spark No. 2. It's not that I didn't have faith in Margie and April, but more that Spark No. 2 was so completely over-the-top, so awe-inspiring, that it was just a whole lot to live up to.

I shouldn't have been worried. Margie and April gave their hearts and souls for months and months and it was obvious! Just as in Spark No. 2, every little detail was attended to. The decor theme was 'Granny Chic', and warm textures of yarn and lace and fabric and thread were everywhere.

We started off the day by choosing beautiful  handmade nametags, each one different and each one a tiny work of art:

From there we moved into the large hall, which was truly spectacular yet again this year!

Yards and yards of crocheted yarn, trim and lace hung from the ceiling.

Chandeliers made from pattern tissue-covered paper lanterns and plumbers tubing hung throughout the room.

Each table had a centerpiece made from a doily-covered jar, a pedestal made from vintage china and a candlestick, a yarn ball, and a stack of old books with the covers torn off.

At each place setting was an absolutely beautiful journal and memory box from Paper Coterie.

Our first session of the day was a creativity lesson from the fabulous Mindy Gledhill, who had performed at Spark No. 2. She spoke about the stages of creation and sang a few songs, including one from her new Christmas album!

Our first class was taught by Emily Falconbridge, another holdover from Spark No. 2. Last year she taught us to use wool roving to make into felted wool beads. Confession: all of my wool is still sitting in its plastic bag in my closet! I had a hard time with the beads so I never finished them. This year's project was making a felted soap.

You use a bar of soap and wrap it with wool roving. Using hot water and soap and the motion of your hands smooths the wool over the soap and causes it to felt around the bar. You then have essentially a bar of soap and a wash cloth in one! We also got to try needle-felting a design onto the top of the bar of soap, something I enjoyed and would like to try again.

The second class was taught by one of my blog idols, Cathe Holden from Just Something I Made. I'm pretty sure I let out an audible squeal when she revealed a few months ago that she was going to be teaching at Spark 3! In Cathe's class we made these beautiful little wire nest pendants.

After a delicious lunch catered by Dear Lizzie, we hit our third class of the day, which was taught by mixed-media artist Christy Tomlinson.

We didn't know what to expect other than the project would be a collage, which made me a bit nervous. Collage (especially mixed-media) just doesn't come naturally to me and the collage class from Spark No. 2 was not my favorite. However, Christy's class ended up being so much fun and I'm absolutely tickled with the SHE art collage that I made!

It's totally different from anything I've made before, but I love it!

The last class of the day was a Junk Journal altered book class taught by Jennifer Jensen, an artist I've long admired. She has been designing in the scrapbook world for ages, and has always used vintage and antique objects in her art.

Our class materials were wrapped so beautifully! The theme of the book was metamorphosis so all of our supplies had the most beautiful butterflies on them.

That evening we had a delicious dinner catered by Plates and Palates, including a Lemon Tarragon pasta salad that was to die for! I found a similar recipe online from someone who frequents their restaurant and I'm dying to give it a try to see if I can recreate that goodness! We laughed that dinner was such chick food--spinach salad and pasta salad and rolls. :)

After dinner we were able to do several make-and-take projects provided by generous vendors. I made pretty earrings from Making Memories

I don't know why Blogger has decided to load this one upside down

This tissue flower was from 7 Gypsies and the yellow fabric flower from somebody else who I can't remember.

This one is upside down too. No idea.

It was a full, exhausting day but every bit as wonderful, warm, and inspiring as I hoped it would be! Stay tuned for Day 2...