Gathering Dust

I Bet You Didn't Have Any of These at Your Family Reunion

 
Besides a family that loves to get together, plenty of food, a talent show, a beautiful lake setting and babies to hold, what can really add fun to a family reunion?

*A four person water ballon launcher.

 
*A "potato gun"- made by my nephew when he was in junior high.  PVC pipe, hairspray, a Bic lighter and a 10 lb bag of potatoes.  The goal- see if you can shoot a potato across the lake.  Don't try this yourself- I'm not even sure that it is legal, but it was fun.

By the way, the nephew that made the gun is now an aerospace engineer. Maybe it is ok to let some of your kids play with fire.

 
*An eight year old nephew willing to retrieve potatoes that didn't disintegrate or make it into the lake.  BONUS:  Even though he's from Minnesota, he's wearing the KU Jayhawk t-shirt he got from his aunt and uncle in Kansas.

 
And if you came to my blog looking for crafts- check this out- Rapunzel hair knitted and decorated by a very clever Granny.   I want to make one for myself.

Happy Birthday Mom

 
This morning, Button and I got up early and before we put on our make-up, we took a picture to email my Mom a card for her birthday.

(Picnik has great tools for digitally applying make-up, and even smoothing out wrinkles- but Button is completely un-retouched)

Happy Birthday Mom!  We love you!

 

Things That Made Me Smile This Morning

My niece, Melissa with her new baby, Molly Ann born on Aug 5.

Molly Ann's big sister, Grace (3 1/2 years old) is SO PROUD to be a big sister.

Button- all 4 lbs of him- using his sister Maddie- 70 lbs as a giant fur covered pillow.

  

To Have and To Hold Wedding Blog Party

 
  
Stephanie of Angelic Accents is hosting her first ever blog party- To Have and to Hold- Wedding Blog party.  Tomorrow is also my parents 50th wedding anniversary, so I also wanted to wish them the happiest of anniversaries.  I'm sorry we won't all be together for their anninversary, but we do have a family celebration planned for later in the summer.

My Mom and Dad met when he was the Dean in charge of housing at the college where my Mom was the new young Business Ed teacher.  She inquired of him about housing, and they ended up getting married.  

...I think some other stuff like dates and meeting each other's families probably happened in between.

Except for my Mom taking a few years of to have my brother and me, both my Mom and Dad taught at the college until they retired.

 
I love vintage wedding stuff- but as I was looking around my house for some, I realized that I've already shown my "best" stuff- and I've sold most of it. 

My all time favorite wedding piece is this gorgeous dress that I bought last fall.

I sold it at the last Miss Frenchie's sale to a woman who owns a wedding venue- a chapel and hall that she rents for weddings.  She was going to put it on display at her facility. I thought that was a perfect new home for it- a place where it could be enjoyed by new brides.

This is another vintage favorite that's gone- they are compostion dolls, and his tuxedo is made of crepe paper.

One piece of wedding memorbilia that I still have on hand are these enclosure cards.

 
These were the cards that came with gifts from a 1916 wedding.  Back in the day when everyone had their own engraved calling cards, they wrote their wishes for the happy couple on their card and slipped it into the gift box.

This enterprising bride used some kind of numbering system as she opened the gifts, and wrote what the gift was on the card.

Since it's Friday morning, I'm headed off to check out a few estate sales.  Before you go out, make sure you check out more wedding posts by visiting Stephanie.

Remembering Grandma

 
I've been blog absent for longer than usual- we've had a busy week including a trip to Minnesota for a funeral.  My Grandma passed away last Sunday at the age of 102.

I'm sure part of her longevity can be attributed to her sense of humor, her positive attitude and her ability to make friends where ever she went.  Grandma was popular with both the staff and other residents at her nursing home.

 I think another part of her long life was due to being a hearty Norwegian who drank lots of hot black coffee.  She loved playing Scrabble and was still winning until well past her hundredth year.

Grandma was a great crafter, sewer, knitter & cook.  She made hundreds of dolls like the ones in the top pictures- and then moved on to making Raggedy Ann & Andy dolls.  Grandma gave me my first set of knitting needles when I was eight years old.  Unfortunately, I didn't really learn to knit anything without holes in it until I was 42.

I think everyone that knew Grandma was a little happier for having met her, and she will be missed.

   

Happy Birthday Mom and Introducing Miss Frenchie

   

Today is my Mom's birthday, and I have no gift for her. It's hard to know what to get for the lady that lives in the house of quilts and cookies. Usually I get her a present of some fat quarters of cloth for quilting and some sewing gadget.  After visiting her last weekend and seeing her craft room, I thought that would be like bring coal to Newcastle. 

 

So, I started digging through my postcards to find a nice "Happy Birthday Mom"- or "Happy Birthday Mother"- but no luck. But I did find some others that suit her.

The roses on the first postcard are because my Dad never buys her flowers- he doesn't have to, he has a beautiful rose garden and all summer my Mom will have arrangements of roses scattered through the house.

The second postcard is to remind her of her summer lake cottage.

   

And this is to remind her of her sailboat- which only has ONE mast and ONE sail.

 

And here we are when I was just a little girl and we lived in the old country.  I sure wish I had saved those boots.

 

The bluebirds are just because I found the card as I was rummaging and I thought it was pretty.

 

And this is just because my parents live about 20 miles from Fergus Falls Minnesota, and often go there to shop or on the way to the lake- and my Mom will think it's funny.

So Happy Birthday Mom!  I'm glad you're my mom!

 

Mark your calendars  for Miss Frenchie's Holiday Brocante to be held on Dec 5 & 6 in the barn at the Alexander Majors House.  I'll be there with all my junk wonderful merchandise.

For more information, you can follow along at Miss Frenchie's Blog.

  

You can click on any of the images in this post to enlarge them and then right click and pick "Save As" to save them to your computer...just in case you want to give your Mother a similiar gift!

 

Buddy Love

 

Meet Buddy- our new puppy dog.  We got Buddy through a "private adoption".  His first Mom & Dad loved Buddy a lot, but worked long hours so Buddy was alone a lot.  Since I hardly work at all- mostly I just sit on the computer reading blogs and playing games (kidding!), I was happy to have a Buddy for company.  We've known we wanted a second dog ever since we lost Milo in Jun.

Our neighbor across the street was applying for a job at Buddy's vet's office and saw a sign that said "Are you my new family?".   Buddy reminded her of Milo, so she told us about him.  We had just started looking for a dog on Petfinder.com, so the timing seemed right.

As a bonus- I found out my neighbor likes antiques and junking, so we went to estate sales together on Sat!

We met Buddy, and instantly could see what a sweetheart he was.  He did a little home visit to make sure he got along with Maddie, our 11 year old Golden Retriever.

 

(Maddie in the yard- pre sod)

Maddie & Buddy get along just great, but Maddie can only keep up with the busy Buddy about 10 % of the time.  But I think she likes just knowing he's there, because she has a silly dog grin on her face, and her tail wags whenever she sees him.  I haven't been able to get a picture of them together- they move too fast!

 

Buddy has made himself right at home, and we're in "Buddy Love".

 

A Weekend in the Woods

We spent last weekend at my husband's annual family get together.  We were way up north in Minnesota, at Itasca State Park- where the Mississippi River starts.  There were 25 of us, ranging in ages from 6 mos to 87 years old.  With such a big group, we rented an entire log cabin  hostel.

The cabin was surrounded by trees and at the end of the road, so we didn't have to worry about cars & kids & traffic. There was a little shortcut through the woods that lead right to the bike, canoe & kayak rental and beach.

 

The sand was perfect for castles and moats.  And if you couldn't catch a fish, you could always make one out of sand.

  

We rented tandem bikes and caravanned to the headwaters of the Mississippi.  The picture at the very top is the actual start of the Mississippi- just in case you were wondering what the Mississippi looked like when it was a baby.

  

 

The whole weekend was kind of like summer camp, and it wouldn't be camp without arts & crafts.  The girls all got together and made paper doll dresses.

 

And I did get to a little antiquing along the way.  This little pink & green dress is made of CREPE PAPER.  I'd never seen anything like it.  It looks like it jumped right off the pages of a Peter Pan book.

 

It has the sweetest details- the crepe paper petals are rolled on the edges.

 

And I found some poor baby dolls to rescue.   I know some people don't "get it"- why  I think these are so wonderful, but I know that most everyone that reads this is going to understand why they had to come home with me.

The Long Winter Post

I haven't posted lately because I haven't really had anything noteworthy to report- and honestly, I still don't but I'm going to forge ahead. 

Of course I read the Laura Ingalls Wilder books when I was young, but every so often I like to go back and reread them.  Its good to remember that there once was a time when getting a penny and new tin cup to drink from was a good Christmas.

I bought this at a rummage sale where they really didn't have much to sell.  Have you ever gone to a sale where you really feel bad for the people that are having the sale- you can tell they don't have much, and they need money?  Well, that's how I ended up with this book.  I had to buy something...but "A Long Winter" may describe this post.

Case in point- we're going to start with a tour of my refrigerator.  The outside- no one should see the inside unless they are VERY hungry or thirsty.  I made these crowned lady magnetic note holders- perfect for the fridge, file cabinet or anywhere you need a touch of royalty.

Moving further along the fridge, this is my magnet gallery of fine art.  When I visit a museum, I can't resist the gift shop, but I don't always NEED anything.  I decided to start buy a magnet of a piece of art from the museum.  Looks like I need to visit one more museum to fill in the bottom right hand corner.

This is my favorite fridge magnet- I got it from Minnesota Karla. Good advice, huh?

I have two best friends named Karla- Minnesota Karla who've I known since 5th grade, and Kansas Karla who I've known since we had booths across the from each other at the antique mall.

That ends the tour of my refrigerator.  Let's move onto something more exciting...Milo's new haircut.

Once a year, I have to trim Milo's ears because the hair on them gets so long that it gets in his water bowl while he's drinking.  We call them biker chick ears.

This is his new do- doesn't it make him look younger and take years off his face?

And now, on to some things I've made.

I knit this little hat from velvet yarn...

...for this little girl- my great niece, Clara.

Apparently, Clara came to Easter dinner with her diaper duct taped- her Mom isn't sure which prankster relation did that.  Her Uncle Jim called it Duckling tape.

Speaking of babies, I had so much fun decorating a baby slip as a project for The Vintage Workshop that I made another one.

This one is for sale in my Etsy Shop.

Other things I'll be adding...cups full of buttons.

This cool opera program with great illustrations in pink & brown.

Vintage baby announcements.

This Paris tag I made with a daisy and Paris tag from Heather.

Don't forget about the  Bling Your Birdhouse party THIS Thur- Mar 27.  We'd love to see how you decorate birdhouses, decorate WITH birdhouses or use birdhouses in your yard and garden.

A Cute Little Visitor

Instead of the usual  buying and selling junk and crafting,  I've been entertaining this weekend.  My sister-in-law, niece and and great-niece came to visit.  Grace is 13 mos old and a lot of fun!  She is fascinated with Maddie and Milo and they are pretty tolerant of an occasional poked nose or pulled tail- and Gracie is very gentle. 

I'm probably not the world's best hostess.  The only cooking I've done is making chicken salad for lunch.  Our usual pattern for entertaining is taking guests out for barbeque (this is Kansas City, after all).  We ordered Greek take out last night and watched it in front of the Big 12 tournament on TV.  Tonight DH made chili and SIL made Blue Cheese Bread- so good.

We are pretty laid back when it comes to company.

Grace is incredibly well dressed- these are her hunting camouflage pajamas.  Her dad is a big hunter, but to the best of my knowledge, he does NOT take Grace hunting in her pajamas.

Don't you love camo and lace?

I'm trying to be Grace's favorite great aunt- I'm letting her play with my collection of vintage party noise makers. 

I probably won't win any awards from Grace's mother.

I was playing with some of the crafts I made last week and ended up rearranging  a few things and I liked the way this fabric rose looked with this old baby shoe.

I do have a couple of vintage finds I have to share- these darling storybook paper doll cards and this cute Guardian Angel light switch cover.

   

The storybook paper dolls include Little Miss Muffet, Little Bo Beep, Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, and more.

And when you open them, the story is inside.