Vintage Pretties

Getting Ready For Thanksgiving

I'm prepping the house & kitchen for Thanksgiving this week.  I already had my first turkey dinner yesterday, at a friend's annual Thanksgiving potluck.  It's such a wonderful way to start off the holiday season, at an event full of friends & food.

I went on a mammoth grocery shopping trip today & have officially stocked us up for not only Thanksgiving, but for months to come.  I have so many canned goods that I needed to reorganize my storage area :) Gotta take advantage of the deals while they are happening!

The next step was to put out the table setting.  Out came the real silver, the wedding china & the antique etched glasses.  If not now, when?  I started with the wheat stalk centerpiece & arranged gourds & dried corn on either side.

 

The place settings....

I just love my etched glasses, given to me by my Aunt Kay as a graduation gift.  Thank you, Aunt Kay -- they are one of my treasured possessions.  They have a wheat design, which I think looks really nice on the Thanksgiving table.

Each one of us has a place card

Something that I like to do when we are home for Thanksgiving is to place a blank card on each plate, with lines for each person to write what they are thankful for.  I put them in my scrapbook for us to look at in years to come.

I hope that your Thanksgiving preparations are going well.  Are you staying at home or traveling this Thanksgiving?

7 Years

Yesterday was our 7th wedding anniversary.  Not a bit of the seven year itch to be found! Thank you Glenn, for making me so happy.  Love You!

(photo: card that I made for him)

Country Living French Tablecloth

I love the french country look in decorating, but I can't touch the prices on real old french linens.  So, when I saw a faux french country tablecloth project in Country Living, I had to try it.  And, I found out that the project was originally devised by a blogger, Jennifer Rizzo of Sanctuary Arts.  I *knew* that those magazines were looking to us bloggers for inspiration!

I gathered my supplies:

They added up to about $13.  A few words on the supplies that I chose:

-I purchased the dropcloth from Lowes & it has two very obvious seams once the cloth is out of the package.  There was no way of knowing this until I got it out of the package, so I'm letting you know -- buy your dropcloth elsewhere.

-I did not end up using the caulking tape.  The edges aren't perfectly straight & its really difficult to work with (STICKY!).  I used blue painter's tape instead.

-I chose "Country Apple" color paint & I might choose more of a cranberry red, should I do it over.

I washed the cloth twice, dried it & ironed it, just to get out the major wrinkles.

I taped up my stripes (measuring carefully!):

And painted, using a stencil brush in a tapping fashion:

The stripes that I went easy on the paint turned out much more nicely than the ones on which I was more generous.  Those seeped through a bit.

And, again, the finished product:

I think that it's pretty cute.  It wasn't a hard project, though it did take a few hours to complete.  Let me know if you try it out.  I'd love to see your results!

New Goodies!

I've posted more goodies in my Etsy store!

There are more Christmas ornaments:

As well as other vintage finds including this great carpenter's ruler:

And a collection of the most adorable half-pint cream bottles:

Front of bottle:

Back of bottle:

Available individually or the entire set.

Wooden spools, so great for your vignettes!

And, in case you missed them previously, I have two FABULOUS Christmas tablecloths as well:

 

I have several items that I haven't posted yet, but I'm going to take the weekend off.  I've spent hours getting everything just the way that I want it to be in the Etsy store, tweaking here & there, so I'm going to give myself the weekend!

For any of you who may have visited the store previously, you may notice that my shipping rates went up slightly (about $1 an item).  After shipping out a few items, I realised that I wasn't covering my shipping costs, so I had to make an adjustment.  But, I think that you will still find them to be reasonable.  And, I'm always willing to combine shipping if possible.  Just drop me a note & I'm happy to give you the rates.

I'm going to be working today on a project that I saw in Country Living last month, the canvas red-striped tablecloth.  I'll post pictures of my progress -- wish me luck!

Answered Prayers

So, I've been debating over whether to write this post for a week now, because it's pretty far off what I normally share.  But, it's such a huge thing in my life, I'm going to put it out there.

I've been praying to God for two things over the past few months & I got very clear answers to my prayers last week.  One prayer was for test results to come back normal for one of the dearest & most important people in my life.  And, THANK YOU GOD, they came back normal!

The other prayer was for guidance on the direction of my life.  Help in finding a way to spend more time with my family, find a means to help support our family that is also personally fulfilling.  Spend less time on my commute.  Do more of the important stuff, less of the filler. Should I stay at my job? Should I look for something else? If something else, what? 

Last Thursday, God sent me a clear message.  I lost my job.  Should I stay at my job?  God answered that pretty clearly!  But, now I'm trying to figure out what to do with what God has given me -- an opportunity. I'm at a crossroads, but what do I do with this gift? What will work best for me & my family?  I'm a big believer that what you want & need is obtainable if you are creative enough.  Dear God, if you are a blog reader, please send me some extra guidance :)

Thank you, my dear blogging friends, for reading this & always being so supportive.  Next post, back to the normally scheduled blogging :)

Dear Santa

Dear Santa,

I have been a very good girl this year, so I thought that I'd send you my list early, so that you can get a head start.

This makeup organizer from Pottery Barn is just the thing to get all of my cosmetics in order. 

I NEED this 3 tiered basket from Stonewall Kitchen.  Wouldn't it be perfect in my craft room? Or my family room? Or kitchen?

I just love this Jessie Steele apron! It even comes with the towel attached.

Santa, I know that this out of print Sara Bareilles CD is super hard to find, but you can make miracles happen, right Santa?

I've taken this fabulous book out of the library so often and have learned so much from it, that I should really just have a copy of my own.  And let some other library patrons take it out once in awhile. 

 

Love this clock from Sundance.

Another item that would be just perfect in my craft room.

One of these would be fabulous...you know how I love my peppermint mochas! 

Lastly, a little pampering from one of my favorite spas would be absolutely divine.

Love,

Kim

*****

How about you, blogging friends, what do you hope will be in your stocking this year?

Very Exciting News!

I'm so excited to announce that I now have an etsy store!  I've been yearning to get back to my true love of selling vintage & my etsy store is the perfect venue.

My first offerings are all vintage Christmas goodies, because, after all, 'tis the season! I'll be adding many more items in the next few weeks.  I have a storeroom chock-full of gorgeous things that I've been collecting, just waiting for this.

The store is called The Vintage Mercantile & I do hope that you will stop by!  You can click on the link in this post or the logo in the box at the upper right of my sidebar.

Thank you so much for the support that you all, my blogging friends, continually provide to me.

Personality Unlimited

In her recent post , Sue of Vintage Rescue Squad showed off  her fabulous 1939 5-book set entitled "Personality Development, a Practical Self-Teaching Course".  I luurrvve stuff like that & it reminded me of a highly comical volume that I picked up at the AAUW book sale several years ago:

 

Personality Unlimited...this book is a wonderful look into the 1943 view of what it took to be a graceful lady & the draconian measures that the author believed that you must take in order to obtain this goal.  Check out the "toning" exercises:

Look at the expression on the model's face! She looks tortured!

Check out this suggested "stretching exercise".  Can you imagine if your husband/roommate came into the room as you attempted this?  And, what happens if you have really long arms or are really tall?  This wouldn't work at all, no indeed.

I'm not sure what this exercise is meant to train you for. Ahem.

These exercises are meant to tone your face.  I don't know if you can see the instructions on the bottom right, but apparently, you need to slap yourself 30 times on each side of your face in order to have firm skin.

For all of my love of history & all things vintage, I'm glad that these suggestions seem to have gone by the wayside.

Halloween 2009

I hope that all of you had a wonderful Halloween! We carved our pumpkins on Friday night, one for each of us.  Hope drew a picture of what she wanted (the middle one) & Glenn did the carving.  Glenn & I used his power drill to "carve" our pumpkins.  Only one trick or treat-er properly identified Glenn's as a cyclops.  Mine is a series of drilled holes in a swirly, paisley like pattern...I might use a larger drill bit next year to give a better effect.

Hope dressed up as the same thing as last year -- Tinkerbell.  We couldn't talk her into anything else.  She had a fabulous time trick or treating!  She was so excited that she was running from one house to the other. 

I'll leave you with a few photos of Hope posing for us...she cracks me up...

Fall Trip to Indiana

We spent last weekend in Salem, Indiana, visiting Glenn's family.  We were lucky to get there just in time for the peak of their fall leaves...aren't they beautiful?

While in Indiana, there are two things that I always must do...go to Hobby Lobby (Hobby Lobby, come to Virginia, pluueessee!!!) & go down to the town square in Salem.

The court house...

Craft Town, the store that got me neck deep in baby quilt last winter/spring.  I just walked into the front of the store this time, took the picture & left.  If I looked any further, I would have come out of there with yet another project. If you are a quilter or fabric crafter and live in Southern Indiana/Louisville area, you should really check this place out.  The website offers a load of fabrics as well.

 

Next stop, Brick Street Sampler (no website, sadly), where they were getting ready for their upcoming Christmas shopping open house!  I took the last photo in, believe it or not, the bathroom of the adjoining restaurant, Christie's.  I don't normally take photos in public restrooms, but is that the nicest public restroom decor that you've ever seen or what?

Around the square & just off the square are two antique stores.  I've found a few things over the years in the larger one & just discovered the one in the little house during this visit.  I wanted to share the upstairs "bedroom" of the shop in the old house...it's that a cozy room?  

I'll leave you with a photo of the lane that my husband grew up on...the road is named after his family, because it's where they always lived!