Make it Mondays

Two weeks ago I decided we needed theme days to help us get through the long weeks of summer. Mondays are "make it Mondays", so I spent some time yesterday prepping a 4th of July craft to do with the kids.

We made mini construction paper lanterns to hang on our fourth of July tree.

Grant is not ready for scissors (even though he would disagree), so I gave him some coloring pages. (He proceeded to color all over himself, the counter, the chair AND the paper.)

He finally decided he would say CHEESE!

They certainly helped fill out my tree. Which I, umm, apparently never put the garland from yesterday's post on.  (Listen, three kids is like a THOUSAND man. LOL)

The tree this year has the cardboard stars I made last year, the lanterns the kids made, and some vintage glass ornaments. Oh yea, and some glass pie ornaments I found on Ebay.  Glass pie ornaments? YES PLEASE.  (Dave used to buy me ornaments like that all the time, but our local year round Christmas store changed a lot and now they aren't so easy to just pick up.)

I really wish I had  not *traded* away two of these trees (I use that term ever so loosely as she never sent anything in return) because I think a blue one would be awesome.

Only one more week with this tree and then it's time to think about Christmas in July.

It's a blessing that this summer is flying by. :-)

Flea Market Sunday

Here's my pitiful work for THREE days worth of junking, LOL.

A vintage hong kong beaded purse that is actually quite pink. I usually pass these by because I have several and well, aside from carrying one when we got married, they aren't getting used.

I already had a few that I had bought many years ago (not shown here) and then this winter I kept picking them up at the thrift. Quite an accidental collection! Maybe I will start paying more attention to them. I keep thinking Sammi might use them when she gets to the formal dance age, but who the hell knows what she will like then.

The silver one is really quite intricate.

Five strands of red glass garland, destined for the fourth of july tree.

The beads on the right remind me of firecrackers.  I was at a church sale on Friday and was just disgusted because I had already been to at least 5 sales and bought NOTHING.  I resigned myself to digging through the kids clothes and filled up my arms with clothes when I heard a woman say "oh look, there is a holiday room, I didn't see that".  Wellllllllll, neither did I. Thanks lady!  These were really well hidden under a table, but I can spot this stuff from 20 paces.

There was a pair of Gurley pilgrims hiding in there. I *did* put out turkeys this year, so I grabbed them.

A whole hike around the flea this morning with one VERY whiny three year old netted me six pillowcases.

They are still in their original packaging and are as lovely as can be. They were pretty pricey for pillowcases, but since I had bought nothing else...

and this card fell out of the blue ones, there was no way I was leaving them behind.

A wedding gift for sure.

I googled the giver's name and she lived not far from here.  Born in 1867 (!) and died when she was 100 in 1966.  Totally cool.

Let's see - 1 thrift store, 1 flea market, and 6 yard sales yielded 2 candles, 6 pillowcases, one handbag and 5 strands of garland. I miss having a decent flea market man.  It's high summer and wanderlust is starting to take over my brain. :-)

Happy Sunday to you!

An amazing fabric buy

I have spent the last two days REALLY trying to garage sale.  But between sales not being open (or not existing) or dealers lining up hours before they do open, it is incredibly disappointing right now. So  I spend some time in the evening trolling ebay looking at fabric.  A few weeks back they sent me an amazing coupon so I added some things I wouldn't normally splurge on to my watch list.

When this HUGE lot of vintage fabric got close to the ending time I watched it obsessively while the kids ate lunch.  To my surprise I was the winner.

When it arrived it was even better than I ever could have imagined. A full 8 pounds of fabric, in every color and print imaginable. I spent a good hour just digging through the box. (Its airing out a bit in the above photo, it was a bit musty from being in the hot box. It covers an entire full size sheet. She had sorted it all by color and it was all starched! Can you even imagine that job?)

Usually when I buy a big lot of fabric I have a pile of rejected fabric, but there was very, very little reject in this box.

What made it even more awesome was when the seller sent me a note saying this was from her mom's sewing room and that she had rescued it from the fate of the trash can by a well meaning sibling.

I'll be there with bells on!

Honestly, this is just a tiny taste of what is in that huge stack.  It fills an entire bin in my sewing room now and I will surely have vintage fabric for EVERY project I can dream of for years to come.

Now if only that meant I would stop trying to find more at garage sales...(mutter, mutter, waste of time, mutter).

Conversations with Sammi

Mommy, my dollies are crying.
Why?
They aren't sleepin' well.
Why?
'Cause they can't close their eyes!  Look at Rapunzel, her eyes don't close!

Flea Market Sundays

I finally managed to hire a babysitter this week. HALLELUJAH!

Maybe even more important is that I managed to find some good junk this week:

I already put these on the patriotic foyer tree. (Which is so very empty. I cannot decide what on earth to put on the thing. I actually pulled out a bin I had marked fourth of July for the first time ever to find the only thing in it was a hat, a George Washington die cut and a silk flag. Hmmm.)

Gingham wallpaper. Its sort of a bright pink color.

I think these are printing plates?

This one is SO AWESOME. Thinking of Grant's toddler room for these. (He is turning 2 in a few months. WHAT??? Won't be long before his "nursery" needs an upgrade, will it?)

There are more of these,  still complete with chocolate icing on the picks. LOL

I bought a big box of these ceramic place cards.  Some are marked with names still, and they are all different colors. The man who sold them to me said, "I have no idea what those even are," which gave me a chuckle.  Probably not the most useful things ever, but I thought maybe at some point Sammi will want to have a tea party?

Oh hello gorgeous quilt top.

As I was investigating it I spotted this button fabric. I bought a yard or so of it in a blue colorway on Ebay this winter.  I wasn't sure if that was a sign of a true sickness or not - when one has yardage of the vintage fabric one finds in use in vintage quilts. I mean what are the odds? Let's not dwell on that too long. :-)

This is a small (too small for a modern blanket of any size) gauzy duvet cover.

I am not sure when this happened but I seem to be OBSESSED with green. This green is a heart stealer.  It's a little too small to get two curtain panels out of, but it's on my sewing chair so I can think on it.  I think I want to paint the walls in the house that are colored all white. If I didn't have this stupid arthritis I would have done it already. I am thinking about how to pay for a painter instead so I can make it happen, at the very least starting with the pink bathroom.

Oh hello gorgeous quilt. (It's also a weird size.) It's about half as wide as a normal quilt, but it does not show any signs of having been cut down.

The interesting part of this one for me were those indigo fabrics. I tend to be a 30s/40s print girl, but this indigo is wonderful. It's unusual to see so much indigo with 30s/40s prints mixed like this one is too.

Perfectly sized for the dining room table too!

Cheeks is riding on an old plastic wonder pony I also scrounged up. Much to my surprise she loves it.  Right now she spends all day wearing ALL of her swimming suits, it's quite the fashion show around here!

Whew, we made it, happy Sunday to you!