“In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It Goes On.”
Robert Frost
Showing posts with label vintage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vintage. Show all posts

Friday, April 2, 2021

Happy May Your Easter Be

 Hi Friends! Happy Easter ~ Spring to you!

Our weather is warming nicely but still no flowers to share just yet. Instead I thought I would share some vintage postcards with you today. If you thought my blog post title sounds a bit like backward speak you may be correct! Actually I took it from the card below, the sweet sheep grazing in the pasture above the greeting, "Happy May Your Easter Be". 



I included some bunnies and Easter Gnomes just for fun! Hope you enjoy them and they bring a smile to your sweet faces!



My husband and I have been well and both of us have now received our first Covid vaccines. Ron gets his second vaccine soon and I will get mine at the end of the month. I've just heard that the Pfizer vaccine is good for about 6 months. Guess we will be spending more time at medical clinics than we would like. We are still wearing our masks etc. though as variants are still spreading and all the states around us have ditched their mask requirements. 

This Easter I am very thankful that we have made it through this. I remember last year at this time I was very worried about all of it. I hope you are all well and are able to enjoy this beautiful time of year. Happy Spring and if you celebrate, Happy Easter as well.

Hugs, from Diane and Guy🐤🐥💕


Monday, December 3, 2018

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

 


Hi Friends! So winter's here! We've had a few inches of snow and our weather has been really cold! It's helped me get in the mood for Christmas! I've been adding some things to my shop and digging through bins of things I've had packed away. It almost feels like an early Christmas present when I find something I've stashed away and haven't seen in a few years!




When you have a house that has several storage areas and things are packed in, they tend to stay packed in! I found some cute vintage craft items that I've been wanting to use but never seem to have the time! At least I got to look at them and remind myself that I need to start working on these soon! Maybe by next year I'll have something to sell!


I'm in love with the tiny reindeer and Santa in his sleigh. I'm thinking of a diorama under a cloche glass dome... my crafting imagination is brimming over but the actual crafting has not happened for awhile. That's going to be one of my New Year's Resolutions! Get crafting!




Chip and Dale dancing for Joy!



Meanwhile in my shop I've added some fun Christmas stuff.  Click on the link if you'd like to take a look! Unfortunately I'm no longer shipping international as the costs have gone up so high.


 


 



 


Crafters collect these vintage ornament holder boxes, especially if they have cute graphics. Some folks decorate them and use them as ornaments! I noticed that the metal hooks are much sturdier than the flimsy ones you get today.





 



 


Here's the cover and inside page of this very old song book. It has sweet illustrations on every page!





Dennison Christmas Seals, Pink Christmas 

Dennison labels are also collectible and loved by crafters too.


Elf Pixie on Leaf Dish 

Lately I've become fascinated with the vintage Elves, they are getting really hard to find these days at the flea markets and estate sales!




These ornaments above are made of a tightly woven straw and are from Sweden. They are from the 1950's.  I'll have more in my shop soon!





Hope you enjoyed looking at my vintage finds! I'll be here again soon, 
because it is the most wonderful time of the year!

~Merry Merry Christmas~
Diane





Wednesday, August 8, 2018

The Cat Days of August


This is me many years ago. One thing has been pretty consistent through my life though, cats. Love them, they've owned me for most of my life! This poor kitty let me squeeze on it until the photo was over. I really don't remember any cats scratching me when I was little, maybe that's just selective memory. I was about five years old in this photo, I still remember bits and pieces of that time in my life.
 My Great Aunt made this cute little card for me when I was little. She was the 
'Martha Stewart' in our family!

 Guy loves this little camp chair!

Dot is the great Lioness atop her mountain surveying her back yard!
Of course, she has to have a nice cushion to rest on!!

It's been hard to blog this summer, the world has gone mad and every day in our country brings some new terrible thing. Children taken from their parents, perhaps never to be returned. Russians are our new allies, and the UK and Canada are our adversaries?? Up is Down and Down is Up. The sky is not blue it's red. Which is true in California, the red sky of fires consuming everything in their paths. I see it on the news and from folks I follow on Instagram, photos of the hills flaming red into the sky, and sometimes the sky has turned black from smoke.

I tend to turn inwards at these times and have been working on my shop trying to list and sell as much as possible before everyone runs out of extra cash to spend on such frivolous things. The strange thing is, I seem to be selling more than ever. Maybe people are trying to sooth that inner longing for something nostalgic and safe perhaps?  Anyway here are a few photos of a few things I've picked up, some are in my shop already. Most of these are from an estate sale of a ladies home, I found out that she was a teacher and she saved just about everything. Her name was Vivian, and even though I've never met her, I feel a great fondness for her delightful spirit.


 In this cute old board game from the 1930's, I found a handmade paper doll set. I'm guessing the paper dolls were made by Vivian and tucked away in the box under some paper and then were forgotten. As you see, some were never cut out.


Here's a set of children's puzzles still in the wrapper, from the 1950's. 
Cute as can be and the colors and condition are wonderful!



 We had lots of rain this summer and our flowers and the butterflies are very happy. 



Our weather has been a roller-coaster this year, hot humid, then cold, then raining every day and now hot and dry. The perfect days here are getting few and far between, high temps over 90 degrees used to be rare and now we're up to about 3 weeks! Every year we seem to add a few more hot days to the record. So on those rare warm but dry summer days, when a cool breeze wafts through the air, I get outside to enjoy it. One of those perfect days was a couple of weeks ago and I headed to our Arboretum and here is what I saw....

 The flowers are always beautiful at the Arb and this year they have a 
new art exhibit featuring Origami animals made from metal. 
The cranes below where in several features and I really loved the horses!



 The lilies were dazzling!


 The Dahlia's were divine!

 Stacked crane tower!




 The wildflower praire garden is a newer feature.




I purchased several boxes of items at the estate sale, I hadn't been to one all year! It took me days to sort through all of it, and it will take me another year to get it all listed in my shop!
I have to say though, some things have already sold! The pink angel trays sold right away.



 I think I'm going to fill the old tin with Christmas cookie cutters
 and put it up for sale in my shop.


The Littlest Angel book is so cute, I found several other really old books there.   They even sold the letters she had written to her boyfriend, husband when he was away during World War II. I'm not sure how the story goes, I haven't had time to even look through them. I'll let you know if I find out anything really interesting.

Here are some Christmas items I've already staged and have in my shop, or will have ready soon. The Elves are ornaments to hang on the tree.  The train light set is listed and I was so surprised that the lights actually worked!




Finally I'm closing out with this cute book illustration. It's from the book entitled
 "Doings of Little Bear", written by Frances Margaret Fox and illustrated by Warner Carr, 
1915, from Rand McNally Publishing. 

I hope that you are all feeling well these days, I know that some of you have also taken the summer away from blogging. Maybe in the Autumn with cooler weather we'll all be refreshed and ready to go again.  I just have to say that I still adore my friends here in blogland! And all of you in Canada and the UK, you are still our friends and allies, please know that the majority of the people here in the states feel the same as I do. Please don't give up on us. We are going through a rough patch, but things will get better.

Now don't mind me, but I'm going to round up my cat companions and head out side to commune with nature. Watching the butterflies does my soul a world of good and after all it's the Cat Days of August....

😸🍃🦋~ Diane


Saturday, December 23, 2017

Merry And Bright

Merry Christmas to you my friends! 
Wishing you all the best this season brings!






Thought I would share this digitally altered vintage photo (above) and a little peek into my office...







Christmas Fancies

    By 
    
When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow,
    We hear sweet voices ringing from lands of long ago.
            And etched on vacant places,
            Are half forgotten faces
    Of friends we used to cherish, and loves we used to know -
    When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow.

    Uprising from the ocean of the present surging near,
    We see, with strange emotion that is not free from fear,
            That continent Elysian
            Long vanished from our vision,
    Youth's lovely lost Atlantis, so mourned for and so dear,
    Uprising from the ocean of the present surging near.

    When gloomy gray Decembers are roused to Christmas mirth,
    The dullest life remembers there once was joy on earth,
            And draws from youth's recesses
            Some memory it possesses,
    And, gazing through the lens of time, exaggerates its worth,
    When gloomy gray December is roused to Christmas mirth.

    When hanging up the holly or mistletoe, I wish
    Each heart recalls some folly that lit the world with bliss.
            Not all the seers and sages
            With wisdom of the ages
    Can give the mind such pleasure as memories of that kiss
    When hanging up the holly or mistletoe, I wish.

    For life was made for loving, and love alone repays,
    As passing years are proving for all of Time's sad ways.
            There lies a sting in pleasure,
            And fame gives shallow measure,
    And wealth is but a phantom that mocks the restless days,
    For life was made for loving, and only loving pays.

    When Christmas bells are pelting the air with silver chimes,
    And silences are melting to soft, melodious rhymes,
            Let Love, the world's beginning,
            End fear and hate and sinning;
    Let Love, the God Eternal, be worshiped in all climes
    When Christmas bells are pelting the air with silver chimes.
 

See you in the New Year!
~ Diane ~