No Birds Allowed

Since I replaced my house numbers with my bucket numbers, I had a blank space on the front of the house next to the porch. 

 This decorative bird cage and wire metal balls were 3.00 total at my local thrift store.  I spray painted everything white and then wired the balls into the cage.  I had these seed packets I wanted to add but this area is exposed to the weather so I needed to make them 'waterproof'.

 So I slipped them into one of these page protectors and sewed around the edges then trimmed them off.  

 The silver dots are scrapbooking embellishments that I attached with E6000 glue so they'll stay put.

 No more blank wall!

 

Repurposed Window Picture Display

The windows were free . . . they were sitting outside of the college house my daughters are living in and no one wanted them so they came home with me.  They had been outside a long time and were covered in grass, paint, dirt, doo . . .

 After a good scrubbing, I used Goof Off to remove as much of the old paint and other assorted 'stuff' from the glass then taped them off and painted with flat, white paint using a dry brush technique so as not to lose the 'worn' look.  I distressed a bit more and added some dark and clear wax until I liked the look.

 After spray painting eye hooks white, I added some chain that I bought and hung pictures using the screw back-type vintage earrings.  This picture was taken while my daughter was studying in India last year.

 Here is our other daughter  . . . she's studying in Spain right now.  (They're identical twins)

Here's my son and daughter-in-law . . . they're wedding was last August.  I got these prints from Snapfish (who I HIGHLY recommend!).  They are so reasonable.  I got all of these reprints plus 10 more for 2.59 and that included the shipping.  A little tip:  To keep the photos from curving, I just attached them to cardstock and trimmed them off which made them nice and flat to hang.

I have a feeling that these windows are going to become like my "dress up doll" ladder  . . . always changing with the seasons and holidays.  But for now, I like them just plain and simple.

Vintage Dishes: To Microwave or Not?

After years of admiring this pattern of dishes, I hit the jackpot at an antique store in Fulton, Illinois a few weeks ago.  I'd seen individual pieces for years but never a whole set.  This store not only had one booth with full sets and pieces but THREE! I was able to get a 10-piece place setting with two serving dishes for 50.00!  Each piece was 1.00 (cup and saucers were marked as 1.00 for both pieces!).

The pattern is called Boutonniere and is made by the Taylor Smith Taylor company.  It was manufactured between 1955 and 1965.

   The colors are perfect with my living room / dining room colors.

On of my favorite things about this set is the inside of the cups with the blue color -- so pretty!

There are some great serving piece for this set that are out there on Etsy and Ebay and I'm going to begin patiently collecting them.  One of the first ones on my list is this covered casserole dish.

 One of the things that is very interesting about this pattern is that the soup bowls are almost nowhere to be found and when you CAN find them, they sell for around 22.00 - 24.00 EACH!  I can't imagine why other than maybe soup/cereal bowls were the most often used pieces by children and most of them were broken and lost??  So I'll just try to find a plain white bowl with the blue inside to use instead!

This morning I was thinking about the dishes and realized, "Hey, they didn't have microwaves in the 1950's and 60's" - duh.  So I wondered if I should use these in the microwave and I found this great article on eHow that tells you how to test your dishes.  Basically, you put a microwave-safe glass measuring cup full of water in the microwave.  You add one of your dishes so it's not touching the glass and heat for one minute on high.  If the dish is cool, it's microwave-safe.  If it's warm or hot, it's not microwave-safe because that's telling you that there is some type of metal in the glass.  The verdict on mine, probably not microwave-safe.  While only the very center of the plate was slightly warm, I'll err on the side of caution and not use these in the microwave.

Do you collect vintage dishes?  I'd love to see your collections!

P.S. Be sure to enter my Sneakpeeq Give Away
 (Ends May 5)

Give Away Win!

Recently I won one of Angie's give aways (Knick of Time) which was a gift of $20.00 worth of merchandise from Leslie Janson's Etsy Shop.  My package arrived dressed in this cute ribbon with an adorable crocheted ornament attached!  And INSIDE . . .

 I know . . . it's not December BUT I needed some vintage Christmas hankies for my ladder and I use vintage postcards to decorate for the holidays so I couldn't pass these up.

 I love the details and flocking on these!

I'm always fascinated by the backs of these old postcards.  Addresses were sure shorter 100 years ago . . . and postage sure was a lot cheaper!

Be sure to stop over and visit Angie at Knick of Time . . . she has such a beautiful blog and is a give away queen!  And don't forget to check in with Leslie at her Etsy shop . . . she has an amazing selection of jewelry and antiques!

By the way, what do you think of my different blog design? I was tired of the old one and can't afford a professional template so this will have to suffice.  If you have other sources for free blog 'gadgets' . . . let me know!

 

Vintage Ink Wells

I have quite a few vintage ink wells that I collected to use at my son's wedding last summer and I've been trying to decide what to do with them.  I decorated some to use on my spindle shelf.  I was having so much fun with these that I decided to make up some more and put them in my Etsy Shop.  Here are just a couple of them:

 I dug into my stash of vintage jewelry and pieced together "necklaces" for each of them after applying some vintage-style labels.  This is one of my favorites.  The 'pendant' is actually the clasp from an old necklace and it has the most beautiful, raised, beveled glass piece on it.  I added the other parts from a different piece of jewelry.

 Each ink well has a rolled up page from an old French book I have but you could also fill these with vintage buttons, beads or even use them as a small flower vase.

Stop over and take a look . . . I've added several new items to the shop this week!