Vintage Pretties

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!

Halloween Banner

I sent my sister a little something last week to bring her Halloween cheer...

I snapped a few pics of my gifty before I packaged it up...

 

I don't know how those of you who produce these sort of things en mass do it. It took me awhile, but I enjoyed it.  I hope that she does too.  She said that it is hanging in my nephew's room, so that makes me very happy :)

Online Style File??

Hi All!

I'm just making this a quick post, as I'm out of town, visiting my in-laws, but I have  quick question for my blog friends.  Does anyone know of an online service or software that you can use to save & organize ideas that you find online?  So, I could save an idea that I find on a blog or website & file it in a place that I can find it in the future rather than searching through every blog's archives. 

Thanks in advance & I'll be back soon!

You Find the Darnest Things in the Garage

So, we were cleaning out the garage yesterday - we can now actually get our cars into the garage, hurrah! -- and I came across this giant safety pin on one of the shelves.  I have no idea what it's for or if it was just made as a curiosity, but I think that it's kind of cool.  Glenn said that he found it amongst his dad's stuff.  Glenn comes from a long line of packrats, so it could be from any time, any place.  It might be kind of cool to mount it in a picture frame or shadow box.

Pumpkin Picking

Last Sunday turned out to be the most perfect day so we headed out to the countryside to pick our Halloween pumpkins.

Just look at that view. You can see that the fields were just loaded with pumpkins (those orange dots all over the ground). There is a guy to the left, guarding his family's pile, while mom & kids went looking for more.

 

Glenn & Hope chose a few minis while I got a big one, perfect for carving.

Hope patiently posed in the corn maze for me.

And, on a bale of hay.

Afterwards, we headed to our favorite nearby winery for snacks & juice -- apple for Hope & fermented grape for the grown ups ;)  Yeah, Hope is watching a DVD on our portable player while eating her goldfish crackers & juice...she'll go to the winery with us, but her patience only goes so far without a little bribery :)  It was a happy day for all.

Fall Decor

Bloggers, I want to give you all a big MMWAAAA kiss!  Thank you so, so much for all of your wonderful advice & suggestions for my photography. I have purchased a tripod, discovered Picnik and I think that my photos have benefitted greatly!  I'm still experimenting & I still need to work on the natural light, but I think that I need a new house in order to make that happen.  Someday, but we're not quite there yet.

The reason that I haven't posted in so long is that I actually re-shot all of the photos of my fall decor that I was going to post about 2 weeks ago.  Between taking the photos in different lights, figuring out the tripod, cropping, editing & so on, I'm just getting to posting today.

 

I know, these little french flash cards have nothing to do with fall or Halloween, but aren't they fabulous?  I found them on etsy recently.

Rosemary's tag, finally shown off properly.

You can see from the bottom two photos that our living room, which is at the front of the house, gets some decent morning light, but the family room & the back of the house really never gets good light. Not long after we moved into this house, I realized that there aren't ANY windows on the sides of the house.  NONE.  Weird, huh? When we look for our next house, the must- have list will include "windows on all sides of the house"!

Halloween Crafts & Photo Help!

I've been playing in my craft room over the past few weeks, making up a few Halloween themed crafts to add to my fall decor.  The plaque a the top is one of my favorite things that I've ever made.  I'm loving the layers of vintage-y images along with the little details & the *glittery* edges!  The idea for the little flags just popped into my head one night when I was arranging the silver pot & the candle on the white platter...I just knew that I needed a set of cute Halloween flags for the pot.  How often does inspiration strike so perfectly?  Not often for me!

I had so much fun making these.  I have very limited time to craft these days, so I'm so excited when things turn out just as I'd hoped. 

******

I'm hoping some of my oh-so-talented blog friends might be able to offer some help to me on something that has been driving me crazy.  My photos.  I have tried every setting, every angle, everything that I can think of & yet, my blog photos still look very amateur (at best). They are fuzzy, dark, and often have a yellow-ish tint. One problem is that my house has very little natural light.  But, I would think that I could compensate for that.  Maybe it's my camera?  I have a Canon Power Shot S5IS.  ANY help that you all could offer would be greatly appreciated.  I really want to make my blog a great place to visit, with great photos.  I feel like my photos aren't doing justice to my decor at this point...help! :)