Vintage Christmas Swap Goodies

So as I mentioned in an earlier post I participated in a Vintage Christmas Swap hosted by Shara at Monkeybox Blog.  Only a small number of people signed up for the swap and I was one of them. There was also an odd number of individuals who signed up, most individuals were paired with just one other person but because of the odd number there was one group of three and I was in that group. I sent items to Janet in New Jersey and Gayden, from Hawaii sent items to me.  I don't believe Janet or Gayden have a blog.

We were to go out to Thrift Shops, raid our vintage stash, or make some vintage inspired Christmas Goodies, then fill a box the approximate size of a shoe box with our finds or handmade items and send it out.

Well let me tell you, the pickings at my thrift store has been very slim this year.  My stash of vintage Christmas items is not very large and most have special meaning to me, so I didn't have much to raid, so I ended up making some things and sent those along with the things I found.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I made a set of Vintage Christmas electric candle lights and turned a vintage train candle holder into a card or photo display.

(if you look closely at the Engine, you can see a white button in place of one of the wheels)

I also included a White and Pink Gooseberry Pyrex Casserole dish (Janet buys and sells Pyrex), some stained glass ornaments, a Santa mug, an old Christmas stocking, Santa's pants which I believe is a card holder, some flocked Santa boots I filled with some candy, two vintage printed linen napkins with poinsettias on them and what I thought was a cute Santa printed on plastic that covers a door.

I almost forgot to mention the ornament kit I included that makes 3 sequin covered Santa boots.  I'm sure they will be really cute once made.

I didn't take many photos of what I sent and unfortunately some items did not make it into the box because of space...like the spun angel hair which is in the photo.  I hope Janet liked what I sent and if she doesn't she has my blessing to sell away!  Janet, I hope you have a Merry Christmas!

Well my box arrived today and let me tell you it was packed with a bunch of crafting items, vintage glitter (my favorite thing in the box), wooden beads, rick rack, paper, ornaments, a Christmas towel, a book, a Christmas box filled with blank note cards and much, much, more...

 ...and there is that fabulous glitter again!

I want to Thank Gayden for the wonderful box filled with crafting goodies and ornaments.  I really appreciate it and I'm sure I will make plenty of items with what you sent.  Thank You very much and I'm wishing you a very Merry Christmas!

Thank You Shara for hosting the Swap!

Photos were taken with my cell phone...I'm waiting for Santa to bring me a better camera for Christmas...we will see if that improves my photo quality and photo taking ability.

The Finished Wreath

I am so in love with the wreath I made.  I didn't try to move any of the ornaments because I didn't want them to break but I did add more color to it and it is definitley me now!  So are you ready for it?

Here is a close up of some of the ornaments used...

And another close up...

Ta da...

I have also made some other ornament wreaths which I will be posting in my Etsy Shop soon.  Stay tuned!

Vintage Inspired Santa Christmas Candle Light

So I have been working on a new project.  The wreath is still not done but I will tackle that this weekend!  I want to apologize now for the horrible pictures...I used my cell phone.  I really need to invest in a good camera and some good lighting!

The project I have been working on is taking standard plug in electric candle lights and gussying them up! Is gussying a word?  I think it is since it didn't highlight as being misspelled.  I have some small vintage stuff I like to craft with, but I haven't really used much it, and needed some vintage inspired items.

I have always wanted a set of these gussied up lights after seeing them on eBay over 5 years ago but I have never gotten around to making them, until now.

I used new and old supplies to make these and unfortunately I am not keeping them.  I joined a Vintage Christmas Swap being hosted by Shara at Monkeybox.  We are supposed to raid our Vintage Christmas stash, go thrifting to find Vintage Christmas items or make Vintage Inspired Christmas Items to fill up a shoe box and send to our swap partners.

Well my thrift stores have not been very forth coming with Vintage goodies this year and my stash of Vintage goodies is not very huge yet so I needed something to fill the box and came of with these Christmas Electric Candle Sticks!  I now need to make a set for myself because I love them so much.

I will post pictures later of the other stuff I sent to my swap partner, but I wanted to share these photos now!  I hope you enjoy them and I look forward to making many more if I can find my other electric candle sticks I have stashed somewhere in my house.  I hope my swap partner likes them!

I will post photos of the swap goodies I receive in a future post since I have not received my box yet! Come back later to check out the other swap goodies!

Thanksgiving Wishes

Safe travels to those visiting family, friends, and starting their Christmas shopping!  I hope everyone has a happy, yummy Thanksgiving Day!

A work in progress...

I started a project that I have been wanting to make for awhile.  A vintage ornament wreath!  I know it's not an original idea but I have wanted one for the past 4 years and I could not see spending $300 or more on a wreath.  I thought I could make one myself and so I have been collecting the ornaments ever since.  I now have more than enough ornaments to make a few wreaths in many assorted colors.

 I've read a million tutorials on Pintrest and Google and I only sort of followed them.  I got to busy with the glue gun and didn't really think about the placement of the ornaments.  Does it count that I was running between the stove, trying to cook, and the hot glue gun?  Here are some pictures of the wreath in progress,

There were a few mishaps along the way!  So many shards of  tiny glass everywhere!  At least the carpet on the stairs got vacuumed, the plus side to this disaster!

Luckily none of the really good ones were destroyed.  The ornaments that broke were more modern ornaments but they were such a pretty shade of pink.

I like the colors of the ornaments I chose but I'm not happy with the placement of the ornaments...I may need to disassemble it in some places. 

I should have interspersed some other smaller, decorative ornaments in with the second row.  Now I am trying to figure out where to place them.  That turquoise ornament on the bottom, front and center was accidentally hit with a broom and broke, I now have to figure out how to remove it without ruining any of the other ornaments and replace it.  I was told I now have a flamboyant wreath.  I didn't know pink, turquoise, blue and silver ornaments were flamboyant.  My problem is that I now have a wreath that doesn't go with any of the colors in my house.  I guess my next project will be painting the rooms in my house to go with my wreath.

I'll post a picture of the completed wreath when I am done.  I hope you enjoyed this short worded post.  I'm sorry for some of the poor photos.  I was using my cell phone, in a poorly lit hallway, to take the photos.  Thanks for stopping by.

A little screech...

I know it's been awhile since I have made a post, Life just seems to get in the way.  Thank you to those who have commented on my original post.

I would like to share with you someone who is/was special to me and my family.  Her name is Feline (Fa-Lean).  Feline was with me and my family for 16 years.  She was very temperamental and standoffish.  Most days I loved her but there were a few days I wondered why I put up with her.  I think most people feel that way about their family members and she was definitely a part of my family.

Feline was found as a kitten with a bag of food tied around her neck by friends of the family.  She was so little and the bag of food weighed so much that she could not leave but neither could she access the food.  The boys who found her gave her to my brother who hid her in his room.  I noticed for several days that his bedroom light was on and decided one day to check why his light was on.  I went into his room and this ball of fur jumped out at me.  It scared me and I let out a little screech and then I saw her and thought "oh, how cute."  Now let me tell you, growing up I was always afraid of cats ever since my neighbors cat climbed up my front, scratched and bit me when I was five.  After that I wouldn't have anything to do with cats and we never really had pets growing up.  Now here was this ball of fluff with spots and stripes looking up at me with the most unusual eyes.  I picked her up and carried her to my room.  While in my room she bit and scratched me, drawing blood, which brought back my fear of cats and I was over her cuteness...she was a wild she-devil.  I took her back to my brothers room and gently "threw" her into his room ( I bent over and placed her on his floor).

Well I figured this ball of fluff would be the perfect thing to get my brother in trouble with because my mother always said growing up "no pets."  So I waited for her to get done with work.  When she got home I told her she had to go up to my brothers room and see what he had in there.  I think she thought he was doing something illegal! Joking...maybe.  Well she went up there, opened the door and out pops the ball of fur.  I kept thinking "Here it comes, Here it comes, he is in so much trouble."  Well guess what?  I was totally wrong!  My mother bent over, picked her up and fell in love.  Let me tell you I was disappointed in her response.  She said we were keeping her (of course at this time we didn't know it was a girl...we didn't have pets growing up, she was small and we couldn't see anything).  We eventually found out her sex and then had to come up with a name.  It was hard to do because there was 4 kids and an adult giving their opinions.  She was quite wild, attacking anything in sight, biting and scratching (the reason why I didn't want her).  My mother decided since she was such a wild cat we would call her Feline (Fa-Lean). I know, original but not very original, but it suited her anyways.  Now this is how we ended up with a pet we were told we could never have and I eventually fell in love with her, despite her constant scratching and biting of me and everyone else.

Jump forward a few years.  Her behavior did not calm down and she sometimes seemed even wilder than when we found her.  She had carved up a few people and neighborhood cats.  At this time we decided we couldn't keep her, there were other issues behind that decision besides her being so mean, but anyways we gave her to a family friend who lived several miles away.  We felt she would be better with the friend because their home was more rural and there were no kids or pets around that could be hurt by her wildness.  Well a few days later they no longer had her and could not find her, we thought she could have been hit by a car or just run away.  Several weeks went by and everyone gave up hope of finding her.  I was walking home from work, late one night, and this thing jumped out at me, attacked my legs and I let out a little screech.  When I was able to figure out what was attacking me, boy was I surprised.  It was Feline.  She had somehow found her way home to us.  We had a discussion between the family and decided we would not send her back to our friends.  We figured if she decided to find her way home to us from several miles away we would make the effort to put up with her behaviors and keep her.  We always wondered how she made her way to us, what she ate, where she slept.  She was a very determined cat.

Jump forward several years.  Me and Feline had a love/hate relationship.  She would come purring up to me, bumping her head against me, wanting to be rubbed.  As soon as I would go to pet her she would attack.  Biting and scratching me, sometimes drawing blood.  She was very feisty.  If a cat ever came near the back door of our home she would attack the door, letting out a little screech, and try to get at them.  Well, one day I was standing by the back door when a stray cat came along.  I had bare feet.  Feline saw that cat and came running and since I was in the way I was sliced and diced on my foot.  We both let out a little screech (maybe mine wasn't so little) and I tried to walk away.  When I looked down I saw I was bleeding quite a bit.  The attack lasted just a few seconds but she had gotten me on the top, side and bottom of my foot with her claw.  Believe me I was mad and a little scared.  This was the worst her attacks had gotten.  I didn't know what to do.  After I patched up my wounds I picked her up and had a talk with her.  I told her, her behavior had to stop because people, herself, and other animals were getting hurt.  She had gotten into a fight with a stray cat a few weeks previously and was missing a patch of fur on her back end...it took forever to grow back in. 

Well it seems after that talk she became calmer.  She was still wild, would scratch and bite but it wasn't so hard or as often.  She would come up to us more often now wanting to be scratched and loved without attacking in return.   She has also been there for me when I have suffered from a medical condition.  There were times that I would pass out and when I came to Feline would be sitting there, licking my hand, waiting for me to come around.  We seemed to have a new understanding and a better relationship.
 
As she aged she became calmer but was still very feisty.  She never seemed to age and was in good health.  I knew younger cats that didn't have as much energy as our Feline and we wondered if she would ever start to age.  We figured she would outlive us all.

A week ago Feline went missing.  We looked everywhere for her and posted Ads looking for her.  My neighbors and friends helped to spread the word but without any luck.  Feline was mainly an indoor cat and when she got out she wouldn't go far.  She was aging but seemed just as feisty as ever when we last saw her.  Well yesterday we found her and unfortunately she had passed on.  My family and I are devastated.  Despite her issues and ours as well, we all loved each other and her passing is deeply felt.  For a family that said no pets, and for me that hated cats she had wormed her way into our hearts and she will never be able to be replaced.
I thank you for taking the time to read this post.  I promise that future posts will be more positive.  I just felt I needed to share Feline's and my story.  There is much I left out and as you can read both of us had our faults.  I just hope this special member of our family can sense how much she is missed.

There is always room for one more

The big blue house on Davenport Street was a magical and loving place, at least to me, growing up in a small town.  It was the place where my Grandmother lived and my family would gather.  There was lots of joy, laughter, and good food coming out of this big blue house that had been divided into apartments sometime in its past.  My Grandmother lived downstairs all the days I knew her with the upstairs apartment tenets changing, it seems, as the seasons came and went.  Growing up, I spent many holidays with my grandmother, immediate and extended family all being smushed into my grandmothers apartment.  Her apartment was quite spacious for one person, having 3 bedrooms, a kitchen, dining room, living room, bathroom and a big front porch, but when the family all got together it was another story  We would be crammed like sardines in a can, however as my grandmother said there was always room for one more and there always was.

My grandmother was an amazing woman to me and knew how to stretch a dollar. She would make amazing feasts that could feed an army with a couple of soup bones and discounted vegetables from the old A&P, and no matter how little food she may have made or had on hand when her family would unexpectedly drop in, we would all be fed and we were always told there was always room for one more.

I'm starting this blog for me but as it develops I will be sharing stories of my amazing grandmother and my family. I also hope to share with you some of those dollar stretching recipes my grandmother prepared for her family, my love of thrifting and my finds- taught to me by my Grandmother, and some of the projects I may be working on.  I will also be asking for your advice, ideas and comments when those projects don't go as expected or life gets challenging.  As I work on this blog and hopefully watch it grow with readers I would ask for you to keep an open mind and heart to always have room for just one more person in your life, you never know how much this could mean to that person.  My grandmother has been gone since 2003 however my family and I still have people come up to us and tell us what a wonderful woman she was because she opened her home and heart to them and invited them in.  She never thought much of her actions at the time but our family is reminded each time how much her actions meant to that person.  Thank You for Stopping by, I hope you enjoy everything I share.