Give-away- 10 pieces of AS-IS linens

Here is a little give away to any crafty people out there who might be able to use these linens. There are 10 pieces - 6 napkins and 4 runners. They are white linen with cutwork and light blue-grey embroidery. They are all flawed though. As you can see in the photos, some are yellowed from age and some have dark brown stains on them. They also have holes and tears, some a few inches in size. One of the runners is really messed up and has had sections of extra fabric sewn into it to make it longer. They are not fixable to use as napkins or runners anymore, but the vintage details and fabrics are perfect for clever crafty people.
Click images for closer views. The first person to email me at dvintage@comcast.net gets them for free!





Now some livestock photos - 2 deer in the yard! There were actually 3 in the yard that morning, but I couldn't get all of them together for the snap.


And another snap of the giant rhododendruns, this one using Boris as a size marker. For a dog that sleeps 22 hours a day, it's very hard to get him to set still when you want him to.

Very cool old Sphinx purse and Oh Deer!

Hey, here's something that is actually vintage clothing related in this week's blog post! It's a very cool item that I bought in with a load of vintage last month, and I decided to keep it for myself because I liked it so much. It's a little moire silk bag with rayon cord strap and tassels. But I want you to look closely at the design in the moire below, what do you see? It's the sphinx and 2 pyramids! It's on the front and back and on the two inside panels when you open the sides. Click on the images for larger views.




To the left here is a closer view of the strap cord which runs down each side and ends with a tassel. The cord runs through metal rings at the top and bottom on both sides of the bags. The rings have tiny marcasites on them.
The bag is open in the middle, and each side unsnaps and lifts up to reveal inner compartments lined in ivory silk. Below you can see another sphinx on the black area and a heavy mirror attached to the top of the ivory lining. Inside is an old make-up powder puff and a little silk bag with snap closure and a small piece of nail file paper is on the front of the little bag, in case of broken nail emergencies!


Here is a closer view of the little silk bag with nailfile built in and the inside of the 1st side of the bag which has 2 pockets and a loop which I would guess is for a tube of lipstick.



There is also a silk moire change purse with initials done in marcasites too.


The change purse in lined in white leather in where the change goes, and it also has a side that snaps open and has layered pockets for cards. There is a maker's name stamped in gold along the bottom. It's French, and I can't really read it.


Here is the name stamped on the change purse. There are no other labels in the bag.



Finally, the other side of the bag snaps and lifts open the same as the 1st side, revealing another ivory silk lined compartment with an ivory silk change purse that is also lined in leather. There's the sphinx on that side too. Now isn't that such a cool bag! When I first saw it, I was like 'hey, is that a sphinx?' I've never seen a design done in moire like that, and I couldn't even begin to guess how they do it. Right now, I am guessing that the bag is from the Teens to 1920s.



Now onto the non-vintage related babble. Guess who I snapped a photo of this week? It was still light out when I saw this pretty deery out back. So I got my camera, ran up to the room over the garage and very quietly opened the window (thankfully there was no screen to blurr the photos) and managed to snap a few good shots of our dinner guest nibbling up our complimentary corn. Dinner for one this night, usually there are 2 deer and sometimes a raccoon friend joins them. I'm very excited because I didn't think I'd be able to get a photo of the deer. Now, I gotta snap that raccoon!






And here is Grumpy-Doodle, glaring at me out the front door because I'm going for a ride and not taking him!
A few days later I did take him for a ride to the shore. We went for a walk around the neighborhood there. He was sniffing under some bushes, and then he decided to run through the bushes to the other side, dragging me halfway through the bushes! I guess that was my punishment for not taking him for a ride a few days earlier.

Bloomin' rhodies

Ah Spring! The rhododendrons out front are blooming. There are 13 big bushes, and here are a few pictures of them. They don't look very tall in the photos though, I need someone to stand by them to give you an idea of the size. They're like 8 to 10 feet tall. There is a clearing in the front yard, and the bushes are planted around the one side of the clearing. There is also a very cool looking pine tree with droopy needles in the middle that I really like. We've had a lot of rain this past week, so everything in the woods looks very green and pretty. The Laurel is starting to get tiny pink buds, so those will be blooming prettily in a week or so.

The Wardrobe Refashion Pledge



The Wardrobe Refashion Pledge

I Carol,
Pledge that I shall abstain from the purchase of "new" manufactured items of clothing, for the period of 4 months.

I Pledge that I shall refashion, renovate, recycle pre-loved items for myself for the term of my contract.

I Pledge that I shall create and craft items of clothing for myself with my own hands in fabric, yarn or other medium for the term of my contract.

I Pledge that I will share the love and post a photo of my refashioned, renovoated, recylcled, crafted or created item of clothing on the Wardrobe Refashion blog so that others may share the joy that thy thriftyness brings!

Some beach photos

Here are a few photos of the beach from Saturday, taken during a break from work. Click images for larger views.
This is the beach at the end of a street called Seaview (perfect name, right?) The next photo is the same beach. This is the path that I usually use to go up on the beach.




This is the beach at the end of our road

I don't know why, but I love the picket-y beach fences. They're really made to hold sand and form dunes rather than look pretty though.

This is out on the beach looking north.


And a view looking south down the beach.

Altered Book update & Scraping, patching & painting

This week's project was scraping, patching and painting the upstairs pink bedroom in Strathmere. Now, this fabulous old house is 104 years old and it still has it's original plaster walls, complete with layers of peeling paper on it. It had the potential to turn into a huge nightmare project, but I kept the scraping and patching to a minimum. I only scraped the areas that had obvious peeling because I just didn't want to get into scraping the whole room down to the plaster. To the left is a not-totally-before shot, more like a halfway shot. I've got the walls scraped, patched and covered with a white basecoat. Ah, yes, that is a box of Cheez-its on the chest. Don't you know that is the food of hard workers? I pushed all the furniture to the center of the room and covered them with some tarps. The door in the background was painted dark pink too, but that will go back to being white when I'm done.

The next image is the other side of the room, you can see the original dark pink that I am trying to cover and some of my patching. The new color is Tea Room Cream by American Tradition. It is a pale creamy yellow. I used that color in my hallways and stairway during my brief time as a homeowner. It's a very pretty neutral color with just a soft hint of yellow. It looks nice with alot of things. The white door in this photo is a closet. Oh, I also painted 14 doors in the house this week too! I'm really tired of painting!

Did I mention that I am also doing the ceiling? Even worse peeling and uneveness. Here is a happy shot of the ceiling with a layer of white, over a layer of blue (blue? who had a blue ceiling?) and the raw plaster in a few areas. Check out the cool Deco ceiling lamp! I don't think it has been used in years because no one knows how to turn it on. There are no wall switches in this room to turn on the light, there is just a tiny knob on it. So I think I've convinced my Dad to remove this lamp and put up a ceiling fan with a light in it. Now, where would be a good place to put the pretty Deco ceiling light? Hmm.

I started scraping on Sunday and have worked on the room 2 to 4 hours each day this week, except Wednesday, finishing on Friday. The room turned out so pretty, and it really was fun to do. I love planning projects and the satisfaction of when I'm finished. The rest of the room went back exactly the same, furniture in the same place anyway. I may have changed the pictures on the wall and a few accessories, and I did buy new curtains.








Vintage Clothing Themed Altered book update - My theme this month was 'Fantastical Frocks' So for my two page layout, I decided to feature some fantastic frocks by Adrian. He was THE designer for MGM in the late 1930s to very early 40s. He designed for Greta Garbo, Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Jean Harlow, Hepburn in the Philadelphia Story and many others. He dressed the Munchkins in the Wizard of Oz too. Anyway, once I pasted in photos of those pretty gowns, I didn't want to do anything too artsey to cover them, so my creativity was very minimal on this page I'm afraid. The book had great photos of Normandy, fields and castles etc. It made me think of fair maidens. So I did a 2nd two page layout with a picture in the book of a building surrounded by water. Then I made little doors and put in photos of some John Waterhouse painting of pretty ladies. Kind of a stretch for vintage fashion, but they are wearing pretty dresses!





Bye for now, Carol

Vintage Summer lovin'


The weather is getting warmer here! I was looking longingly in my closet (again) at the Summer dresses that I've been waiting to wear. Here's one that I pulled out and snapped when I was doing photos this week. 1950s Dark green strappy floral, cotton, full skirt. I bought it over the Winter from
ladyluckvintage on ebay. Yummy. I never use to wear strappy things, I was always self conscious because I had boney shoulders. But now that I've gained weight, my shoulders and upper arms aren't so thin and I like them much better now. I think the only place that I haven't gained weight is my wrists, they are still super skinny!
Here are two of the shoes that I could wear with this dress, 1960s strappy or a covered wedge. Now I just need to shave my legs.










Here's a fun weekend bag that I use to haul my stuff around. Made of straw, with green yarn designs, it's big too. Enough room for clothing, food, work stuff etc.

Below is a closer view of that bear that you see setting behind the bag. I made him about 10 years ago I guess. Pale yellow terrycloth courtesy of the Rag Shop, which is where I worked for 5 years before I got into selling vintage. He's holding his honey pot. I wanted him to look kind of like the very early Winnie the Pooh. I still have some grey terry boxed up somewhere that I wanted to use to make an Eeyore. My Mom made me an Eeyore when I was very little, he's packed up somewhere around here too. I had been trying to find the old pattern for him and someone on a sewing messageboard had it and sent me a copy several years ago. But now I don't know where the pattern is of course!

I'll be glad when I can move into my bigger room and get re-organized and then I'll be able to get into all my things that have been packed up for the past year. Most of my craft and sewing things are packed up and shoved back in the crawlspace or in the tops of closets. I miss them. I want to set up a little craft area in my room, near a nice bright window.

Bye for now, Carol