Oodles and oodles

Helpful holiday hints from the Internet

Every morning my Twitter feed is filled with ideas for holiday baking, holiday decorating, holiday entertaining, some of the ideas more useful than others. This morning, I was intrigued by a link that promised to show how to wrap irregularly shaped gifts. It is fantastic, and I spent much of the morning wrapping irregularly shaped gifts. I even used this method to wrap regularly shaped gifts. I had an unfortunate episode yesterday involving advice I found online, so the fact that I was willing to try anything new today is a testament to the resiliency of the human spirit.

I even was inspired to create my own variation on the idea, which was to paper-punch two holes in the top to close the package. This is not a post about how to wrap gifts. It is a post to announce that the Academy of Vintage Christmas Ornaments Arts and Sciences Awards are on hiatus this year. The founder may have a statement on that tomorrow, the traditional day of the awards. The founder is feeling a little frazzled this year, as am I.

At every step this holiday season, I have found a way to make a simple task more complicated. I wanted to decorate my kitchen for the holidays, but first I decided to tear out a built-in piece of furniture. Wall patching, sanding and painting ensued.

Instead of merely decorating the dining room, I decided it needed to be rearranged, and a heavy piece of furniture removed, and I needed to find new homes for the items stored inside the heavy piece of furniture, and there were quite a few of them.

Instead of buying people simple gifts (gift cards) they certainly would like (cash), I thought of complicated schemes, one of which involves a belt sander. (I can't say any more just now, as the gift has not yet been given. Although the sound of the belt sander surely has them curious.)

Instead of merely vacuuming my carpet yesterday, I followed some advice I read online about cleaning for the holidays, which recommended sprinkling your carpet with baking soda to freshen it up. It seemed harmless enough, but at some point I realized the baking soda was not so much freshening up an area rug but becoming embedded in it, and the best course of action seemed to be to drag the area rug outside to try to beat the baking soda out of it, which left a trail of baking soda through the house, and particles floating through the air, much like snowflakes, but smaller and less attractive, and there was snow on the porch, and the rug got some snow on it as I beat the living daylights out of it, and as I dragged it back into the house, the snow melted into the trail of baking soda and left an unfortunate residue on the hardwood.

Although I do not believe the carpet cleaning went as intended, the area rug is fresh and bright, all of the surfaces that had been dusted once were dusted a second time to remove a light coating of bicarbonate of soda, and the hardwood floors were scrubbed. My house has never been so clean, and for that, I suppose, I should thank the baking soda.

I wish you well as we head into these next few chaotic days. As for me, I need to get back to the belt sander.

 

Interior monologue

While returning from taking my daughter back to college after Thanksgiving break:

Me: If you went this way instead of that way, you could stop at the little junk shop.

Myself: We're not doing that this year. We're paring down our collection and reevaluating, remember?

Me: I know. But it's right on the way. It can't hurt to look.

Myself: We're too busy. We have work to do. We have boxes to pack. And we have a house to decorate.

Me (sighing): We never have any fun.

Myself: I know.

Suddenly, Myself reconsiders. The little junk shop is right on the way. It will only take a minute.

In fact, we don't even have to hunt for these.

The best thing about having an argument with yourself is that you always win.

p.s. The virtual vintage Advent calendar begins Monday on Facebook!

 

 

Dept. of charming housewares

Does anyone ever ask you, when you mention that you're going to an antique show or estate sale, what you're looking for? Happens to me all the time. And there are a few things that are always on my shopping list, like feedsacks. (Saw a fair number of them at the Bouckville show, but left behind a lot more than I bought. The prices were good, but the quality wasn't.) Obviously, ornaments are always on my list. (We'll talk more about Christmas soon.)

Beyond that, though, it's pretty hard to say what I'm shopping for. I did not arrive at the show and set out to find a toy metal dish rack, boxes of decals and a maple leaf thingy (it hangs on the wall and holds a flowerpot, but I feel like it has a higher purpose, yet to be discovered). 

Also found decals in a larger box, and a teapot napkin holder. Also not on the shopping list.

Quilt squares are probably always on the list.

Quilt tops, too.

However, if I'd said "What I'd really like is a quilt top that has the original label on the fabric, because the person who made the quilt top was so excited about her project she didn't bother to remove it," I'd probably have been disappointed. Finding one was just a bit of serendipity.

Vintage linens, always on the list. Vintage tea towels, especially ones that have never been used, of course. Vintage tea towels with kitchen motifs hidden in the center of flower blossoms? Who would think to look for that?

Sewing notions, you bet. Six yards of ribbon embroidered with fruit? Another happy surprise.

So the next time someone asks me what I'm looking for, I think I'll just answer like this: I'm looking for charming vintage housewares that I didn't know existed until I found them. 

 

Bouckville, day 3

Our colonial ancestors sometimes ate pie for breakfast. I am all in favor of tradition, and if all goes well, I will be eating pie for breakfast in Bouckville Wednesday morning. After that, I'll walk off the calories (well, some of them) by hiking around the grounds and looking for more treasures. Meanwhile, here are some Christmas finds from the last few days. The cardboard streetlight (I plugged it in, just for you) will probably require a redesign of the Putz village. The paper mache snowman will join the rest of the snowman collection. The rest, lovely as it is, will probably find forever homes elsewhere.New old stock icicles that came from a Baltimore department store, I am missing you already. The linen underneath is a table runner.

That's not to say there weren't some Christmas tablecloths to be found.

This one looked familiar. Much as I hate parting with a good Christmas tablecloth, I probably don't need duplicates.

More new old stock (from a different dealer) - gorgeous old Christmas cards, printed in Germany. Bunches of 'em.

Much as I love mid-century, I look at the embossing on these and think I should be collecting from a few decades earlier. They are spectacular.

Another box of ornaments may have been procured.

OK, several may have been procured. But it's not like I'm keeping all of them.

Just some of them.






 

Bouckville, day 2

I had lunch with Gina and Linda at Bouckville Monday, and both of them had some treasures in pink to show. I do not think of any of us as necessarily pink people (not that there's anything wrong with that) but more as people who buy pink to sell. Pink always sells. Most of my pink treasures came from my second day at Bouckville; hence the name of this post. Also, it keeps me from using a cliche (in the pink!) or having to think too hard. At left, pillowcases; at right, a feedsack.

My favorite pink find by far was a quilt top; Dresden plates in 1930s prints on a pink background. With pink blanket stitching for good measure.

In addition to great florals, there were occasional novelty prints.

My apologies for the last fabric. I'm sure we've all seen quite enough of fabric with elephants playing croquet.

I picked up a few samplers and such.

Potholders.

And a great piece of fabric, regrettably small.

Day 3 of Bouckville was really good. I bumped into a few friends, and I met up later with Gina and her husband Paul, and Colleen and her husband Chris. I think of Bouckville as kind of a class reunion, if you went to a high school where you actually liked the people. (And if you went to a high school with 2,000 antique dealers and lots of great stuff.) More to come!

Bouckville, day 1

Saturday morning found me making a somewhat complicated maneuver involving three drivers and two vehicles, but it left me with a) one of the vehicles and b) about half an hour away from the annual Madison-
Bouckville antique show, which doesn't really start until Monday. But I thought I was close enough to check to see if anyone was selling yet, and these two game-bird salt and pepper shakers followed me home.

I found a few other things, including a garden bench and some ornaments. Also some old metal crates, a McCoy planter and an orphaned bear salt shaker. Unless you live very close by, I don't think going to Bouckville on a Saturday is really worth the bother, but I think I made the best of it. 

A closer look at some of the ornaments while I tell you a story about the guy who was selling them. He had a booth full of junk, and in the booth was a big plastic tote with lots of boxes of ornaments in them. Nothing was priced, and he offered to sell them all to me for $150. I wanted to look them over first. As I looked them over, he chatted with someone who hadn't seen him since last year. We'll call him Guy #2.

Guy #2: Where's your little dog?

Guy selling ornaments: Don't know.

G2: You don't know?

GSO: The dog belonged to Bean.

G2: Where's Bean?

GSO: Bean got in a little trouble and he had to go away for awhile.

Leaving me to wonder: Is Bean in jail? Or in hiding? Also, what kind of trouble? I would never find out, but it was apparently serious, because G2 and GSO spent a lot of time talking in hushed tones, and there was an expletive or two.

I hated to interrupt, but I needed to tell GSO (politely) that he was out of his mind if he thought anyone would pay $150 for the ornaments in the tub. I countered with an offer of $75 for half the ornaments in the tub - obviously the good ones, but it was a fair offer. GSO was deeply offended.

GSO: I can't do that. You're gonna have to buy them by the box.

He then quoted me a price per box that was lower than what I'd just offered him. So I grabbed five boxes quick as I could and handed him the cash. 

Also, I asked him if he'd throw in the corsage for good measure, and he did. I think Bean might have been the brains of this operation, but I'll never know.

The orphaned bear, which came out of a free box, found a home with my recently acquired Adirondack canoe souvenir, which came out of a dollar box. So far my vintage camp tableau has not set me back too much.

The bench went straight to the garden and under the arbor.

It's a perfect fit. It will look even better when the morning glories start to bloom in earnest.

Just lovely. It looks like it's illuminated from within.

So tomorrow's the first official day of Bouckville, but I did a little more pre-shopping Sunday.

It was a pretty good day, and there's a full week ahead!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sales that could not be ignored

My rule for evaluating sales this summer goes like this: If the sale sounds like it would be more fun than a couple hours of gardening, I'll go. There haven't been, well, any. Until today.

In addition to the typewriter, clocks and folding yardsticks, there was a dog.

And pretty glasses. They're not Swanky Swigs - maybe peanut butter glasses? 

Boxes chock-a-block full of recipes. This one is sweet. It sounds a little bit disgusting, but I like the sentiment.

There were a fair amount of linens - among them, aprons left, linen towels on right - and clothespins to hang them up with after they're washed. My love for vintage clothespins is embarrassing and inexplicable.

I rediscovered the joy of being the first person to walk in a room and behold a table full of ornaments.

This set of Jewelbrite ornaments are my favorites.

A deer, glittery snow, a bottle brush tree. Times four.

And finally, since we're on the subject of deer and trees, a little felt souvenir from the Adirondacks.

Having enjoyed this sale quite a bit, I went on to one where it was guaranteed I would find lots to buy.

My local greenhouse has been having a different sale every weekend. Two weeks ago, it was $2.99 daylilies. Last week it was $5 hibiscus. This week, annuals for $1.99.

And .99. 

I thought the terra cotta coleus would be a nice late-summer touch.

And yellow lantana is good any time.

I'm enjoying this summer quite a bit. Hope you are, too.

 

 

 

 

My before-and-after summer

I started junking only about 10 years ago, and mostly because I needed a new hobby. My first love was gardening, but I had gardened so enthusiastically that I kind of wrecked my back, and my body needed a break. (Also several rounds of steroid injections, but nobody wants to hear about that.) It took a few years to get back into shoveling and raking form, and once I was, I faced a conflict. Should I junk, or should I garden? This season, I haven't faced that conflict at all. The only sales I've gone to are ones I happened to pass on the way to a greenhouse. All I want to do is garden.

Here's the view out my bedroom window. It's the herb bed, the first thing I look at when I get out of bed. I took this photo (dangling out an open window) about 10 days ago, and I think everything has doubled in size since then.

But it's come a long way from a month ago. (I can't believe that was only a month ago. I think this is why gardening can be so great.)

The frigid weather last winter had a peculiar effect all around our property. Some plants that seemed indestructible, like lemon balm, died off. Other plants, like some annual dianthus that shouldn't have come back, are lush with second-year growth.

Okay, maybe this is why gardening is so great.

Some of the hardy geraniums came back. Some of them didn't. At any rate, the hit-and-miss destruction required overhauling lots of beds, and that was awesome. A chance to correct previous mistakes, as well as a chance to make new ones.

The chamomile seeded itself. Instead of having enough for one cup of tea, I may have enough for two cups of tea this year.

Feverfew is a self-sower, too. I bought one packet of seeds back in my old days of gardening, and I've never needed to buy it again. I love enthusiasm! I love free plants!

This is the first time I've grown this - Centella asiatica, or gotu kola. Apparently it cures everything and can be eaten as a salad green. I bought it because it fit my requirements and it was pretty.

I've always liked going to greenhouses, not just for the plants, but for the ideas. At one greenhouse I saw a wooden box planted with herbs, and I liked it so much I checked the price tag, and thankfully, because I think it was about $75, I remembered I had a wooden box! And herbs! So for the price of a bag of potting soil, I had pretty much the same thing.

The box (it's a shipping crate for encyclopedias) came from the basement of our first house, and I have hauled it to several locations because I was so certain it would come in handy someday. As it did. There may not be as much junk this summer, but certainly, there will be junk. And lots of projects. It will be, I think, a before-and-after summer, and I'm really looking forward to it. 

 

 
 

 

 

 

Matched sets

It's nice when things that don't come from the same place end up looking good together. This would be the pastel collection (two aprons, a bunch of Tupperware, six linen towels).

Jadite goes with everything. (Restaurant ware plates, hooray!)

 This would be the red collection.

More housewares with a garden theme (hooray!)

Still waiting for that can't-get-everything-in-the-car sale, but it's early. (Isn't it?)

Vintage garden style

It's the time of year when I'm torn.

Garden?

Or junk?

Junk?

Or garden?

Today, I'm enjoying both.

They're vintage canape trays with seed packet motifs. Some for me, some for Etsy. I've never seen anything like them. I'm sure I'll find something this season I love even more, but right now, I can't imagine what it would be.