Oodles and oodles

Questions, mostly rhetorical

Isn't this a great time of year to shop?

Don't you think the person who thought to combine a cellophane candy cane, strings of mercury glass beads and frosted bells was a genius? Aren't those bell colors perfect? I have never seen anything like this; have you?

You know the only thing I love better than spun-head cotton angels?

Wait, I have the answer to that one: When they come in their original package.

Would you open this package of candy-cane stickers with velvety bows, or would you just think about it?

If you only had a dollar, and each of these was $1, and you couldn't borrow the money from a friend or scrounge up some loose change in your car and you really, really only had one dollar, which one would you buy?

Isn't it fortunate I didn't have to face such a terrible decision?

Do you think that in a previous life I was a clerk at Woolworth's?

OK, your turn.

Holiday traditions

I hope all of you had a pleasant Black Friday and that you did not find yourself pepper-sprayed at a Wal-Mart (in California) or injured in a scuffle for cell phones (at a Wal-Mart about an hour away from here). These are but two of the reasons I try not to go out the day after Thanksgiving. The other reasons are that I find staying at home much more entertaining. Why go shopping when you can provide a vintage warming hut for your vintage sledders and skaters? (The warming hut looked like this when I found it.)


Most of my Thanksgiving night ornament repairs went well, this one being the most dramatic and successful turnaround.

The newly restrung garland is pretty fabulous. I hope I don't sound too self-congratulatory. Clearly a four-year-old who could be trusted with breakable objects could have restrung the garland.

Some of the three-dimensional beaded ornaments were much more difficult to repair than I had imagined. My hat is off to their original makers - they are not as easy to recreate as it might seem. But the two-dimensional ones were repaired, and a couple of the three-dimensional ones that collapsed were recycled into icicles and candy canes.

The bead wreath was an easy fix, of course, and inspired the creation of some other wreaths with some leftover beads.

They proved to be somewhat addictive.

I spent some time Friday getting reacquainted with some old friends.

Bottle-brush trees, I've missed you!

The skating scene was updated with a Farm Chicks-inspired truck.

And the skating pond is open for business, so the holiday season has arrived!





 

Before & after dinner

I hope that if you are reading this on Thanksgiving it's because you're having a pleasant interlude in your holiday festivities and not because your relatives are driving you stark raving mad. I put that in small letters in case they're looking over your shoulder.

 

I'm perhaps overly proud of this apple pie, memorialized here just before I put it in the oven. It may be my cutest pie to date.

I've done pretty much nothing but cook the last day or two, but that's OK, because Thanksgiving is one of my favorite meals, and we'll have so many leftovers I won't have to cook much the rest of the weekend.

That means I can turn my attention after dinner to some little projects I've been saving just for today. Like fixing these old beaded ornaments. These only need a broken bead or two replaced.

These require more help.

I stopped at the antique mall the other day and purchased a number of Christmas items, including this bell. I adore it. I sense it's the beginning of a collection.

It needs a bead or two replaced, too. Not quite sure what to make of the angel. Especially the red circles around her eyes. She looks like she stayed up too late caroling and drinking eggnog.

My first project, though, is to restring these garlands I found in a box at this sale.

It's not going to take much to restore these. Those glass beads are just about perfect the way they are.

Whatever your plans today, I hope you're having a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Everything you wanted to know about vintage Christmas ornaments

 
Friends, it's time to open up the mailbag and answer your questions about vintage Christmas ornaments. And if you're wondering about this photo, it's a collection of plastic dime-store ornaments that I love, love, love. I put them on Etsy but it won't break my heart if they don't sell. I want a whole tree with nothing but dime-store plastic ornaments. I'm trying not to think about it. I'm trying not to think about it so hard that I'm not thinking about the place I just thought of where another Christmas tree could go.

Laura, via Etsy, asked about some of the vintage ornaments she's acquired. "A lot of them are missing some paint, or the silver inside is tarnished, and whatnot. Are they still desirable in that condition?"

I hate when people answer "it depends," but I think that's the only way to answer the question. If an ornament is missing so much paint or so tarnished that the wear is distracting, it's probably a problem. If it's still pretty, it's probably fine. Bubbling and flaking paint (usually from moisture), broken indents and chipped pikes (necks) are problems, though.

Kathy said she wasn't going to ask me anything but she forgot she asked me a long time ago how to identify ornaments from Poland. You know why I love this question? One, because once you know what an ornament from Poland looks like, you can identify it from across a room, and second BECAUSE SOMEONE ACTUALLY CARES ABOUT PROPERLY IDENTIFYING ORNAMENTS.

(Perhaps I'll write about properly identifying ornaments at a different time. I'm feeling the need TO WRITE IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS AND THAT'S NEVER A GOOD SIGN.)

So, first off, look at the metal cap, because nine times out of ten, it will say Poland. Yay! I love easy identification. Ornaments from Poland also have distinctive patterns, like vertical stripes and glitter that's arranged like fish scales and handpainted flowers. Even the indents (like the ones above) have those designs on the back.

These are from Poland, too - there are Santas and skiers and women gathering pine, painted with just a few brushstrokes. There's a soft shimmer and glow to ornaments from Poland.

There are lots more photos of ornaments from Poland in this post.
 

From Ruthann (no blog): "My question is, how many different Shiny Brites have you come across? I wonder how many different ones were made; not just colors but designs too."

Oh, I love this question because it feels like a project! I have no idea! There were balls, and balls with indents, and balls with stripes, and balls with stencils, and odd shapes like lanterns and UFOs and tornados, and bells, and different sizes of bells, not to mention all the different colors, and the latter-day Shiny Brites with glitter designs, and now I really want to try to document this.

Since I don't have a very good answer to this question, I'm tossing it to Melissa, who describes herself as a certified ornament hoarder and volunteered to take any questions I couldn't answer. Thanks, Melissa!

From Susan: "My question is, when will you be putting up the tree?"

Answer: The day after Thanksgiving. I would rather wait a week or so. But my son insists on the day after Thanksgiving, and we all know that Christmas is for children. Even when the children are 20 years old.

There were several questions about cleaning ornaments. One word: Gently. At most, I use a soft, dry cloth. Water is the worst thing in the world for glass ornaments. Storing them with hangers attached is a bad idea, by the way, because the hangers can scratch them.

Lucky Kim bought a bag of ornaments at her thrift store. "In there were several of the little ornaments that have pinecone bodies and cute little heads (gnomes?). They have skis on and ski poles in their hands. ... Can you provide a little history on them?"

My go-to Christmas reference book, "Christmas, 1940 - 1959," by Robert Brenner, has a photo of these on the cover. Pinecone people, the book says, were very popular in the 1950s and were made in Germany and Italy. Most of the ones that I own were made in Japan. I've seen them on skis, with musical instruments, with books, with little lanterns - there seems to be no end to the variations. Last December's Martha Stewart magazine had quite a good article on pinecone elves.

Kim also asked about flocked plastic figures - "a bit tacky, but also a bit cute." I turned to my other go-to Christmas reference book, "Christmas, 1960 - present," also  by Robert Brenner, and found a reference to them. They're felt-covered plastic ornaments from Japan, and they were popular in the 1970s.

Here's my question for all of you: Do you think they'll be valuable some day? I hope not, because I give 'em back to the thrift store almost as soon as I get them.

And finally ...

Amy asks: "Will there be a 2011 Academy of Vintage Christmas Ornament Arts and Sciences Awards?"

Yes, indeed! As is our custom, it will be the Monday before Christmas, or thereabouts. But I'll make sure you all get invited. I've got connections with the Academy.

 

Thrift store Thursday

I brought home a shoebox full of junk from the thrift store. Underneath the plastic flowers and whatnot were some of my favorite things, like frosted bells and silver leaves wired with glass beads.

There was a tiny box of stickers.

There was an elf and an ornament.

There were three Christmas spun-head figures. I took a closer look at the Christmas stocking.

Yes, just as I thought, the traditional mix of toys: a doll, a bear, a candy cane and a gun.

Best of all, there were two Halloween spun heads. I don't own either of these. It was very exciting to find them. That wasn't a box of junk I brought home. It was a box of joy.

Ask me anything

Oh, sure, from this angle things are looking pretty good. (And the waving snowman and the ornament that says 'Greetings,' just over his right shoulder, was a complete accident. But a happy accident.)

This view, however, is not so good. This is my dining room. It's got the best light in the house - good for photography, not so much for eating. I've been moving furniture all morning trying to capture the last bit of sunlight before the rain came in. It's all gone now, as you might be able to tell. The sunlight, that is. Not the mess. The mess will be there quite a while, I suspect.

The snowmen candles are my favorite make-cute-photos-for-Etsy items this year.  I've got a few waving snowman candles. The one who's gently blushing is new this year, and I'm not sure that he's a Gurley. He's adorable, though. I love the way his head tilts so it looks like he's always admiring something. This is why I have a blog: so I can wax (ha, ha) poetic about the expressions on my snowman candles. When I tell Mr. Oodles things like this, he tells me I need to get out more.

Did you know that Thanksgiving is ONE WEEK from tomorrow? Honest to Pete, I did not. I thought it was the following week. I lost a week somewhere. Maybe in the time change, although I think we were supposed to gain time with that, not lose it. Anyway, me losing a week any time of the year is bad, but this time of year, it's very, very bad. So I will be here editing photos and typing Etsy listings just as fast as my fingers (and my sluggish computer) will go because I am seriously, seriously behind.

Which brings me to this: What better time to offer my services to you?

Here's the deal: I often get questions in comments (and the last few days, a number of Etsy convos) about Christmas ornaments. Sometimes I get a chance to answer. The last week or so, not so much. But I've got a mini-collection of questions to answer, and I'm just going to answer them here, in one post. So if you've got a question about ornaments, ask it now. If I can answer it, I will. If I can't, I won't. (It's hard for me to identify specific ornaments without seeing them in person, and even harder to say what something's worth, so keep it general if you can.)

Just don't ask me when I'm going to get the dining room table cleaned up. I'm shooting for Thanksgiving, but now that it's a week sooner than I thought, there are no guarantees.


 

Birds of a feather

I have a bit of a thing for glittery vintage Christmas ornament birds.

This one is a candy container. The body is hollow, and the head twists off so the contents can be reached. I agree. It is vaguely disturbing. It is, however, a glittery vintage Christmas ornament bird.

I like glittery vintage Christmas ornament birds enough to overlook small imperfections, like half a missing beak.

Or, for that matter, no beak at all.

With my household back to its normal size, and me more interested in some mindless fun than a mountain of laundry, I decided to try creating some glittery vintage-style Christmas ornament birds.

I recently acquired a small vial of silver glass glitter and proceeded to see how quickly I could use it. Soon I had glittered a number of things, and there was a faint trail of glitter throughout the house.

(I made these to hang from a tree, which explains why they're sitting on little curtain rings for their photos. Curtain rings often are in box lots of sewing notions, and there's nothing better for holding roly-poly objects in place for photos. Having photographed several thousand Christmas ornaments over the years, I feel I have some expertise in this matter.)

I glittered a tiny vase-like object and filled it with sparkly things.

I see some places (right in the center) where I want to add more flowers. This was an extremely fun project. One that required getting out multiple boxes of objects such as ornaments, silver leaves, millinery flowers and glass bead picks. If you follow the trail of glitter upstairs, you'll find a work area that's an astonishing mess! But in a good way. In a now-that-all-this-stuff-is-out-I-should-make-more-of-these kind of way.

The entire glittery crew, minus the guy who's missing his beak. Now that I've got all that stuff out, I think beak replacement surgery is my next project.

 

 


 

Inspired by vintage

When I found this ornament last fall, I immediately thought several things: 1) I love this, and 2) I want more. (This line of thinking applies to many things: fabric, ornaments, cookies, good wine, sleep - shall I continue?)

So here's my version of the Putz house with Santa ornament.

Quick Q & A:

Q. Where did you get the Putz houses?
A. I made them.

Q. How did you get the holes in the back? With a paper punch?
A. No, the punch wouldn't go through the cardboard, so I used an electric drill with a hole saw, and it was awesome. Crafting with power tools: I believe I've just begun to explore the potential.

Q. Did you actually use some of the spun-head people you hoard?
A. Indeed I did.

I also used some of the spun-head snowmen.

The pink angel on the right, found in its original department-store box this summer, made me wish I could get back every satin ball I've donated to the thrift store over the years. But I experimented with crepe paper instead and made her some sisters over there on the left.

More pictures in my Etsy shop.


p.s. I have been the worst kind of blog friend lately. I haven't had a chance to read blogs much at all, and when I do, I'm too tired to leave an intelligent comment. Looking forward to some catching up this weekend!

 

Ornament sorting

I need to take a somewhat different approach to the ornament sorting this year. With family coming from out of town, I don't want to leave a trail of ornament-laced destruction upstairs and down. (Let me rephrase that: I do want to leave a trail of ornament-laced destruction upstairs and down, but I'm not convinced all of my relatives will view this in the proper light. Also, there's safety to be considered. They aren't as skilled as members of my immediate family in the fine art of not stepping on stray ornament hangers in bare feet in the middle of the night.)


I'm trying to confine my activity to one corner of a bedroom. The handpainted ornaments from Poland go on one side. The Shiny Brites go on another. Then there are subcategories like dime-store plastics, bells, indents.

The big box o' Poland ornaments, to be divided further by size and shape.

Many, many striped ornaments.

Stencil overflow.

Boxes I forgot I stored on a shelf.

I've made some progress. Even gotten some Etsy listings done. (Even with my dad asking things like are you sure people buy these? And suggesting that if I didn't fuss so much, I'd get more done.) But for today, I'm switching from ornament-sorting mode to hosting-my-relatives mode. (When my dad will be asking things like, are you sure that ham is big enough for everybody? And suggesting that if I didn't fuss so much, I'd get more done.)

Fabric finds

Good thing there was an extra hour this weekend. I'm expecting some family members to arrive this week, and I really wanted to get all that fabric from Friday's sale sorted and put away. Here are two prints I like - a crazy fruit print, and some charming peppermint stripes.

I loved this piece so much I ironed it for you.

Of the 11 boxes I brought home, the equivalent of one was stuff to donate or throw out. I could fill another box with the kind of fabrics I love, and another with older fabrics that are really nice, homespuns and such. That left eight boxes - and I don't know how many yards - of fairly recent cotton prints for quilting. You know how you see listings on eBay selling fabric by the pound? That will be what I'm doing after Christmas. There's nothing wrong with the fabric - it's practically new, never used, neatly folded and sorted by color - but it's nothing I'll ever use. (And I managed to squeeze it into four boxes, now in the attic.)

This is much more to my liking. (You can tell my interest in ironing was short lived.)

This orange fabric wants to be made into a vintage Halloween costume with black ruffles. Not to wear, but to display.

Some of the older fabrics - pre-1930, but that's about as far as my expertise goes. I just ordered a book that includes, among other things, a guide to dating fabric by its width. I find that kind of thing riveting. These fabrics are quite narrow, in the 24 to 30 inch range.

Some of the feedsacks, not my favorites.

Some of the feedsacks that are my favorites. (Martha, you know me well!)

Pretty aqua feedsacks. (I have pieces of the pattern on the right in a medium blue - kind of fun to find it in another color combination.)

This is about the cutest thing ever - a feedsack printed with rows of curtains. What was even cuter were the curtains made from this print that were in the same box - a little bit faded, but still in good enough shape to think at least briefly about redecorating an entire room around them.

The only thing that could possibly be better than that previous feedsack is that feedsack in red.

This print was worthy of ironing, too.

I could take pictures of it all day.

This could get annoying, so I'll stop. Also, I've got something else to do. Now that the fabric's sorted, there's the matter of a season's worth of Christmas ornaments to sort.