Love for Him

Get creative with your love notes this year~ if it can be copied, it can be a Valentine!

Red and Pink Prizes

I just love these!!!

Time for Vintage Pinks!

I'm finally getting some Valentine's Day things made for my shop. Here are garlands crafted from vintage Valentines and 1880's scrapbook advertising art, and a set of "love potions." Too fun! (See my etsy shop at right for details)

Merry Merry Vintage Christmas

Little Christmas treasures bring a simple, festive look to the home for Christmas. Hope yours is blessed! "For unto us a child has been born."

Happy Vintage 4th!

Vintage Garlands

A beautiful way to display your favorites in your ephemera collections! Fluttering on vintage seam binding, these garlands crafted from postcards, text pages, French wine labels, calendar pages, photographs, and dress pattern covers, are all available at VintageScraps.etsy.com

...because nothing says "I love you" like sarcasm.

You'd think after living in the South for 16 years, I'd be nicer, partial to grits and sweet tea, saying "y'all" and "might could." But I just haven't shaken my Chicago suburban roots, loaded with dry sarcasm and nasal tones, partial to the Bears, unsweetened tea, and cold weather. So here is my real self; the dreamy cottage pinks are really just a front!

Re-purposed Valentine Candy Boxes

My tall, dark, and handsome husband is a lavish and unique gift giver, who often surprises me with flowers (and once a cake!) delivered to my door on Valentine's day. Last year I recieved a classic, giant heart shaped box of candies, which I saved (not the candy, just the box) knowing it had to become something else one day. So here it is, a "tacky in a good way" as my daughter stated, vintage Valentine assemblage.
This one is for sale at VintageScraps.etsy.com
or perhaps you should buy yourself a box, eat the contents with a cup of good coffee, and decorate for Valentine's day. (My youngest informed me yesterday that this box was purchased at a gas station, in case you're wondering where to find one. I think my husband is slipping!!)

Winter White Dreams (a.k.a. avoiding taking down Chirstmas!)

UGH! I guess getting started is the hard part!
(I love this last little mixed media piece,
by artist ColletteC.etsy.com)

It's Not Your Mother's Tupperware Party

What fun! My home was turned into a store for a day this weekend as I hosted an art show for my virtual community on etsy, the NCTriangle Street Team. The theme was Handmade for the Holidays, and shoppers were invited to feast on Christmas treats while browsing through the tables of 15 sellers. I love living in a store! Stop by our team blog, http://nctriangle.blogspot.com/

O Christmas Tree! (and the husband with issues)

There are so many things you don't find out about your man until after you're married. Tiny, irritating habits, wonderful, deep running character traits, things both good and bad. And some revelations don't quite fit into either the good or the bad categories. This is one of them.
My husband has Christmas tree issues. The problem surfaced during our first Christmas, 11 months after we were married, on a bitterly cold afternoon in Connecticut. We went to a tree farm to find a tree. I was dressed for going to a tree farm to find a tree. My husband, as it turned out, was dressed for a Quest, as in The Quest To Find The Perfect Christmas Tree. Oh sure, it was romantic and fun- for the first 3 hours anyway. Then as the cold from the frozen tundra beneath my feet crept into my brain, I began to get a little sarcastic. "How about this tree, HONEY?" I would say, jabbing at a two foot Charlie Brown Christmas tree look alike. He was undaunted. 47 hours later we tied The Perfect Tree on top of our Just Out of College Married Poor People car, and headed home. In the years that followed, I tried all types of intervention to help my husband, all for not. The Quest resurfaced every year. I gave up, and began producing children who could take my place accompanying my husband, while I stayed home and made cookies. "You go on ahead," I'd say in my martyr voice. "I'll stay home so you can have hot cookies when you return."
Our marriage was saved.
We moved 5 years ago to a house I fell in love with because of its big and beautiful kitchen/sun room combo, with a 14 foot ceiling, and in doing so, unknowingly added another dimension to the Quest: not only is it to be perfect, but it must be as tall and as wide as the White House Christmas Tree.
Perhaps I'll convert to Judaism...

Christmas Birds

Lovely winter offerings from
VintageScraps.etsy.com
siskastudio.etsy.com
ara133photography.etsy.com

Midnight Snow Flurries

It's becoming delightfully chilly here in North Carolina! I'm just not a hot weather person, having been raised in the Chicago suburbs and all. So to celebrate the end of Hot, I picked some favorite, dark and snowy looking art pieces from a few beautiful etsy.com stores. (Please contact me if you would like more information on these pieces.)

VOTE!

Election fun from etsy shops MinorThread.etsy.com, RememberMeEmily.etsy.com, and MullishMuse.etsy.com