Isn't she Lovely?

This is my baby girl, Brennah, almost 25, and number three in the lineup of my children. She loves vintage clothes and is an artist. She also loves her dog, Neptune, a German Shephard.

Who are these crazies?

Zach and Tyler making their crazy faces. I love to get the kids to do this every time we take pictures. They indulge me even if they don't want to...but the pics come out so funny, I love it.

My sons

Zach is the baby at age 23, Tyler is the second oldest at almost 28. Love these two so very much and am very proud of them. They have both faced some pretty hard situations in their lives and are coping and thriving. I pray they will be strong, love Jesus and live for Him through their whole lives. They are so handsome, huh?

Hula Honeys

My dear friend, Karen, went to the Islands over Christmas and she brought these gifts back to me. Hula Honeys is a Fold and Mail stationary pad. It has darling vintage looking pictures on the outside where you put the address of the person you are mailing it to. The hula girl is a magnet, so she has a place on my refrigerator. The candy...well it is yummy chocolate with Macadamia nuts in the center...YUM! Thanks, Karen. I have not yet been to Hawaii, but look forward to visiting there one day.

Lots o' Juice

My son, Tyler, got us these orange juice glasses and carafe for Christmas. He knows how I love O.J. and have a glass every morning with my vitamins. He got them at World Market. I think these are real cute and now I can drink my O.J. in style. Thanks, son.

Biltmore Box

This framed piece is an old Biltmore Department Store box top. I am not sure where Biltmore was located, built have seen this word on other store related items. I found this treasure in the thrift shop where I voluteer. It was in the frame already, which is vintage as well. I really appreciate the graphics on this box top. So I wanted to show it before the Christmas season was over and it is put away or down in my studio. If you click on it to enlarge you can see the snowy house scene much better. Merry Christmas!

Candy Canes

This is the darling little sign my friend Lou brought me the other day. It fits in so nicely with the red and white I like. I placed it here in an old wood bowl then added some primtive looking wood candy canes in with it.
Merry Christmas to the few people who know about my blog or who view it from time to time. May the Lord be in your heart on this day of celebration of HIS birth. Happy Birthday to Jesus! If He is not in your heart all you have to do is asking Him to come in and He will and you will never be the same. I promise.

Christmas Goodies

Wanted to make a small post about these cookies or candy, if you will. Remembering late the night before I needed to take cookies to my DAR meeting last Friday I frantically tore through my binder of little used recipes in search of something I could throw together in a few minutes. On the first page...here it was Chocolate Peanut Butter Pebbles. It only required four ingredients, of which I had in my pantry. Thank goodness I do like to keep things stocked up. In this case my efforts came in handy.
So with chocolate chips, peanut butter, marshmellows, almonds in hand I went to the task of whipping up these little pebbles. After making up the recipe they went into the extra frig (we keep in garage) over night. Tim brought them in the next mornin' and said he did the taste test and they were great. So I laid them out in a pretty red and white plate to take to the meeting. I even printed out the recipe to hand out, which we were asked to do.
These pebbles are pretty sweet and so only one cures a sweet tooth. Otherwise, I am sure they would be eaten up by now.

DAR...I'm in

This is the best news for me...my paperwork & application to be a member of the DAR have been verified! This has been a long time coming and I am so thrilled that I made it. So in January I get my number. Then I believe that in February when the Continental Congress meets it becomes official. When the registrar announced this at our meeting on Friday the members all got very excited for me. I have been going to these meetings for a couple of years while waiting on this. I actually started about 6 or more years ago and then had some stumbling points in my research and also in my life so I quite for a while. I am glad I came back and followed through on it this time
because it worked out. So yeah me! (This is something my daughter, Sarah always says.) So we all say it now. Above is the booklet for local chapter, which is Lt. George Farragut.

In the Meadow We Can Build a Snowman...

...and pretend that he is Parson Brown. Love that song. Snowing here like crazy, has been all day. This is a good thing as we need it for Christmas! Wish my darling grand children lived here so we could go out and build a snowman together. We always made one with Noah (our first grand child) in the back yard, when he lived here. But I am sure he and his siblings are building one in Alaska where they live. Those kids build ramps and igloos in their back yard really enjoy the snow there. They go sledding and ice skating as a family on the weekends. Although, it was 45 below zero the other day, too cold to go out and play.
This darling thermometer grabbed my heart when I saw it. It has children, a snowman, and Christmas greenery. It has been banged up just enough to actually appear to be old. They did a good job on that part. Here it just sits on one of my hutches so I could take this shot of it. It will likely end up out on the porch. I did not put out any of my Christmas signs this year...they are resting and will come out next year. That will be fun!

Gifts from Lou

These are some of the lovely things my dear friend, Lou, brought me yesterday. She knows I love the vintage things. The earrings have little ice skates on them. On some years I put up a whole tree of snowmen...crazy, huh? So these little guys will go on that tree when it goes up again. The wreaths are reminesent of the 1940's. Funny, that bag is of that same pattern that the tins I bought are in.
I forgot to put the candy cane sign in this photo. I goes great with the red and white I am drawn to.
Lou is one of the first people I met when I moved to North Idaho over 15 years ago. We have been the best of friends every since. We can talk about 'anything' and I do mean 'anything.' What a great feeling it is to have a friend like this. She has prayed with me over the years for my children and that has been such a blessing. She is a real woman of God and lives her faith. I wish she lived closer to me, though. She lives south of town, just far enough that I do not just drop by, as it is a little trek to her place. Her home is very woodsy, as her hubby is a great hunter and there is 'kill' all over the place. It is like a lodge in the woods there. She likes vintage goods, so they are there as well. Thanks, Lou, for being such a dear, Godly woman and blessing in my life.

Favorite Things from Alaska

We got the package from Alaska that has my daughter, Sarah's, family's Favorite Things in it. She started this tradition a few years ago. This year we got a 2008 Northern Lights calendar, pink velour hat, candle in tin, Redeeming Love a novel by Francine Rivers, box of Whoppers, jingle bell snowflake, homemade cinnamon rolls, CD of everyone's favorite Christmas Carols, Alaska ULU knife, Big Dippers (Wood salad or pasta servers), Picture This (a game the family invented, made and put together) Elf, the movie. She prints out a sheet explaining all of the things in the box and puts in in as well (red sheet).
I think she does a good job of putting this together and she sends out about 12 of these every year. She is a good shopper and she shops all year for these items, which helps with the cost. She made the cinnamon rolls using her bread machine...she makes all kinds of bread using that machine. The recipe for this is the blue sheet in photo. Wish I was so creative with mine. I told her the other day that she was going to have to give me lessons using mine.
We look forward to getting our favorite things box! It is now a family tradition. We try to send them things as part of our favorite things as well...we do not match what she does, but are trying.

Thrift finds

These vintage ornaments came into the thrift shop where I volunteer. I collect these ornaments and am always in need of these type of boxes to store them in. It is great when I can find these glass ball ornaments in the original boxes so I can display them in my Studio (someday Mercantile). The glass balls in the green boxes are blue.

More goods I found for The Mercantile

I use the term The Mercantile loosely. I still have my dream of setting up my studio as an old fashioned Mercantile. So I am always finding treasures to decorate it. It may never happen, but I have to dream, so I do. But these goods and ones like them will be what I have in my Mercantile. Maybe selling some from time to time, but mostly to decorate.
My desire is to have a delightful place where ladies can gather to have bible studies, quilting bees, scrapbook, embroider, visit, create, take classes and more. I will have a wood stove keeping everyone warm. There will be supplies for creating, coffee and tea to warm ladies, good music or old fashioned movies playing, healthy treats for nourishment all there. But God knows my heart and I will do this to honor Him. I about drive my husband crazy talking about this dream of mine.
Anyway, the red and green baskets are from Walgreen's. They have tins in the same pattern. The lollipops from that $1.00 section in Target.

Fuzzy tags

These little gift tags are fuzzy! The red part on both designs has a fuzzy feel to them. These were in the $1.00 section of Target. Sometimes there is mostly junky stuff in there, but then other times I do find treasures...like these tags. They are in the red and white theme I am drawn to right now.

More Tins

Here are the round tins from Joanne's. Red and white is so old fashioned looking to me, especially at Christmas time. Just like a candy cane!

PEACE, HOPE, JOY Christmas tins

Aren't these oh so cute? I did mention them in a post a few days ago. But this time I did buy them. So here they are at home in my studio. Oh, and the red checkered fabric under them is from Joanne's. I had been to a quaint little primitive shop in our area one day and they had these sweet little kitchen towels. But I did not want to pay $6.00 for one. Then when I went to Joanne's I saw these pieces of fabric in the $.99 fat quarter bin. They may not be the exact fabric but close enough for me. So I got five pieces of fabric for less than the price of one towel from the cute little primitive store. I do still need to hem these, but that is no sweat, should take me about 10 minutes for all. I love finding a bargain.

Anne of Green Gables...Remade

This photo is from the official Anne of Green Gables website. Doesn't this young lady look so much like Megan Fellows, the original Anne?
I so appreciate all that Sullivan Entertain does. I hope to someday own all of their DVD's of the Avonlea Series. Great stories and amazing period decor! I want my house to look just like the ones on these DVD's. Check them out at www.SullivanEntertainment.com

Ellison Die Cut Machine

I bought this beauty about 10 years ago when I opened a little scrapbook store in the basement of my home. It is about 20" long and 16" wide. It takes up a good amount of space on my counter, but it is a great tool to own. The dies I have are the alphabet in upper and lower case, numbers 0 to 9, and other miscellanous shapes. I had always intended to add to my collection of dies, but that never happened. The dies are held in two shelves about 5' tall and each about 6" wide. The shelves were found at a used furniture store.
It was not too long after I opened my little store that Michael's Craft Store and two other scrapbook stores came to our area. I could not compete with them, so I no longer have my scrapbook store. I still have lots of supplies, though. This machine has been used for many projects so even though it was not really used much in my scrapbook store.
So anyway, this machine is what I used to cut out the letters of my children and grandchildren's names as seen in previous posts.

ZACHARY

Now for my baby, Zachary...well he's 23 years old, but still my baby.

BRENNAH

Next is my daughter, Brennah, with her's in silver glass glitter. This glitter tarnishes and looks really old after about a year of air exposure.

TYLER

This is for my son Tyler in a sage green glass glitter.

SARAH

I used my Ellison die cut machine to cut out the letters of all of my children and grandchildren's names. Then I painted them a Champagne gold, covered them in glass glitter and wired them together to spell all of the names. This one is for my daughter, Sarah. They are simple but look so pretty on a Christmas tree.

Girlfriends Gathering

Here I am on the left, with friends, Karen and Judy, missing the fourth one Robin. We used to gather alot more, but all of these gals have taken jobs and it has become nearly impossible to work out our schedules to be able to get together. But the three of us met here yesterday afternoon for a little tea party. We made a craft, visited, and ate. Karen made a delightful Gingerbread cake with lemon sauce and whipped cream topping...oh my was it tasty! Great job Karen! I forgot to get photos as we did our craft, so I don't have a pic of the ones they made. But, I am making the same things for my grandchildren, so I will post a photo of them when they are completed.

Chocolate Covered Cherries

I had to buy a box of these...every time I see them in a store my mind goes back to the early 1960's. These were my dad's favorite and one of us kids would always get him a box of them for Christmas. It became a tradition. My dad is no longer with us, but I love chocolate and so I got a box for nostalgia's sake. Queen Anne...great name! I am going to keep this box after the candy is all gone and put it in my studio...where many of the fun, wacky, warm, creative, glittery, vintage things go in my house. Wouldn't an old box from the 50's or 60's be great to have?