Americana Quilt

This quilt was mine and Brenda's favorite of the Quilt Show this past weekend.
We do love that Americana look! Isn't it grand?

Quilt Show

Here is Brenda and I at the Spokane Quilt Show. The booth we are in here had the best vintage textiles. I bought some old quilt patterns made from advertising cardboard by the Mennonites. They are oh so quaint and will go up in my studio.
We had a fun day checking out the quilts and the vendors. One big dissappointment...most of the quilts are now quilted by machine. We both agreed that hand quilting may be a dissappearing art. Very sad. After the quilt show we hit an antiques store and found a few bargains to take home.

Chicken Little

This little chicken seems to be keeping watch over the bowl of corn, nuts, little pumpkins. And a good job he is doing.
This is on display on my much loved hoosier. As you can see I do appreciate bowls.

Some kitchen goodies

Here are a few goodies that sit on my hoosier. I love crockery, it is so homey and warm. The old crock with the black wooden handle is missing the lid, but that does not matter, it works fine to hold some candles. I also love and collect the more rustic kitchenware. So the chopper spoke to me and I had to buy it. I think I got it at the Past Blessings Antique Show last spring. I have had the nut chopper forever and use it sometimes. I collect these two, but they are stored away. As for chopping nuts I usually just dump them out on a cutting board and chop with a knife, this controls how chopped they get. I like the bigger chunks, so this is better.

Cutie pie!

Isn't this little girl a cutie pie? She was found on a shelf at Michael's and seemed like she wanted to come home with me. So here she is. I love her costume and the black and white color scheme. I thought of painting her hair to be a brunette like me, so I may do this yet.

Harvest Mantel

This is a closeup of one area of the mantel. Love the old pic...I collect these, can't help myself...they intrigue me. The glitter letters you can see part of says "Dream." It has turned a nice tarnished silvery gold.

HARVEST BLESSINGS!!

Here is my mantel all decorated up foir the harvest season. The walls which were once white were recently painted this warm gold. The fireplace was white and is now cream.
I made the "Harvest Blessings" last fall. The ovals have copies of old family photos. This makes it more special to me. Too see what's on the mantel better, zoom in and check it out. I do care about the little details, so there is care taken to make sure it flows.
So Harvest Blessings to you all!

Me on my Ice Cream Truck

This photo was taken on my last day of selling ice cream for this year...about 3 weeks ago. It turned cold faster than I was prepared for, so my season ended sooner than normal this year. Here I am handing some popsicles out of my selling window to two patrons. So the truck is resting until next summer.

Gold Metal Flour

One more picture of my Bunco Babes Mom's Recipe Book. This is on the inside of my back page. Flour seemed appropiate since it s recipe book. Cute bag o' flour, huh? I cut this out of a catalog.

Long time journey come to an end

What is this journey? My time and energy for years now has been put into proving my lineage to becoming a member the Daughter's of the American Revolution (DAR). So today my application and papers got the final signature and were sent off in the mail.
So now the wait to see if they will be verified and rectified...which will not be until at least February of 2008.
For some people it is an easy task for several resaons. Some ladies have family members before them who were members and so all they need is their own birth certificate and proof of linage to those before them. For others, well, their ancestors kept better records or they did not live where court houses were burned in the Civil War. But for me...no such luck...it was a hard road all the way! So this is why I have spent so much time working on it and why it means so much to me to have it done.
So in this photo I am holding up the signed papers. They are now on their way to Washington D.C.
I will take a bit of a break and then begin working on other lines...yes, you can do this. It is called supplemental patriots.
So Hip Hip Hurray!

My page in the Bunco Mom's Recipes Book

Here is my mom dressed up for church (she was a preacher's wife) wearing her rhinestone pin and all.
Then I am on the bottom page on my first day of Kindergarten in Cottonwood, California.
One of the recipes I used is for a kidney bean salad. I still love this salad and make it regularly. It is so quick to put together. Here it is:

1 can kidney beans, do not drain
1/2 cup chopped onion, red, white or yellow
1 cup cheddar cheese, chopped into little cubes
Dill pickles, about 2 to 3 large, more if they are small
Add 1/3 cup of mayonnaise, or more if you like
Mix up and eat. I like it better at room temp, so I eat it before refrigerating.


So I hope you have enjoyed reading about my recipe book. I am not that great of a cook, so normally a recipe book would not be my thing...but what is my thing is the "creating using old family photos." So this project appealed to me.

Thanks to those of you have taken the time to post comments. I love them! Watch for my next entry that will explain why I have not been bloggin much lately...it is very exciting to me!

Grandma, Aunt, and Mom in Aprons!

I love this pictures of my grandma, Verla Pearl at her kitchen sink making Sunday dinner or maybe it was a holiday meal. Helping in the kitchen are my Aunt Alda and my sweet Momma (on the right). I used this picture as the inside front cover of my Bunco Babes Recipe book. Aprons and kitchen goodies were my theme.

Bunco Babe Recipe Book

This book was put together as a project of our Bunco group a few years back. I got the idea from an article in an issue of Mary Englebreit's Home Companion magazine. There was a spread on a vintage kitchen and the gal featured in the article had made a recipe book for her friends. So I thought "Hummm...maybe we could do this as a Bunco craft." So when it was my turn to hostess Bunco the next time I had everyone bring me (the month ahead) a picture of themselves as a youngster, their mom when she was younger, and a couple of their mom's recipes, or family recipes.
Then when they got to my house, I had pages already cut and put together in spiral books. I went to my local copy store to have the spirals done on the booklets. I had already cut out lots of little pictures to decorate the pages. I used my expired catalogs from Gooseberry Patch for the little pictures. Yes, I spent hours cutting out these little pictures. One could also use stickers to decorate them with, as there are some vintage style stickers out there.
On the front cover I made apron shapes and they could decorate them any way they wanted. I made the books with different color themes so the ladies could pick what they wanted to match their tastes or kitchens.
I chose sage green and beige. On my apron I put some vintage lace across the front, used lace for the straps, and vintage buttons at the corners.
I made labels for the front for each persons book. Then I typed up the recipes and made copies for everyone. I also made copies of all of the pictures so each person got a pictures of everyone else and their mother.
Each book had enough pages for each of the 12 Bunco Babes to have a page for themselves and a page for theri mother. The next post will show what my page looks like.

Old stove looking for a home

This old stove is available to me for free, if I want it. I do want it, but what will it take to get it fixed up to go into my house?
It is missing the legs and a door. It is rusted pretty badly,but I think I can live with the rust. If I were going to actually ever use it, well then it does need a door and the legs. I do already have two old stoves, one in the garden shed and one in the house. Neither one is set up to use. Not sure what I love about these things, other than they remind me of earlier times when mom and grandma spent lots of time in the kitchen baking bread. Plus the fact that I just love old stuff.
Well, I will do some searching to see if I can find a door for it. I'll let you all know if I do.
Thanks for stopping by! I know I have not posted much in the last couple of weeks, other things taking my time.

MINT!!

I always know it is getting into the fall season because the fields on the outskirts of my town start to smell of Mint.
This photo was taken out the window of my ice cream truck yesterday. I take my camera along when I go out to sell
ice cream alot because I see the most interesting things while out and about. It could be a charming fence, a birdhouse,
a quirky tree in a yard, or whatever. So I usually pull over and take the picture. Since I am reminded of the mint at this time of year, thought I should get a quick shot of it. This is not very exciting...but I can smell it just from looking at this picture.

The Civil War Diary Quilt

Here is a picture of the book I mentioned on the MaryJanesFarm forum.
I am on page 65 and loving it. So impressed with how these people lived through this devastating time
in our American History. Not sure if I will ever make this quilt up, but maybe one of my daughters
or grandchildren will one day, who knows? I just enjoy knowing about the Civil War.

Vintage sewing goodies

These are the goodies I bought this weekend at the Buggy Barn Show, from some of the vendors there.
Included are some wood letters that spell SEW, my initials, my daughters initials, Corset cording, Singer
sewing tool, box of mini thread, package of gold curtain hoops, black trim on roll, optomitists lens. These
will all find a home in my studio. I will do some kind of altered art in the lens and wear it as a necklace.

Grand Birdhouses!

I loved these birdhouses that were outside of the Buggy Barn Shop. Very artistic!

Lovely view

Here is the side of the Buggy Barn Quilt Shop. You can see there are quilts lining both sides of the driveway to the right, it goes up to other barns, the farm house, and out buildings. More quilts are also hanging on a line and another small barn there. Love the old wagon in the foreground!
It is a lovely place to visit and I wouldn't mind living there either!

Me at the Buggy Barn

I am outside of the Buggy Barn Quilt Shop here. Even I ended up going alone, I enjoyed myself. The drive out there was peaceful and quite. I did find a few treasures, thus the bag in my hand, mostly vintage sewing goods. These goods were for sale in one of the barns by a vendor. There were about seven vendors. I wish there had been more! They ones there had lovely goods.