The Cutest Christmas Cards Ever!

About a month ago I bought a big box of greeting cards at an auction and was thrilled beyound belief pleasantly surprised to these vintage Christmas cards!  I have scanned the front and the back for each one,  They have little tabs on them that create a 3-D card.  Hope you can use them for your paper crafts!  If you click on them it will magnify them.

Supposed to be a beautiful weekend here in SW Virginia and I am so looking forward to it!

Blessings  Linda

 

Things Sears Sold and a Teaser!

A few years ago I bought a 1961 Sears Fall & Winter catalog off Ebay.  I got this because this was the year I was born and thought it would be fun to see the fashions and trends of that year.

Last night I was glancing through it again, looking for some vintage images to use for a tag I was making and came across this page.

Do you see the monkey, rabbit and birds??  They are for sale!!!  Not supplies for them, the actual animal! 

How did they get to you?  By mail!  You can click on the photo and make it larger.  There are some restrictions of them, but I can't imagine ordering a pet for Sears!  In my Spring Sears catalog you can order pigs and chickens!  You can click on the page to make it larger and see the details.

I also found these little goodies while I was digging through my craft room last night.  I bought them about a month ago at an auction.  I didn't have time to take pictures of all the cards last night, but thought I would tease you a little with a photo of the boxes!  Are they not the coolest boxes ever!  And wait to you see what's in them!   I will try and get the cards scanned tonight and post them tomorrow.  They will be perfect for some of our Christmas crafting as they contain some of the cutest cards I have ever seen!  I can't believe I totally forgot about buying them!  That's old age for ya!

We are having some much needed rain here in SW Virginia and FINALLY the temperatures are dropping out of the high 80's and low 90's into the 60's.  Perfect fall weather!

Blessings

Linda

Halloween Happy Shelves

I love Halloween!  It has always been one of my favorite holidays, even though I am a Holidayaholic.  I love them all!  When I was little we never went out and bought Halloween costumes.  We just rummaged through the old clothes and pulled out bits and pieces and made up costumes.  Most years my sister and I would either be hobos or gypsies, they were pretty easy to do.  Sometimes we would just put on bib overalls, a flannel shirt, and a strawhat and call it a scarecrow.  Unfortunately, my parents weren't too good about taking picutres so there are no Halloween pics.  How I wish there were!

Growing up I really don't remember there being any Halloween "decorations" in our house.  We would carve a pumpkin and Mama had these platstic blowmolds of a cat with a pumpkin on it's back that she hung over the lights on each side of the door. 

I however, go gung ho with decorations for Halloween. The more glittery and tacky, the better! That's why I love my Happy Shelves! I stuff it full on all sorts of Halloween bits and bobs!  Here's a close up:

 The center pumpkin witch is new this year made from a pattern generously supplied by Elizabeth at http://creativebreathing.blogspot.com/

 How can you not just love glittered skulls?  Thr primitive pumpkin doll in the far right corner is new this year as well.  She was made from a pattern from Create and Decorate.

Hope my Happy Shelves made you happy too!

Blessings

Linda

My Halloween Banner and Bouquets

After admiring the adorbale Halloween banner that Elizabeth and her friends created, I decided to give one a try as well.  Although I am no where near as talented or creative as they are, I really am pleased with how it turned out!  You can see it in my header hanging across my fireplace mantle.  Here are a few close ups:

(I just noticed part of my E is missing!)

 Each year I try and think of something creative to give to the sweet girls in the office where I work.  There was a store in a local mall that made candy bouquets that were so cute but extrememly expensive.  So I went online (don't you love Google images!!??) and found some examples and then went shopping, and came up with these.

I love the way they turned out!  I ended up having about $20 in all four of them!  I think one from the candy bouquet store was $30!

Here they sit making my kitchen table look so pretty along with the pretty orchid (that I hope I don't kill) that my neighbor brought me.

It's a hot Sunday here in Virginia, but occasionally you will catch that cool breeze that refreshes and let's us know winter is on the way.

Blessings

Linda

Happy Fall!

What a busy summer it has been!  But now, the garden is gone, our one and only dear son is off to college, and we are trying to get used to being empy nesters.  It seems like just yesterday I dropped him off at kindergarden.  Where did the time go???? 

With lot's of time on my hands I have decorated my house for fall and Halloween.  Would you like to take a little tour?

 Here is my cozy living room,  would you like to sit down and join me for some hot cider and doughnuts?  I made the Halloween banner on the mantle and will show you close ups later this week.

 This is a little corner in my dining room.  My DH made the clock many years ago.

 My Halloween tree.  I love this almost as much as my Christmas tree!  It makes my happy every day just to sit in front of it and look at all the little characters that live haphazzardly under it.

 This is a little doll I found at the Goodwill and made her a cute little "good" witch costume.  She was so grateful.  She was tired of sitting on the shelf naked!

This little vignette is in our den.  I love the Peanuts characters and when I saw this Lucy, probably 15-16 years ago, I had to have her.  You squeeze her hand and she plays the Peanuts song. 

Hope you enjoyed your fall tour.  I have my "Happy Shelves" all decorated and will share them later this week as well. 

Today we are meeting some friends and heading over to Liberty University (where Yngwie is a freshman) and going to the homecomming football game.  It's a beautiful day for football!

Hope you have a wonderfuld day!

Blessings

Linda

A Glimpse into Halloween!!!

I know, I know!  It's only August and it's been record breaking hot temperatures here, so how can I be thinking about Halloween??  It's Elizabeths fault over at Creative Breathing!  She has been making the cutest felt Halloween garlands and now she and few other very talented ladies are working on a paper Halloween garland and I am soooo inspired by her work.

Isn't she the cutest witch pumpkin ever?  I used her pattern for her Punkin Patties and stuck a witch hat on instead of the vine and then I had a leftover "wand" that I made last year so I put that on her too!  I'm really happy with how she turned out.

This one is my favorite!  A little candy corn fellow to decorate my Halloween tree!  I am making several of these to go on my Halloween bouquets that I am making for the ladies at work.

I also made this little prim lady from the latest Create and Decorate magazine.  I have named her Pammy.

She was a lot of fun to put together even if I didn't read the instructions properly.  I missed a really huge, very important step.  You are supposed to use orange fabric to make the body.  Your body is orange you are saying.  Yep, I PAINTED it orange!  I have no idea why I made the body out of muslin when I could see from the photo the doll was orange!!  Anyway, it turned out ok in the end and I actually kinda like how the paint stiffened up the doll.

As I was looking through an old issue of Crafts and Things I found a few more Halloween pretties to make.

This small shadow box decoration is made from the top of a cardboard jewelery box.  I used pop dots to give the pieces some dimension.  I think it still needs a little "bling" so I am keeping it out on my work table until it hits me what it needs,

Isn't this a fun collection of Halloween fun???!!!

This is just a small clear treat bag with a topper made of Halloween paper and card stock that I punched out the work "eek" and then just punched hole in it and tied with a tag and ribbon.  These would make adorable loot bags for a Halloween party.

A fun stamped card.

And these are my favorites!  They are combination book markers and pen/pencil holders. Just holiday paper glue and sewn together making a pouch to hold the pencils.  I am including these in the bouquet for my ladies at work as well. 

I am just about DONE with summer!  It has been incredibly hot and dry and I'm ready for some cool autumn air and sitting on the front porch with my hot apple cider and a good book!

Hope everyone has a wonderful Friday!!!!

Blessings

Linda

Chrismas in August!

If you have never read Elizabeth's blog over at Creative Breathing then you are missing a wonderful and creative blog!  Elizabeth make the most darling tags, garlands and softies ever and she is so generous that she shares her patterns!

I fell in love with her little snowman and ran right out to Michaels the very day she posted the pattern and got the supplies for it.  This past weekend it finally rained and I had all day inside to play so I made my snowman!

Mine is so where as good as Elizabeth's, but I love him anyway!  The directions were easy to follow and he only took a couple of hours to make! Thank you Elizabeth for sharing all your wonderful "craftiness"!

And speaking of people being craft, yesterday I was out at Sam's Club and was very excited to see that the 2010 BH&G Holiday Crafts magazine was out!

And guess who is on the very back page!!! Out very only Kelly Winn from There's No Place Like Home!!Way to go Kelli!  And I will definitely be making that snowman tag too!

Hope everyone has a great day!

Linda

Vanished Again!

I have a terrible habit of dropping in and out of blogland!  I have been terribly busy!  Lot's of sewing, swimming, gardening, etc... and this:

Yngwie has graduated high school!   I can't believe it!  Seems like just yesterday I dropped him off for kindergarden.  He are so proud of him.  He received n advanced diploma and in his senior year took several college classes, so this fall we doesn't have to take any english when he begins his college studies at Liberty University!  He is majoring in economics and minoring in religion.  The one photo we have of us three and DH has his eyes closed!

My tomato patch is absolutely wonderful this year!  I grew the plants in my greenhouse for the first time and have been so pleased with the results!  I got my first tomato on June 14th! 

Hope everyone has a wonderful and safe 4th!

God Bless America!

M.I.A., Disappeared, Vanished, etc.....

Just vanished right off the face of the Earth!!!  Not quite, but soooo busy with life! 

I have been sewing like crazy!!  I have no idea what has spurred this sewing binge but I am having fun!

I have made several items yet to be photographed, a 1950's play suit, a 1950's sun dress and jacket (still needs to be hemmed) a child's apron and chef's hat, etc.

I have also been teaching my 19 year old niece to sew and she is doing a great job.  We had "apron" day at my house a few weeks ago and me, my sister and my niece all made aprons.  This was her first project and she did a great job!

Then just before Easter I made two girl and boy Easter bunnies.  Well just the heads because they are Easter bunny pillows.  This was from a 1950's pattern I had in my stash.

Aren't they the cutest!

I have no idea why my text is suddenly centered.

Then I have also been doing this:

My greenhouse was a tremendous success this year!  I got it for Christmas and Dear Husband put it up in March.  I have over 100 tomatoes, hot peppers, green peppers, eggplant, brussel sprouts, herb and flowers.  Way more than it was built to hold, but they are all doing great.  I have already planted 46 tomatoes and probably 25 peppers in the garden.  The rest I am giving away to friends and family.  I am so glad this worked out.  I have been wanting to try it for years.  It feels so good to plant the things you have grown yourself from seed.

And this weekend we were doing this!  This is Yngwie's Senior Prom.  He and his date looked so handsome!  I can not believe my baby is a senior!   Only 30 more days of school left, then off to college this fall.  The years just flew by!

Hope everyone has a wonderful day!!

Linda