Indulge Your Shelf

My own little bluebird of happiness swooped down on my house via Susan . I am so lucky to have been partnered with Susan for this swap !  It came wrapped in a piece of cheery vintage fabric, which I unwrapped to find... a Spring jar creation! She decorated it completely, front to back... with flowers spilling over a picket fence, and topped it off with a paper-covered birdhouse. Then she filled it with all this Springtime goodness... buttons, beads -- and a necklace of her own creation, strung on seam binding! Lovely details -- and the sparkly crown is a linen cuff she created! It was truly a breath of Spring, wrapped and delivered.  Thank you Susan, and Michele, too, for hosting such a fun swap!  As soon as she receives it, I'll show you what I'm sending Susan.

...Spring break has almost passed me by. Our friends welcomed Ben along on our planned ski trip to Taos, New Mexico when I was too ill to go but couldn't get the room refunded.  At least someone had a good time!  I am so grateful to them. I have been laying around like a lump for TEN DAYS now.  Ten full days.  First I had a serious infection in my nether regions.  Then a few days later I got a really awful respiratory crud on top of it.  I'm still taking meds for the first infection, and even though it's better it's still not right. Has anyone seen my sense of humor?  I lost it in January when faced with some altogether different health challenges.  It is sorely missed.

I could use some cheering up today, how about you? Aren't these flowers cheery?  I picked up several of these (tulips? dandelions?) appliqued quilt squares at a thrift shop the other day; I'm keeping some to use in projects and the rest are among some fun new goodies I've just listed in my shop . A pretty yellow hankie with a lipstick-toned rose; makes me wish I was waving it from a balcony in a tropical locale... or, taking a ride through the Bois de Boulogne . I've had my eye on this vintage tablecloth at a local thrift store; it has a gray background and a scatter of yellow roses. When it hit half price it was mine!  I'll bet you'll see it in the background of many of my photos in days to come. A gorgeous "moustache" cup with saucer, made in Austria and generously-sized for a fuzzy-faced man.  I loved the moss green cup and the hand painted roses.  It's now in my shop , too.  I saw only one other on Etsy, and it was priced at $175!  So I t...

I've just done my first guest blog post, over at Sherri's Design to Shine ! It's all about (what else?) BUTTONS!  I hope you'll come and visit me over there!

Tabitha had a blog giveaway the other day: we had to guess the name of her newborn daughter, given the first letter "G".  I guessed right -- Gillian!  So I got my own bundle of joy in the mail! And by "bundle of joy" I mean vintage loveliness: ephemera, millinery, lace, and BUTTONS! Speaking of buttons -- go visit Button Floozies for a National Button Week contest hosted by Nina Edwards; you could win one of three copies she's giving away of her new book On the Button !

I participated in a St. Patrick's Day ATC swap from the Vintage Dragonfly Altered Matchbox Swap group I belong to , and it was so much fun! This was my offering...I enjoyed using this scan of a vintage postcard, placed on Irish jig sheet music.  I painted around it in a couple of different colors of green, and then embellished with glitter.  I added some green 'jewels' and a little goldtone four leaf clover in her basket. 12 of'em.  I sent them off to the swap hostess in a little box I'd decorated especially to hold them. (Here you can see what the postcard looked like before I cut out the little girl.) And then the finished swap book arrived in the mail!  Hold onto your hats, because it is a beauty: Isn't it delicious?!   If that doesn't get you in the mood for corned beef and cabbage, I don't know what will!  Thank you to Kim for hosting the swap; she created the beautiful covers and bound it for us!

Last week I had a chance to visit an estate sale; it wasn't the usual estate sale, though.  Instead, it was the sale of a woman who made a living doing estate sales.  She passed away late last year and her family is liquidating her business -- and some of her own beautiful things -- this month. I have the feeling that the best of the sale items are going out in an invitation-only sale; at least, I overheard references to things being carried out by the armload "last night" although we were there on the first day of the sale.  Still, I found some wonderful things!  Like the rhinestone beauties above. This was the fun part, though: they had two tables full of costume jewelry and you could fill a plastic bag for just $5! I wanted this necklace, with its colored fresh water pearls, and that was worth $5 alone, to me.  So, the rest was gravy: Here are just a few of the pieces; the big green button in the lower right corner was a bonus!  I am not re...