Well hello there.

Packing my bag for a trip to the mall

I don't think I've ever sewn as much as I have in the last couple of weeks. Sew sew sew. You'd think I work in a Doily Factory or something. I'm only taking this potentially rambling blog break to let the sewing machine cool down. Maybe it'll decide to stop making that funny/worrisome/potentially expensive noise too. 

Look at me grow -- now parting with 1% of my vintage sewing notions

I've also managed to do a bit of spray painting (pink!), cleaning & pricing and a dry run of the setup for my new teensy, tiny space in an antique mall. The real setup is tomorrow. It should take about fourteen minutes because of the teensy-tiny-ness.

Vintage wallpaper + vintage frames

I'm also looking forward to reclaiming my dining room table which is currently covered north to south with vintage everything, waiting to be transported to the tiny space in the antique mall.

Tomorrow. All clear. 

Freshly vacuumed yet fashionably rusty vintage typewriter

Somehow in my blur of sewing, I forgot Project Runway was happening (I know! Priorities!) so I had to stay up extra late one night and get caught up on something like four episodes. Thank you Tivo. Love you. 

And now, break time is over. Good to talk with you as always.

Yard Sale High

Yard sale-ing out in the countryside of Oregon is a much different experience for me than in the more urban areas of Northern California where I used to live. There are fewer shoppers in general and definitely fewer vintage shoppers -- prices seem lower to me too. 

I'm still a little shocked & thrilled when someone wants only a dime or a quarter for something or says "Just take it."

Sewing loot courtesy of Estate Sale, Day Two. Fill a grocery bag for a buck.

Some of you asked about my recent yard sale endeavors and due to the excessive amount of loot acquired in the past seven days (some of it purchased to re-stock my neglected 'things-I-find' etsy shop, PeppermintBark, now patiently waiting to have pictures taken...), I'll just hit the highlights here. 

Hiding in a vintage hat box.

Also, in order to photograph said loot, I move it from the Loot Holding Area (downstairs) to the Loot Photography Area of Better Daylight (upstairs) and then return it to the LHA (downstairs).

Loot + Stairs = Lazy.

Vintage Christmas picks, corsages and spun heads. Dee-lightful. 

A festive and excited group of holiday revelers.

More vintage Christmas stuff. Missing from this photo are the rolls and rolls of vintage wrapping paper. 

(See Loot + Stairs).

 Your garden variety spun head Santas wearing what looks a lot like some sort of fur-trimmed holiday lingerie. Standing next to an avalanche of vintage chenille.

And some Bluebirds of Happiness. I think they're happy because they like vintage tablecloths.

My unbridled enthusiasm for vintage Christmas collecting/hoarding is beginning to stack up in the LHA so later this month I'm renting a case in an antique mall so I can unleash some of the madness. I'll fill you in on the details once I get moved in.

 No idea. Maybe you know?

Have a wonderful evening!

Did you win?

Thanks to all of you who entered last week's giveaway! 

 *That's not my hand. My real (man)hand is HUGE. I'll spare you.

Ever so awkwardly, I hold in my hand* a vintage wrapper from a package of double fold bias tape.

"Why double fold bias tape?" you may be asking yourselves. 

Or maybe "Where does she get that porcelain skin?

Or maybe none of the above.

The answer is: Because that's the only vintage bias tape wrapper I had that was blank on the inside.

And with the help of a magical laser jet printer, the inside of the wrapper now contains the winning entry for the tea towel giveaway.

Congrats to Mom Wald's Place! Please email me your shipping address and your giveaway prize will be on it's way.

In other news, I had a *stellar* weekend of estate and yard sale-ing -- still processing the loot. And I still have a little bit of 'shopper's high' from it all. Hope you had a great weekend too!

Good and Luck

I feel good and lucky to have had this beautiful vintage china mosaic made for me by my friend Vanessa of vintagebutterfly94.

This entire piece, including the frame, measures just 4-1/2 x 4-1/2" which means some of those china pieces are teensy. Teensy tiny. And beautiful.

Another stroke of luck came from the fine folks at etsy. Recently one of the tea towels from my etsy shop was included in an etsy blog post which is a wonderful thing - free face time with some of their 4.4 million members! Thank you Etsy.

And now I'd like to share my good luck with you.  With a giveaway.

I created this set of three tea towels especially for this giveaway -- each is one-of-a-kind and handmade by me for you from my vintage fabric stash (which seems to be getting larger, not smaller as I had hoped/resolved, why is this happening?...)

The two vintage-fruit-themed towels were made using vintage tablecloth remnants and the flowery towel features a remnant from a vintage drapery panel.

So you can dry off that treasured vintage Jadeite in style.

To enter to win, just leave a comment on this post before midnight PST Friday, August 6th. This giveaway is open to anyone, anywhere in the whole wide world. 

And if you're feeling really lucky, head over to Oodles and Oodles for another vintage giveaway!

Where little banners come from.

Shoes without socks - was I brought up in a barn?

I definitely don't collect old wooden picture frames and yet, I seem to have a bunch of them. And since I don't collect them, they aren't used for anything much such as framing a piece of art but I like having them around. And I especially like the look of a group of empty frames on the wall. 

To me, the frames are art all by themselves.

Ok - this is a little minimalistic, even for me

And so my non-collection of frames inspired my blog banner. Oh sure, I could have done the smart thing and made my banner from one of my billions of photographs taking up space on my hard drive but...

I had this idea.

And it involved those frames. And vintage fabric. Because in my barkcloth-doily-tablecloth-infused world, fabric is art too.

After a series of manuevers, 

Disclaimer: No vintage fabric was harmed during the creation of this banner.

(I used color copies)

stops & starts and arranging & rearranging,

To angle or not to angle?

my banner was born. And because I'm thrifty, I made it a two-fer.

Twins!

Um, fraternal twins.

The top one for my blog and the bottom one for my etsy shop.

And that is where little banners come from. 

(Wow! I'm really feeling the ital today!)

In other news, later this week seems like a good time for a giveaway. Here's a hint...

Really good goods

You may recall in the not too distant past, we all took a little stroll through Karen's beautiful home, that one that's filled with loads of vintage charm and lots of vintage details.

And a couple of sweet cats.

 a peek into Karen's shop window

{click photo to enlarge}

I wanted to let you know that Karen is now an etsy shopkeeper where she's selling her amazing vintage finds -- gorgeous textiles, fun vintage housewares, sweet embroidered samplers and more.

I hope you'll swing by her shop and welcome her to the neighborhood.

Karen is also a longtime seller on ebay with more of her vintage finds there too including stunning vintage quilts, vintage kitchen accessories and Cath Kidston fabrics. 

Karen's etsy shop:  CCAAPPP

Karen's ebay seller i.d.:  PIESAFE

Hope you're having a wonderful day so far. It's blue skies here in Oregon!

The Free Box

 

Yesterday while out at the yard sales, I kept thinking about starting a new blog called The Free Box just so I can have a place to share all the odd, creepy and sometimes gross things waiting in the Free Box.

You know, that box of stuff that the seller's standards have deemed 'unsellable' for whatever reason so they're giving it away. Often times, it's things that are in a transition phase I like to call Pre-Trash.

And it seems Free is rarely synonymous with Clean.

Out here in the country, there's an occasional live mouse too. Oh, how the other yard sale shoppers laughed and laughed when this former city girl yelped and shot several feet off the ground the first time that happened. 

Good times.

But I always look in the Free Box. With just my eyes now.

And I'm happy (and a little amazed) to report that everything you see came from a Free Box.

Hope you're having a wonderful weekend so far.