White Wednesday

Hi everyone, and welcome to White Wednesday! Today, I am sharing some random whites with you. Although I love pink, I am starting to like white and cream more and more. Simple, clean and crisp looking. Especially sheets! Ummm, yummy! This pretty Victorian dress is from a tea room I visited in Florida in May, with my friend Shari, called The Camellia Rose Tea Cottage. You can read about it here. I have coveted one of these dress forms for some time now.

Check out this gorgeous white ribbon rose made from The White Bench! I have made some of these for teacup pin cushions in a much smaller version. Just lovely!

A simple white rose, and elegant pearls dress up this pretty teacup! I have a pink wine glass, that someone special gave me many years ago, and I still have it on my dresser with pearls in it.

Gorgeous pretty bathroom vignette......

Next to pink roses, I love white ones too!

Oh, this is my dream kitchen! Love that table! This is so pretty, crisp, and clean. Check out the farmhouse sink. *sigh*

Oh, I love this gorgeous wedding dress. Gone are the days when I had that figure!

What can I say? I love this darling baby shoe. I think this one is courtesy of sweet Dawn over at The Feathered Nest. I plan on making some of these too. Don't forget to visit http://fadedcharmcottage.blogspot.com/2011/08/white-wednesday-115.html for more pretty whites! Thanks for coming by sweet friends!

Laundry Day

Now, I don't know about you, but there is just something I love about fresh laundry hanging outside on the line to dry blowing in the wind. I am all for new technology, and I am thankful for my dryer......but there is just something I love about freshly washed clothes on the line. It is almost therapeutic. I love this sweet little sampler, that I found hanging on the wall of someone's laundry room, and the saying is so true!

Love this sweet print by Maude Humphrey. It is entitled Laundry Day, and I have the switch plate in my kitchen.

I thought this little guy was so cute "hanging on the line"!

This line of clothes reminds me of being at my grandmas in Va. When I was about 10, and we vacationed there in the summer, I would help my grandma with the laundry. Mondays were laundry days, and she had an old wringer type washing machine. Then, we would take it out, and hang it in the sunshine to dry. I loved it then, and I love it now.

Putting fresh clean sheets on your bed, after they have blown dry on the line is heavenly. Ahhhh, the smell devine! With the birth of my first daughter in 1972, plastic diapers weren't perfected quite yet. I used the white cloth diapers. After I washed them, I would hang them on the line, and they were just so sweet smelling. Mr. Sunshine helped to make them snow white.

I don't hang towels on the line though. They come out feeling like sandpaper to me. Drying clothes on the line, also helps a little with the electric bill.

I love to hand wash delicates and hang them as well. Vintage linens come out wonderful when washed on delicate and hung in the sun to dry.

Hanging clothes on the line, seems to have become a thing of the past. People are much busier, and don't have the time. Young moms today have no clue about this wonderful relaxing pastime. Spring and fall are my favorite times for hanging out the laundry. The first beautiful day in spring, my windows are open, and the sheets on the line! When I do my fall cleaning, the curtains get washed and hung on the line. My whole house smells fresh and clean. I hope you enjoyed your visit today, and thanks for coming by!

Memory Jars

Hi there bloggerettes! It's time for some vintage fun over at http://coloradolady.blogspot.com/search/label/Vintage%20Thingies%20Thursdays Today, I want to talk about Memory Jars. Now, I can't take credit for this idea. I had seen some of these at a craft show this past weekend up in Pa. The ones I had seen were filled with vintage items of the past, such as these pictured here. What fun to look at these jars and see items that are no longer made today. Cats eye marbles, keys, a favorite beer or soda bottle cap, plastic soda bottle covers, a small bottle of Evening in Paris perfume, a glass food coloring bottle or a vintage tin that once held some type of medicine or candy. I was showing my daughter the plastic soda covers, and she thought they were bubble blowers. lol! (click on any picture to enlarge)

These are some items from my childhood home, that I have chosen to put into my kitchen memory jar. My moms aluminum measuring cups, icing decorator, cookie cutters, and measuring spoons. I also found some vintage cupcake toppers, vintage spice can, a bottle opener, vintage clothes pins, and a vintage ice cream scoop. I plan to include some other things, and a few recipe cards that my mom had written. I thought it would be a neat thing to put on my kitchen counter as a conversation piece.

I am using a gallon size jar for mine, but you can make it as large or small as you want to, depending on how many things you would like to display. I am still playing around with it, to get the things to display nicely. I discovered if you put a sturdy clear plastic cup in the middle on the bottom of the jar, it helped so things didn't kind of get lost in the middle. I put the cup upside down, and taped it to the bottom of the jar. This allowed me to stand things up a little better, and because the cup was clear, it didn't show.

The ideas for these jars are endless. You can make one with some vintage sewing items from your mom or grandma. Fill them with silly things that make you happy. Perhaps some childhood toys, like a duncan yo yo, or cracker jacks toys. Make one for a family member with fun things that they love. Scrabble pieces, chess pieces, dice, gambling tokens, bingo cards etc........ Include corks from a bottle of wine from a special occasion too.

You could even do one with vintage candies! That would be a fun gift too! I was able to find a lot of vintage candies in the 5 Below store, if any of you have those stores in your area. I even found little boxes of Chicklets!

This picture is courtesy of Martha Stewart. She shows how to make a memory jar from a special trip or vacation. This would be a fun project for the kids to make and display in their rooms. Include pictures of special places in your jars too. Another fun idea, is to write down special memories of things on slips of paper, to make a paper memory jar. Special holiday memories, something funny the kids said, a special gift someone gave you, a date with hubby, and the list goes on. I hope you enjoyed your visit, and don't forget to visit Suzanne for some more vintage fun! Thanks for coming by.

I'm also joining in with Cindy of http://romantichome.blogspot.com/2011/08/show-and-tell-friday_18.html for Show and Tell Friday! Stop over to visit hundreds of bloggers with great things to share!

Favorite Memories of childhood

Hello sweet blogger friends! I grew up in the late 50's early 60's and was thinking about some favorite childhood memories. Please come and take a walk down memory lane with me. You may remember some of these too. This was one of my favorite things. A truck with a ride on the back, would come through the neighborhood. It cost .10 for a ride. This was a merry-go-round, but my favorite was the whip.

The penny candy store! Oh my goodness! I was in heaven. A large candy bar cost .05 back then. Today it's more like .75-1.00. For .10 you could get a small bag of ten pieces of candy. I loved how it all was displayed too.

Do you remember Cracker Jacks? The prizes were so cool! People pay a lot of money on e-bay today for these cool charms, and to think we threw them away.

Lemonade stands are pretty much a thing of the past now, but so fun for young kids back in the day. A great way to earn money for some penny candy!

I couldn't wait to here the bells from the Good Humor man! Oh yeah, we would come a runnin'.

My favorite was the Bomb Pop. It was two different kinds of sherbet, covered in dark chocolate. Ummm yummy!

Playing school with my friend, was one of my most favorite things to do when I was about 10. I was always Mrs Dyer. (my favorite teacher in 3rd and 6th grade.) I wore high heels, and we had a blast.

Jump rope was another of my favorites. You just don't see kids outside much anymore, getting exercise and playing.

I used to be pretty good at doing the hula hoop!

I played hopscotch almost everyday. We would be gone for hours playing outside, and only come home for lunch and dinner. Things were so much simpler then.

I had a doll house almost just like this one! I would play for hours with it, rearranging the plastic furniture.

Tammy had to be one of my most favorite toys. We didn't have toys like they have today. We improvised a lot. My dolls, Barbie and Tammy, slept in a shoebox, with a little pillow and blanket that my mom made.

My mom made a lot of my Barbie clothes. I got them for Christmas gifts. I think back on how long it must have taken her to sew those darn things. (I love and miss you so much mom .....sniff) She would have been 86 this year.

I loved to bake with my mom, especially at Christmas. We would bake Christmas cookies, and she would safely tuck them in tins, so we wouldn't eat all of them before Christmas. She was a great cook too! I am lucky to have her Betty Crocker cookbook, her aluminum measuring cups, her pyrex bowls, and her rolling pin.

I started buying my first 45 records when I was 11 I think. We would save out allowance to go to the store and buy one song.

Remember the five and dime store? In the summer I used to go and visit with my grandmother for 2 weeks in Va . Thursdays were grocery shopping days, and we drove into West Point. They had a Ben Franklin store in town, and we were allowed to go in and buy a new box of crayons and coloring book. Afterwards, we went to get ice cream. Oh, this was the highlight of the day!

I loved Woolworth stores! I guess it would be what Walmart is today. Woolworths was a lot smaller though. I got my first job there working in the luncheonette when I was 16. That was what they called it then.

Good ole' soda fountains. Oh they were just the best thing since sliced bread. A great hangout for a teenager too!

Anotherfavorite memory, was going to the beach with my family. We packed a lunch of my moms great fried chicken and potato salad. It was just the best of times. Well, this is some of the great times I remember. What are some of your favorite memories? Thanks for coming by for a visit. I am joining in with Suzanne over at http://coloradolady.blogspot.com/2011/08/vintage-thingie-thursday-vintage-school.html Stop over for some more vintage fun! Thanks Suzanne.

32 Years Already?

Hi my sweet bloggy friends! Today is my hubby's and my 32nd wedding anniversary! I can't believe that 32 yrs have gone by already. Here we are in 1977! I love this shiny polyester shirt hubby was wearing. Oh, I so wish I could still fit into that pink dress!
This is my daughter from my first marriage. She was 5 yrs old, when hubby and I started dating. Right from the start, they formed a special bond, and he treated her like his own daughter. We had gone to a picnic at the firehouse he was a volunteer member of, and he found her stuffed bunny. He walked around looking for her, with the bunny in one hand, and a drink in the other. I knew early on that he was the man I wanted to grow old with. Here she is at 7, and she was our sweet little flower girl at our wedding.

We had a small wedding, with just about 50 close friends and family. I so wanted to have a cream colored wedding gown, as I didn't get married the first time in a traditional gown. Some family members said, I shouldn't wear a gown as I was not a new bride so to speak. I shouldn't have listened, and did what I wanted. The end result was all that counted.

My mother-in-law dressed up our cake topper with some beaded flowers that she made. (click on pics to enlarge) Marriage for us has it's ups and downs like all marriages do. It takes work, and good communication. Don't sweat the small stuff, and try to compromise. I am not perfect, and neither is my hubby, but together we make it work. I hope to spend many more happy years with him!