Cutting the Apron Strings

I had a very productive day at the thrift store today!




I found this vintage apron


with the original tag still attached. Score!


Does anyone know what era this is from based on the fact that it was originally sold for $.79?


The apron is amazingly crisp and clean. Obviously never been worn.


The one flaw is that it has a yellow discoloration that runs across the "bib" part of the apron.


The scenario running through my mind is that it was folded in Aunt Mildred's closet wedged between other aprons and the yellowed part is the only part that was exposed. Aunt Mildred never wore this one because she was saving it for a special occassion. Yeah, that's it.

So where are the rest of Aunt Mildred's aprons?

Well here's another one. I found this one at the same thrift store.

There is a huge pocket that runs along the bottom of the apron below the thick red stripe


and in the back it buttons at the top. It's one of those aprons you have to put your arms through like a shirt.

It has this cute rick rack around the neck. Or is it called something else if it's not wavy? Piping maybe?


This one is also very crisp. Looks to be never worn. Although there is not an original tag attached!


I actually bought a scale similar to this at a rummage sale earlier this summer, but when I saw this at the thrift store I had to grab it.


It's dirty, but looks to be in very good shape. Except that the pointer thing may be broken, which I did not notice until just now.


And of course I had to rescue this Gorham silver plated bowl. I can't walk past silver without wanting to adopt it.


It's 8" in diameter and 4" tall and wonderfully tarnished.


I also saved this Sheffield silver plated cup which may be a sugar bowl. It is ridiculously tarnished and it looks like some of the plate is coming off in places, but it was only $.50 so I picked it up to put pens and pencils in.


These cute Christmas napkins will look great tucked in bowls and baskets for the holidays. Or I guess I could use them as napkins.


There is a scene that runs around the edge of the napkins, but these reindeer were what I fell in love with.


OK, and the kiddos in the sled too!


I picked up these ice skates to use for Christmas decor also. Last year I was ready to buy some on ebay, but these were so cheap at the thrift store I had to bring them home with me.


So did you find anything good at the thrift stores this week?

I am linking to Colorado Lady's Vintage Thingie Thursday, Debbiedoo's Garage Salen Friday, My Romantic Home's Show and Tell Friday.

Spooky Labels

You guys are probably sick of my Fall and Halloween stuff by now, but I just had to show you this.


This is an old bottle that I found at a garage sale in August.


It was a little cloudy on the inside and the more I cleaned it the cloudier it got. So I finally gave up on it, but when I saw some Martha Stewart poison bottle labels

Photo courtesy of JoAnnFabrics.com

at JoAnn Fabrics the other day I immediately thought of my sad old bottle. I knew there had to be something similar online somewhere that I could print out for free instead of giving Martha my money. And why yes, there was!


I found this cool vintage looking Witch Hazel label on a website, so I Mod Podged it to my foggy bottle.


Now, I found this at a blog called Coco and Bella . It's not a blog I had ever been to before, I found it by Googling "vintage poison labels" and one of the images that came up was from her blog. Anyhow, since I was showing it on my blog I thought that I should try to find out where it had come from originally. I traced it down to Love Manor 's Flickr group here.

I also found that Spookshows.com has some vintage poison labels that are free printable images. Here are some samples of what they have at that site.



This last one is sort of timely with the epidemic of bed bugs being in the news. I will spare you the bed bug photo I found. They are nasty looking little guys.


Now I'm looking for other bottles to Mod Podge more labels to. I have my eye on an old pickle jar in my fridge.

Front Door Color Change

In the last post I showed you my Fall porch decor


and you may have noticed that my front door has changed colors.


In July I had asked readers for opinions on painting my door a different color and I got lots of nice suggestions. Well, it took me 3 months to finally make a ultimate decision on the color and to get it done. It was getting to be one of those things. That. Will. Never. End.


The color that won was .... a very dark brownish-black.

Here is what it looked like after 1 coat.

Eeek!

I asked my husband if he thought it needed a second coat? I just got "the look". You know the one, where he's not entirely sure I am kidding or not. Just have to rattle his chains!

The color is from Sherwin Williams and is called Weathervane.


I'm glad that I finally bit the bullet and made a decision. It's paint after all, if it looks hideous I can always repaint it!

Fall Front Porch

My Fall front porch decor is done. Well, it's never really done, but it's done for now.



For comparison, here is my Summer porch decor from July.



My black porch rockers sort of go with the Halloween theme.



I got this clay pumpkin years ago and he always lands on the front porch. His hat comes off so you can put a candle in him.



I covered some bright summer green outdoor pillows with burlap and painted numbers on them.



BTW, I will not give a tutorial on making the pillow covers, because I cheated and it involves iron on Stitch Witchery fusible bonding tape and straight pins. Yeah, I had a little fight with the sewing machine and it won, so out came the Stitch Witchery.



My front door is flanked by my oval planters.



Each planter has a grass plant and two types of potato vines.





The potato vines will die off at the first hint of a frost, so I have planted a backup plan. Ornamental Cabbage. Or is it Ornamental Kale?



Cabbage I think. Doesn't it look pretty peaking out from underneath the grass.



I have a green one and



a purple one in each pot.



And to the right of the front door, my pumpkin in sitting in an urn that used to have summer flowers in it.





I switched out my doormat insert to my Halloween one. I have a few different centers that can go in here. The black rubber part stays and just the coir center is changeable.



I love my rusty orange mums that I found this year. I would tell you the name of them, but I lost the tag for them. And I always keep the tags!!!



This is where my gourds from this post ended up.





BEFORE


AFTER