Creativity vs Memory

What do you get when you cross a bunch of lettuce plants


with a vintage thrifted colander?

Memorial Day

Today is a day to remember those who have died for their country. The meaning sometimes gets lost in the three day weekend, picnics and beginning of summer festivities. So take a moment to reflect on where our country would be if not for the ultimate sacrifice of these men and women.

Thank you to all who have served.

Memorial Day Traditions

As a kid we would do the cemetery circuit around Memorial Day.


We would start out by decorating one of my sister's graves. She died at a very young age, years before I was born, and is buried in the family plot in my hometown. At the time, the family plot was only occupied by this one small grave, but with time moving on this plot is quickly filling up.

Peonies Have Arrived

I wait all year with giddy anticipation for my peonies to bloom.


So with much hoopla, I am proud to announce that my white peony has blossomed. Does it sound like I'm announcing the birth of a child or something? Well, same sort of thing.

Motel Chair

I went to an estate sale and a few garage sales this weekend. Lots of goodies!!! But not a lot of photos yet, so I'll save the other stuff for when I have time to get some good shots of them.

These are two of my favorite finds though.

Bought four of these wooden file drawers for 25 cents each. They are fairly large, roughly 6"x9"x15". They remind me of drawers from an old hardware store.

So many possibilities of things to do with these wooden beauties. At least one will end up in my office on the bookcase.


I found this vintage motel chair at the estate sale. I spied it in the backyard, immediately made a beeline over to it and sat down in it before anyone else could claim it. After it was safely occupied by my butt, I checked the price tag and found that it was only $10.00.

I love estate sales! I love people who price things at estate sales! Really, I can buy a box of 1/2 used motor oil for the same price as a motel chair?

My Thornless Hawthorn

Not all the hawthorn trees at The House Of Hawthornes have deadly thorns.


We have one in front of the house that is thornless and is currently alive with white flowers.

Beachy Kind Of Day

You don't get a lot of beachy days in Ohio.


Unless you travel to the North coast, i.e. Lake Erie.

A Little Garage Sale Action

This week has been busy, busy, busy with my son's school stuff, so I haven't had a lot of time to do a lot of thrift store shopping, but I did manage to make it to two garage sales today and picked up a few items.

Like this old camera to add to my small vintage camera collection.


An Imperial Mark VII Flash camera (without flash). It's not highly collectible, but it will look nice with the other cameras I have. Plus for $1.00, I was obligated to buy it.

The Fabulous Iris Bed Reveal

Or not!

Two weeks ago when I bragged about how great my iris would look (in my My Lilac Is Lacking post) I should have known it's not nice to brag. I think I even used the word spectacular. Stupid, stupid, stupid.


Well, we've had a wild spring here in Ohio. Rain, wind, abnormally low temps. All this continued while my iris started to bloom little by little.

Orange Dreamsicle

The whole Blogger being down this week issue has sort of messed with my blogging mojo. I feel a little out of sorts. Not trusting that my posts just won't go up in smoke again.

What's a girl to do? Plant some flowers.

When I was deciding what to plant in my flower boxes that flank my front door I wanted to do something I hadn't done before.

Geraniums - been there, done that

Potato vines - done that too

Petunias - yawn

So I went orange. I never thought of orange before, but when I walked into the greenhouse I was drawn to the Dreamsicle Superbells and I knew that I had to incorporate them into my planters this year.

I mean, what's more refreshing on a summer evening than a Dreamsicle. Or a Creamsicle. I guess they are the same thing? You know, the orange Popsicle things with a white ice cream like substance in the middle.

So I started out by yanking out my grass plant from last year, which I had left in the planters for winter interest.


Gathered my plants that I decided to use.

Five Things You Never Knew About Me

I have vivid memories of snorkeling in Mexico when I look at photos of a chive plant. The flowers remind me of a sea urchin.


I name a LOT of inanimate objects. Otis's new buddy is called Rocky. Cementy would be more accurate.


I got glasses for the first time in my life a year ago. I never wear them. If I would wear them then I would have known to dust off my Coral Bells (Heuchera) prior to taking the photo.


I make the finches eat out of an upside down bird feeder just for my amusement.


Does PETA know about these bird feeders?


I'm addicted to the Shiba Inu Puppy Cam.


OK, I'm really addicted to watching Sheba watch the Shiba Inu Puppy Cam.


Don't you feel like you know me better now?

BTW, this post is one of the ones that got eaten by Blogger during their outage. I just found it in draft mode, so I am reposting it now.

Church Rummage Sales

Yesterday I showed you my barn sale finds HERE, so today I'll continue with my church rummage sale finds:

Last year I went to a few killer church rummage sales and they all had some good vintage items. This weekend three out of the four church sales were filled with rubbish. Really, poor quality stuff that should have just made its way to the trash can. Old weed wackers that didn't work, half used boxes of Depends and lots of other pretty useless stuff (unless you have bladder issues).

The Methodists, Presbyterians and Lutherans didn't have anything worthwhile, but I did luck out at the Christian Church though.

I bought a bag of a whole lot of miscellaneous kitchen utensils for 25 cents. 99.9% of which I just turned around and donated to Goodwill, but I was interested in this thing in the bag.


It has a great chippy green handle.


Any idea what it is though? And don't ask why I bought something that I didn't know what it was. You've all been there, done that.

And then I found this vase. A little old lady working at the church sale came over to me when I picked it up and told me she hoped I would love it as much as she had. She told me her Grandmother had given it to her and she had kept it all this time but had recently decided to go ahead and donate it to the church sale.


I told her I would love it as much as she had and I told her about some of the other vases I had. She seemed very happy that I was buying it.

For 75 cents. Did I mention it is a Hull vase?


It is called a suspended vase, but I'm not sure what the decorative finish is called. Hull tended to make the same vase styles with different finishes and details on them.

Oh, and I left a little sumpin sumpin as a donation to the church when I checked out. Something about the combination of the nice old lady, being in a church and a ridiculously priced piece of pottery made me feel a little guilty.

BTW, my theory on why I find a lot of pottery pieces at thrift stores and yard sales is that a lot of pottery was made within an hour or so drive of where I live in Ohio, so I think it is just more readily available around here. Roseville, McCoy, Weller, Shawnee and Hull were all eastern Ohio pottery manufactures. As well as Homer Laughlin in East Liverpool, Ohio.

There are benefits to living in Ohio!

Linking with Rhoda at Southern Hospitality for her Thrift Share Monday.

Barn Sale in Ohio

On Thursday I told you that I was going to have a busy day on Friday with a barn sale and some church rummage sales. I was so pumped up about all the possible thrifty finds out there just waiting for me.

BTW, I originally wrote this as one extremely long post and decided to break it up into two days worth. You'll thank me for that.

So today, let's start with the barn sale:

It was at French Hen Farm in Marysville, Ohio which is about 45 minutes from where I live. Pop on over to her blog HERE to see some photos of the displays she has. You won't regret it. I'll wait until you get back...

...see, wasn't that worth it! Very cute set up and displays. And oodles of cool one of a kind stuff.

This is the second of her sales that I have been to and they always draw quite a crowd. A very, very large crowd. That would be my only negative thought of the sale is that it is really, really packed, but you can't blame them for being successful.

Really, they have some of the coolest items for sale and the stuff gets snatched up quickly. So if you see it, you'd better take it. While standing in line to check out, I kept seeing people in front of me holding my stuff. Stuff I would have bought if I had gotten there earlier, but sadly Tim Horton's was calling my name and caused me to be later than I expected to be. Curse those Timbits!

Here's my haul from the barn sale (chair not included, just for display). Can I add that the haul would have been a heck of a lot larger, but I had high hopes for the remainder of my shopping day, so I didn't want to put all my eggs in one basket so to say (a little chicken farm humor).


I spied this tin and had to have it. It will be awesome to use in my office for storage. I'm always on the lookout for weird items to store stuff in.


It has a great slightly rusty patina to it.


I also bought this cute little metal flower frog. The postcard is from my vintage postcard stash.

Tip - don't put a metal flower frog in the bottom of a basket and cover it with other things and then forget about it and end up with metal prongs under your fingernails. Not that that is what happened to me or anything.


I also bought this vintage ticking fabric.


It was rolled up like this when I bought it and, like I mentioned previously, you need to grab things when you see them at the barn sale, so I didn't have time to unroll it and inspect it prior to buying it.


Dumb move. When I got it home and unrolled it, I found that quite a bit of it was unusable. Unless you go for the holey, ripped look.


I may still be able to make some very small pillows out of it. Very small.

But since I had bought the fabric to make some pillows for my Adirondack chairs, I'll end up running to JoAnn fabrics for some new ticking fabric for that project. You live and you learn and next time I will unroll.


Tomorrow I'll show you the loot from the church sales.

Linking with Linda at Coastal Charm for her Nifty Thrifty Tuesday get-together and Rhoda at Southern Hospitality for her Thrift Share Monday.

Edited to add: Linda from French Hen Farm left a very nice comment apologizing for the fabric problem. It was very sweet of her to stop by!

Happy Mother's Day

Aren't the handmade Mother's Day presents the best.


Today my son gave me this card that he made in school. They used buttons as the flower heads.


It almost ranks up there with his "vase" that he made out of a styrofoam cup many years ago.




I liked that one so much that I normally have it sitting on my desk 24/7 (behind the phone). I had to take in downstairs and into the sunlight to get better photos of it though.

BTW, look how much the poor lighting in my office changes the color of the fake-ola flowers.


Yep, there's just something about a handmade gift that makes it all the more special.

Hope you all have a great Mother's Day, whether you are a Mom or are celebrating your own Mother!

Vintage Disney Toys

Tomorrow is going to be a whirlwind of shopping. A barn sale that will be amazing, if it's anything like the last one I attended there, and at least 3 church rummage sales. Plus whatever other yard sales I can squeeze in before my wallet is empty or the van is full.

So not a lot of words tonight. Just straight to photos of my vintage Disney toys.


(roll mouse over photo to see original photo SOOC)
I think this is the dog from Lady and The Tramp. Tramp, is that you?

I'm thinking they would probably pick another name for the dog if that movie was made today.


(roll mouse over photo to see original photo SOOC)
Donald Duck is a ramp walker. If you put him on an incline, the gravity makes him walk forward.


(roll mouse over photo to see original photo SOOC)
For these photos I boosted contrast slightly, added the You'd Be Surprised texture from Shadowhouse Creations, blending mode of Soft Light at 80% Opacity.

Tonight I'm partying with Photo Feature Friday at A Rosy Note, Vintage Inspiration Friday at Common Ground and Show & Tell Friday at My Romantic Home. Grab a Margarita for Cinco De Mayo and join me!

OK, I'm going to run off to Mapquest my day of shopping. Do you have any big yard sale plans this weekend?