Patriotic Porch Provisions

Well, we've been having a great time here swimming, shopping and reading some books. The new summer schedule seems to be working out well so far. Later today my son and I are off to a farm to visit our animal friends.

But first, I wanted to show you what I did with my vintage shelf that I bought at a sale last week. And since it's decorated for the 4th of July, I thought I'd better show it to your before the holiday had come and gone.


I decided to paint it with Rust-Oleum's Leafy Green spray paint.

I'm a Sucker For Lonely Old Men

Normally on Sunday or Monday I show you what great thrifty finds I got over the weekend, but this weekend was pretty much of a bust. Went to three, count it THREE, church sales and they were all disappointing. Oh well, it happens.

On the way home I ran across a garage sale that hadn't been listed on Craigslist. It was manned by a very nice older gentleman. I use the term gentleman because he was well dressed for a garage sale. Dress pants, short sleeved dress shirt. No tie though, but definitely a step up from a dirty t-shirt and shorts.

Normally I can size up a garage sale in 10 seconds and get out quick if it doesn't have anything I'm interested in. And there was not much that I was interested in at this sale. But this man was obviously bored, very talkative and such a sweet older man that I spent close to fifteen minutes talking to him.

I would have felt bad about just walking out of his sale not buying anything. So I bought this cookie tin for a quarter.


Did I mention he was a widower? And that his eyes lit up when he told me about how his wife had always made cookies at Christmas and put them in these tins for the neighbors?

It was a quarter well spent.

Linking with Southern Hospitality's Today's Thrifty Finds and Coastal Charm's Nifty Thrifty Tuesday.

In The Good Old Summertime

When I was young, summer was a magical time filled with riding bikes for hours on end, swimming until your skin was all wrinkled and lots and lots of running around aimlessly.

Of course the world was a much gentler place back then and parents didn't have to worry about where you where if you didn't come home for a few hours.


One of my favorite parts of summer was playing playing kick-the-can until it was so dark that we couldn't see the can any longer. I wonder if kids play kick-the-can anymore? What does olly olly oxen free even mean?


Although my son is 12 years old, he requires care 24/7 due to his cerebral palsy. He doesn't get to experience the type of summers that I used to have. He doesn't get to experience a lot of what I enjoyed as a child.

But I try to make sure that what he does experience is a fun filled summer full of activities that will interest and entertain him. Lots of trips to the zoo, lots of kids programs at the library and practically anything that allows him to interact with other kids his age.


At one point I had thought about shutting down the old blog here for the summer. Just closing up shop. But, I decided that I still need to keep a little bit of normalcy in my life and blogging has always given me that.

When you have a child with disabilities so much of your life is taken up with doctor appointments, therapies and endless online medical research that you forget to do anything for yourself.

Blogging is my "me time". I just have to make the "me time" take up less time right now.


So, for the rest of the summer you may see me blogging less often and making fewer comments. But if I am going to make this The Summer O' Fun, as I have nicknamed it, I need to get busy!

(Oh, and I have no idea what Lassie has to do with anything. Just was looking for little boy pictures in my vintage children's book collection and this is what I came up with.)

Wooden Flag

A couple people have emailed me and asked about the glimpse of a flag like thing in the background of some of my photos.

It is a wooden flag that I made last summer by following Stephanie Lynn's tutorial at Under The Table and Dreaming.


Stephanie Lynn was the first person to give me a shout out on their blog and I will be forever grateful to her for that. I can still remember (all the way back from one year ago) how excited I was that she had picked one of my projects from her Sunday Showcase Party to highlight. I was a fairly new blogger at the time and it was a huge boost of confidence.

Junkin Finds

Before I tell you about my awesome garage salen day on Friday, I wanted to show you this wooden pulley that I forgot to post a photo of last week. I bought it at the same garage sale that I bought the Jarts at and with all the excitement over the Jarts, I totally forgot about it.


It has the greatest patina and was only $5.00. It's big too. 11" from the top to the bottom of the hook and about 4 1/2" wide.

OK, on to this week.

I found this picnic basket at a neighborhood garage sale for $3.00. They had two other picnic baskets there that I was looking at, but didn't buy. Sometimes you have to leave things for other people to have the thrill of discovering. And save yourself some cash.

Lobelia Love

I have never grown lobelia before this year, but I am head over heals in love with it.


I planted a six pack of them in this basket a few weeks ago


and they just keep blooming and blooming.


How come I never knew about these little gems before?

Linking with My Romantic Home's Show and Tell Friday.

Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Show

Do you see the tagline in my header where it says "a place for thrifting, gardening and all things vintage"? Well, I take that last part seriously.

Maybe a little too seriously.

This weekend my husband, son and I went to a vintage Japanese motorcycle show.


If you are at all interested in the motorcycles (yawn), you can see more photos of them in my Picasa online album located HERE. I made the album for my husband's motorcycle friends.

BTW, do you know how hard it is to get a good shot of a motorcycle with people walking around? A bit too many legs in the photos for my tastes.

What I found fun about the show was that they had a flea market area. Now don't get too excited about the flea market, it was definitely geared toward motorcycle parts and people that really love vintage Japanese motorcycles. That would be the husband.

But they had some fun stuff there for us vintage, junky people. Like this cute motorcycle toy.

Pillow Fabric

I wanted to recover my outdoor pillows this year because I was getting bored to death by the old fabric.

This is the before fabric, which I believe was from Home Depot,


and this is the after.

Vintage Picnic Finds

In the summertime I gravitate toward vintage picnic supplies at yard sales and estate sales.


I found this vintage metal Skotch Basket at an estate sale recently for $6.00.

A Yellow Day

I have an explosion of yellow going on in the garden right now.


I just love these gerbera daisies. Instant vibrant color.

Sullivan & Murphy's Porch Sale

On Memorial Day weekend I went to Sue of Sullivan and Murphy's Vintage Porch Sale held at The Peddler's House in Waynesville, Ohio.

She had loads of silver. Can you believe I did not buy one single piece of her silver. I must have been overcome by the heat that day.


She had this really pretty and HUGE soup tureen,

Potting Table

On Sunday I showed you my new porcelain topped cabinet, but did you remember that I already had a piece of porcelain topped furniture?

It started out a little rough (to say the least),


but came out looking like this.

The One That Got Away

I started out on Friday morning very cheerful. It was my son's last day of school for the year, so my last day to be totally carefree and fancy free and able to flit from from garage sales to estate sales to thrift stores without a thought in the world.

It was a day full of possibilities.

First on my list was stopping off at an estate sale to buy this beauty that they had shown on their website.

Ain't she purdy?


I have wanted an old croquet set for years. But not just any one, it had to have a certain look about it. The look that this one had. This was the perfect croquet set. The one I had in my head when I pictured a vintage croquet set. Get the idea? Oh, yeah, I wanted this!!!

Well, as I am driving up to the sale a mere two minutes after the sale started, I see a woman walking out of the house with my croquet set.

For a second, I had a thought run through my head that involved me tripping the woman, throwing $14 at her (the price prominently taped to the set), grabbing the thing and running back to my car. Just a fleeting thought, but nonetheless it was sort of disturbing.

So, of course, the rest of the day was occupied by thoughts of "This item sure is nice, but it's not my croquet set", "Boy, I wish they had a croquet set here" and "Why didn't I just leave my house ten minutes earlier and then I would have my croquet set parked in my trunk".

OK, enough about the one that got away! Done, it's gone. Get over it, Pam!

So what I do have to show, that I actually did buy, is a cabinet that I purchased for a song at a garage sale.

What's Up In The Garden

I was doing a little puttering around the house this week.


Trying to get some stuff done before my son's last day of school yesterday.

Ironstone Pitcher and More Finds

Last week I showed you my motel chair and wooden file boxes I found at some sales.

That day was a fairly lucrative day and I finally got a chance to photograph some of the other finds.


This basket was $5.00. It came from an estate sale that was run by the family and the majority of the stuff in the sale was fairly old, so I'm going with the theory that the basket must be older also.

It has a great patina on the handle (patina = old hand grime) and someone had tried to keep it together by weaving wire along the top rim, but I think that gives it added charm.