Oh, nuts!

We have had quite the year for acorns on our pin oak tree.

Abundant crop would not even begin to describe it.

They are all over the ground and you can't walk 4 inches without jamming an acorn into your foot. Guess wearing shoes would help with that problem.

Halloween Step Ladder

Does a ladder count as a table top? I sure hope so, because I wanted to join Marty at A Stroll Thru Life's Table Top Tuesday party.

This is the ladder that I bought a few weeks ago at a garage sale. I have this vignette sitting right outside of my living room door so I can see it from both inside and out. As a matter of fact, I am looking at it right now.

I added my can of unknown purpose which I bought last weekend at the Springfield Antique Show and Extravaganza.

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!

Thank you to all who entered the giveaway. I was happy to see quite a few people come out of lurking for it! Please feel free to leave me a comment whenever you want. The more the merrier.

Drum roll please . . . the winner of my very first giveaway is #63

Congratulations CeeKay! I will be contacting you today to get your address so I can get this out to you in the mail.

Thanks again to all who participated!

BTW, the roofers didn't get to finish up last week, so they'll be back on Tuesday (if it's not raining). At least they are done with the main part of the house and I won't have to deal with all the pounding and vibration anymore.

Black & Orange & Repeated

The whole getting a new roof put on the house thing is getting to be very nerve wracking, so much so that I couldn't sleep last night and am starting to get hives. Who knew that having ten strangers wielding hammers on your roof would cause such turmoil. Since I'm a little bummed that I haven't gotten to decorate outside yet because of this whole project, today I am going to repeat a post from last fall. I hope it gets you in an autumnal mood.

Post From October 2010:

Debra at Common Ground is having her fabulous Vintage Inspiration Friday party again this week. The optional theme is Fall and Halloween Tables which I had totally intended to do. I have been making plans for this since she announced the special theme a few weeks ago and dreaming up what I was going to show.

But alas, real life reared its head this week. My son has been home sick from school ALL WEEK and I have been working hard at keeping him happy, comfy and occupied.

Then I found out that my childhood Halloween was tragically cut short for no good reason (you can read about it here) and well, I have totally lost my mojo and just didn't have the energy needed to put together a table that didn't involve paper plates.

So instead I thought I'd take a quieter, slower paced route and just show you a little black and orange for the Halloween weekend. What is more inspiring than black and orange?

Springfield Antique Show and Extravaganza

Last weekend was a busy one in Columbus, Ohio.

The Country Living Fair was in town. Plus the Springfield Antique Show and Extravaganza was taking place about a hour's drive from here. A girls kind of weekend!

Originally my plan was to go to the CL Fair on Friday while my son was at school and the Springfield Antique Show on Saturday. Well, my son was sick on Friday with a nasty cold, so not able to do the CL Fair that day. I was disappointed, but a sick kiddo always beats out a shopping trip. And that just left all the more money to spend on the Springfield show on Saturday.

Now, this was my first time going to Springfield and I was not disappointed. Springfield is normally listed in Country Living's list of Best Antique Shows and for good reason. They had over 2,000 vendors and I did not see a single vendor that was not worth looking at. Yes, some vendors had overblown ideas of what their stuff was worth, but there were plenty of vendors who had fair prices and some that even had really cheap prices. When I first walked into the place I was totally overwhelmed with the size of the show. Antiques and vintage items as far as your eyes could see and then some.

So I imagine you want to see all the stuff I bought, right? My big old pile of vintage finds?

Feast your eyes on . . .

It's A Giveaway

I am having my very first giveaway. Ever. Don't know why it's taken me so long, but I want to thank all my loyal and lovable readers. And thought that this would be a nice way to give back.

The giveaway includes a brand new, never been read Fall/Winter issue of Flea Market Style magazine.

Vintage Cameras

As shown in my Red to Black post, I have started to collect some vintage cameras in the last few months. It's been one of those things that has snowballed. I started out thinking a few would look cute sitting in my office and Bang! next thing you know it has become an obsession.

With as many cameras as I run across in estate sales and antique stores, I have decided to be fairly selective about what I buy though. Don't want to be the crazy cat camera lady!

A Kodak Brownie Flash Six-20 Camera (manufactured from 1946 - 1955)

Fall Composting Fun

My neighbor from when I was a kid always had a huge compost pile. Back then you didn't call them compost piles though. It was just basically the garbage area. You put food scraps and yard waste in that pile and then you burnt the rest of the stuff in a big old 55 gallon barrel.

It was well after I went to college that we finally got trash pick up in my hometown. BTW, it was about that same time that you had to start dialing all 7 digits for a phone number. Prior to that you could just dial the last four digits if calling locally. Did I mention it wasn't a large town?

Well, last year we decided to go semi-green (let's call it chartreuse) and start a compost pile of our own. My husband researched it to no end. He had to know the scientific details of how much Carbon vs how much Nitrogen you need and many other useless facts about the biology of composting.


You throw stuff in the pile. It rots. What else is there to know?

Well, surprise! I guess we must have thrown some pumpkins away in the compost pile last fall, because we have a pumpkin patch growing there now.

Red to Black

I found this little stool at a community yard sale a few weeks ago. I thought it was a cute shape and size, plus it was only a dollar. But the more I looked at it in my house, I decided it really wasn't THAT cute and the wording on it was beginning to annoy me.


It's put together with staples, so it's not real vintage. So out came the black spray paint, stencil and Mouse sander.

Halloween At The Thrift Stores

I stopped by the thrift store yesterday and found a faux pumpkin and a blue Atlas jar with a zinc lid. They were 90 cents each.


It appears that the thrift stores are putting out their Halloween backstock right about now. There were costumes galore and tons of Halloween paraphernalia. I was hoping to find some vintage Halloween items, but no such luck this time. But I never pass up a faux pumpkin (Funkin) when I see one. They cost a million dollars at Jo-Ann Fabrics.

I had this great idea to cut out a ghost and put it in the jar for the photo, since it was sitting next to a pumpkin and all. But, I didn't quite get the shape correct.

Copy Cat Oil Can Pumpkin

In August, the uber-talented Jane from Mamie Jane's showed a pumpkin that she made out of an oil can. I liked it so much I pinned it to my Pinterest board. And then super-duper-crafty Vicki from Rusty Rooster Vintage showed her version of Jane's pumpkin.

I thought they were both so darn cute, so when I was at the local antique mall and ran across some rusty oil cans I just had to make one.



For my stem greenery I cut some curly things off my grapevine wreath.

When Is An Estate Sale Not An Estate Sale?

On Friday I had to take the minivan for a checkup on the other side of town, so I searched Craigslist for sales in that area. And I was ecstatic when I found an estate sale that started on Friday less than a mile from the van dealership. Until I got there.

I drive up to this "estate sale" and there are no signs in the yard, no little notice by the front door welcoming me to the sale, no other cars? WTH?

The garage door was open, so I cautiously approached the garage. Yep, the garage was full of stuff.

Me: "Hello, anyone there?"

A little dog starts barking which is a bad sign, since you never see pets at an estate sale.

Lady comes to the door.

Estate Sale Lady: "Yes, I'm here. Just go ahead and look over things and I will be out in a second."

Out? What? OK, I could go on with our conversation for quite a while here, but long story shortened - turns out the lady was having a garage sale, not an estate sale.

People, an estate sale is a sale conducted by a professional company when someone DIES or is moving to a retirement home in order to get rid of most of their belongings. Not when you want to attract people to your little itty bitty garage sale!

So I bought nothing there, but did find a few things at a garage sale down the street. You know, where the people actually knew they were having a garage sale.


A wooden step ladder I am going to use in my Fall decor.

Ball Jar Lights

As part of my birthday present, my sister in Oregon sent me a really cool light for the top of one of my mason jars.


The solar light just screws onto the top of any standard mason jar.

Kate Is A Commoner

The other day Gloria from The Little Red House With The White Porch asked me how I was going to display one of my old typewriters. I had to laugh to myself.

Oh, if you could only see where Kate is right now. Oh, wait. I have a blog, you can see.

Here she is in. Hanging out on my kitchen counter.


Did you have visions of a charming little vignette involving the typewriter with a vintage letter in the carriage next to a silver urn full of fresh hydrangea? Me too.

But this is reality. I put her here and started shining her up a bit.

That was at least two or three weeks ago and she's been sitting here every since. In that picturesque place between the compost pail and my knife block. Waiting for me to have more time to devote to her.

Someday (my husband is asking when) I will find a more suitable place for Her Royal Highness.