Let's Talk Vintage #12: Girl's Day Out Home Tour Part II

Last week for my weekly "Let's Talk Vintage" link party I shared a tour of my very talented friend's home. This week I'm sharing the rest of the tour... so without further ado, let's take another peek:

 

She has a an eye for design... combine that

with her love for vintage and VOILA!

A beautiful home.

And it just comes naturally to her...

 

 

We also found out her home was originally

a local school house back in the early 1900's.

 

 

A close up of the mantel...

a mixture of antlers, tankards,

natural greens, flameless candles, graphic

letters of "M" and "C" for Merry Christmas

... and exposed hand carved handles

of antique daggers or knives. She

had a collection and used it in

a very unique way!

 

 

And another awesome feature in her main

living area is seen when you turn your

eyes upward to the ceiling.

 

Wow!

 

 

 

A hallway table...

 

 

Even on the vanity...beautiful!

 

 

And a display with all kinds of wonderful

antiques from china to plates

to a silver piece holding candles.

 

There was so much to see and so much

to be inspired by. We had a ball

looking at everything.

 

 

________________________________

 

 

Now it is your turn! Let's Talk Vintage!

 

 

Here are a few feature's from last week's LTV:

 

 

Cecelia from My Thrift Store Addiction

shared her Jadeite collection where she

mixed in Christmas décor and it

couldn't have been a better way to show

off her fabulous pieces.

 

 

 

And Gina from Victorian Wannabe

shared so many awesome things she

uses to decorate her home for

Christmas. My heart melts though

for antique postcards... I loved

seeing this one of a special delivery!

 

And Miss Kathy of The Writer's Reverie

shared with us her very vintage Christmas

tea time displays and home décor...

look at this sweet nativity ornament!

 

Go ahead, link up!

 

 

An InLinkz Link-up

Let's Talk Vintage #11: Girls Day Out Home Tour

Welcome to "Let's Talk Vintage!" a link party I host every Tuesday at 9 am.

Each week I get to see what project you are working on, your latest finds,

your joy in sharing what we all have in common, vintage! Because if

you are here and you are reading this, your probably

love old stuff, too.

 

 

Last week I was invited to a "girls day out" get together for lunch.

  

We all counted down the days until the day came...for we knew our friend would have a beautifully decorated home. And her food offerings were just as savory!
Look at the table, her choices of mini quiches, croissant sandwiches with a chicken and cranberry salad and tortellini salad were delicious.

This china collection was on the other side of her kitchen. Gorgeous!

She did not disappoint us, everything was just incredible! This pair of deer were displayed with natural greens inside an old dough bowl which is not shown. (A whoops! I forgot and cropped it out of the photo!)

And this room where she paints made us go "ooooh" and then "ahhhhh!" Love the antique table and chairs, the large picture frame.

This was one of the focal points in her living room. What an amazing collection of Staffordshire dogs!!! Fabulous!

 

Another focal point was this amazing fireplace, mantel and antlers!

 

What a great time we all had and I couldn't think of a better way to talk vintage than to take pictures and share them with you on the blog! There are many more amazing beautiful pictures that I will share with you in next week's LTV.

Now it is your turn:

Let's talk vintage! Here are some things you all shared last week:

This beautiful vintage Nativity scene caught my eye over at Deanie's Stash

 

And the gals over at Ivy and Elephants, Patti and Paula, shared

this lovely ornament inspired by everyone's favorite

holiday classic "It's a Wonderful Life!"

 

 

And Diana at Adirondack Girl at Heart shared the inside

of a vintage Montgomery Ward catalog! Wow!

Now, here's where you may link up your posts about your latest projects, finds, even vintage things you sell! Link as many as you want.

I can't wait to see what you share today!

An InLinkz Link-up

Let's Talk Vintage #10: Tidbits of Vintage Toy History

Welcome to "Let's Talk Vintage," a linky party I host every Tuesday morning at 9, where we all get a chance to share in our passion for vintage.

 

My hubby and I love to look for vintage things. Of course, right? I mean, I talk about it all the time.

What makes our "team" great though, is our different tastes... he likes furniture, tools, and old toys. In fact, he loves finding old toys! He is a kid at heart.

My Sister gave us this great book a couple of Christmases ago: "Under the Tree: The Toys and Treats that Made Christmas Special 1930-1970" by Susan Waggoner. It is awesome! Filled with anything and everything about what we found under the tree.

There are some neat glimpses of some toys and their history by the author:

Crayons... Did you know the first pack of Crayola crayons was sold in 1903?

Legos..... They were created in Denmark and imported to the US in 1958.

Dollhouses..... One of the first was made in the mid 1500's for the Duke of
Bavaria.

Easy Bake Oven.....Introduced in 1964 and 16 million had sold by the end of the 20th century.

Monopoly.....  Was the talk of the 1935 Toy Fair and sold 20,000 in its first week. It became the best selling board game by Christmas!


How fun! There are so many more morsels of info that I could go on and on...

but I want to hear from you. I love

what you find, what you're making with
vintage things,  or what you are selling.

 

In my previous LTV party, we saw some great

vintage Christmas posts, like this one from Ann Marie at

 Musings of a Vintage Junkie, of her decorated home.

 

 

and we also saw some great Christmas finds from

Cecilia at My Thrift Store Addiction.

Just look at these cool ornaments!

Now it is your turn! Let's see what inspired you

this week, go ahead... feel free to link up

as many times as you'd like! This LTV link up

is still in the early stage, so the more the merrier!

An InLinkz Link-up

Shiny and Bright: My Office Tree Decked Out

Today I gave in. The torture was killing me!

I had looked and looked at the box on the floor in my office long enough!

The silver tree was going to get decked out today.

So glad I did!

Now it is so cheery! Like this pretty bowl under the tree.

Of course I filled it with vintage glass feather tree ornaments.
What else?

And I'm finished with the Nutcracker for the season. It was awesome!
My Sweet Pea was an angel ... they looked adorable!

Beautiful costumes. Gorgeous ballerinas. Awesome music.

AND... my computer woes are over! Kicked 'em to the curb!

Thanks to my Dear Hubby who stayed up late one night and fixed all of the malicious files on my computer.

I'm back up to speed! Albeit, a little late to really list everything I had intended in my shops. But, ah, such is life. You have to roll with it!

The house is almost decorated now too. We are all shiny and bright!

So happy to be able to link up with Pink Saturday. I haven't been posting much due to the computer issues. I've missed all the pink posts so I'll be sure to catch up this weekend.

Hope you have a happy weekend, too!

Reflections on My Christmas Tree

We just finished decorating the second tree in our house. It is tall, a Martha Stewart pre-lit tree, and we bought it in an after Christmas sale at a really, really good price.

We keep it in our "formal" living room (we actually use both rooms but one looks more casual than the other!)

I separate out all of the gold, silver, and white ornaments, just for this tree, as it is flocked with gold glitter and has additional gold "berries" already attached to it. It is really pretty in person.

This year I am adding a touch of deep red or burgundy with poinsettia flowers and glass colored ornaments. So far I'm happy with the results!

Unlike the smaller tree in the "den" area, this one takes a lot of ornaments to cover it. Due to our love for buying vintage we have no problem decorating two trees. In fact, I need to downsize some of our ornaments! This tree has most of our newer ornaments on it, however. You know the kind... the kind you receive as gifts, the ones you buy as souvenirs... some may be very special.

Like this one for instance,

This is an ornament from Cape May, NJ, where we were engaged. The Inn is still in service, but the name changed due to new ownership. I'm glad we bought the ornament when we did. It is nice to hang it on the tree every year as a memory!

I've grown to love clear glass ornaments a lot lately... and hand blown glass. I found this hand blown palm tree in a pile of junk at an estate sale this past summer. It is completely intact!

For a touch of white I like this Lenox snowflake ornament. Lenox china is so classic and timeless. If I had a big enough house I would have a collection in a glass cabinet!

I'll be back later on with some more Christmas posts... I am still decorating the house (The Nutcracker performance combined with a surge in new orders has kept me pretty busy!) so we'll see how soon I can share my newest holiday arrangements with you. I have a whole slew of vintage toy history with some neat bits of info coming for the blog, probably in next week's "Let's Talk Vintage" post.

Until then, enjoy the day!

Linking with "What's it Wednesday" at Ivy and Elephants.

Let's Talk Vintage #9 : Shiny Brite Christmas Ornaments History

 

Hello and welcome to another "Let's Talk Vintage" post. I am really enjoying these posts... I love seeing what you link up... and I also have fun posting the history behind the vintage things we love, especially at Christmas! Last week I wrote about the history behind the beloved Christmas ballet, The Nutcracker.

 

This week I'm focusing on an article I saw yesterday in a 2007 December issue of Country Living Magazine, about Shiny Brite Christmas ornaments. A popular favorite, still today!

They were made in the 1930's by Max Eckhrdt in New York. He teamed up with Corning Glass Co, in order to supply consumers with high quality mass produced glass ornaments. In 1939, F.W. Woolworth placed an order for 200,000 ornaments, helping to make Shiny Brite the leading company of hand painted glass tree ornaments. In the 1940's, the company moved to New Jersey. They continued to make them until the late 1960's.

Now it's your turn!


Let's Talk Vintage! Feel free to link up, below. You can share your vintage projects, a collection you may have, things you found while antiquing, things you share... it is up to you!

An InLinkz Link-up

Vintage Christmas: Easy Ways to Decorate Your Home

Decorating with Vintage for Christmas... oh yes I do!

Since both my husband and I love vintage, I try to

incorporate a little bit of both of our treasures,
most of which were found at estate
sales or auctions, or who knows if
we even remember where?

 

 

He has collected a few things over the years.

Some were passed down from his antique

loving parents.... and some he has grown to

love along the way. Like this cute set of angel

babies.  I had never seen a set like

this before.... So cute!

 

I do mix in a lot of new as well.

A glass cloche can make a grouping

look like it was meant to be in there.

Each year I change it up a bit. This

was last year's display.

The sleigh was a yard sale find,

as well as the urn style vase

and the Santa under the cloche.

 

I found a "mercury glass" angel

during after Christmas clearance sales

to go with my real mercury glass piece.

(Which is actually for sale here.)

This year I may try silver

and mercury glass on the mantel.

 

 

These are my absolute favorite ways

to display vintage ornaments!

Easy peasy!

 

 

And I make sure my trees are covered

in them as well. I like to find unique

shapes like this beaded star

ornament above.

 

These old bird ornaments are such fun...

if the tail is missing I place a feather inside!

 

Thanks for stopping by! I'm in up to my ears in

Nutcracker rehearsals... and decorating the house

with Christmas goodies.

 

(My computer seems to be working better!

A little updating the software really helped!)

 

You can keep up with me on Instagram

for all kinds of daily snippets!

Linking up with Thrifted Merry Christmas
Blog hop with Adirondack Girl at Heart.

 

Let's Talk Vintage #8 : The History Behind The Nutcracker Ballet

Today I'm sharing a little bit about the history behind
everyone's holiday favorite ballet,  The Nutcracker.

Bebe is going to be in it this year and we are so excited!

Here is a snippet from Dance.About.com:

Over 100 years old, The Nutcracker Ballet was first presented at the Mayinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, on December 17, 1892. Peter Tchaikovsky, the famous Russian composer, was commissioned by mastermind choreographer Marius Petipa to compose the ballet, score based on Alexandre Dumas’s adaptation of E.T.A. Hoffman’s tale "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King."

Did you know it was a failure at first? Here is more info:

Neither the critics nor the audience liked it. Even though Czar Alexander III was delighted with the ballet, The Nutcracker was not an instant success. However, the ballet gained popularity with future productions, especially in the United StatesOnly the Czar Alexander liked it.

The first performance of The Nutcracker in the United States was by the San Francisco Opera Ballet, in 1944.

Isn't that amazing?

Now Let's Talk Vintage!

 

Let's see what you have to share this week!

Each week I am wowed by what other people find, create, or imagine.

Last time we saw some of

 Adirondack Girl at Heart's vintage finds,

she really has an eye for vintage!

Now it is your turn, you may link up, below!

An InLinkz Link-up