holiday cheer drear

 I've been terrible about posting of late. This year our family did a no-buy Christmas, all items gifted must be homemade or thrifted. Thus, I've been busying myself with baking cookies, pricking my fingers to sew up Christmas gifts, devising new felt creatures, and singing carols with Doug while we do dishes as we ready ourselves for Christmas and my 28th birthday next Monday!

Among my thrift travels I did spot a few lovely items for the shop. Quite a few 40s finds that I'd love to hoard for myself even if they don't fit and I'll never get around to altering.

Here's a peak:

And just so as I'm not that terrible blogger who only talks about her etsy shop, I'd like to share a fine Christams tune. I've said this before and I'll say it again I have no idea why sad songs make me happy, but this one from Joni Mitchell is a classic sad Christmas song that makes me happy :) Enjoy & Merry Christmas!

etsy update

Having an etsy shop is not as easy as it looks. It took me about all of yesterday and today to photograph, measure and list some new items for the shop.

I have to admit I'm having way too much fun doing it though. A peek at some of the latest things...

doowop thursday

My mom was a big doowop fan in her day and she passed this great love on to me. I love most all and any of the annoyingly coy doowop bands of the 1950s and 1960s.We used to dance around the living room listening to her fave 45 records. All my best dance moves are stolen from the jitterbug, mashed potato, the stroll...

Ofcourse, my Mom also had a healthy Elvis obsession as well. "Love Me" has to be one of my favorite songs.




And just for fun, some of my other favorite doowop classics


>

cracker christmas

In Florida, the term "cracker" is neither offensive nor derogatory. In fact, the word even has a bit of respect behind it. Historically, "crackers" were the early settlers of Florida who raised cattle and were called so for the crack of their whips. Then and today cattlemen dominated the agricultural landscape. In fact, Florida was a fence free state until 1950 and cattle roamed about freely. Today, the term refers to a person who was born and bred here, a bit of a rarity these days. For that reason, it also holds a bit of pride if you can call your self a cracker.

These weekend Doug and I stayed close to home visiting Floral City for their annual Christmas Heritage Days. Floral City was a 1900s boom town due to a nearby phosphate mine, shortly after the railroad came to town. Today its a much smaller town, but retains much of its charm. Its known for its beautiful oak tree canopy roads. Due to rain on Friday the caroling, sleigh rides and lumiarias were cancelled, but on Saturday we made it to the historic home tour.

This was my favorite house.

The kitchen was amazing. This is an old wood burning stove, but they ingeniously added a gas range top.

This was part of the living history exhibit.

a cracker cowboy

 

She was spinning straight from her bunny...

A Victorian lady under the canopy road.

Doug got a free oak tree.

illustration inspiration

I have always loved children's book illustrations. In fact, before I understood anything about life or the world, I used to tell people that one day I'd become a children's book writer & illustrator.

Upon realizing I didn't have the artistic ability or skill to fulfill this dream, I went in another direction :) But, I still find illustrations so inspiring. I love flipping through the kid's book section at thrift stores to see what treasures I might find. These pics are from a recent one. It's a chapter book written in the 1970s about little British school children in the 1920s.

So... after a bit of a long and difficult week for me, thumbing through the pages of this book last night made me want to get up and wear something a bit more ladylike and actually get dressed before 4 pm. AND i finally got to wear these adorable shoes I swapped with the lovely and talented Caroline :)