Vintage Compacts for Vintage Thingies Thursday!

It's time for Vintage Thingies Thursday! Join me over at Coloradolady, where Suzanne hosts this great party every week!

Today I am sharing a small part of my vintage compact collection. The reason I'm not showing the whole collection is quite simple. I can't remember where I packed away the rest of them! This first compact is actually a small purse.

And when you open the one side, there is a mirror and a tube of lipstick.

The other side opens to reveal what I'm pretty sure is a cigarette holder. If anyone knows it's something else, please tell me!

Another purse, and a tube of lipstick would slide into those metal rings on the side.

Again, what I think is a ciggie holder on the one side...

and a compact on the other side. Sadly the mirror is broke, but it didn't stop me from buying it!

I love this one! It's got flecks of silver set inside the lucite. I won't bore you with the inside. The outside's prettier anyway!

This silver cloth one has a coin purse on one side...

and the other side opens with a compact inside. It was made by Lin-Bren, which made alot of compacts back in the day.

A red one, possibly bakelite? I know nothing about bakelite, I'm only guessing!

And finally we have this blue one. I wish compacts were still in fashion! I get a kick out of seeing my daughter pull one out of her purse when she checks her makeup! It's a cute pink one with the Eiffel Tower on it. I think she got it at Wet Seal or Forever 21, so compacts are still being made. Maybe I'll get myself a new one too, and continue to preserve these oldies! If you would like to see tons more vintage thingies, head on over to Suzanne's!

Rednesday!!

Please join me over at It's A Very Cherry World, where Sue is our hostess for Rednesday! It's getting harder and harder every week to find something red to share. Guess I need to buy more red things!

First we have a doll from the Czech Republic, specifically Plzen, the region where my grandpa was from. I bought her at the Czech Fest in Wisconsin several years ago. I had hoped to start a collection, and add a new one every year, but the seller was never there again. Very disappointing.

This is a December Angel, for my daughter, my December angel! I'm sure alot of you have at least one of these angels. I also have an April angel for my birthday. I've contemplated getting a July one for my husband, but do you really think he cares?!

And finally, another set of tin childrens dishes. Another thing that really needs to be put on Ebay, but I've been too lazy to do it! Well, that's it for me. I'm pretty excited because tomorrow I'm going back to an antique mall that had vintage greeting cards for 25 cents. I'm planning to spend hours and hours there! If you would like to see more red things, head on over to Sue's!

Attitude of Gratitude Award

Dawn at Cottage State of Mind has given me an Attitude of Gratitude award! In her own words, it's an award celebrating the ability to "see the blessings where they're not obvious, and making lemonade instead of complaining about sour lemons"! I am supposed to share what I am grateful for, and then pass the award on. Here are just a few things I am grateful for:

My sweet, wonderful daughter Liz. She's as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside! This is a picture of her packing to go back to college. These are just some of her many purses!

My sweet husband, who not only lets me take a picture of him with a butterfly on his head, but also doesn't mind if I put it on my blog!

Our cozy little home, that sheltered us from the tornado that passed within 10 miles of our home last night!
And the little patch of land that I am able to grow beautiful flowers like this on. When I was too afraid to tend this little back garden, because of my mean neighbors, I felt like I had been robbed of something. Since I've taken control of it again, I feel like a piece of a puzzle has been slid back into place, and this has been one of the best summers ever! Minus the poison ivy that I keep finding back there!
I am grateful for so many other things too, like every single friend and family member, and all of the wonderful people that I have met in the blogging world! I am truly blessed! Now I would like to pass this award on to some people who know the meaning of the word "gratitude"!

1. Holly-Girls at Heart

2. Ann-Protector of Vintage

3. Cindy-My Good Life in Nebraska

4. Coralie-A Vintage Cottage Home

5. Lillysue-A Peace of Bliss You've GOT to check out her pink kitchen!!

6. Hattie-Little Red Roost

7. Shelley-Shelley Vintage Variety

8. Nicole-Armchair Housewife

9. Susie-Susie's Country Cottage and Garden

10. Suzanne-Coloradolady

Weekend Finds and Two Projects

Once again, this week's garage sales were a bust! My pal Nancy and I went to probably 15 sales, and I only spent $3! And only one thing was worth taking a picture of. Frankly, I can't even remember what else I got, it was that bad! All I can remember is this:
Isn't she a beauty?! An old American Tourister bag. She's in mint condition, and still has the keys to the lock. I'm going to take her with me when we go to the Covered Bridge Festival! The only problem with this bag is that after I got it home, I realized it has a strange smell, kind of like the smell of a hot iron. It's not a gross smell, I'd just rather it didn't smell at all! Any suggestions on how to get rid of the smell?

I won this old lunch box on Ebay. Of course I had to have it! Anything old with a flag has got my name written all over it!

Here is the backside. Gosh, I love this thing!

And here is where it will spend eternity! It's a riot of color up there, isn't it?!

I've decided, after seeing so many incredible handmade things on different blogs, that I want to start crafting again. I'm the type of crafter who doesn't make anything too difficult or time-consuming. I'm impatient! So I took the above items.....

and made a verrrry simple little fall banner. I'm thinking I might go back and add some little teeny tiny yo-yos.

And these items from Hobby Lobby turned into this:

It's so hard to get a good picture of a mirror without reflecting the untidy mess across the room! Well, you get the idea. It was simple. Right up my alley! This week I want to show a yo-yo quilt that I started 15 years ago. That's right, 15 years ago. That's all I'm sayin'!

Little Toy Stove - Vintage Thingies Thursday!

It's time for Vintage Thingies Thursday over at Coloradolady, where Suzanne is our hostess, and we share our vintage things!

Today I am sharing an old toy stove. I guess this was before the Easy Bake oven! I think I remember burning many things in there, including myself! It was originally my sister's, then mine, and since then many little kids have played with it. I gave it a fresh coat of paint back in the early 90s, for my daughter to play with. It hasn't been plugged in for a very long time, so I'm not sure if it still works, and frankly I'm too scared to try it!

I saw recently on The Farm Chicks blog, that it can be used to hold dish towels. I liked the idea so much that I copied it!

But when little ones come over, this is what it looks like. Little pots and pans, and a teapot, all ready for playing house!

And when the "food" is ready, it can be served on these old tin plates! Now please head on over to Suzanne's, and see more vintage thingies!

Monarch Butterfly Festival!!

Mr. Old Glory is on vacation this week, so I twisted his arm and made him take me to the Monarch Butterfly Festival! Actually he was happy to go! We haven't been since our daughter was little, so I was pretty excited to go. We saw a sign for it by chance on Friday, so we were meant to go!

It's held at a really lovely nature preserve, with a little waterfall....

and lots of wildlife, like geese and ducks, and you could go canoeing for $5, which seemed a really good deal, but we didn't go.

Here's the first butterfly we saw! Isn't she adorable? We saw lots of little girls dressed as butterflies.

Here is the sign leading into the tent. We were lucky that we got there when we did, because there was only a 5 minute wait to get in.

Look at those gorgeous zinnias just covered in butterflies!

There were all kind of beautiful flowers inside the tent for the butterflies to land on, like zinnias, asters, sedum, marigolds. It was a riot of color!

Here's my first encounter.


I would love to know what it was that Mr. Old Glory smeared on his head before we got here, because they loved landing on his head!

I wanted to take this one home! I don't think I've seen any monarchs in my garden this year.
Note to self: Color your hair regularly, once a month. It may look ok at home, but outside, you can see every. gray. hair!!

When we got out of the tent, we saw several escapees flying around, and I wonder if this was how they made their escape, on peoples' legs!



This is the butterfly garden at the nature preserve. Aren't those sculptures gorgeous?

There was also a Bug Zoo that I was excited to see. I would have liked to hold this tarantula, but I heard the girl running it say that she was ok with being the one to hold it because she's been bitten before!

And these are Madagascar beetles! They were huge, and again, I would have liked to hold one, but I heard the girl say that they might have mites on them. No thanks! Well, it was a beautiful day, spent outside with my guy. Now let's see, what can I get him to do next.....