Vintage Build a Picture Game

I found this fantastic vintage game a few months ago at a church yard sale. I intended on saving it as a Christmas gift for little girl, but a few gloom and doom weather days around here equaled the need to bring out something new! She was more into sorting everything by color and style then she was actually building a picture but she had fun and that's all that matters! Here's a few pics I took....how great are the sweat little pictures!

EASY Summer Cucumber Salad

So lets not talk about how long it's been since I've actually posted? Hmmm. February..maybe:) Any who moving on...last weekend we took a trip to our locale farmers market where we picked up all sorts of lovely's! One being a pretty little basket of heirloom tomatoes and a few cucumbers and an onion. All these tasty little items added up to be the perfect summer salad! I know that there are a ton of recipes out there for summer salad, but here's the one that I came up with! Kind of a little combination of other recipes that I had found, thrown in with the sad fact that I don't have a lot spices and such around the house so my recipe would have to be simple! So if your like me and have a lack of ingredients in your pantry this will be perfect for you:)

Summer Salad:
Ingredients:
Cucumbers (as many as you will need to feed your family)
1 white onion
Tomatoes (I used cherry but any kind will work) 
White Vinager
Dill Weed (you could also use basil or such if you don't have dill, I've already done this and it still taste great!)

Slice cucumber, I like mine pretty thin. Chop up onion. Slice tomatoes. Place all ingredients in bowl and mix. Pour in vinegar to taste, I usually use around 1/4 of a cup but it just depends on the amount of salad you have and how much you like vinegar:) Sprinkle with dill to taste. Store in fridge

Sometimes I will make mine in advance so the cucumbers have time to soak up the vinegar. However, most of the time I don't remember/ don't plan in advance and it still taste just as good eating it 5 minutes after you make it:) Keep in fridge, the leftovers are great!

Vintage Vogart

A few, or maybe way more than I would like to admit to, estate sales ago I found some of these lovely never before used vintage vogart patterns! I particularly LOVE the iron on sets! I thought how sweet they would look ironed onto one of little girls tee's or maybe even one of my own. Oh and how great they may look on the edge of a skirt or cardigan. However, I have been sort of afraid to try them, since they are so old! I know I could just test them out on a sample piece of fabric, however I just can't stand to waist one:( Has anyone ever tried one of these? The package states they are washable, but I do believe it means only hand washing, hmmmm not really sure about the whole washing things by hand deal either..LOL:)

My First Auction and Vintage Doll Clothes

Okay so I haven't went to the auction yet so I don't really have any pictures to share just yet, but I'm so excited I just had to share the news. Every week I get little emails reminding me about upcoming auctions and some of the goodies they will be showcasing. Normally I just get to breeze through each email thinking about all the goodies I must be missing out on! As it's hard to get out to a 5:30 auction on a Tuesday night when you have kiddos at home. Ya'll know what I'm talking about right, 5:30 is the beginning of  the dinner, bath, and all around night time crunch. But!! The auction was postponed until Saturday due to the snow, so for once I'm sort of glad for the snow:) Oh my there's going to be so many goodies that I will probably most definitely "need," which I believe is my husbands fear....haha!! The email informed me they will have box lots of vintage linens, clothes, and colorful glass ware!! I can't wait to share my finds!! Have you been to an auction..any good bidding advice?:) Or to die for finds?

On another note here's a few vintage doll clothing patterns I picked up recently at the thrift store. I had a picture of a pair of 70's barbie clothing patterns but I can't seem to find the picture? So I'll have to get back to you guys on that one:)

Reviving a Vintage Paint by Number Kit

 I purchased a couple of vintage paint by number kits on ebay over a year ago and I finally got around to figuring out what to do with them. As one would guess the paint in the kits were completely dried up and unusable:( I did some research online on how to revive old oil paints with out much success, all of the techniques seem to involve some icky chemicals! So I thought the next best thing to do would be to purchase oil or acrylic paints that match up to the original dried up paints. I didn't really want to pour tons of money into this project so I went with acrylic craft paints, I purchased them for 59 cents a bottle at Joanns. The only down side to using these inexpensive paints seems to be that the coverage is not so good and I'm having to re-coat  a few areas, but that's okay:)

 I decided that when purchasing my new paints I wouldn't have to match the colors up exactly and infact I used a fun pink color instead of the orange just to give my painting a fun and different look! I just made sure that the colors I choose looked good together and matched up well with the areas they were intended for and I was set!

Before I started to paint my canvases I decided that I should scan them so that I could use the "template" over and over again if I wanted. I figured I could print it out on watercolor paper and do a water color paint by number, or use colored pencils which would also be fun! The options are endless! So when searching for paint by numbers, consider purchasing and reviving an old kit! You'll have endless options and save a few bucks:) I've included a few kits that are for sale in my collections post below:)

I'll post more pictures when it's finished:)

Pretty Patchwork Blocks

I created these little patchwork blocks with a few vintage and new fabric scrapes. I think I may play with them more than little girl:)

 

I hope everyone is enjoying the new year!!:)

Christmas Toys in Progress

I've been a busy little elf latley working to get some of little girls Christmas presents finished/started! I think these little dolls may be my favorite this year. I hope to also find a set of natural wood blocks to create little houses and beads out of:) I even ventured out to Toy's R'us today in search of a set of wood blocks...let me just say yikes!!.....but there was nothing but plastic..haha:)

So I want to ask you guys if you have any suggestions for a place to get a variety set of natural wood blocks? I would make them myself but I scared to use the wood at hardwood stores...or is okay to use the plain wood there? Hmmm...have any of you all used regular hardware store wood to make toys? Thanks in advance for all your help!!:)

P.S. What kind of special Christmas gifts are you all working on? Have you found any good tutorials to share?:) I read over on Elsie's blog "A Beautiful Mess" that she will having 12 days of DIY, yay sounds like fun!!

P.S.S Here are a few projects little girl has been working on:) We used a glue stick to rub glue over the entire gingerbread man and then sprinkled him with cinnamon, he smells so yummy!!

Vintage Christmas Die Cuts

I've been searching ebay for weeks now for some vintage holiday die cuts after seeing Daniels lovely die cuts! Then like magic I came across these while browsing the thrift store today!! I love the glitter!! I've got tons of  other vintage Christmas goodies that I've collected over the summer to share with you guys later this week!!

Halloween Decorations

I have loved decorating for the upcoming holidays with little girls art work! Nothing makes me smile more than seeing something that she's made, I think that's her favorite part about school, either that or music as she loves to dance! I don't know what I'm going to do when Halloweens over, as I know that I'm not going to want to take them down. Maybe I'll just have to put a Santa Clause hat on her pumpkins:)

"New" Vintage Shoes

I'm always looking for a pair of vintage shoes, with out much luck, but this weekend I found TWO pairs in barely worn condition!! It may just be my unlucky luck but I feel like when I usually find vintage shoes they are sizes  5 or 6, which are way to small for my boat feet..LOL:)  But I think/feel that people typically did have smaller feet 40 or so years ago...so it is kind of rare to find something in an 8 or 9?...do you guys feel this way to? Any who the first pair I bought are a 9 1/2 which fit like a glove, but the others are an 8 which may be just a tiny bit to small but they will definitely do! Also, I want to add that these are the most comfortable heels that I have ever worn, so if you have a chance to buy some do!! They just don't make them like they use to:)

Here's a piece that I've been working on for little girls room. I wanted to do some simple embroidered wall art of her favorite things to hang on her wall, I used some vintage fabric that my grandmother gave me:) I love when I can incorporate family "heirlooms" into my art as I think it helps to tell a story if you will. Coming next I think will be a slide, and a dog?

Granny Chic Crocheted Cup Cozy...in the works...

In my search for vintage colorful glasses I thought it would be fun to create a few of my own colorful glass. So I created a granny/kitschy chic cozy for my plain vintage glasses. As you can see in the picture it's still in the works, but I hope to do a couple in yellow and an aqua color as well:) I'm hoping these will look super fun on my new vintage bar!! I guess you could also say that this little project is fulfilling one of my "4 simple goals" by actually making something for myself/home...Yay!!

You can also see a few of my newly thrifted vintage glasses and my new vintage tablecloth in the pic's...I hope to get some better pic's of those soon:)

I was excited to get this in the mail yesterday...I love looking at all the inspiring projects and pretty yarns!! The Lion Brand website is stocked full of these lovely freebie patterns!!!

...and here's a quick pic of all my newly thrifted yarns....some are vintage and some are not...

Vintage Pattern's and Contact Paper

Here are a few of my latest vintage finds!! I'm totally loving the shirt dress right now, I wish I had the time to make a few.....that reminds me that I have yet to create an item for myself out of the vintage shirts that I've been collecting.