Ellie, Ernie and Luigi

What good looking dogs I have!!!
Had to share the photo I took of our pugs Ernie and Ellie, and our Italian Greyhound, Luigi. They really posed for this picture without me arranging them, which made this all the more magical! Think I'll have my son do some photoshopping on it and it will make a nice addition to the family pictures on the wall!

Making Homemade Greeting Cards

I've been making a bunch of greeting cards to sell on ebay and etsy. I have SO much paper and so many embellishments, I just had to get everything organized first. I love the colors in these papers.  I especially love the embroidered and beaded embellishments in the first three cards I made.

Picture #1: Thanksgiving card with embroidered and beaded embellishment

                                Picture #2 and #3 are a Wedding/Celebration/New Year's card.

                                  I love the detail in the embroidery....

                          This is easily my most favorite card.  I love the way it all came together!

                          Love the TWEET banner and the cute birds! Check out the ♥ on the L) bird.

                          Another Thanksgiving card, this time with a wire embellishment.

                                 The dragonfly on this card was printed on the card stock. I embellished it with a pearlized button with fine copper wire.

I have these all listed on Ebay. You can find them under my name, Chicvintagetreasures.

Vintage Wooden Rulers

I have a few vintage rulers, and decided to get some inspiration on how to use them for decor. I love this great site with lots of re-purposed vintage items at My Salvaged Treasures. She made this cool yardstick hook board...





I came across a wonderful site by artist Dolan Geiman. I just love his work. Fantastic! Check out the fantastic artwork at his site here. I fell in LOVE with this lamp shade. Gotta have it. I'll need to see if I can get some more rulers and make one. I saw this on other blogs, but the lamp shades are made by Roost Living, in the UK.

So many ideas to choose from! I think I'll get some more vintage rulers, and go for the lamp shade. It is dynamite!

Chehalis, Washington in 1958

I love this picture of my brother and me in September 1958. My brother, Jody (aka Joe), was about 3 1/2 years old, and I was a month short of a two years old. You rarely see me grumpy in pictures (well, you rarely see me in pictures at all, haha!), so this one is extra special.

I love flip flops! See, I was wearing them clear back then. You have to call them flip flops now. They used to be called thongs, but that is now the term for indecent and uncomfortable looking undies.

Making Wedding Cards

I am making some wedding cards for my friend, Char. Think I'll send some along to Dee also, and some to my sister. Anyway, I needed some inspiration, so I surfed the web and found this cool wedding/bridal web site which looks like so much fun!

I think that the yellow shoes are perfect! I would have never thought about using a colored shoe, but it works perfectly! Once I'm done with the cards, I post them up. but for now, go check out this web site....so cool!

I have a number of favorite blogs, and this is one of them. HellomynameisHeather is a wonderful site for creative crafting. Heather is a designer of fabrics and craft patterns and the like. I love her style, and her fun projects. Take a look, and I think you'll agree!

Goal: Make cards

Here is 10 days worth of card making! I've been using up all of my paper/scrap booking stuff making cards for me and my sister. Click on the pictures to get a closer look. I did cheat a little this week...some of these were already made. But, if you here in my office, you'd be proud of me for doing a little housekeeping!

I'm going to put these in a mailer and get them out by Saturday. Maybe I'll have a few more to include in the mailer!

A blog site I love!

I love needle crafts. I sew, quilt, embroider, needlepoint, knit (just a little), etc. So, imagine my joy at finding this cool blog. You can go to The Purl Bee and check it all out. They have very cool projects that they post. Love it!

Fabulous Vintage flower holder and Valentines

Nothing better than flowers to break the winter doldrums. I got several bunches of flowers on clearance at Wal-Mart, then just created a casual arrangement in my new vintage bottle carrier! I put some milk glass glasses in (they fit perfectly!), filled them with some water, and in went the flowers.
You can get some bouquets of clearance flowers at Wal-mart for about $2/ bouquet.

This is now the second vintage milk bottle carrier that I own. This one has 6 openings, my other has 8. I usually put mason jars in the one that carries 8.

And here are some of my Valentine's cards I made using pieces of vintage Valentine's. I think that this one turned out very sweet!

On the card below, I actually color photocopied a sheet of this cute girl on the swing. I had Kinkos just make multiple images on one sheet. I cut it out using crafting scissors. I think it is darling!

To get a better image, just click on the picture and you will get a larger image. I'd love to see some of your vintage items. Post a link with your comment!

Vintage Valentines

So you love vintage valentines, but don't have any of your own? What to do? Here is a site with free graphics, The Graphics Fairy. She has posted this old postcard from 1908. So cute!
I know that it says Birthday Greetings on the card, but you could print it off, and print your own banner and glue it over the Birthday greeting, or photo shop the Birthday greeting out. The colors are perfect! I think I'll give it a try this week! A Valentine's makeover on a Birthday card...anyone else game?

Vintage dish stand

My BFF Dee, gave me this wonderful gift for Christmas. It is the union of two vintage dishes, that glued together, create a cool, elevated dish. The gold is perfect for my bedroom decor. I've put some of my pearls and gold/bronze necklaces in the dish, and I think it looks stunning!

See the clear glass desert dish that acts as the plate stand?

It looks great on my dresser! See that trophy to the right? That is an upcoming project for my sister's birthday. I'll blog about that later.

Another nice view......

I just love this. Thanks, Dee!

Repurposing Vintage Graters

If you know me, you KNOW how I love my vintage treasures. I'm just a vintage-lovin' gal! So, when I was doing a little blog browsing, I came across Amy at the Lemon Cottage. I just adore what she has done with these vintage graters. So stinking cute!

I am now going to be on a quest to find some of these. I think the flowers look lovely as well.....could be that I'm getting ready for winter to come to a close!!

So, if you have any you want to throw out, just let me know! I'll come rescue them from you!

Shabby Chic Decor. Gold and Silver for the win!

It took me awhile, but I am thrilled with they way this worked! This is my nightstand, and it has been a few months in the making!

First of all, during the remodel, I had the bedroom painted Charleston Grey (Kwal) with a couple of shades lighter on the ceiling trim. I left the ceiling, baseboards, doors and other trim white.

I wanted a grey/silver and gold look in the bedroom, since I have gold and silver bedding that was only a year old. I got that at Tuesday morning when I was remodeling my Mapleton home. So, I needed a new nightstand. I found this nightstand (I'll take a picture of DH's tomorrow) at Tuesday Morning in St. George. It was regularly $400, and they had it at $199. SOLD! I stashed it in the garage at the rental until we got moved into our new home.

I found the picture frame at TJ Maxx for about $5. Our wedding picture will go in it (yea, another project...find the pictures and have one made the right size)
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The very cool gold flower I just found at one of the antique malls in Orange, CA. We had been in CA for Christmas and New Year's with my family. I took a day to go antique shopping. Actually, I took more than one day....but I took an entire day down in Orange. One of the booths had very cool crafted items in the Paris chic genre of decor. There were 3 of these gold flowers, pieces from an old tole lamp or wall decor perhaps. I showed restraint, and bought just one. Perfect for my nightstand, don't you think?

I just love it...I think it adds to the shabby chicness of it all!

As for the lamp, I've been looking for lamps for 4 months now. I just couldn't commit to one. I'd shop, pick some out, then put them back. I can't begin to tell you how many lamps I actually almost purchased. Anyway, when we returned from CA, I had to take DS #4 to Target. We had seen an ottoman that he needed for his room. A place to sit and it had storage for all of his guitar/amp cables. I happened to look in the lamp aisle and whammo! There was the perfect lamp base. There was only one. Then I decided that I liked another one...same height. Then I started to examine the shades. Hit the jackpot! Found 2 shades that were fabulous, perfect for the decor and the are the same! Snatched those babies up and brought them home! I am very pleased with the results.

Any thoughts? Comments? Are you blogging about your decorating and want to share what you've done? Post a comment, and share the link to your post. I'd love to hear what you think!

Don't forget, you can click on the pictures to make them bigger...just saying! I'll post more pictures of the bedroom in the coming days.

Footloose at Tuacahn 2009

We are going to see Footloose tonight and I am so excited to see it! It has been getting rave reviews. The dancing is supposed to be fantastic. I'll post and let you know how I liked it tomorrow.

Hello Kitty homemade flower arrangement

A young adult friend of the family is a huge Hello Kitty (HK) fan. My son took her to her High School Prom, so I made up a little flower arrangement with a HK theme. Here in St. George we have a Harmon's grocery store, and they have a nice floral department. For about $8 you can get a nice little bouquet of flowers. I brought the bouquet home, and "accessorized" it. I started with some HK stickers, and put them on some card stock. I punched these out with a hole punch, used some glue dots and stuck the punch-out to a bamboo skewer (used for BBQ), and put them in the flowers. You can cut the skewer to be the height you want.

I also put a stick on a hang tag, and tied it to the mason jar (cheap vase!)

Flowers=Joy

I have been missing my Mapleton property......at least when it comes to planting flowers and having the opportunity to work in the dirt a bit. That is the downside of renting. Anyway, I bought a few plants to plunk into a pot. My friend, Char, brought me some of her extras. After one week, it is looking so good. We actually filled 2 pots and they are both wonderful to look at.

Pug and His Teddy Bear

I thought that Pug looked so cute this morning. He loves his Teddy Bear (it used to be one of David's bears) and will play with it, then carry it to his bean bag and usually put his head on it. Today, he looks like he is hugging it! What a funny little dog.

Do you have any fun pet photos? Post a comment with a link to your blog posting!

The rewards of getting out of bed!

I really wanted to sleep in this morning, but somehow forced myself out of bed. I let the dogs out and was amazed by this gorgeous sunrise! I'm glad I got out of bed. The vibrant colors were gone within a half an hour.

Hope that your morning was lovely as well!

Donate usable items before the end of the year!

It is that time of year to donate your usable, unwanted items to charities. Today we are taking several boxes full of usable, good quality items that we don't need to Deseret Industries. Here are some helpful hints for donating:

1. Make sure that the items are usable...that means in good working condition. I know that Deseret Industries has to throw out a lot of trash that people bring in. If it is trash, then put it out in your own garbage can!!
2. Donate clothing items that are clean. Put them in the wash first if needed. Charities do not wash clothing first before selling it.
3. Check with your local charity first if you are uncertain about what they accept and for their donation acceptance times.
4. Be generous. If you still have items that you have used in years, and aren't likely to use it in the years to come, then give it away. Maybe someone else needs it!
5. If you want a tax deduction, make sure you get a receipt for your donation and make a list of the items you donated. Keep this information with your important tax records. Your tax preparer will appreciate it!

Pug and Luigi napping by my feet

I've been working on the computer this morning, posting over on my other blog http://thelittleredhenfoodsite.blogspot.com and thought I'd post a bit here about Pug and Luigi. The dogs like to sleep near me when I'm on the computer. Luigi is under the desk, wrapped up in his fleece blanket, on his bed. You can see his little head sticking out. He is such a sweetheart!

Then, there is Pug. Pug has been gently snoring all morning. He is very funny, even when he is asleep. Every so often he'll wake up from snoring, lick his lips, then lapse back into a semi-comatose state, snoring again.

You gotta just love a pug sometime...they are really fun. Notice how the curly tail is relaxed when he sleeps. In a minute, we are all going out for a walk, then sleepy time is over for the dogs!