Antique Store Finds

Yesterday was my husband's day off and he was so sweet to send me out to have a little quiet time at the antique store...yay!  Here's what I found:  

This little book, The Lively Little Rabbit was one of my favorites when I was little.  I bought it to put in baby Liam's first Easter basket this year!  I also found these sweet mouse shakers.  We needed new shakers and I thought the kids would think these were pretty sweet!  They're not vintage...but cute even so!

A few months ago, I saw a blog where a lady hung vintage hand mirrors all over her bathroom wall with plate hangers.  I thought that was such a creative idea!  So...I'm trying to collect a bunch to make my own little wall display.  I found the brush and mirror as a set so bought them both but would gladly trade the brush to anyone who might have a mirror they want to swap!

I'm also trying to collect a bunch of mini shaker sets to put at individual place settings for a fancy dinner.  (There are 10 of us so far so I'll be collecting awhile!)  The ones on the right on the little tray are not vintage...but cute!  I had to put the little hat pin holder in this picture because I saw three others throughout that store and all of them were marked as "salt shakers".  In fact, this one was only $2 because the vendor thought it was missing it's partner!  Ha! When I went to pay for it, the store owner said, "Oh, it's still got a little salt in it!"  I said, "Someone really used it as a shaker?"  She looked at me funny and said, "Yessss...."  I told her it was a hat pin holder.  Two holes = salt shaker.  Three holes = pepper shaker.  TWELVE holes = hat pin holder.  That would be some SERIOUS salting otherwise...Ha!

Here are a few sweet things I found for crafting.  I plan on decorating the little bottle to resemble Alice's "Drink Me" bottle as it's the same shape.  The one little earring will make a cute embellishment on something.  I LOVE my two glass bottle stoppers and am hoping to collect many more.  I also found these two Eiffel Tower pendants (not vintage) for crafting embellishments.

Visit Coloradolady for more Vintage Thingie Thursday! I'm also linking up with Blue Creek Home's Treasure Hunt Thursday and Thrifty Groove's Thrifty Things Friday for the first time this week!

Mantle Re-do for Spring

A few weeks ago, I asked my Facebook friends for ideas on how to redo my mantle for spring.  For the past four years or so, I've been going with the Primitive look but have lately decided it's time to switch over to a more romantic and nostalgic feel.

This is how it looked after I finished taking down everything after Christmas.

I had a brainy idea to paint this metal can white...but that was as far as I got.

I painted the can white a couple of months ago and hung the Easter eggs last month.

Today I finished it up and I love it!  It's hard to get a close up of the whole thing as it's a pretty long mantle and a short distance across the room but you get the idea.

I was so thrilled to have found these blue jars at yard sales this past weekend.  I picked up some cherry blossom branches at Michael's.  It's such a pretty contrast!

Vintage Whimsy Paper Book

I had a very busy day today and was hardly at home.  On my way home tonight, after being gone for nine hours, all I could think of doing was taking a relaxing bath and staying in bed the rest of the night with my book.  Lately I've been having these crazy crafting dreams at night (must be the pregnancy creative dreams kicking in...) and usually wake up with a great crafting idea.  Well, tonight it happened while I was in the bath and, as exhausted as I was, I just had to go and make my dream a reality...Ha! 

I began by using my kids' watercolor paints to paint a piece of cream-colored card stock.  I used red and orange.

Then I cut the paper down to the size I wanted (10x7 to make a 5x7 book) and antiqued the edges using a blade and chocolate-colored ink.

I used a pile of my kids' scrap paper for filling.

I used a couple of plain sheets for the first pages of the book and cut them just a tiny bit larger so they'd show past the scrap paper.  I antiqued the edges of those too.

Then I tied it up with raffia, added some glitter, and secured a dried rose to finish it off.  I'm not too sure how I feel about the glitter on the book itself, but I like it on the rose and overall, I think this is a pretty cute little project!

Now that I'm super, duper exhausted, I've got to go to bed!  Goodnight!