Update-Year In Review...

Many, many apologies for all but abandoning the bloggy for the last several months!! Life kinda sorta got in the way & the desire to write about it muchly disappeared. However, at long last the prodigal son returned from afar,
<<< YAAAAAAAAAY!!!!, the holidays were so happily peaceful & serene once again, and the sales fairies have been kind, so i'm inspired to share.





Picking up where I left off, the trip to Daytona Beach, FL (back in June, shameful I know) was simply DIVINE, and I'm rather looking forward to getting back there soon. Very, very soon.


















Fantastical Halloween Non-sense, Courtesy of The Ex :D


















Aaaaand, the last 2 months of 2009 to be continued...... I'm sooo out of time.

Possibly in the category of 'What Was I Thinking?' or 'How Could I Not?'

I'm going on vacation in a few days, a very few days. Despite this fact, and KNOWING I don't have time to deal with more vintage stuffage at the moment, I wander across the country side the other day, to check out the stock of a small vintage clothing shop going out of business. The drive was lovely, past rolling hills, lush valleys, with huge farms struggling desperately to survive in our modern world, through a smallish town that still has the civil war era court house on the square. Already overloaded with stuffage from previous estate sales, auctions, etc., I've accumulated literally weeks of yard work and household maintenance (due to WEEKS of non-stop rain, see previous post) & what feels like hundreds of minute details to attend to; I certainly should have stayed home!

Why the dresses call to me, I know not. But they do, refusing to be ignored, despite the fact that the vast majority not only won't fit me, but half the ones that do are all wrong (don't hang right, tooo damn short waisted, etc.) Perhaps the vintage fairy knows I'll do my damnedest to find them new homes, with fabulous new lives to live, being worn & loved yet again. So to make a long story short, the sweet lil shop with the purple door, which I'd never known was there (hidden behind a farmhouse turned trendy coffee shop), housed a total score! The back of my Ford was filled half-way to the top with stacks of dresses & lingerie. Now where am I going to put it all??? Much less find the time to list it, sigh.....

 

Playing Catch Up!

Okay, okay, so I'm behind on blogging. What else is new, LOL. I've got oodles of new goodies I've been listing in my shops, Siobhan at Blythe Hope's Vintage was bribed into doing some pictures of yummy vintage frocks for me (undying gratitude chica), and even took a mini road trip last weekend to enjoy the fickle Spring-like weather!

Mini Road Trip Pics from Leiper's Fork, Haute Country in Bon Aqua ;D, Nickajack Lake, Tennessee River, Chickamaugua Lake and Chattanooga Apartment With A View, all in Tennessee:
























Most Fab Pics Evah by Shiv @ Blythe Hope's Vintage(and more to come later!)

Retro-tastic Snow Gal!

We finally got enough snow to play in, lol. Unfortunately, it wouldn't stick together too well, so the Snow Gal is rather diminutive ;D







She was a rather fickle thing & could NOT decide which hat she preferred, so we just let her wear both for awhile.

New Addiction!

A while back I was browsing around online, looking for sew-ons for an upcyle project I had in mind. Well, I found tons of them, along with some of the most fabulously amazing cabs, beads, buttons & other assorted goodies. I had no idea what I was going to do with some of those pretties, particularly the cabs, I just knew I HAD to have some of them, LOL. Especially the Czech glass opals & Fleur de Lis!! After all but abandoning the original project (just saving it for later ;D I played around with different configurations & combinations until I was pleasantly surprised at what I came up with. What followed were assemblages of a sort, morphing into brooches, pendants & rings. Pretty much in that order, as I had some spare pin backs but had to order some supplies for the pendants & rings. The wait quite nearly drove me mad, LOL! Does anyone else find it excruciating waiting for shipments when you have ideas purely burning your brain??

As the additional supplies started to arrive, I found myself devoting more & more time to creating and insanely enough, shopping for more :) Truly, a new addiction! I can't seem to stop. Now I've got to learn how to let some of them go. Easier said than done! I listed 2 of them on Etsy & already sold the Favorite Fleur Ring. Packing it for shipment to it's new home was really rather difficult :( It was the first ring I made. But since I've filled a vintage jewelry box (and then some) with my new creations, and the evil kewpie threatens to swipe several at any second, I REALLY must find them new homes. Then I can get more supplies ;D

xoxo
Holly

New Roof Complete = Happy Dance

Well, the banging, clanging, "the sky is falling" noises have finally gone away!! This momentous occasion warrants a big, crazy Happy Dance. Whilst twirling across the front yard in the insanely huge crinoline, I was secretly praying 1. not to land on my bum 2. that no one drove by & wondered if I'd lost my mind, LOL and 3. that IF my feet found one of those nasty ol' roofing tacks, the cowboy boots (I know, I know they're waaaaay too much with the crinoline) would save me ;D

So without further meanderings of the mind:

TaaDaa, New Roof!
(will post better pics when feel better & porch is back in order, LOL)

I've been tagged.....

I've been tagged by the lovely Siobhan at Blythe Hopes Vintage

Here are some random facts about me...

1. All of my 3 children are at least 5 years apart. One at a time, please. ;D

2. I was born in Nashville, TN, and still live about an hour away.
















3. Haven't seen a beach yet that I didn't love.

4. I am totally & thoroughly addicted to auctions! (find the most amazing treasures ;)

5. I've been know to bribe friends with vintage lingerie,lol.






























Rules of tagging:

1. Link to the person who tagged you

2. Post these Rules in your Blog

3. Write 5 Random things about yourself

4. Tag random people at the end of your post and link to them

5. Let each Person know they've been tagged
I tag:

1. High Desert Diva

2. Yesterday's Glitter

3. Mr. Filthy Rotten

4. Catnip Studio

5. So Distressing

It was time.....

Time for a new roof. If you've never had the pleasure of having a new roof installed on a house you're living in, I highly recommend it. NOT. lol. Especially if the house in which you reside is around 100 years old, has been roofed over several times and has, um, well waaaaaay too many layers. So many layers in fact, it would be illegal if this were done today. Eeeeekk! The roofers arrived yesterday, perfect timing as the wild wind had blown through the day before, wreaking it's own havoc. (Nothing terribly bad, I'm happy & relieved to report, it was way past time for a redo anyway) For a true before, you'll have to see the Snowday pix.

What you're looking at now is my nekkid roof, after 4, yes, count them, all 4 layers of shingles, plus the underlayment were torn off. This took a day and a half. Ever tried to get roofing tacks out of raw, sawmill lumber that's God knows how old? Me neither, it did NOT look like fun. Oh, and SURPRISE, would ya lookey there, at one time the house had dormers! Why, oh why did no one know this?? The funny/not so funny thing is, I've ALWAYS thought the house would look fabulous with dormer windows or one huge eyebrow window. Even talked about it, suggested it to my Nanny years ago, looked into it awhile back and decided it would be too much trouble/too expensive. This house belonged to one of my Grandmothers, before it came to me/I came back to it. No one remembers them, there are no pictures of them, even from the family who owned it prior to my Nanny, decades & decades ago. The house is way older than anyone thought. Never the less, the evidence is there in the form of two rectangular pieces of some type of early plywood. Go figure.

 

Hidin' from Cooties

Sorry everyone, I'm getting soooo behind. DD's had strep cooties all week & has surely been keeping me on the run,LOL. Thanks to all who inquired, she is definitely on the mend now. About the only thing accomplished is the listing of a few pairs of fabulous shoes, to the Etsy Shop, including another pair of vintage YSL Yves Saint Laurent Slides! & a Valentine Collage. Hopefully I'll be caught up by the end of the weekend.

Cheers,

Holly

 

Snow day collage :0)

Blocked?? Creation Inspiration!

My Mom loved to create :0) (that's her to the left, charcoal on paper by my Dad, about a year before I was born) She was often prolific, knitting, sewing, cross stitch, embroidery, applique, crochet, painting & more. I always enjoyed working with her on projects, when I wasn't completely out of my league,lol. There wasn't an art or craft that she couldn't master if she set her mind to it. For alot of reasons, none of which seem quite clear now, I stopped creating, for the most part, when she died. We're talking YEARS people!! I suppose I was blocked. The vast majority of the time, I never thought about it much. With life & kids & college (I went back to college in my early 30's, but that's an adventure for another day) most days were already filled to the brim.

After hanging out with some of the most incredibly fabulous, truly inspiring, friends I've made thru Etsy, (a big shout out to the awesome friends from the Who Loves Vintage? thread on the Etsy forum) the urge to create miraculously returned. And let me say this, it would NOT be ignored. I should've said returned with a vengeance, lol. Sometimes all it takes to re-fuel those creative juices is to be around inspiring friends, so thanks you guys, you're all so very treasured! I've not been sleeping very well the last couple months so, I've had some extra time on my hands ;0) This is what goes on when I can't sleep.........



Fugly stool getting re-upolstered with some help from my friend Georgie. (still a work in progress)































Nekkid doll dressform got a new dress! And I turned an old half slip into a dress with what else but roses ;0)




There's more, alot more, but re-arranging pics in blogger makes me a tad crazy! So stay tuned....

xoxo,
Holly

My First Blog Award!!

The lovely Mona at Carrier's Cozy Cottage has bestowed my very first blog award!! I'm so honored she chose to include me, merci beau coup my friend.

Here's the story behind this award: The authors say that blogs who receive this award are exceedingly charming. This blog invests in the PROXIMITY in space, time and relationships. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award."

So, now it's time to pass on this award and 'propagate' some friendships!

Royal Pink Vintage

Couture de Papier

Maisy Brown Repro Retro

Pink Sugar Castle

Blythe Hopes Vintage

Catnip Studio

Ikonic Vintage

Vintage Scraps