Easter 2013

Wishing you all a joyful and peaceful Easter!

Quote Collection Pages

I cannot believe it is Thursday already.  I made a couple of new pages in my altered book of quotes this week.  The left side is how I'm feeling and the right side is what I need to remember!  I am not sure if either are really finished but they are for the moment.
Our weather forecast is for the low 70s this weekend so cannot wait to spend some quality time plucking weeds.  We are working on a big remodel of one side yard.  The demo has already begun on removing ugly old rose buses and the fence-moving crew is scheduled for next week.  I just went out and took an almost before picture.  I will wait to show it until I can take some after shots so you won't be so appalled at how it currently looks.  This project has been a long time coming!

Plucky Fun

 I had the pleasure of visiting one of Pam's Plucky Maidens events this morning.  She does a fab job of bringing together the best vendors and I spent my wad quickly!  My first stop was French Cat Studio [no blog].  I got a big pile of laces and trims from her booth back in November and I was hoping she would be there again.  I got another big pile of her "pole sacks" today and was sad to hear this is the end of her studio de-stash, although I can't blame her for wanting to focus on the beautiful bird feeders she makes. Bless her heart, she even let me crawl under the table and paw through the treasures she hadn't put out yet.

 Gorgeous floral hankies - one of my "accidental" collections.  I never seek them out but they seem to end up coming home with me anyway. Love the set with the blue, red and brown leaves.

 Two vintage cabinet cards, one of three sweet little children and the other a rather scary young woman.  Another satin glove box in the back, a needle card and that silly coffee pot lid.  I had to have it for the glass top.  I have no logical explanation for that.

 Many vintage patterns and up there in the top corner you can just see a baggie of buttons.

 Until a couple weeks ago I had never seen or heard of cathedral window quilt squares and was amazed when I found this group of 14 in beautiful condition.

 Each of them has a separate muslin piece that must be for finishing the back.  I do not know how the squares are finished so hopefully someone else will.  These will be headed to Etsy.

 I love the vintage fabrics used in the "windows".

I ran in to Amy from Into Vintage while I was there and she gifted me with the baggie of buttons I mentioned earlier.  Stay tuned because good things come in small packages!

My Favorites

 These are my favorites from the last big button score.  I always save the carved, dyed and odd-shaped MOP.  I got so many ordinary white mother of pearl buttons in the last junk score that my jars runeth over and really need to list some of those on Etsy.  Up until now I have only parted with the dark ones but, seriously, how many plain MOP buttons do I need??  Oh wait, doesn't the one with the most buttons win??

 These rhinestone buttons are all plastic.  I do love those cream colored ones!

 Vegetable ivory and the three at the bottom are metal.  I'm not sure what the black material is on the two with the pearl centers.  I think it is actually a cuff button.

 The glass buttons.  I have never had one like the beige one with the speckles.  It is painted glass.

A nice little pile of plastic buttons.  My favorite is the Lucite one at the bottom right side.  It looks like confetti inside it.  You can click all of the pictures bigger for a closer look.
Love love the button treasure hunt!

Luck 'O The Irish

 I am half Irish and my love of the treasure hunt and the rescue comes from my Mother.  I always joke that she never taught me how to cook but she did teach me how to build a fence!

 Those Irish eyes must have been smiling on me yesterday because I found a few treasures.  I threw caution to the wind, left my housework undone, and headed out to an estate sale instead.  I got a batch of those sewing treasures I love including another tin of buttons and an advertising needle card to add to my collection.  The braille Reader's Digest is from the VOA.

 Vintage magazines and needlework pattern books and yes, I bought another oil can for my collection.  I just love the old advertisements in the magazines and have been planning to put together some ephemera packs and frameable ads for my Etsy.  That Trailer Travel magazine at the top of the picture is dated 1952.  I will take one of each of the trailers pictured!!

 A nice pile of lace and sewing notions for my inspiration kits.

 Three amazing little quilt squares.  I have no idea what I will do with these but how could I pass them up?  Be sure to click this photo bigger so you can see how they are made.

***UPDATE***

 Maggie tells me this pattern is called Catherdral Window and she has a whole quilt that her mother made in this pattern.  It must be a sight to see!

 I love this huge book of state bird and flower embroidery transfers.  None of them have been cut out or used.  This will be headed for my Etsy.

You can see the size from my hand in this photo.  These would make a gorgeous quilt!
It dumped rain yesterday but I see some blue sky out there today so must make hay while the sun shines!

I Warned You....!

 Yep, I can't seem to score any junk lately so yet another button post.  The latest lot of buttons included some really neat old cards so I thought I would show those first.  You can click them bigger.

 I more than ADORE {all caps} these two.  I like how they are the same but one has leaves on the button flowers and the other doesn't.  Mother of Pearl, of course, and all are carved.

 Two more MOP cards plus a complete card of green glass buttons marked "Made in Germany U.S.-Zone".  The Husband was born in Germany so we have a few things in our collections.

 Another Lady Washington card and two perfectly stunning Lucite buttons.

 Some more fun plastics and the silver buttons on the right are metal.

This is the rest of the story "as found".  I will show my favorites from this pile in a future post.  In the meantime, I hope I can finally score some junk this weekend and stop boring you with button posts.
Oh!  I did win another lot of buttons on eBay.  I checking the tracking number earlier this week and they lost there way between PA and Oregon and they are currently  on vacation in Hawaii.  I hope they come home soon!

Back From The Party And A Little Bit Of Everything

Mona is back from The Dress Form Ball and it was a great party - many thanks to Carol for hosting!  If you haven't visited the The Polka Dot Closet, be sure to check it out.  I'm loving her series of guest posts on what's hot and what's not at antique malls in different parts of the country.

There were no estate sales that looked interesting last weekend and little to be had at the thrift but I still had a productive weekend.  I got an awesome buy on a big pad of scrapbooking paper on clearance at Michael's.  I cut all my favorite patterns down to 6"x 9-1/2" as shown above.

They will all go into this small 3-ring binder I altered several years ago and become a new journal.  My inspiration was one of those Smash Journals I saw at Michael's.  I am down to 21 blank pages in the altered quote book now and thought it would be fun to work in a journal where I can work "off page", so to speak.  I would like to be able to add sewing machine stitching to pages and that is impossible in a bound book.  I am sure I will start another bound book as well, but this binder will be a fun alternative.

 I finished up a couple of sewing projects.  The polka dot fabric is a set of 4 pillow covers I made for an event at the office.  I won't  bore you with the details but they were a hit when I took them in on Monday.  The purple fabric is two new pillowcases for my bed.  I have been looking for some patterned pillow cases and they are apparently out of fashion because I couldn't find any so I made my own.  Good grief, new fabric is expensive now!!

This set of Woodpecker salt and pepper shakers was my only thrift find for the weekend and they are headed to my Etsy now that I am back from The Ball.

A new batch of buttons arrived in the mail on Monday so you know what I have been doing - sorting buttons.  I expect you might be getting sick of my button treasure hunts but that seems to be my indulgence lately so, if you can take more buttons, stay tuned and I will be showing off my favorites!

Late To The Party

I got to feeling guilty about not letting Mona go to The Polka Dot Closet Dress Form Ball.  I told her she is such a floozy she wouldn't fit in with all those elegant ladies but who am I to judge when she does, after all, depend on me to do her shopping!Thank you, Carol, for hosting all these lovely ladies.  Now I am headed over to peek through the hedge and gawk at the party goers.

Some Things I Think I Know About Buttons

 I got quite a few questions on my last post and some from "no-reply" bloggers so I thought I would try to answer some of them here.  First of all, I am NOT a button expert, I am not even a button collector and I have never been to a real button show.  I am just a button accumulator with a curious mind.
Some asked what "whistles" are.  They are buttons, as shown above, that have one hole on the front and two holes on the back.  Yes, I have tried blowing through them, because I am like that, and no, they didn't whistle. I have no musical talent so that may be the problem.

 This is the back side where you can see the two holes. 
Someone asked about vegetable ivory.  I have no idea why it is called that because they are actually buttons made from the tagua nut.  I believe the three brown buttons above are made from vegetable ivory.  They are often stained or dyed.  The dye doesn't penetrate very deep so they can then be carved and the lighter color underneath is revealed.  It is especially common to find them with a groove carved on each side of the shank so you can insert a needle and the groove is often lighter in color than the rest of the button.

I mentioned in the last post that I should have taken a photo of the milkglass whistle from an angle where you could see the ball shape so here you go.
More questions and answers...
Yes, bone buttons are really made from bone.  They were made from the shin bones of cattle.  I find it admirable that our ancestors made use of every part!  There are even buttons made from the horns.  The holes in very early ones sometimes don't match because they lacked the technology to do that.  I have also heard there are ones with three holes but I have never found one.
Mother of Pearl buttons have nothing to do with oysters or pearls.  IOWA was once the button capital of the world and the buttons were made from mussel and clam shells harvested from the Mississippi River.  You have probably noticed that some of the modern clothing you buy still has MOP buttons.  They are made in Asia now.
Tight Top buttons are typically made of celluloid that is firmly attached to a metal back.  By the way, I always talk about washing buttons but you should NEVER wash a two-piece button that has metal parts.  The water will get inside and ruin it.  I just use a damp dishrag to clean them.

Someone asked about my button books.  These are what I have, but I have room for more!!  The Internet also offers tons of information.
Button Button by Peggy Ann Osborne.
Buttons by Diana Epstein and Millicent Safro
Antique & Collectible Buttons by Debra Wisniewski
Old Buttons by Sylvia Llewelyn
I hope this helped answered some of your questions.  Happy button hunting!

The Keepers

 I finished sorting and washing the latest buttons and these are the treasures I excavated from the dirt pile.  It is all about the hunt!  The buttons above are all glass.  My very favorite is the white whistle on the left center.  This is the first glass whistle I have found and never one that is such a deep ball shape.  Look just to the right of the quarter and you will spot a very tiny button similar the ones I blogged about here.  This one is clear glass instead of black and luckily, the rhinestone is still in place!

 Mother of Pearl.  The four matching ones in the upper left are set in metal.  I didn't photograph the ordinary ones but there was a HUGE pile and I had to start a new jar.  I should sell some of them one of these days but the only ones I can seem to part with are the dark ones.  For some reason, those just don't do anything for me.

 Some fun plastics.  When I was washing them I could smell the Bakelite but I don't think it was any of these.  Possibly the yellow one.

 Vegetable ivory plus two plastic buckles.  I think the top buckle is Bakelite but I didn't test it.

 Metal buttons and buckles.  That group that is strung together are little mirrors.  Do any of you button people know what those ones in the upper right are?  I am thinking some kind of cuff button but they don't come apart so I'm not sure how they work.

 China buttons, including some pie crusts and two neat velvet buttons.  I don't usually go for fabric buttons but these are such puff-balls that they remind me of cupcakes.  I should have taken a photo from the side so you could see how high they are.  I cannot image pushing them through a buttonhole.

 Bone buttons.  I know they are kind of creepy but they have always appealed to me.  Bone and MOP just shout ingenuity - making do with what there is.

 Two-piece buttons, wafers and two tight-tops.

Whoops!  I have washed a LOT of buttons over the years and this is the first time I had this happen.  The water wasn't especially hot, just hot tap water that I could put my hands in.  The Bakelite smell was REALLY strong so I think it might have been these three.  Maybe there is something about white Bakelite??

They are all clean and sorted and put away so I'm ready for more.  It was a good time!

Impulse Stop

 On my way home from work on Friday night I spotted an estate sale on the next street over from my house and it was still open.  What could I do except drive right past my house and head there?  They must have had a great turnout because the place was pretty much picked clean of smalls but I did find a few things.  The bottom three doilies in the picture are tatted.

The three earrings are singles but they are sparkly so I will use them in my inspiration kits. Love the plaid hankie. I didn't think there would be any time for junking so it was a nice start to the weekend!
I finished sorting and cleaning the latest buttons so next post will be my "keepers".