Magpie Ethel

Collection Challenge #19 - Jewelery Pins

Quite awhile ago Carol from Old Glory Cottage challenged me to show my collection of jewelery pins.  I do like to wear pins and very much favor vintage ones that I pick up at estate sales.  I will begin this collection with showing how I display them.  While I also have vintage earrings, shoe-clips, my sorority pin and other items tucked within the pins...you get the just of my display, if it has some bling...this is where it should be.

I have two pieces of foam core that I covered in a vintage flocked green ribbon. They two pieces are attached at the top and bottom of the mirror with clips and I can easily see what I have and wear what I want.  I don't have all my pins up here, just the ones that have that look.  Here it is close up.

Some ivory, cream and pearly pins. 

A vintage flower garden of pins.

 

The magpie in me likes things that sparkle.

 

A collection of cameo pins or floral scenes. I bought the whole lot from a serious jewelery hoarder.

A small metal basket with darling little flowers.

These two just make me smile when I wear them.

I also like to wear sweater clips...one that I have is a pin style, so I have included it in this collection.

I do like to dress up an outfit with pins, so this is a collection that I do use.

That ends this show and tell for collection challenge #19. If you have a suggestion for a future post, leave me a comment and finish the sentence "Show my your collection of ____". I will see what I can do.

happy day....

Estate Sale Friday...One Lone Sale

I had one of those weekends where I went a million different things going and there was not alot happening in estate sale land. I hit ONE sale, and ended up grabbing two boxes labeled vintage Christmas. After sorting through a bunch of junk in the boxes, this is what I decided to keep.

A tree topper, a box of ornaments, some random ornament picks, two pine cone elves (in pink), some mercury glass picks, old garland and a few other misc doo-dads.

 

At least I managed to find some goodies at the sale I hit.

My daughter and I basically spent a good chunk of the weekend re-decorating her room. Painted furniture, sewed pillows, fluffed. She is going with a vintage floral look (with an twist) which I am loving.  A post will be coming when we finish..hopefully soon...very soon.

Vintage Style Crafter - Halloween

On my business card I have given myself the title of "Vintage Crafter". I think that fits me pretty well in the type of thing I craft and the supplies that I like to use.

I have been working on some Halloween witches and here is how they came about in my vintage inspired world.

I found some heads a couple of years ago.  If I remember correctly they were some sort of holiday ornament that I took apart.  I gussied them up by repainting them a bit and glittering their hair. I thought they would make good witches.

I used some old black bump chenille (estate sale find).

Some old raffia style ribbon (comes in great colors and estate sale find).

Old crepe paper (estate sale find)

Old rubber wheels for toy autos and trucks.  These actually came from my neighbors dumpster after they cleaned out their attic.

This was my inspiration.  I often look at vintage items and am inspired to make something similar but with a Magpie Ethel twist. These little holiday figures (about 6 inches tall) were all found at estate sales.

This is my twist of what I came up with for the Halloween season.

Most of what I used was vintage, with the exception of the wire, paper and hot glue. I think those little heads made exceptional witches...friendly witches that cast good spells.

I have had some people asking about when my Halloween items will be available on Etsy.  I will give you a heads up on my blog, but am aiming for the second week of September.

Happy black and orange..off to the studio for some more Halloween crafting!

Collection Challenge #18 - Milk

Lynn from Rocky Creek Scottie Adventures challenged me with a milk theme. She asked to see my milk bottles, paraphernalia and containers. Another theme I don't actively collect in, but look what I could dig up in my stash!

I should start out this challenge with the declaration that I do love milk. Love it. My daughter loves it too. We drink alot of milk in our family. (illustration above from children's book) This post will feature milk and milk related products.

Tiny vintage stickers.

Ice cream bags that I found this past weekend at the cloud 9 estate sale.

Old ice cream treat cellophane bags.

A cute little wooden milkmaid from this collection.

Cottage cheese containers.  The giant 5 lb size was found this past weekend.  I have two of the pink containers, but one is used in a display in my bedroom.  I do use what I collect.

Of course it is hard to do a post on milk without mentioned milk bottles and such.  I have a old wood and metal case of smaller (pint?) size bottles.

They are all unmarked except one from the Crater Lake Dairy.

I have a dozen of these small glass bottles which I think are old individual creamers from a restaurant.  They make good window sill vases.

My collection of milk bottles.

We used to live in South Africa during my teen years. They still used glass milk containers at that time and had home delivery.  Two of my bottles are souvenirs from there.

This one features one side in Afrikaans and one side in English. We had to take the Afrikaans language in school.  Pretty much the only phrase I can still say is "brush my teeth" and "I don't know".

I love it when a friend totally gets you and brings you a vase of flowers in a glass milk container.  This container is new and was a gift a couple of years ago.

I really like to use my glass milk containers outside during summer parties.

That is about it on my milk challenge...except for this vintage puzzle (missing one piece).

Moooo-ving on to next week's challenge.  If you have a collection challenge for me, leave me a comment and finish the sentence, "Show me your collection of ____. " I will see what I can dig up.

Estate Sale Sunday - Still Floating on Cloud 9 - Day Three

The cloud 9 weekend is winding down.  I hit the Saturday sale today for half price day.  There was so much stuff at the sale I knew there had to be some good dredges left...and there was.

Some of the stuff I wanted to buy yesterday was still there and I was happy to buy it half price.

Some more smaller vintage ornaments, a tiny sleigh (Germany) and some paper sleeves (to fit over candles and they spin?). I like the red, white and blue graphics on some of them and thought they would work for the fourth of july.

Another box of old stickers (bells), a couple more putz style houses and some vintage valentines.

A set of foil bird stickers (bottom left), cardboard ribbon spools and some old foil covered cardboard bells. 
I think I will try and do something with the bells. I have quite a few cardboard bells that I think will be part of my holiday shop. They are stamped "Japan" inside and some of them have the original price tag (30 cents a dozen).

 

A great old metal cigar box, glass jar with cloth tape measures, green duck planter and an Easter candle.

I couldn't leave this girl behind.

Another one of those matchbook greeting cards.

 

Empty card box.

I was happy to see this box of paint books still at the sale. I almost bought them the day before, but didn't.

The illustrations are just adorable.Look at the expression of the little boy watching the lion.

 

Shorter post today, but still worth my trip back to the sale.  Happy to be floating in the clouds this weekend!

Estate Sale Saturday - Still on Cloud 9 - Day Two

Saturday morning found me in line at an estate sale. I was number 18 to get in and got in right away. This was a good sized house that an elderly woman had custom built for her. She lived in the house for four months and didn't like it, so she moved to the coast. This house had basically been a storage area for 30 years and had been just packed with boxes of stuff. Boxes and boxes.

It was probably the best sale that I have been to this summer. There was one whole room entirely of Christmas. This woman also had a passion for ephemera.

 

An old Christmas ornament display box full of smaller ornaments.

Bells for crafting and an old Christmas stocking.

 

Another stocking to add to my collection and silver leaves for crafts.

 

Putz style houses, a great tinsel tree, old ornaments, 5 strands of vintage glass garland, old cardboard candy canes and Christmas light reflectors.

Spun head angels and snowman

The cutest little shadow box painted in pink and green and an adorable little  squeak toy fellow.

Vintage playing cards. Especially love the tiny seahorse cards.

A Halloween candy box and some Halloween nut cups.   

Some red, white and blue items that will find new life next Fourth of July.

 

Vintage birthday...candles and candle holders.

This was my favorite birthday find. I have never seen one like this before. It looks like a greeting card.

But open it up and it is a book of oversize matches.

I love that I still run across items that i have never seen before at estate sales.  The book of matches/card is perfect for my birthday collection.

Vintage pipe cleaners, old jingle bells and glassine slide envelopes.

 

A couple of containers of vintage holiday tape. I collect these.

This woman had TONS and TONS of vintage stickers. More than I had ever seen at one sale. I bought a bunch of them.

Some of my favorites. The black one in the upper corner features a pirate standing on a pirate chest (a foil sticker so hard to photograph).

Silliest purchase of the day was this huge Mayflower cottage cheese container.  It holds FIVE pounds of cottage cheese...who on earth could eat that much cottage cheese?

It features a cute pilgrim with a big spoonful of  cottage cheese (sucker for graphics).

A tiny beaded vintage skier.

 

The woman had a ton of cookbooks and cooking related pamphlets. I found the slogan on this tuna cookbook funny.

I love the graphics on this one for Royal Gelatins. I saw this one on Etsy last week and thought it adorable...almost bought it, and then found the same one at the sale.

 

And last but not least a couple of small foil candy containers with deer. I collect these and display them on my stair railing during the holidays.  I don't have any in this shape.

If you made it to the end of this post, I congratulate you.  I bought alot at this sale...it was really good.

So good in fact, that I hit it today (sunday) for half price day and still found more goodies. But that is tomorrows post.....

Estate Sale Friday...On Cloud 9 - Day One

Let me just start by saying I hit a couple of doozy sales this weekend. Friday and Saturday were both VERY good to me. I was thrilled with my Friday finds, but Saturday proved to be the icing on the cake.  This post will cover my FRIDAY finds.

I hit four sales,  but the majority of my goodies came from one sale.

The woman painted china and must have done shows.

She also had some awesome Christmas items and craft items.  My big score was the old silver tinsel.  I got a fairly good amount and it is the old heavy stuff that has a tarnish to it.

A large Christmas corsage and old glitter.

A forest of good sized old bottle brush trees, vintage pink glass garland and a couple of boxes of ornaments.

A spun head angel, old jingle bells and a swell book of "Card Games for Children".

I lucked out again and found some spun heads.

A strand of old glass garland with over sized beads.  There are quite a few that are broken, so I think I may restring it.

 

A large supply of old plastic numbers, probably once used on a sign.

A cute vintage light-switch cover.

Old straws to add to my stash.

 

Some old unused ice cream bags.  Perfect to bag up purchases at my shows this winter.

I was pretty much on cloud nine after this sale. The glass garland, bottle brush trees and the old silver tinsel were my favorite finds.  I didn't think the weekend could get much better UNTIL I HIT THE ESTATE SALE ON SATURDAY morning.  Post coming soon.... 

Graduation Party

My son is leaving a month from today to head to Oregon State University for his freshman year there.  We did not do a party immediately after graduation as we had to much on our plates and the weather wasn't great.  My house is too small to host a big party, so I needed a nice summer day. I got a 95 degree day...I am not a hot weather person!

I decided to do an ice cream social theme with a 1-4 open house time.  I wasn't sure on the number of party guests that would show (invites went out to a potential 70 guests) but figured with the ice cream theme, folks could drop in when they could, make their own sundae and visit for awhile.  We also had quite a few little nieces and nephews coming and I knew they would love making their own sundaes.

The mascot for OSU is Benny Beaver and the colors are black and orange. I did a postcard style invitation and took this photo for the one side of it (the Beaver was a cardboard cutout we got during orientation and I knew I could use it for something).

I did the whole ice cream sundae area in the black and orange theme. 

 

Lots of toppings. Lots.

If made sure I had some black and orange toppings and added a "Go Beavers" message to those tags.

  

I purchased a styrofoam cooler for the ice cream and added some OSU logos.  I got dry ice to keep the ice cream cold (dry ice on the bottom, ice cream on top of that) and this worked really well for the party.  People could serve themselves and  the ice cream stayed hard despite the hot weather.

I had to add some vintage ice cream bowls even though they were small. We also had disposable paper bowls.

I found this great old Benny Beaver stuffed animal at an estate sale the weekend before the party.  I stuck him in a wire basket and he guarded graduation gifts that Ben received.

Ice cold drinks.

I had fun with the orange and black theme, but my backyard where people ate, had my more typical colorful vintage theme. 

A peak over the back fence.

Vintage tablecloths and dahlias.

The table on the left with the green container is actually an old ironing board that I always use for extra table space.

We ended up with just over 40 guests and my backyard was fully shaded by the time the party started. It was a fun time although it was lots of work (glad it is behind me). Go Beavers and congrats to Ben....may you have a wonderful college experience!

A Good Package

I have been looking forward to this package arriving in my mailbox.

I pre-ordered the Farm Chicks Christmas Book when I was at their show in June.  The book arrived and I can't wait to read it.

It is waiting on my nightstand ready to open at bedtime...I know I'll be having some holiday dreams tonight!

Collection Challenge #17 - Straws and Swizzle Sticks.

I had a couple of people request to see my collection of vintage cocktail stir sticks or straws.  I decided to lump the two together for today's post.

I like to collect vintage straws for crafts.  I also like the boxes they come in. These are shorter cocktail straws.

This box contains highball straws.

I like to display my loose straws in old cans.

 

My favorite straws are the Glassip brand straws. They are clear and come in a variety of colors. As you can see by the box one can "see as you sip."

This packaging features a polka dot giraffe who looks like he is wearing socks.

This is also a very versatile type of straw as it came with how to craft ideas.  Miriam Stanley must have been very proud to see her name on this straw box touting her pompoms she made from Glassip straws.

You could also send away for one of these crafting brochures.

I have not attempted any of these crafts, but find them quite interesting.

I like the caption by the jack o-lantern that reads "the centerpiece that reflects cheer".

 

I don't collect swizzle sticks/cocktail stirrers unless they are fun or have crafting potential.  I like these little sailors.

They are from The Transatlantique French Line.

I picked up these just because they made me laugh. The tiny harmonicas work and I imagine you give them a blow when you need a refill on your drink.  Annoying, but silly.

Since straws and swizzle sticks are usually used in the bar area, I am sharing two more random items that I have that fall in the "bar-ware" category.

These old glasses for Bireley's, which from what I have found was a company that manufactured non-carbonated drinks from fruit juices. I have four of these cute glasses.

And last but not least, my cute little bottle opener found at an estate sale a number of years ago.

That is it for me in straw and bar land.  And just as a final note on those Glassip straws...the colors they are available in red, green, blue, pink, tango, amber, orchid and violet.  They just don't do colors like that anymore!

If you have an idea for a future collection challenge, leave me a comment and finish the sentence "show me your collection of ____". I'll do my best!

P.S. did you notice this is my 17th collection challenge which I published on the 17th of the month? What a coinkydink...love that word!