Magpie Ethel

St. Patricks Day at Magpie Ethel's House

I think St. Patrick's day is one of the hardest holidays to hunt things down for.  There is just not a ton out there.  I have one small bin of stuff. ONE.

My entire display is pretty much on top of my china hutch. One long row of Irish green.

 

These little crepe paper figures are a favorite.

I think the cardboard die cuts are probably the easiest St. Patrick's day decoration to find.  I have a good assortment of them.

This is one of my favorite St. Patrick's Day fellows.  He is a treasure.

This little candy box was a good find. I just found another today that is a bit different.  Lucky me!

An assortment of pins on the original cards.

I've never sent out a card for this holiday, but am glad that category of cards exists.  I have an assortment of vintage ones.
Party hats for the Irish.

Wishing you a lucky St. Patrick's Day this week! Go dance a jig and make it happy!

 

Collection Challenge #267 - Vintage Diaper Pins

Last weekend in estate sale land I found some diaper pins with the original display card.

They are manufactured by Reddy..hence the R on the outfit of the squirrel on the flip side of the card. Seriously cute.

I went to add these pins to my collection and it dawned on me I had not done a challenge on these since challenge #4 (5 years ago).

My collection has grown a bit over time. There seem to be a few styles of pins and they mostly differ by color.  Dark Blue...some of the animals I can tell what they are and some I can't.

Pale Yellow.   These pins are the cutest.  The details on the little animal heads are quite charming.

Bright pink.  White

Light Blue.
I really like the plain ones too without an animal head. The colors are great.
I even have a necklace that includes a diaper pin!

For the record I am not of the generation that used diaper pins. My kids were either velcro diaper covers with cloth diapers or disposable diapers.  I pretty much used disposable after an attempt with cloth.  

Another oddball collection.  If you have an idea for a future collection challenge, leave me a comment and finish the sentence "Show me your collection of ____."  Collection challenge...each Tuesday.

Collection Challenge #248- Vintage St Patrick's Day

Since today is St. Patty's Day I thought it may be interesting to show how a collection has grown. I did a post on St. Patty's day on #96. 

Here is my collection in 2012.

Here it is in 2015.

St. Patrick's day is not the easiest holiday to hunt down. There is just not a ton of stuff out there. 

My die cut cardboard leprechauns have grown a bit in numbers.  I was lucky this year and got an old Dennison sample catalog on Ebay.  I color copied some of the die cuts and mounted them on cardboard. The red haired gal on the right is from that book.

This cotton head couple is a favorite find.  They look like they are about to break into a jig.

This crepe paper fellow was an Ebay score. I added some clay pipes intended for St. Patty's day to help him stand.

The St. Patrick's day pins on original cards were new finds this year.  The leprechaun boy on the left was gifted by Kim K.
My most recent find was this sweet ceramic gal.  It was sitting on a kitchen window sill at an estate sale just waiting for me.

It is always fun to pull out a holiday bin each year and see what treasures have been found since the last holiday. I still have the hats in the first photo, but just didn't have them out this year.  Sometimes I mix up what I put out year to year.

If you have an idea for a future collection challenge, leave me a comment and finish the sentence "Show me your collection of ___".  Remember to wear green today!

Halloween Snippet Two...Meow

Meow.  Last year I had my black cats in a different spot, but they have been multiplying and this year they migrated to a built in bookshelf. (the two empty bowls on the bottom shelf are waiting to be filled with Halloween candy...if I do it early it gets eaten!)

Paper or plastic...if it is a black cat it is tucked into this corner.

The black cat in the circle is a new vintage find.  It is a noisemaker.

Black cats galore!  More Halloween snippets to come....

Holiday Decorating Void

It is a long stretch between the Fourth of July to Halloween and the decorations that accompany those holidays.  During those summer months I drag out the beachy themed items to decorate with. 

You have heard it on this blog more than once that I hope to have a "someday" beach house.  This "for sale" sign that accompanies the mantle display is a nod to that dream.  You met this school of fish yesterday on my collection challenge post.

Tin tray on coffee table filled with vintage flip flops, glass floats and seaside ephemera. The smallest flip flops are for tiny child's feet. They were found in the basement of an old pharmacy and are rock hard.

Love the vintage fish puzzle on the left.
An assortment of seaside tidbits. There are some vintage chenille "native" figures with their pipe cleaner palm trees. I found the shell sail boat the other day at a garage sale for 50 cents. It had rather tattered weird flags, so I added some made of vintage newspaper.

I found this little shell bird recently and could not pass it by. These are the little tidbits that I love to add to my beachy stash. How could I resist a pipe cleaner neck?

It has this tag attached and is dated 1936.

A collection of old sand-buckets. I did a challenge on them here.
I found a couple of old salt water taffy boxes this summer. They add some beach side interest.

Another friendly fish. I found the plastic flowers at Plucky Maidens and was going to use them for crafting. I think they look sort of seaweed like and I love the pink color so am using them for beachy display.

I somehow got a small collection of seashell shaped ceramic containers.I made the seashell flowers years ago after seeing some vintage crafted ones.

I picked up the big fish bowl the other day at half price at an estate sale (a whopping fifty cents).   A pair of vintage fish shaped hot water bottles swim in the bowl.

Newly found ceramic snails live under a glass dome. (I removed the dome for the photo..too much glare)
I can almost hear the sounds of the ocean...
Happy day!

 

 

Baby Rattles Find A Home

All those baby rattles from yesterday's challenge needed a new spot to live.  They looked sweet in my studio, but I didn't have room to have them grouped together.

I decided they were moving into my bedroom (and my husband was fine with it). I had been searching for a shelf for awhile for them to live on.  Last week I hit HomeGoods and found the perfect one.  I like the two tiered shelf.  It was new, but chippy so it looked like it had some age. It also was the perfect size for this spot on the wall.

Bonus was that it was mesh like so it made it easy to hang some of the rattles from.

I was able to group them all together and I still have room for more. This is a shelf of happy!
Super happy...and a great new spot to live

Easter Bonnet Parade And A Confession.

I shared a photo on a recent post of my cotton Easter chick collection.

I love the variety of hats that these little chicks wear.

For being such a simple item, these chicks sure have an assortment of headgear!

This Napoleon style hat is a favorite.

Chicks in top hats.

Now for my chick confession.  I am a chick snob.  I only collect the older chicks with the wire feet.

It must be some sort of vintage wire foot fetish.

True confession....but this fetish only applies to chick feet.  I have no other feet issues.

Easter Decorating, Here and There

Easter is in full force at my house and I felt a need to share.

Front window with old metal baskets and honeycomb eggs.

Front porch pop of spring.

Kitchen windowsill with spring flowers and vintage ceramic bunnies. I have a collection of Easter Dye boxes.  I displayed them with my collection of old egg cups.

Easter egg tree with hat shaped candy boxes below.

Dining room table flowers.

Cardboard Easter display. How can this crazy display not make you smile?

More Easter fun to come...

Bunny Land Returns with New Friends

Every Easter my kitchen nook built-in becomes home to Bunny Land.  I look forward each year to this little spot as I pull out bunnies that are new to me and have been found since the last Easter holiday. If you have ever wondered how quickly my collections grow, here are some new friends that need to be introduced.

Pink baby rattle (with blue ball), pink bunny with hands on hips and one chalkware bunny in back...new addition.

Top hat fellow is a newcomer.

Bunny with ribbon bouquet and similar bunny in background are new.

Chenille bunny with carrot in hand (on left) is new. One yellow rattle bunny joins another of the same design. The spun head carrot bunny is new. Plastic pink bonnet bunny, plastic yellow bunny with blue skirt and plastic yellow bunny with green cap and arms up are all new.

I love this old lollipop holder in the container of Easter candy.  Even tho there is no bunny, this was a great spot to tuck it for display. I had two of these overalled bunnies, and picked up a third this past year. Another newly acquired lollipop holder (with bunny) behind the trio.

One more new bunny and another lollipop holder (there are 5 different designs on the lollipop holders). I think that is 14 new bunnies that have hopped my way since last Easter.  And that is how a collection grows....

Happy day.

New To Me Spun Head

If you have read my blog for any length of time you know I have a love affair with spun cotton heads. I craft with them and collect them. I have seen a huge variety of heads in my day. Let me rattle some off...bunnies, girls, monkeys, pirates, Daniel Boone, drunks, angels, snowman, Abe Lincoln, George Washington, lions, Santa, skeletons, pumpkins, witches, cowboys, pilgrims, clowns and chicks.  There is a huge assortment of what was manufactured.  I got some the other day that I had never ever SEEN before.

They are good sized.  I have no idea what they were intended for.  The woman selling them thought perhaps they were turnips or flames.

I love their cheery faces and already have some crafting ideas for them.

I was really surprised to find some I had never seen....but so happy they made their way to me!

happy day.