Prayer Request for my friend

My mind and heart are very heavy today with thoughts and concerns for my dear friend, Linda. She is the owner of the Red Rooster in Plymouth, WI that I have been involved with for going on 11 years. She is receiving the gift of life in the form of a bone marrow transplant today ~ This store has been her "baby" for as many years and it is going to be a long time before she will be well enough to come around it again. She will be in the hospital for a month and then about 3 more in an isolation apartment. For fear of rejection and infections, she is not to be out in public for MANY months.
This will be very hard on her and her family, since she was the one who gave this wonderful store her special touch. We will do our best to help her husband and daughter with some of the displays etc. but she has pretty big shoes to fill!!!

So I would sincerely appreciate your prayers and good thoughts for her as she goes through this grueling, difficult journey back to good health.

She has become more than just a business acquaintence over these years, I am honored to say that she is also one of my best friends!!

Thanks for taking the time out of your busy days to think of her!

I also want to thank Jeanine fron Chippy Shabby for these pictures. I hope you don't mind that I stole them Jeanine!!

Fun with keys!

One of my best sellers lately in my Etsy shop has been keys. I have sold all sorts of varieties...

skeleton
and the rusty, crusty kind...

I loved this set and probably should have kept it, but now they have a new home!

Simple, yet pretty all the same.


And one of my favorite uses for them is to add a special look to my repurposed jewelry designs.

I think they add such a special touch!

I have really found some great collections of old keys in the past and have really been on the look out for more! Always a good seller and a fun thing to collect too!


I'm sharing my vintage keys with linky parties this week at

Common Ground for Vintage Inspiration Friday and

Ala Carte for Junkin Finds Friday

Thanks for stopping by!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Estate sale finds!

The reason I haven't posted in awhile is because I haven't had anything going on in my life that was exciting enough to share! Just the usual day-to-day stuff, plus I caught a dandy cold too. But I was feeling well enough to head out to an estate sale on Sat. morning that was being run by Fran, the lady that is the manager of the antique mall I sell in. So, I knew it was gonna be a good one and that she would probably give me good deals!! And that she did! This gorgeous platter, allthough chipped in a few spots was in a box of odd dishes and was only $2- for the whole box! I will be keeping this beauty and putting it in one of my cupboards, so who cares about chips, right?

This is pretty much the whole of my bounty from that sale. I also bought a beveled mirror that has quite a bit of silver loss--YUM!!

I can never turn down vintage sewing stuff and more old patterns too. This bunch of patterns were from the 50's--way cool!

I like to use old ric-rac to tie tags on my items I sell.

I love this old bird cage! It will be finding a new home here in my office/sewing room that I will be sprucing up in the soon to be future! I hope!!
I will keep you posted on that. It involves paint and a whole lot of furniture rearranging!! YIKES!

Who doesn't need more ironstone?

Bought one cute little lone butter pat too. You can spy it in the photo of all the stuff I bought.

Grabbed this lot of old medals and crosses too. Will be saving these for jewelry projects of course!

Bought a bunch of old books, but my favorites were a fun colorful children's story book and a girl scout hand book with great illustrations!

Not sure if this is a doorstop or a bookend, but there was only one so I'm going with doorstop!

At this time of year, it's always fun to get out to your first great sale, and this one did not disappoint!

I must admit that I was having an anxiety attack when I drove up at about 7 minutes after the start of the sale and people were already walking out with stuff!

And good stuff too! Oh well, I think I did pretty well, don't you?

Thanks for stopping by and hope to visit you all more often too!

A History Lesson

For the past few days, my husband and I have been working on an application to recognize our farm as a century farm. My mother-in-law had all the deeds for the farm, and we have been pouring over them trying to make sense of it all. But I must say, it has been very interesting ~ a real history lesson! My husband's great-grandfather, Theodore, purchased the home farm in November of 1883 for $4,000. That was a pretty hefty sum in those days, I'm sure! I have been enjoying looking at all these yellowed but lovely documents. All the handwriting is so fluid and pretty ~ a lost art!
Ephemera with such a meaningful connection!
Notice the different spelling of Miller? We still aren't sure when it was changed, but this spelling is very German.

Look at these gorgeous receipts that were in with the deeds!

If they weren't so important, I'd use them in artwork! I guess I could copy them!

Here is a picture of our farm taken probably in the 20's...unfortunately all these buildings are now gone! The old barn burned down in 1989 and the house was demolished in 2006 so a new cow facility could be built. The granary on the right would have been a cool building to hold sales, but I would have had to get it exterminated first!!!

Here is our farm today, an aerial view taken in 2009. Quite a change, huh? The yellow house is ours.
See all the little calf huts? Those are where my babies live.
I think Theodore would be proud!

This is my husband's grandpa, John who bought the farm from his father, Theodore in 1914. It was then sold to my father and mother in law in 1940. We bought it in 1998. Now my son in law is farming with us so the family farm continues!

Quite a handsome man, I think! He died the month before my husband was born at the age of 64.

Another fun photo that I found. Grandpa John is the dapper fellow in the middle! I have no idea who the other two gents are!

As a lover of all things old, I really enjoyed this experience of delving into our family history. I am so glad we did this, since my mother in law is still alive at 92, she can witness the farm she helped build receive this honor!


I'm linking this post to the Vintage Inspiration Friday linky party at Debra's blog, Common Ground!

Thanks for joining me as I share my history lesson!

Thrifting finds!

To try and cure my winter blues, I finally got the chance to get out on Saturday morning and visit a couple thrift stores. I visited a local St Vinny's first with moderate success! I found this awesome wicker covered bottle and bought all the glass domes they had ~ I think they were originally from an anniversary clock. I like to display fun little stuff under them, like my mini eiffel tower!

Found the cute little creamer too!

...and some vintage patterns, that I may use as a fun alternative to tissue paper for my Etsy shop sales!

Then I headed over to Goodwill and had much better luck there!

Got a whole tray full of wonderful vintage goodies!
Sweet little teapot and violet tea cup, darling ceramic baby shoe, gorgeous salt and pepper set, tiny butter pats with pink flowers, lovely lady tin, and a vintage cocktail shaker ~ martini anyone!??

Oh, and the mirror tray too!!

Love the graphics on the tin and isn't the little shoe adorable?

Pretty candy tin with colorful flowers!

I don't think this etched bottle is particularly old, but it sure is pretty!
I think it would be gorgeous filled with glitter!

I'm lovin' those salt and pepper shakers!

Close ups!

Also found a tin litho checker board that is used with marbles. Alas, the marbles were gone, but I think the board is cute all by itself!

Vintage photo was already framed ~ it amazes me what people will give away! Who's relatives are they anyway!??
I also picked up two nice vintage dresser mirrors and some old picture frames for projects!

Sorry I haven't posted these pics till now, but have been busy babysitting for my grandson, Jackson the past couple days and tomorrow too! He has been sick with a cold and fever and can't go to daycare. So grandma gets to snuggle him all day ~ I'm lovin' that part, but not happy he's been sick!


Thought I'd share my thrifty finds for Savvy Southern Style's Wow us Wednesday linky party!

Time to hop on over there and see what others have to share. Thanks for stopping by, I appreciate your comments and follows so much!!