Living A Vintage Life: Sweet Dreams

'Diary Of A Quilter' Gives Old Sheets New Life

Submitted by Three Chicks Vintage
I remember a lot about the sheets and pillowcases I slept upon as a child. My dear Grandma Alice's white sheets were pressed and starched and her pillowcases were lovingly embroidered with flowers and fancy ladies. Even now as I close my eyes I can smell the starch and feel the gentle scratchiness of grandma's freshly made beds. When my Dad remarried, my stepmother had a closet of striped sheets - it was the 1970s and the sheets were white with stripes in fashionable color combinations - yellow and orange, pink and gold, blue and purple. I was especially jealous of my little stepsister's sheets - wild, mod arrays of flowers in bright pink. How I longed to choose my own sheets! When I finally got my chance, sometime in junior high, I picked lime green sheets scattered with yellow-eyed white daisies. Green, no matter the shade, is a calming color to me, and at that time in my life I longed for the calm and the freedom to choose that those sheets represented.

Another vintage sheet project from Amy.

Nowadays it is rare for me to purchase new sheets, (unless I find good, Egyptian cotton on sale) instead I pick up beautiful, high thread-count, vintage percale at second-hand stores. For a couple of dollars I find a sheet that will outlive almost any sheet I could buy new AND I get to pick colors and patterns that remind me of childhood. But I don't just pick up vintage sheets out of a sense of nostalgia or thrift, I pick them up because they are simply beautiful fabric. Holding them at arm's length I can imagine them as quilt squares, little sundresses, hair bandannas, valances ... Of course my imagination is much more active than my needle, so I've a healthy stash of vintage sheets and pillowcases awaiting a resurrection or a sleepy head!

Fortunately, there are folks who actually put their stashes to good use. Amy Smart is one such person - the smiling face on her 'About Me' page suggests that she is a colorful, creative person and the pages of her blog, 'Diary of a Quilter' confirms it. The project I discovered in her blog post 'Vintage Baby Sheets Quilt' looks like my own sheet stash come-to-life. In her quilt I can see both sheets I have and sheets I have slept upon.
Her vintage sheet projects include hangable art and sundresses too!
So ... you have a stash, you have the inspiration, now you have pictures and the instructions to guide you through a vintage sheet project!
Do you need to start your own vintage sheet stash? Or build on one you already have? Search etsyvintageteam bed sheet or etsyvintageteam pillowcase to get started!

Living A Vintage Life: Vintage Valentine's Clipart

Life is the flower for which love is the honey.

  ~Victor Hugo 
We *vintageophiles are often creative people, looking for ways to incorporate our passion into our everyday lives whether it be a snuggly vintage afghan, funky 1970s blouse or in the gifts we offer to the ones we love. Valentine's Day is no exception as we seek vintage heart jewelry, trinkets and timeless sentiments on aged greeting cards. Even if we were willing to part with our long searched for greetings, we would probably be hard-pressed to acquire enough to give to all the loved ones on our list. Fortunately there is another way to send vintage sentiments: we can create our own Valentine's cards using vintage graphics.

There are many sources of free vintage Valentine's graphics on the internet, you just have to make sure you are truly accessing free clipart. To make that task a little easier, I've swam through some websites for you and came up with a few links.
The Graphics Fairy has a wonderful selection of vintage images and craft ideas. 
Hub Pages has dreamy graphics too!
Vintage Holiday Crafts has gorgeous images for Valentine's and other holidays.
The Stock Solution has free graphics as well as images for sale.
Want to fore go the fuss of printing, pasting and glitter? Fun and free vintage style e-cards can be found at Hipster Cards.

From my vintage heart to yours - Happy Valentines Day!

*vintageophile - a person whose every waking moment is consumed with the thought, pursuit and possession of vintage goods!

Living A Vintage Life: Sew Retro

"Sew Retro is a community of ladies and gents who adore vintage patterns, vintage fabric, and vintage style. We love sharing our vintage and retro projects for inspiration and encouragement with vintage sewing fanatics worldwide."
While Sew Retro's 'about' page certainly describes what this wonderful blog is about, you can't truly understand Sew Retro without experiencing it yourself. You will find they don't just show off vintage patterns, fabrics and projects but they give voice to the passionate folks who breathe fresh life into the objects of their passion. Buttons and petticoats, bridesmaid and baby dresses, fantastic finds and frustrating flubs all find their way onto Sew Retro's pages. Sew Retro's down-to-earth voice embraces sewing vintageophiles of all skill levels.

I appreciate A.J.A.'s honesty when she posted her experience creating a tea-length gown from vintage Simplicity 5343, Mommy and Me Formal Dresses : "There was nothing to fear except crazy fabric that could barely be pressed and frayed to fuzz, and a pattern with dart tucks straight out of h-e-double-hockey-sticks."

 

Katherine's story of Little Bo Peep brought a childhood nursery rhyme to life, complete with scratchy hay, 1947 Frigidaire and homemade toilet bowl cleanser.

Projects range from repurposed duds to evening wear and the blog is dotted with delightful old patterns, illustrations and charming goodies like this prettily primitive spool rack.

Sew Retro takes vintage sewing supplies out of boxes, drawers and closets and brings them into the daylight for all to use and enjoy! Pull up a hot mug of tea and spend the afternoon with Sew Retro and be inspired to not just collect but to live vintage!

Living A Vintage Life: Bird and Birch

"Green" has been on our lips for years now and unlike many trends that inspire their own buzzwords, green isn't going away anytime soon. Vintageophiles* have an approach to green totally unlike environmental conservationists or traditional recyclers, rather we lovers of vintage take yesteryear's remnants and develope them into a passion. This passion drives us into both known and unknown territories in search of timeless morsels that amuse, excite, calm and express our personalities. Birch and Bird Vintage Home Interiors is one of those special places that every vintageophile should visit at least once (although I recommend regular visits). Their ideas exhibit how exciting it can be to live a vintage life!

Lily and Rachel, Birch and Bird proprietesses and bloggers, share their trips to wonderful antiques markets, decorating ideas and personal insights, all beautifully photographed. Many of their interiors tend towards comfort and calm punctuated with color. Unexpected touches like cuckoo clocks painted in green and blue hues, marry modern and vintage in inspiring ways. Even traditional settings bear their personal touch, as exhibited in their recent blog post Warm and Cozy Fireplaces; while their post on Bohemian style suggests the wide variety expressed by this timeless movement.

Be sure to scroll down through all the photos or else you will miss the herringbone floor made of reclaimed shipping pallets (hint: it's most of the way down the Home page); click on the "You might also like" at the end of each post to jump to more beautiful vignettes and amazing market adventures, and don't miss the tiny keywords (Posted in) beneath post titles to further your surfing through the blog.
Now, grab a glass of fresh apple cider, put on your favorite old holey sweater and settle in for a delightful afternoon with Birch and Bird.

*Vintageophile (vin-taj-o-phyle) - one who passionately embraces and is inspired by vintage goods to the point of changing their lifestyle.

Living A Vintage Life: Vintage Serenity

It all started with Baby Shoes...

Endearing moments in time . . . that tickle a memory, evoke a sigh or make us smile: thus begins the Vintage Serenity blog. This busy vintageophile's journaling exhibits a love for the vintage life. In Cheryl's world creative ideas abound, including: old silver trays turned to chalk boards, baby beds repurposed into wall art, craft stations and plate racks.

Projects not only repurpose an amazing variety of goods, but encompass a range of styles as well. Steampunk, shabby chic, contemporary and country are just a few genres embraced on this creative blog. The post displaying a multitude of uses for yarn balls is an example of stylish variety that remains true to vintage. One woman would be hard-pressed to come up with the wide variety of ideas on Vintage Serenity so Cheryl draws from many sources as she provides many fantastic links to other creative vintage bloggers who offer ideas and instruction.

Goodwill Spirit and Yarn Balls!

I was happily absorbed in the all activities and links on this site, but what speaks to my creative, yet procrastinating soul the most is her Future Projects page. Like me, she has projects she's just itching to get to, but just hasn't had the time to - yet! Grab a cold glass of cider and surf through this fun blog - I'm sure you'll come away with lots of ideas for using the vintage goodies you are hoarding for that yet-to-be-defined 'special project'!
As reported by Three Chicks Vintage

Living A Vintage Life: Milk Glass Mania

Living a vintage life frequently goes beyond accumulating and using vintage goods, a vintageophile's life often includes a focused passion, a drive to collect some special item that touches the soul. For many that passion is Milk Glass. Whether solidly opaque or softly translucent, it has a special place in the heart of many collectors. ‘True’ milk glass has been described to me thus: “it looks like your glass of milk after the ice cubes have melted”. Loving a cold, iced glass of milk on a hot day, I understood the description perfectly. While many discriminating collectors still accept only the subtly opalescent pieces, Milk Glass Mania has created a generation of collectors who embrace all white glass as milk glass. And you know what? That’s alright with me because I love all of it!

I found a wonderful blog called Passion of MilkglassCollecting. She loves to blend her pieces with blue, happily displaying candles and flowers, and even lining pieces alongside her tub to hold fragrant bathing products.

Sometimes entire rooms are being decorated around milk glass collections with pieces displayed against deep blue walls, scattered across chippy mantles, on kitchen shelves or behind dust-free glass break fronts. A fun trend is using milk glass to decorate bridal showers and wedding receptions – there are even businesses that specialize in renting vintage milk glass for these occasions. Bliss Magazine has some pretty ideas for reception décor featuring milk glass.

Maybe you don’t have a lot of milk glass, but you’re coveting the look? Grab clear bottles, swish some white paint inside and let dry. Voila! Instant milk glass! Beach House In The City offers great instructions and photos.

Wherever a vintage trend develops, modern industry responds with reproductions, which is definitely true of milk glass. While some conscientiously-unburdened retailers may attempt to pass it off as vintage, most are simply responding to consumer demand. While I won’t go so far as to link you to some modern reproduction goods but I’m happy to point you to the website of the National Milk Glass Society. For a visual feast of milk glass, you can visit their photo galleries.

Use the comments below to tell me about your milk glass passion!
posted by Deborah Berry ~Three Chicks Vintage

Living A Vintage Life: Plan Your Autumn Road Trip

Fall for me is big yellow school buses trundling down foggy back roads; wet football games and windy band competitions; huge grasshoppers launching themselves through my weedy garden, fresh cider at Hugus Fruit Farm and road trips.

I'm not talking about a scrounging-change-from-the-furniture-so-you-can-go-party-with-your-buddy-three-hours-away road trip. No, I'm talking about a Big Girl road trip. For me this usually starts by grabbing a good friend, some good chocolate, a full tank of gas and lots of water. With county maps and cameras in hand, we head for places known and unknown in search of antiques and photo ops. One year we found a tiny shop, the size of storage shed, on a back road in Jackson county: white-washed, clapboard siding, little window boxes of bright orange and purple mums and what turned out to be the most gorgeous glass collection we'd ever seen, glistening colorfully in the early Fall sun. The photos were good that year too - a beautiful church cemetery, autumn leaves, abandoned houses huddled in stands of goldenrod and iron weed...

This year I'm already daydreaming about the Fall Road Trip, but I'm adding another kind of antiquing excursion to my Fall agenda. It's the kind of antique show that 'everyone else' gets to go to, but never me. It's a Big Antiques Show ... Mega-Junking Venue ... Phantasmagorphic Collector’s Fantasy….

This year I am (drumroll please...) going to go to the Country Living Fair in Columbus, Ohio. September 16-18. There's no excuse not to – it’s an hour up the road, I can find the place easily, I don’t need to worry about reservations; I have no excuses!

I just love Country Living Magazine and have wanted to attend the show ever since it started. It sounds so dreamy - set in the old Ohio Village, surrounded by antique buildings, Indian Summer and loads of antiques, arts and crafts and great creative people, I can't think of a better girls' day out.

Southerners can catch the fair in Atlanta, Georgia – October 21-23.

What kind of antiquing road trip destinations do you wander off to in the Fall? Is there a Big Show that you have only dreamed of going to?

There is a big show in Texas that covers several towns: Texas Antique Weekend. Covering half-a-dozen small towns between Houston and Austin, I imagine that a multi-town antiques show must be a lot like a progressive dinner: you get to enjoy lots of goodies but you can keep moving in case you get bored, the food is bad or the place smells like cats!

Taking place in March and September, the last Texas Antique Weekend of 2011 is coming up soon: Preview Weekend, Sept. 21-28 and AntiqueWeekend, September 29-October 2, 2011.

Are you in the mood for lots of beautiful bling? How about the Miami Beach Antique Jewelry & Watch Show?! I get excited just thinking about all those timeless treasures in a place as romantic sounding as ‘Miami Beach’! Wouldn’t be a hoot to go with a few girlfriends and dress up like the Golden Girls?

Catch this glittering spectacle at the Miami Beach Convention Center, October 14-16.

Then there’s the largest outdoor antique show in the world – the Brimfield AntiqueShow, held since 1959 in Brimfield, Massachusetts. Three times a year thousands of dealers descend on this small town and sprawl across picturesque New England fields. I saw an aerial shot of this fest and it is truly overwhelming - if only I lived in Massachusetts!

The last Brimfield show of 2011 is September 6-11.

If you don't live close to any of these biggies, there are lots of websites that list Antiques Shows – here’s a few to get you started:

 *Heritage Event Company

 *Antique Trader

 *U.S. Antique Shows

Fall is a time to gather - for many of us that means attending auctions and shows, traveling highways and byways in search of that special find. Why don’t you gather a few girlfriends (the one with the biggest vehicle gets to drive) and make a road trip to one of the Big Ones?

Living A Vintage Life: Vintage Victuals

I know, I'm a bit late on Sunday getting this done. I'm only batting .333 right now - about as good as a lot of pro baseballers, but still not too impressive and at a miniscule fraction of the pay! I keep losing track of what day it is - I guess if I quit playing hooky from Sunday service I wouldn't have this problem!

Vintage Victuals is where we are venturing today. A wonderful website with piles of wonderful recipes that are vintage, entirely doable, beautifully photographed and not the least bit objectionable like the black & white photographed 'goodies' you'll find in old 'Joy of Cooking' cookbooks.
I do apologize for being a bit redundant on Nora's Foodie Friday, but a blog with the word 'victuals' (or 'vittles' as Granny Clampett says) deserves a second look and there's always room for more cooking inspiration.

Some of these recipes are sophisticated and modern looking, like the Lemon Crab Pasta; some are local faves, such as the Legendary Hot Brown, unique to the Louisville, KY area AND a wonderful solution to endless turkey leftovers.

Then there are beautiful classics, like sweet and humble Georgia Peach Cobbler.

Belly up to the computer screen with a glass of iced tea and prepare to experience a calorie-free, visually  tour of the 'good ol' days'!

Living A Vintage Life: Down At The Mystery Spot!

It is no secret that one of the best ways to spend a summer day, or even a whole vacation, is picking your way through antiques stores and curiosity shops. Some of us stay close to home, hitting our regular haunts every Wednesday, while others have the great good fortune of discovering new haunts in new places. Up until now I have never had a particular yearning to visit the Catskills of New York, but since discovering the Mystery Spot Vintage Blog, I can think of nowhere else I'd rather be!
The Mystery Spot Blog is the companion of a real, brick and mortar shop, Homer & Langley's Mystery Spot Antiques, located in Phoenicia, New York.

This place is so cool it even has it's own theme song, created by an enamoured and musically talented fan, David Fair.
If you venture past the front page of the blog (or through the REAL front door!) you'll find that the Mystery Spot is even more than a fantastic antiquing venue, it looks to be a true curiosity shop, housing the likes of Petey the Petrified Piranha, Desdemona - the Devil Girl of Phoenicia and The Kingdom of Rusticalia. Oh, and something like 15,000 jazz, rock, country & western and folk records!
Pour a glass of iced tea and visit the Mystery Spot right now!
Living A Vintage Life, reported by Three Chicks Vintage.