Calgon...take me away!

So, it has been a busy week so far, I recently got a promotion at my job and have taken on a lot more responsibility, and since I am still doing my old job (until I hire someone to replace me) as well as the new one, I am constantly on the go. It is all good stuff, I am enjoying the challenge and everything I am learning, but it keeps me on my toes non stop from the moment I come in until I slip out at the end of the day, quietly, hoping no one can catch me before I make it to the elevator, my poor brain wrung dry but still unable to shut down.

As I was driving home tonight, I could not help but think of how nice a quiet relaxing evening would be. My Sunday ended up not being quite as relaxing as I had hoped. Instead of a couple hours to relax, feet up on the couch, I got about forty five minutes.

But I made the most of it.

I made myself shrimp and corn chowder, served it in my favorite Limoges dishes, on my vintage tray with my new vintage tea towel, drank ginger ale from one of my favorite glasses and watched "The Hobbit" while I surfed Pinterest. Maybe I am crazy, but sometimes just using pretty dishes makes a few minutes you take for yourself a little special, a few minutes to enjoy a little bit of elegance in the middle of a busy day doing chores around the house. I guess it is my version of a power nap, I felt relaxed and refreshed, and ready to tackle that next load of laundry.

I have been collecting pieces of French Limoges for years, Thrift stores, antique malls, Ebay, all rose patterns, all different, and, as usual, nothing matches. But it all goes together, just the way I like it.

I am already thinking about what new soup I will try this coming weekend.

And I will make sure that I take a little more than forty five minutes to enjoy it.

We are half way there already, I think I can make it...I still need time to decide on this weekends soup. Pinterest here I come!

Hope your week is going well!

Errands and Flea marketing

Another crazy busy week has come to an end, and before the next crazy busy week started I decided to treat myself to a little flea market fix. Even though this is the weekend for the Nashville flea market,  I decided to pass. I  seldom go this time of year anyway,  and since I had some grocery shopping to do (and had to pick up a jar of my favorite peach salsa at the local gourmet food store as well), plus I had several spoons and cards to drop off at Creative Village. So I thought since my favorite indoor flea is just five minutes down the road from Creative Village, I would stop before I went there instead of heading to the fair grounds.

I have not had a ton of luck at the flea markets or thrifts lately, but I found a few little treasures this morning.

I admit to having a weakness for vintage tea towels, this one with the green trim and darling pink rose was too sweet, oh and the tiny bird prints I just could not leave behind.

They are so sweet.

And I added another Prayer lady to my collection. I have recently passed some up, like the prayer lady planter I really regret not grabbing at the Nashville Flea market some months ago, so when I saw that she was in a half price booth, I grabbed her.

They make a pretty gathering!

I also brought home my very first Swanky Swig. I do like the Swigs, but I never see them at the Thrifts and they are usually a little more expensive then I want to spend at the Antique malls, but this one was in the same half price booth as my Prayer lady so I grabbed it.

Orange Juice tastes even better in a pretty vintage glass right?

Oh, and a little update on my last sewing box! I wandered into World Market a couple weeks ago and found the coolest owl pulls! I swapped them out for the brushed brass ones I had first put on, and they turned out to be a perfect match!

I love it!

We went to sleep last night with the rain, and woke up this morning with the snow. I think every child in Middle TN, including my own,  jumped out of bed this morning to run out and play in the snow before it melted. I ran outside as well, only with my camera in hand and got a few pretty shots. All the snow was of course gone by noon. But it sure was pretty while it lasted.

Tomorrow I plan to have a quiet relaxing day, with a sleeping pug in my lap, a book, some homemade soup, bread and cookies. 

Let"s hope everything goes according to plan!

Hope you are having a wonderful weekend!

It started with a jar of marbles.....

That ubiquitous jar of marbles that you see in every booth in every antique store, flea market or estate sale...and yes, at my house as well.

I can't pin point exactly why or what made me decide that I wanted vintage marbles in a pretty vintage blue ball jar, but about a two years ago I did, so that started me on a mission to collect a number of beautiful vintage glass marbles that popped into a blue ball mason jar from the flea market. And I was satisfied, or so I thought.

What this silly jar of marbles started, was a mild obsession with vintage games. Even my kids got in on it. Since the jar of marbles we have collected vintage dominoes, dice, scrabble tiles and metal Jacks from the 40's, oh and if you think legos hurt to step on...try stepping a metal jack, needless to say those are no longer allowed out of the jar. 

And we kept collecting. Poker chips, pool balls, playing cards,  Halsam checkers, a tournament chess set from the 40's, Backgammon and our latest addition, Royal Rummy.

My son loves the hunting dog/hunter cards.

I love these Bakelite poker dice.

My mom even let us adopt her Scrabble game, I am not sure when she bought it, But I remember it as a really small child. So its gotta be old!

Next, I am on the hunt for a vintage Bingo game. Or, maybe just some vintage Bingo balls. The kids and I really enjoy hunting down new things to add to our game collection. 

You just never know what will start a collection!

I walked out of the thrift stores empty handed last weekend and did not make it out to Creative Village with all my new spoons, but I have been hammering away again this week and plan to drop off a bunch of new sentiment spoons this weekend. And hit my favorite indoor flea market, maybe I will have better luck there? I sure hope so.

Hope you are having a great week!

Throw Back Thursday

Last week, my son came home from his Adventure crew meeting just raving about this wonderful tea they had. So what kind of tea was it? Russian tea, yup Tang, instant tea and spices. Have not had this stuff since the 70's.

Of course he asked if we could make some. Both of my kids are big tea drinkers, iced and hot. So, I hit Pinterest and asked my mother if she remembered her recipe, yes she did and yes Pinterest had about 20 different variations of it as well. Out I ran to the grocery store on Saturday, picked up everything I needed, tweaked as I saw fit and filled a mason jar with our 1970's throw back.

Yup, this stuff is just as yummie as I remembered. Not exactly low in sugar, but oh heck, it is so good it is worth it!

Especially if you have rad 1970's looking cups to drink it out of!

These fabulous Fire King mugs were an Ebay find. I really just stumbled upon them while mindlessly flipping through just...well...looking. Aside from Jadeite, this has to be my all time favorite design. I have a few bowls but NEVER see this pattern at the thrifts or the flea markets down here. Every piece I have ever found, has been on Ebay. Yes, these were a little pricey, but I love them, so they are worth it to me!

And I think they make my "Russian tea" taste even better!

Ok...not really, but heck, why not love the mug you drink from?

Been such a crazy week for me! I am hoping to get out and do some thrifting this weekend! Fingers crossed that I will find some treasures to share with you!

Hope you are having a fantastic week!

Getting back to it.

I took a bit of a break from my hammering over the Christmas Holidays, but I was back to it this week. Stopping into Creative Expressions today I found that I was down to just a few sentiment spoons, I am just thrilled at how popular they are.

I started working on sentiments for Valentines day, I seem to be on a bit of a Shakespeare kick, I hammered out a few, and plan a few more.

But this one may be my favorite for the week. Good way to look at things, I may have to make one of these to keep for my own!

With the new "Born for a Storm" exhibit opening at the Hermitage this week, I thought I would hammer out one of Andrew Jackson's well known quotes with the Hermitage area zip code. these "zip code" spoons sell very well at the shop.

I will be back to it again tomorrow, with my sentiment spoon stock so low, I am hoping to get a few spoons done each night this week, so hopefully, if things go smoothly I will have 10-15 new spoons to bring in again next week.

I hope it warms up a bit this week, these freezing temps make for clumsy cold fingers, I nailed my thumb but good this week and came up with some creative cussing NOT suited to hammer onto a spoon!

Hope you are having a great weekend!

Baby it's cold outside!

Wow, I know a large part of the country is experiencing a deep freeze right now, and It is well below freezing here in Middle Tennessee, for us, that is COLD! Thankfully,  here in the South a deep freeze never sticks around for too long.

I have to admit, as much as I love the warm weather,  I do enjoy a good cold snap. I tend to stick around the house more than usual and make tons of soup.

I know this hardly counts as a soup recipe, but it is my favorite to sip on when it gets cold outside. Simple as can be, it is a close imitation of Japanese Miso broth you get at most Japanese restaurants, I found the recipe on Pinterest and thought, this is so basic, how can this be good?  I almost hesitate to call it a real recipe, just store bought stock simmered for hours with onion, garlic, celery and carrots, salt and pepper. I usually toss it together early in the morning and let it simmer away on the stove before I strain out the veggies that flavor it and just drink the rich broth. Sometimes I will toss mushrooms, nori strips, shrimp or tofu into it, but really, I am happy just drinking it as a glorious broth, Oh so good and I swear it chases a cold away!

Rich broths, strong sweet tea, homemade applesauce bread and warm slippers pretty much make the cold weather worth tolerating for me, of course flipping through heirloom seed catalog after heirloom seed catalog while snuggling under my favorite vintage chenille  blanket with my fat Pug helps as well :)

January is a "recharge" month for me. After the craziness of the holiday I really enjoy just slowing down, easing my way into the new year and the resolutions I have made. It is a great time of year to get caught up on reading and movies I have missed. This month one of my resolutions is to get out and hit the thrift stores, At my former job it was easy for me to slip out at lunch and hit two near by, not at my new office so I have not been in months, and I miss it!

I never do slow down too much or for too long, I have been hammering away for a half hour or so each night this week, working on some sweet sentiment spoons for Valentines day.  I have really been having fun sorting through sweet Valentine quotes, I will post some pictures of my creations this weekend before I bring them into the shop.

Until then, enjoy the cold, and all the winter comforts, because before we know it Spring will be here!

Hope you are having a great week. Keep warm!

Happy 2015!

Happy New Year! I hope you had a wonderful kick off to the new year! We are not big party people so we had a nice quiet evening at home. A nice meal, some good movies and snacks at midnight are about as crazy as we get. And I for one love it.

But now, its time to get down to it and start thinking about what the new year will bring.

First things first, I am going to have to get some hammering done. Christmas sales were pretty good at Creative Expressions and I will need to get some more stock ready, I have plans for some sweet sentiment spoons for Valentines day. And of course Spring will be here before we know it and I will be hammering out lots of herb markers. I have a large number of knives that I think  I will turn into vegetable marker and I may also try my hand at some garden art as well, I have seen the Dragon flies made from butter knives and I think that will be a fun project to try. 

 I had a new batch of silverware delivered today. I resorted to Ebay for this lot and was pretty satisfied with the price, I think the only reason I won at such a reasonable price is because the pictures posted to the auction were not fantastic and because the auction ended on Christmas day, Call me a grinch, but yes, I was surfing ebay on Christmas eve. Hey...it paid off.

There are some beautiful pieces in this lot, and I am excited to get back to hammering.

I have to admit, I kept more than a couple pieces to add to my stash that I just cannot stand to hammer. They are far too pretty.

Pretty, Pretty!

I think this one  is for oysters? Or maybe grapefruit? I need to learn my tableware, I just loved this piece.

These darling little tea spoons will look fantastic with my Limoges dishes with the most darling little  pink roses on them.

The seller sent some little adds that came with some of the Silverware, I thought they were so cool.

I think is going to be an exciting year for "My Hobby" I have lots of plans, and ideas to try this year! So here is to 2015! Lets make it a great year!