Is That Me, Or Am I You?

My parents didn't know they were having twins until a week before we were born. Can you imagine that nowadays? They had (one set) of baby things ready to go because, sadly, my Mom had given birth to a still-born full term baby boy the previous year. Such a heartbreaking experience for them. Little did they know that the following year they would be bringing home two babies!

Angie and I are best friends. It always seems so odd to us when people ask if we get jealous, or are competitive with each other. Apparently there are identical twins that have that sort of relationship, but that's not us at all! If anything, we are too concerned with how the other one is doing!

I was born 4 minutes after she was. And she's acted like my "older" sister ever since. lol

And we are very different. For example, she doesn't like anything vintage! I know!!! She's not into vintage stuff at all! Her "thing" is makeup! She has drawers of it! And not the cheap stuff either. Me? I have like two lip sticks, and she gave them to me! lol

She also loves clothes and expensive purses, and getting her nails done. I can't remember the last piece of clothing I bought myself. But I know that my purse came from a garage sale. I paid $10 for it about 5 years ago!

Today we turn 36 years old. Yay! We aren't too thrilled about that number. And we never would have imagined that we would be living together again at this age! But we love our little place, and our dogs. We're also so grateful to now have 2 nieces and a nephew to love!

And who knows what the future holds for each of us?

ok...I won't lie. We hope it holds two, semi attractive, smart, and kind, MEN!

Happy Birthday To My Very Best Friend!

Thank you for always being with me, since day one.

Love you, Angie! 

Erica

Me on left, Angie on right...choking on our own necks. haha



Vintage Christmas Finds

 Try as might, I just couldn't keep from buying a couple things for my collection this season. But I do have to say, that overall I have been great about staying out of the thrifts and antique stores this Holiday Season. The other night though I just had to get out of the house. So...this little gang of elves became mine!

 

 And this fireplace is really fun. It's about the size of a large Putz House. It plugs in and has a little red light in the chimney. I'm very tempted to give it a little make-over though.

 

 The dealer that gave me 50% off a couple weeks ago was at Annie's again! This time she said 75% off! She said "I want it all GONE"! I didn't feel too bad because I know these things had been there for a long time.

 

 Fifty cent ornaments.

 

 I scared the heck out of my sister by placing this Santa on her bed! Haaa! She of course thinks he's the creepiest thing ever. But he was in a 50% off booth! So I don't care what she thinks. lol

The deer were in that same booth. And the putz house was $1.00 because the chimney is coming off. Don't care about that either.

 

This was my favorite find. It's just part of a box! The bottom wasn't included so it was marked $2.00!

Do I care if it has a bottom?? Nope! It will be so great in my Santa display!

 

And last but not least, this is Tammy, Harriette, Me, and Deb! The girls came over last week to do some crafting and eating...and laughing! We had so much fun!

Harriette did a post about it today, so I'm just going to link to hers. I've got more baking, shopping, and wrapping to do! Better get going.

 

Happy Holidays to all of you, my friends!

Erica :)

 



My Vintage Goose Feather Tree!

It was especially fun decorating this old feather tree because this is it's first Christmas with me! You might recall that I found it in the basement of an estate sale last summer, and I think I paid like $10 for it. It came in it's original Montgomery Wards box too!

 As I was pulling out my decorations I realized that I didn't have any ornaments that were traditionally used on this type of tree. Like the Victorian scrap kind and the ones with old tinsel and glass, etc. I'm going to have to make myself some.

 

 So I chose my smallest and oldest ornaments. I didn't use any regular sized Shiny Brites. I didn't think that the Mod/Retro look of the Shiny Brites would go well with the old feathers.

 

I don't think I'll put the tree in this spot next year. I don't like it in front of the big mirror!

 

 I found this Harold Gale Santa a few weeks ago at Annie's. He was marked 50% off so I got him for $12.50! A very good price! Click the link to learn a little about them. There are lots on EBay and Etsy too!

 

Little boxes of ornaments and a Lefton reindeer candy dish.

 

This huge sign is perched up on top of the mirror (above the tree), so the red happened to work well!

 

So that's that! I love this tree so much. I feel really lucky to have found it. :)

 

In other news:

 

 Wellie and I would like to give a little warning to all of our bloggy friends and their doggies!

We were looking for an alternative to rawhide so we tried RAW BONES. These come in several forms but are (usually) uncooked, and found in a freezer in your specialty pet food shop. We bought frozen beef knuckles. Wellie and Ernie LOVED them!

 

 But the next morning (after chewing on her bone), this is what Wellie looked like!!! The whole side of her face totally swollen. Her Mama about had a heart attack!

 

On Tuesday Wellie had to have a major tooth on each side of her upper jaw removed! Two teeth!

They had both cracked way down to the pulp. She looked like the saddest most pathetic little thing after her surgery! And of course you can about imagine how guilty I feel.

Oh, the cost??? $631.50

So, beware my friends! No raw (or really hard) bones for your pups!!!

 

Happy Holidays!

Erica :)

 

 

My Green Cupboard at Christmastime

Hi Friends! Thank you so much for your kind comments on my Hoosier and snowman collection! Tonight I thought I'd show you the other side of the room where my green cupboard is.

I'll let the pics do the talking again. Pretty self explanatory anyway! LOL

This Santa blow mold was $2.99 at Goodwill a few weeks ago! One of only a couple things I've added this year. And let me tell you...it's been sooo hard to stay away from the stores! But my finances and health just aren't allowing for it this year. As you can see though, I'm not hurting for vintage Christmas and I'm very thankful for what I've found in the past.

Speaking of finances, Wellie and I are heading to the vet tomorrow. A couple weeks ago I tried giving her a different kind of bone and it BROKE two of her teeth! Now she has to have one of them pulled because it cracked all the way down to the pulp. A fun way to spend $450!

 

Happy Holidays!

Love Wellie & Ernie

 

 



My Hoosier At Christmastime

Hi Friends! How are you? It's been a couple busy days around here. Today we had a little blogger get  together and it was so much fun! Just a few of us, but I'll share about it real soon. And then tomorrow my niece and nephew are coming over to do some baking and crafting! So that should be lots of fun! And a big mess! lol

I'm behind on emails (as always) so please accept my apologies if you are on that list!

OK- I think I'll just let the pictures do the talking this time. Hope you all have a great weekend!

Erica  :)

 

*click for a closer view

 



Happy Holidays!



Two Blogs That I Want To Tell You About!

Hey there Pals!

There are a couple blogs I started following recently that I want to make

 sure you know about. These gals both love Vintage Christmas,

Pyrex, and so many other things that we all love to collect.

 

The first blog is Evie's Haus!

 Evie has been making vintage ornament wreaths like crazy this year!

Above is a peek at one she did for a friend. How cute is that?

 

And because she loves making wreaths she's been going to the thrift stores just about every day looking for ornaments! You wouldn't believe the luck she's had.

 

 

 Oh, she also has one of those RARE husbands that will go with her and even help gather vintage Christmas stuff! He likes it just as much as she does!

In my dreams!  LOL

 

You can find Evie's button on my left sidebar! If you visit her and would be so kind, it would be great if you could add it to yours as well! She's really nice and you're going to love her blog!

 

***make sure to look waaay back at her posts! There are great wreaths and vintage Christmas things "back there" in Oct and Nov!

 

OK- The other blog I want to tell you about is Melissa's Antiques!

 

 Melissa has a wonderful antique booth in Indiana! I really want to dig through it!

 

As you can see she has a fondness for kitchen items, vintage tins, jadeite, and fire king!

 

 But what's really fun is that Melissa will show us everything before she puts it into her booth!

 

 And she finds really great stuff!

 

I just know that you'll love Melissa's Blog! I don't have a button for her yet but please be sure to follow the link and visit her! She's a hard working girl, doing all of this while going for her MBA and working full time! Wow!

 

Hope you all have a wonderful day!

Erica :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Our Living Room at Christmastime

Oh my gosh, I can't believe it's been a couple weeks since I've posted! I hope everyone's been doing well! It's been sooo cold here! I'm talking like -5 degrees! And then when you add in the wind chill factor it makes it a lot colder than that!

My R.A. doesn't mix well with such cold temps, so I've been spending a lot of time under my electric blanket, and using my heating pad. Decorating the house took me forever! I could only do a tiny bit each day. But I finally got it all done by Saturday, because that evening we had our annual Christmas get together with our high school girlfriends! We've been having a x-mas party since we were 15 years old and this year we are 35! I feel so lucky to have the same group of friends after all these years...and we still laugh so hard we literally cry! LOL

 

So, I thought I'd start by showing you our living room. These pics are dark because this is

 "An Evening View". lol

I did a table top sized tree in mostly reds and pinks.

 

Set on a mini felt tree skirt and there is my goofy felted Santa from Paper Moon Gallery. 

 To top it off I put a vintage corsage and my favorite old tree topper. Funny, I have several vintage glass ones but I realized that I like this plastic one best!

 

 I store some of my mercury glass garlands in these vintage men's tie boxes. I love the graphics of Santa peeking through the window and in a parachute. Candles are Gurley.

 

We have a sunken living room. I draped my vintage "Faribault Woolen Mill" blankets over the chairs and couch. They were all found at estate sales or flea markets for about $5 each and I just love them! Especially because my Grandma was born in the little town of Faribault, MN!

If you look for blankets like this, don't settle on ones that are scratchy.

Keep looking and you'll find soft ones!

 

 *I was really unsure of how to wash these. What I ended up doing was putting them (in a garbage bag) in the freezer for a few days to kill any dust mites etc. And then I washed them in the washing machine on COLD and DELICATE with baby shampoo. After that I laid them out flat to dry for a few hours. But wet wool smells disgusting. So I put them in the dryer on NO HEAT (just cool air), and that did a wonderful job! 

The vintage candy cane kids that I found last summer and a glass snowman (circa 1995) from the little gift shop that I worked at in my teens.

 Aww...The fire is slowly dying. But there is my Merry Christmas garland that I bought in Deb's (Garage Sale Gal) booth. And I happened to have two matching McCoy aqua icicle planters, so they worked well for my little trees.

 

 This table cloth is new. I mean...it's old, but it's new to me!

I found that huge frame in the garbage several years ago. So the other night I decided to white wash it and it became the perfect place to hang some of my vintage stockings!

 

I just have to show you a close up of this table cloth. I love the little cone shaped candy containers. Some of them have dolls in them, and some have toy donkeys! Pam (Virginia Retro) thinks it's possibly an earlier design by Simtex. It's huge! I can't find pictures of another one anywhere online.

Do any of you have this? With a tag?

 

This is the larger of my two aluminum trees. And I'm not going to put up the other one!

This decorating stuff is hard!!!

 

 It looks best in the day light of course because it doesn't have any lights and I don't have a color wheel. If you have a color wheel, will you let me know if you love it? Does it make a big difference? I don't even know what it looks like when one is on! lol

 

Remember the lady that wrote in permanent marker on my glass ornaments at the estate sale, and then SPIT on them? I think she was smoking something because nothing takes the marker off...unless it takes the paint off too! So there is a nice big $5.00 written on the back of this big indented one from Poland. Good thing I paid like .75 for it and not $5.00!  LOL

That glittery bluebird is a favorite. It's a candy container. His head comes off!

 

OK- that's it for the living room. Dining room coming soon! :)

 

Wellie and I would like to say a special Thank You to Donna! Donna and I have been working out a little deal between us. I need a couple of my vintage quilts repaired and so I've been sending her vintage Christmas things in exchange for her work! Well then the other day this adorable ice skate showed up at our door! Donna decoupaged the outside and filled the inside with greenery and a cute Santa! We love it! And I had the perfect empty spot to hang it on the wall! But the deal is for me to send Donna stuff, not the other way around!!!!  :)

Blogger friends are so good to each other.

 

Hugs to you all-

Erica :)