vintage postcards

Don't you love those cars? And what a hoot! This one says,

"Greetings from Florida. To jeer and gloat may not be nice.

I'll take the sun, you take the ice."

This one is the Pig Trail Inn, Miami Beach, Florida.

Handwritten in cursive on the front it says "I worked here"

Charming, indeed!

Postmarked 1946 Toledo Ohio

The rally service was held at Western Ave. Methodist Church

Postmarked 1951 Marion Va.

On the Back it says,

"...would rather be down here than in Toledo. Andy's folks are nice."

The new in-laws, do you think?

Postcard description printed on back says,

In Florida bright flowers are found.

The flame-vine and Hibiscus abound;

While orange groves of fadeless green,

with fruit of gold make gay the scene.

an orange grove in the Lake Region, Florida

Postmarked 1945
Wakulla Springs near Tallahassee, Fla.
What do you think of this?...
on the back the message is about being on a honeymoon
and being in the hospital in Thomasville Georgia due to a bite!

airplane view of seaport and causeway to Atlantic Ocean,
Fort Pierce, Fla.

All these vintage postcards are available in my
Abundantly Curious Pix shop
under the category of

Vintage Photos and Postcards
All, except the Rally Day postcard,

are linen texture.

All have either a 1 cent postage stamp

or a blank place asking for a 1 cent postage stamp!

Christmas Past

I know we should be done blogging about Christmas for now, but I again came across this old photo of me in 1968 as I was sifting through photos. I love this photo because the funniest part is I STILL HAVE EVERYTHING SHOWN IN THIS PHOTO EXCEPT THE PLAYSKOOL MAGNETIC BOARD AND THE CLOTHES I WAS WEARING ...OH AND THE BABY TEETH IN MY MOUTH! I loved the slippers I was wearing in this photo. They were hot pink velvet and had huge pompoms on the toes. They had a semi-hard sole and were great for dancing and spinning around on the tile floor.

vintage image button cards

(UPDATE: this set of 4 cards has sold within a few hours

of being listed. THANKS!)

Click here, find them under the supplies category!

Happy New Year

 I would love to dress up and do this, like the jazzy couple above and paint the town. It was a quiet night at home that actually included almost every member of the family alternating taking cat naps under cozy warm quilts and blankets near the roaring fireplace.

Although we had a very unusual weather day last Saturday that rose to 62 degrees, our Ohio Decembers are usually a safe bet to stay between ten below zero and about 30 degrees. The day before the heat wave we had ice covering everything, the next day grass and sun. But alas, the winds blew in (about 50mph gusts) and brought back the cold. I enjoy winter but more for the snow than the cold. If it is going to be cold you may as well have flakes, right. It makes everything seem less frigid with a nice white blanket across the neighborhood. My ideal favorite weather temperatures are between 20 and 60. Any time the thermometer stays below 20 for a period of time I even admit it is too cold. I would never do well living in a climate that is always warm. I enjoy the extreme change of seasons that northern Ohio has always provided me.

Needless to say, due to the one warm day our ice rink I had built for the kids is a bust. We often had a rink when I was growing up. I have always wanted the kids to have one. I knew the gauge of plastic we used for the lining was not correct and sure enough it became brittle and split when stepped on when the first of many thin layers of ice was frozen. We only came to discover this when it was 60 degrees and the melting ice all went bye-bye through the splits. Back to the drawing board and to better construction from scratch and then to add more water and refreeze again. That, and the hope that we will not have many more freak 60 degree days this winter.

So here's to a happy new year for us all... With health and happiness and friends and family and a frozen ice rink, too! I dreamed that some second hand skates (enough pairs for friends who stop by too!), some ice and plenty of hot chocolate would equal a very economical way for the kids and their friends to have fun at home and make lots of memories!!!
Happy New Year!

for the ladies

Click on these to enlarge then right click and save.

Use for your personal art fun! Play nice and use for your own pleasures to alter, not to sell as is.

what's in a color name when it comes to paint?

 I mentioned in this post about A's stuff being moved out into other parts of the house. She is on the ending edge of 12 and it was time to pack away some of the beloved little girl items from her room for a more grown up look. But alas, there is plenty still left to still be part of her teen room, and most of it is not in HER room at this time!! (deep breath. patience... patience.)
Her paint colors are Constellation =(blue) and Echo =(green). I think it would be fun to assign creative names to paint and crayon colors! I don't think I would have trouble making a career out of that.... bet it doesn't pay well though.

I made a pennant flag banner to span the high window.  A large square window on another wall that I haven't done anything for as yet. Maybe a gathered valance and cafe type curtain in one of the two color themes. We also bought her a new blind; her roll down shade had decided to quit rolling back up!!

The fabric is a polished cotton and has white polkadots. I stiffened the flags with interfacing and added several dangly faceted glass beads to each point to send rainbows throughout her room in the afternoons.

Her previous color scheme was pink for the main color with accents of purple. We repainted the detail grooves on her dresser drawers to cover the purple paint--now it is Echo!

A. hand-painted her switch plate. In this photo it looks yellow and blue but trust me... it is Echo and Constellation!

We are reusing her lamp with a makeover on the shade which did have kittens on a white background. Now it is all dotty with fun dangles.

Maybe the room will be finished by her birthday coming soon???????

? more shopping days left...until next Christmas

How was your holiday this year? Will you sit back and relax for about 11 more months or will you go out immediately and start shopping for next Christmas?

I personally wish Christmas was just about gathering with family and friends and having a nice meal and NO GIFTS!

The real reason we celebrate is not the gifts, after all.

This was how I did my dinner table center decorating. Milk glass candle sticks, silver strings of beads and my hand quilled snowflakes.
I do not make these to sell because they take me wayyyy too long to make so I could not justify selling them affordably after all the labor . I spend hours on each one. Some quillers may be quicker, but not I.
I will just stick with selling my handcut paper snowflakes. They can be sold at a much more affordable price and I can even offer free shipping too. There are still some in the shop ready to be scooped up by you. If you ever want a special type order of paper snowflakes-like all one size or a certain specific amount- just contact me.

Please ignore any ugly wrinkles in the red tablecloth!! My iron did not make an appearance on Christmas Eve...nor did the maid.

take time to color

I have a million things to do before tomorrow night's dinner.

I am ready for as few as 8 and as many as 13. No one seems to be able to pin down an RSVP to me this year. That's ok. I will still cook the same amount of food- a lot- because that's the only way I know to cook. I love to cook. Hate to bake. Know what? That's alright too. There are always plenty of bakers among our gang of friends and neighbors. Everyone has their own interests and talents to share.

The million things on the to-do list I have yet to do includes striving to create the magic of the Christmases I remember fondly from my youth. Oh yeah!...and cleaning the house. My favorite saying is "Trying to keep a house clean while the kids are still living at home is like trying to staple Jell-O to a tree!" I wholeheartedly agree. As I often say...my house is clean but rarely tidy. This week it looks like a winter tornado has gone through, what with the boots dripping melting snow and ice in big puddles, the wet mittens hats and scarves strewn along the hearth drying before the fire (FYI N., for the umpteenth time, gloves do not dry when you pull them off inside out with the fingers all bunched up!! Ugh!), coats that no one seems to know how to hang up...and do not even get me started on the toys everywhere. Wanna know a secret? I am actually giving N. a box of toys he hasn't seen for months since I packed them away and put them in "Time OUT" for not picking them up. I have wrapped the box up in Christmas paper. He keeps asking what is in that big box. "Must be something really cool" , he keeps saying!

{ my art}

Then there is all the stuff that came out of A's room months ago so we could repaint and redo her bedroom. The goal was to have it done and back together before Thanksgiving. I told her I would help her if she helped me. Well, when you are a few breaths away from 13 and active in EVERYTHING at school you just do not have time for silly things like doing something you promised your Mother!! So, here it is, past Thanksgiving and a breath away from Christmas and the things are still sitting (all over) in the family room, and on the glassed porch...

Honestly I am tempted to just leave the mess and let the guests (family and friends) see how we really live every day and not just how the house looks when Mom shoves everything in her bedroom at the last minute and declares that room off limits to guests! I told the kids my idea today and they just looked blankly at me and their brain gears were thinking, "Mom wouldn't really do THAT!"- I know because I am good at reading their minds, it's one of those instinctive Mom skills you acquire when they are each born.

{N's art -which I think is much better than mine!}

So what does all this have to do with my title to this post?

Well, in the midst of all my mental preparing to stage the house and make it look right for impending guests, N. asked me if I would color with colored pencils with him. I can not resist the call of my colored pencils

no matter how untidy the house may be.

So what did I do? What could I do?

I colored!

{The inside of N's card. Don't you love his "font"?}

We scanned N's art and made it into a card for my Uncle. This was what he did inside the card. I am Uncle's weekly and year 'round personal shopper. N. tagged along this time since he was off school for winter break. So, added to everything else, which was tugging at my time and hovering deadline, was doing Uncle's regular household shopping. Driving in the holiday traffic on icy roads in single digit temperatures and waiting in check out lines so long you wonder if you've aged while standing still for so long.

Hey wait!, that reminds me. I still have my own shopping to finish for tomorrow night's dinner!

Well, the coloring was fun, anyway!!

We have to seize these opportunities to make magical Christmas memories when ever we can.

It's Official

After many long hours of work and thinking,

my newest Etsy shop is open!!

Abundantly Curious Pix

Taking pictures is easy, capturing the moment in time is harder, finding the curious things around us takes a fresh eye.

The Abundantly Curious Pix shop will feature my photography work and my daughter A's talents behind the camera, too. Some reoccurring themes will be: nature taking in both flora and fauna, architecture with it's curiosities both in every day buildings and sacred places, and the often unappreciated subject of cemetery art. Also, I will soon be adding many of my photography pieces done while walking among a Civil War reenactment/encampment.

Other items in the shop will all be photo related.

Vintage photos, collage sheets made with vintage photos and snapshots, books for the photographer, vintage photo frames, and fun vintage photo advertisements suitable for framing.

Please stop by and have a peek in the next few days and weeks and let me know what you think. I am just getting started...I have a lot to list!!

ephemera

Some fun things to use for your personal art projects, goodies from my ephemera collection.
Click to enlarge, then right click and save. Play nice and use for your own pleasures to alter, not to sell as is.

silly little stuff

To the left of this scene is where I sit to compose my stories and connect with the world via the internet. These crazy things have found their way to my computer desk and have decided to live there. One night I was reading my e-mails and suddenly glanced over at them all. I studied the gathering and decided I need to break up their little party!

The book is titled Fabrics and Dress and is from 1903.

Great stuff in that old book!

Flash Back- What? No Santa?!

I came across these great retro images in one of my vintage recipe pamphlets and it made some old Christmas memories start to bubble up in my mind.

You see, my Mom always made the Christmas season seem so effortless. I mean the whole thing...from decorating, to inviting everyone for Christmas Eve, to celebrating my oldest brother's birthday on Christmas day, to all the cooking and baking and present wrapping and well- you name it- she seemed to be all pulled together.

I must admit there were many times in other months of the year she seemed much less than together!! Why did the end of the year festivities seem so smooth running? I wish she were here so I could compare notes with her, now that I am the wife/Mom in charge of it all.

Time is running out again this year for me to get it all pulled together and try to look somewhat organized, enthused, and timely.

This is a flash back to the Christmas I found out there was no Santa.

Actually that would have been much less of a shock and disappointment if I had just FOUND OUT on my own.

I'm afraid I was TOLD there was no Santa. Yep! My brother, the youngest of my 3 older brothers (I have no sisters and I am the baby by many years difference!) decided that it was his duty -and his thrill- to tell me point blank...and on Christmas Eve!

(1970- Grandma with my cat Pepper and her kitten. Grandma always loved playing with the cats.)

We did all our Christmas stuff on the 24th since the 25th is my brother's birthday.

Every year our Christmas activities went like this: Mom would have just about every inch of the house decorated and on Christmas Eve have the ham dinner with all the goodies that go along with it all ready. There were always assorted Christmas cookies -home made of course- and hard candies set out. There were already some wrapped gifts under the tree from Mom and Dad .

Grandma and Grandpa (Dad's parents) always came for Christmas Eve. I would anxiously wait for them both to come in the back door- one carrying the fruited Jell-O mold and the other carrying the aluminum cover cake box that safely transported home made German Chocolate cake with the thick, sweet coconut frosting.

While Mom and Grandma finished up the last minute dinner preparations in the kitchen, I was kept in the bedroom with my brothers. We would be wrapping a gift for Mom or some other set up activity to keep me from the "action areas" of the house. This was when Santa would visit our house!! Grandma would come and open the bedroom door in breathless excitement and announce that Santa was just here and left some gifts, "He couldn't stay because he had to hurry along, but he did ask for a quick drink and a few potato chips (potato chips? I guess he gets tired of having to eat all those cookies!) as he rushed out the door!!"

Then I would have to wait until after dinner to open everything. The next morning there was usually a small gift or two that Santa apparently found with my name on them in the bottom of his sleigh as during the night he circled the world on his route. So Santa always came TWICE to my house!!

One year, I guess the little devil sitting on my brother's shoulder got the better of him and he just couldn't resist spoiling the magical fantasy for me. That was the year he took his opportunity and ran with it.

There we were in the bedroom doing the set up activity while Mom and Grandma supposedly finished with the dinner prep. My meany brother told me, " Grandma is going to tell you that Santa just came and he had a snack too, after he left the gifts. The reason you always miss Santa is that there is NO Santa! You're SO DUMB! It's just Mom making it all up."

NO, I COULDN'T BELIEVE IT!

NO, I WOULDN'T BELIEVE IT!

Then Grandma came to the door..." (breathlessly) "Amy, you just missed Santa! He left some gifts and said he was sorry he couldn't stay. He was hungry so I gave him some egg nog and a handful of chips! I called for you to come out of the bedroom, but you must not have heard me."

My heart sank. I decided that I couldn't let on that my meany brother had just wrecked Christmas, not just for that year but every year forever until the end of the WORLD!! That's how dramatic it was!

I wanted to be a tattle tale, but then I couldn't try to pretend for Mom and Grandma's sake and most of all- FOR MINE- that everything was right with the world. I wanted to have that anticipation all through dinner wondering what SANTA had brought to me inside that Christmas wrapping. I wanted to wake in the early morning hour and find a tiny gift or two under the tree with my name on them that during his first visit slipped under the seat of the overworked sleigh with a zillion sky miles on it!!

I don't know?! Maybe the egg nog and chips should have been a tip off for me. Honestly, who would want egg nog and chips together as a quick snack??!

I hope your Christmas is filled with a little bit of magic and fantasy this year.

And remember, when Santa comes to your house and is hungry, go ahead and offer him some chips. He gets entirely too many cookies.

And maybe he needs a good stiff drink...it's ok, after all, Rudolf is his designated driver!!

In a previous post, you can see a picture of me as a child at Christmas and also my daughter wearing that same dress at Christmas .

Tasha Tudor

I'm afraid I have had a burst of blogging energy and have gone a little crazy with the many different silly, fun and informative posts of late!! Now on to this one...

These Advent illustrations above and below are from the book Becky's Christmas by Tasha Tudor published in 1961.

It is just one of the many books in my own library by this outstanding woman. Sadly she passed away this last June, but she lived a marvelous life until the age of 92! Did you know that she lived without running water until her youngest child was age 5? I do not know if I could have faced that with as much grace as she, but I do admire her lovely gardens and the fact that she adored tea parties! I am especially a fan of her art. It appeals to me because of the soft colors -- I like drawing with colored pencils and one of my favorite things to do is bringing little critters to life through whimsical art. I also like the simple everyday events she used for her subject matter.

My Mother was a huge fan of Tasha Tudor's work and so I grew up surrounded by her books and I treasure them still. My first fairy tale book was a Tasha Tudor version. It has big pages with illustrations that take you away into another world.

These Advent illustrations shown here remind me that tomorrow at our house we will start our 12 days of Christmas tradition. I give the 3 kids a small token gift each day. They are wrapped simply-- in newspaper print and labeled with scrap paper tags rubber stamped with snowflakes in red ink.

We do not give big or expensive gifts at our house for the 12 days; rather small surprises. Here are just some examples:

1. hand made coupons for things like-- a future date for a block of time with Mom and NO SIBLINGS to go for ice cream, a special dessert or a mug of hot chocolate with tons of whipped cream and poke around in the library or a museum or a book store or where ever the recipient chooses.

2. A special candy or lunch box snack they have asked for all year and have always been told "No, not today".

3. For the girls-- a charm to add to their charm bracelet that I have assembled for each of them for each birthday, Christmas and Catholic sacrament since birth . (I'll have to show you the bracelets some time!)

As I mentioned, my Mom really instilled in me a love of Tasha Tudor and her art. I have the books my Mom collected--story book fiction, non-fiction such as gardening and cook books. I have one of her framed prints in my room of a Mother standing in the doorway while her children and a dog frolic happily outside. I love to gaze at that when I have just had to hang my head out the door and yell at my kids to stop fighting or tell the dogs to stop that endless barking!!

I have these packages of Tasha Tudor greeting and note cards that my Mom never was able to use up. She had 100's of pen pals all around the world, back before email.

Flash Back- really old TVs

Are you tired of the commercials and crawls along the bottom of your TV screen about The Big Switch happening in Feb to digital TV broadcast? Well take a break from the modern technology madness and lets visit a time when rabbit ears on the top of the TV was super high tech!!

This is a photo of me in front of a very modern TV, indeed!!

The post that includes this photo and a great vintage TV ad can be viewed by clicking here.

I have another photo of a different TV that came to live with us in our home after this one for many, many happy years of viewing-- everything from Bozo The Clown to the day that we all watched the first man step onto the moon to M*A*S*H!!

Taken Christmas Eve in the 1970s, that photo shows me in front of the huge console TV sitting on the floor, and I was playing the violin for the family.

First of all, we all know you don't sit on the floor to play a concert quality performance-duh!

Second of all, I can't find the photo right this minute so you will just have to wait.

I know you will feel disappointment and probably some stress over the wait. I apologize.

Recently my brother came to my house to take this TV to his house for display and keeping. I suddenly realized, as it was out in the driveway waiting to be loaded for the transport, that I should take some snaps of it. The kids laughed, "Look at mom taking pictures of the TV, silly Mom!"
Many years ago when Grandpa went to assisted living (he lived to almost 100!) , our grandparent's (Dad's side of the family) home was closed. I became the caretaker of this so it would not end up in a stranger's home from the estate sale. I never had a perfect place to display it.
In the meantime my oldest brother, who will be 60 on Christmas day, built a giant log home along the historical Maumee River which he has filled with tons of vintage items. Lots of the treasures that fill it are family items, some are from here or there locally and from his travels. I love the cozy, everyday life feel of the collections that accent every floor of the 3 story log home and the 2 floors of wrap around porches. My dad, on the other hand, thinks it is only clutter, and he is not afraid to say so! "Who has a croquet set in their breakfast room?", asks my dad.
I think it is super cool. It is the family set of old wooden mallets and balls, with wickets in the original rack that has been played with by generations of our family.
Also on display is the cabinet maker's tool set in a very impressive wooden tiered tool box that belonged to our great grandpa (Mom's side of the family)-- He was told he needed to get a respectable job to marry my great grandma in 1903. He had been a trapeze artist with the Ringling Bros Circus. You can read about it here.

Anyway, My brother remembers watching TV

on this TV at our grandparent's house when he was a little boy.

My childhood memories of the TV are that it was always downstairs in their finished basement and was a different source of entertainment for me. I liked to open the doors over and over- the record player was just like the action of a pop up book and the other doors revealed things behind them like a lift the flaps picture book. I'm sure I was yelled at for doing that (the times I was caught, anyway!) On top sat a big snow globe with a dog inside of it (the RCA Victor  his Master's Voice dog) and a TV light that was a pair of horses side by side like a silhouette.

(Do you remember TV lights? They were novelty lights with low wattage bulbs.)

One of my brothers took the light and I don't know who got the snow globe.

You can see another fun vintage TV ad
I posted a while ago by clicking here.


These are original records from our grandparent's house, 78, 33 and 45 speed. The green book standing upright is a collection of 78 speed jazz records. Even the original receipts and warranties are still keep inside this area of the cabinet too!

I forgot to mention that in the photo above that shows the record player, one of the records on the turntable is a 45 speed record for training your Canary!

The paper is still on the back. I don't think it explains how to hook up cable vision, satellite dish, VCR, DVD, Blue Ray, high definition or digital compatibility!!

These are some of the things I also sent to my brothers house.
A 45 year old doll buggy, a mallard weather vane, a brass fireplace screen (he has several fireplaces)...
...a pottery Indian style lamp, Indian drum, mantel clock, brass and wrought iron wall brackets, a chrome leg chair that belongs to the enamel top table he already has that belonged to our grandparents, 2 willow branch mini chairs, wood and metal Bissel Sweeper made in Grand Rapids MI., and an RCA Victor radio/record player. ( the gas grill with rusty LP tank in the background was a sorry mistake in the aesthetics of this photo!

(this RCA VICTOR record player is a far cry from the modern ipod that everyone now takes for granted!)

All of these things will be a part of his home, which is a lesson in the history of how we have lived over the generations. My kids love to go to their uncle's house. They call it the museum! It is a kind of game to find new things or the placement of things we have given to him.
It is like a never ending I Spy Game!!