Giveaway Winner!!

I was the lucky winner of a giveaway hosted by Susan at Between Naps on the Porch. She was giving away a $50.00 gift certificate from the P.C. Fallon Co. Home Decor and More.

I purchased a peppermill. I'll be putting this in Mr. Math's stocking this year. I had a little money left on the certificate, so I bought myself a quilted makeup bag.

Thanks again to Susan for hosting. If you have a chance take a look at her blog... It's one of my favorite's.

Another one of my favorite blogs, Sweet Bee Cottage is hosting a giveaway as well. Be sure to visit her blog to sign up. The deadline to sign up is December 12th.

Chris

Happy Thanksgiving! And Skype?

This Thanksgiving my family is in two different places for the holiday. Mr. Math, (my husband teaches high school math.. AKA Mr. Math), and daughters number two and three have all traveled to Atlanta, Georgia, to spend the holiday with daughter number one and her husband. Daughters number four and five are home from college and we are hosting Thanksgiving dinner for two very close, like aunt, and sister close, friends.

Mr. Math usually cooks the turkey, but today it's me. You can't imagine when you tell someone that you haven't cooked a turkey in YEARS, how many suggestions you get on how to cook, and prepare your turkey!!

I also realized that this is the first holiday in 35 years that Mr. Math and I have not been together. So.... it's a little different kind of Thanksgiving for me. And I'm cooking the turkey!! Keep good thoughts for me that I can pull off cooking the bird!

I know that even though we are not all together, the family in Atlanta and those of us in the Santa Clara Valley will have a wonderful day celebrating and giving thanks.

I have to say that I am thankful for the people who have created something called Skype. You can visit with people via your computer regardless of where they are!! And.... it's FREE!! I see a Skype date in our future later today with the family in Atlanta.

Crossing my fingers that cooking a turkey is like riding a bike!!

Wishing you a very Happy Thanksgiving!!

Chris

What to do?

Help!! I don't know what to do with these two chairs.
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These chairs are in amazing shape. They look like they were barely used. I asked the woman in charge of the estate sale how much they were... she said thirty dollars for the two. I looked at the flea market friend who had driven.. and she knows me so well, that right away she said of course we can rearrange the car!! So we squeezed them in around all of our precious cargo, (of course this was our last stop of the day, so the car was full to the brim), around the car seats and headed home.

They have wonderful detail on the backs.

I need seating in my livingroom, but my livingroom is not terribly formal and these strike me as formal. I am not sure what I will do with them.

Any ideas or suggestions?

Chris

Open House!!

I am proud to announce the showing of the houses I made for the ornament swap that Cindy at Rick, Rack and Gingham is hosting. Cindy had a few rules that needed to be followed... we were asked to make houses, representing the neighborhood of friends in blogland. In my last post, I mentioned how I decided on the style of house I would make. This post will show you how the buidling of the houses turned out.
I had them all glued and ready to decorate Friday night. I let them dry over night. My daughter Erin and I spent all day Saturday decorating the houses in our neighborhood. I thought about taking pictures during the the process of pasting, and cutting... but I decided I wasn't ready for the world to see what a mess we had made!!

The houses are waiting to be decorated. We used scrapbooking paper for the house. When shopping with the flea market friends, I can hardly pass up vintage cards. I was really glad I had them on hand for this project. I also downloaded vintage images from the internet to use. We edged the houses with rick, rack and glitter. The glitter was a little messy, but lots of fun to use!!

The houses are starting to take shape. They are ready for windows, buttons, paper dollies, and snow. I also added a vintage Christmas stamp that I found at the flea market a few weeks ago. The stamp is from 1957, the year I was born. Does that make me vintage too?

As Erin and I were looking at the houses, we decided that they needed a "little real estate". Sooo.. we cut up a cereal box to use as a base for the houses and covered them with vintage Christmas sheet music. We add a little Christmas tree and a couple of houses have a sled.

A few pictures of the back of the houses, all sides were decorated!

Wrapping the houses seemed to take me a long time to accomplish. I wanted to make sure that they were just so!! I used clear cellophane wrapping paper, a strip of fabric, and a ribbon. A few mini ornaments and a vintage gift tag from Italy and they were done!!

I had a lot fun building and desiging the houses. I think Erin did too!! Both of us were really happy with the results. I hope the neighbors in blogland like them too!!

Chris

And They're Off!

Today I shipped the houses that I created for the Christmas ornament swap, hosted by Cindy at Rick, Rack, and Gingham. The houses should arrive at Cindy's on Wednesday. I had to make six houses,to exchange, they were meant to represent our neighborhood of friends in blogland.

Ready to ship to Cindy.

I had a hard time coming up with an idea of what type of house to build. I was at Michaels, the local craft store one night last week looking for inspiration. Not where I normally look for inspiration, but I was really drawing a blank on what kind of house to build. I saw a Martha Stewart hole punch on display and realized that the packing looked just like a house to me.

Sooo...... an idea was born, so to speak. I bought the hole punch, in order to use the packaging as a template...the hole punch is not too bad either. I made a template during my lunch break on Friday, and started tracing.

I will post pictures of the houses I made in the next couple of days.

Crossing my fingers that the houses make it to Cindy's in good shape!!

Chris

Thank You!

Today is Veteran's Day, and I wanted to share a couple of pictures of veterans, who hold a special place in my heart. One of the veterans is my dad Bill... a man who after graduating from Santa Clara University in 1934 worked several different jobs, including the family general market, in La Jolla California. He joined the Army to serve in WWII. He went to Europe on the Queen Mary, which had been recruited as a troop ship. He served as a cryptographer for the US Army Signal Corp in North Africa, Europe and the Battle of the Buldge. He never talked much about his experiences during the war. The only stories I heard were about the fun times. In 1946 he went to work for Western Airlines until he retired in 1977. He passed away in 2005, at the age of 92!! I miss him every day.

My dad and his sister in 1915. My dad is dressed as a solider, WWI era.

My dad's picture as he joined the Army.

The second veteran is my Uncle Bud. He had just finished his freshman year in college at the University of Oregon, where he played football when he was drafted and served in Europe during WWII. He was wounded in the war, sent home to heal, and was sent back to Europe. Upon his return he went to UCLA. He was sent to Korea before he was able to finish his schooling. He was again wounded in Korea. After the Korean War he completed his education at UCLA. He settled in San Diego California, opening a Chevy dealership. He raised an amazing family of five. Uncle Bud passed away in 1998 of lung cancer.

Uncle Bud, my mom in her TWA stewardess uniform, and his proud parents.

I thank God every day for these two wonderful men and the influence they had on my life.

Thank you to all the men and women who serve our country.

Chris

Red!!

Linking up to It's a Very Cherry World's Rednesday. I found this cute little waste basket at the flea market this past weekend. Not vintage, but I just feel in love with it. It looks great under my crafting table... even with it's Lowes sticker on the bottom.

Enjoy the rest of the week.

chris

Showing Off!!

Just a quick post to share "my finds" from this past Saturday's trip to the local junior college flea market. Flea Market Friend and I decided that our challenge would be to spend no more than five dollars on any one item. This Saturday, it was a pretty easy challange. Other than one item that I spent ten dollars on.... I just had to have it for my sewing room. And I had done so well on the challenge, that I could afford to spend the ten dollars. I am not showing a picture of it today, I will share it tomorrow on It's a Very Cherry World's Rednesday.

My plan is to make this little planter into a pin cushion. I will give it as a Christmas present to a friend who LOVES dogs.

I can never pass up the vintage cards. I just love them and the sentiments written inside.

A few vintage linens, the hand towels with the initials ML for my daughter Meredith Lynne.. wrapped with a Christmas ribbon... Perfect!!

The other item I can't seem to pass up is vintage paper products. Just too fun.

One final picture to see all of the goodies I was lucky enough to find at the flea market.

I can't wait for the first weekend in December. The first Saturday, the Flea Market Friends will go the the local junior college flea market, and the first Sunday we make the trek to the Alameda Point Flea Market. We live in the Santa Clara Valley so it's not too far for us, about a hour's drive. It's one of the best flea markets around, nothing new at this flea market! And the month of December's market is pretty terrific!! Tons and Tons of vintage Christmas goodies.

Chris

Yahoo!!

It's the first Saturday of the month and it's not raining!! That means my Flea Market Friend, AKA Mary Ann and I are off to the local junior college flea market. We usually are the Three Flea Market Friends, but today Lori can't join us. I'm not exactly sure how long the college has hosted the flea market but it's been at least 30 years, I can remember taking my 31 year old daughter with me when she was just a baby. The Flea Market Friends have been going for years. It has changed some over the years...there are more vendors selling new items, more than ever before. There are still a few folks who decide to sell their garage sale items at the flea market, so that makes up for the dealers that sell.

Of course, Flea Market Friend and I have our favorite vendors, they always seem to have something that we just have to have!!

I'm taking my new camera, so I'm hoping to post a few pictures of the day later.

Happy Treasure Hunting!!

Chris