My Local Antique Store

Lets go shopping!! This is the Mini Mall. I love this store and I frequent it at least 3 times a week on my lunch break from work. This is where I find most of my goodies! I have become friends with most of the ladies that have the booths and Debbie the lady who works there is so kind and friendly, she always says as you are walking out the door, "come back when you can play longer!"

It has 3 stories of wonderful finds, I love the hunt and there is always something new there that I love. The top floor is all furniture.

People have booths in this store so each booth is different and unique. I especially love all the old linens with the lace and embroidery on them. I collect teacups and teapots with roses on them and I think I have bought them all because they are hard to find now

This frame came from my friend Karen's booth #26, I bought these two beautiful frames and will probably paint them white. They are wonderful old frames and worth much more than the $12.50 I paid for them.

This scale was also in Karens booth and I think I will go back Tuesday and grab this, it has so much character. Don't know where these people find these great finds but I am so glad they do. Thank you Mini Mall.

Ginger

PINK SATURDAY

This is my very first PINK SATURDAY post. Thank you Beverly for offering such a great way to meet the other pink ladies. Go on over and see Beverly at http://howsweetthesound.typepad.com. Do you see how cluttered my studio table is? That is because I have started three different projects and can't quit looking at blogs long enough to finish them!!

Hugs, Ginger

PAINT IT WHITE?

Okay, I need some input. Within the past 2 years I have started painting everything in my home white. My walls in the picture above used to be dark wood paneling, and I painted it a creme color, I painted my kitchen cabinets white and I am loving the change from dark and drab to light, refreshing, clean, cottage and shabby. My favorite color has always been pink all my life and my daughter started a makeover on her house, and I loved it so much I started the redo on my own home. The only thing I have not painted is my fireplace and I just can't bring myself to take the plunge and paint it. What do you think, should I leave it the natural brick or paint it?

Notice the wall in this picture behind my couch is brick also. The deal is we built this room on later after the house had been built and the wall behind the couch used to be the outside wall of the house. So if I paint the fireplace, I will have to paint this wall also. I just don't know what to do. Please leave some comments and give me your opinion.

XOXO

Ginger

Scrapbooking Class

My daughter and I attended a scrapbooking class yesterday and we made this cute Christmas Album. It was a BoBunny kit called Holly Jolly. It was a lot of fun and a good chance to catch up with my daughter. We both like the same things in crafts so we alway enjoy doing it together. I took pictures of us in the class but somehow lost them.

The book is actually for Christmas pictures but I think I will put my favorite Christmas recipes in it with a few pictures of some of our Christmas pasts.

Thank you Gina for being such a gracious host at your scrapbook shop and offering us such beautiful projects. Check out Ginas blog at http://enidonepageatatime.blogspot.com

XO Ginger

In Hurry for Christmas Decorating

I plan to decorate my all season tree in my kitchen with gingerbread ornaments as always, but I want to add some pink so I decided I would make suckers in pink to hang along with the gingerbread men and ladies. Haven't decided what else, but I think different kinds of candy would be cute.

To make these I bought some small styrofoam balls a little larger than Tootsie Roll Pops and some sucker sticks. I painted the balls with my pink acrylic paint, sprinkled them in glitter and let them dry. Then I put glue on the end of the sticks and stuck them into the ball, being careful not to go out the other side. After that was dried I had some clear wrapping like you put around baskets, cut a circle for each sucker and tied with a ribbon. I will probably glue a ribbon to the top to hang them or I might just stick each sucker between a limb on the tree. How do you think they turned out? They were fun to make.

Are you getting as excited about Christmas decorating as I am. I just love all the glitter, twinkling lights and atmosphere.

XO Ginger

Some of My Favorite Dishes

Love my Old Country Rose set.

I collect creamers and especially love the ones with roses on them and also the plain white ones.

This is my favorite set.

A little bit of pink

I love aprons. My mom and both grandmothers all wore aprons when I was growing up and when I see them it brings back so many good memories, like when Mom would gather eggs she would use the apron to hold them, she used it to wave my Dad in from the field for dinner, she would use it to take something hot off the stove and a million other uses. So now I make them.......! The one above was made from a dress I found at my local outreach. I like to buy things there and repurpose it, so it helps the needy and gives me something to craft with.

I love this lamp, the base was a garage sale find, I recovered the shade and added roses and beads. Goes great with my pink rose wallpaper don't you think?

Another apron, pink and roses of course. This is reversible, has the pink polka dots on the reverse side.

And last but not least, my pink birdhouse on my tree outside. This was a late snow we had in April 2009 and it was such a pretty site I had to take a picture of it. We lost all the limbs on this tree in an ice storm in 2005 and I didn't have the heart to have it cut down, I always loved this tree so I planted ivy around the bottom and now the ivy makes it green and I put all my birhouses and feeders on it and call it my "bird tree".

Making Tea Cozies

I had some extra pieces of material laying around so decided to make them into tea cozies. They will fit over your teapot and keep your tea warmer so much longer. They are really fast to make also. I just love a warm cup of tea after work to relax me. Feel like I am doing something to pamper myself

These are my tea jars I painted with roses on them. I keep my fresh teas in these and they are really nice because I can see what I have.

This is my tea stash where I keep all my teas. The rose box on the far right is a sewing machine antique drawer I found at an antique shop that I crackled and then painted roses on. Next to that is an old recipe box I have had for years I did the same technique with. The little rose tray came from T J Maxx. Love that store.

XO

Ginger

Christmas Mittens

Decided this morning at 5:30 AM I would make a Christmas craft. So I dug out my white and pink felt, sewed up a couple of mittens, stuffed them just right and put them in my glittering box for some lovely mica glitter I bought from sweet Tiffany at "Shabby Scraps". Love that mica!!!!

Now, what decorations should I use on these beauties? I know I want pink roses on them for sure, but do I want lace? Beads? Jewels? HMMMM, decisions, decisions!

Well this is the finished projects, I used lace, roses, fur trim, oh, I forgot the pink ribbon to tie them onto the tree. I will do that later. SO MUCH TO DO, SO LITTLE TIME!!!!

XOXO

Ginger

My Kitchen Tree

I love my kitchen tree. I decorate it with every holiday and in between holidays it is pink victorian. It has been a Christmas tree, a valentine tree, a 4th of July tree, a Halloween tree and now a fall tree. My picture isn't real clear (sorry) but at the bottom of the tree there are 4 pumpkins and a coffee pot. Yes, a coffee pot. It was the coffee pot my dear Grandma used and I keep it there so I can see it each day and be reminded of her sweetness. I miss her so. Today would have been her birthday. Happy birthday Grandma.

FROM UGLY TO BEAUTIFUL

I found this old rusty wagon at a garage sale for $1.oo, painted it white and put my geranium in it. Makes a wonderful plant container and I can haul it around to boot.

The suitcase cost me $2.oo at an antique shop I love to go to. It was an old brown suitcase that I added some white paint to, painted on a few roses and lined the inside. Now she is beautiful and is great storage for my extra tea cups and saucers. Life is good!!!!

I found this desk at a small second hand shop and when I bought it for $50.00 it was an awful tractor green color, had metal ugly handles on the drawers and the inside of the drawers were lined with newspaper. After a little TLC, some white paint and new glass knobs for her jewelery, she is quite a lovely lady now. I lined the drawers with rose wallpaper. I think it is so fun to take something that was left for dead and revive it into something beautiful and functional. I keep my tea cozies and other linens and table cloths in it right now.

When I go to a garage sale or antique shop I am always looking for something that can be made into something beautiful. That is the fun of going on the search, "What treasure will I find today".

Ginger

Making Holiday Decor

These are two of the wall hangings I made over the weekend. I just love the little vintage pictures you can craft with. And I am crazy about glitter. I think they turned out very cute, if I do say so myself. I have the Halloween picture on one side of my mantle and another different one on the other side. I backed the scrapbook paper, the music paper and the vintage picture all with hard cardboard so it wouldn't buckle. I so enjoy creating pretty things. Have a good evening.

Ginger

Happy Fall

Happy fall everyone. I have started my fall decorating. Hated to see summer end but since I am into the fall decorating I have decided it's not so bad. Actually fall is my other spring. All new, beautiful warm golds, reds, browns and oranges in the trees, the crisp cool air, hot cocoa, hot tea, blankets and your favorite blog. What could be better??? I have taken some pictures of my decorating for your enjoyment. My dining table is a mix of everything I could find with the fall color scheme, love the chair tie, plan on doing the same thing for Christmas except will use something red or white. The scoop in the rose hips on my table is like the one my Mom always had in the sugar canister when I was a child so I have good memories when I see it. There is a frilly, flowery hat on the table I found at an antique shop. I like to collect cute little hats like they wore in the 40's and 50's.

Happy Fall, y'all!!!

Ginger

Some of my favorite things

I love to collect buttons, anything sparkly, pink and beautiful. I found these buttons at an antique shop and just had to have them. They will feel right at home with the hundreds of other buttons I have. I know I will find just the right spot to sew or glue them in the crafts I make. I'm always collecting some little something I imagine will look pretty on one of my crafts.

As I said I like to paint roses and this is my bathroom wall that I thought needed some glitz so painted roses and added rhinestones to the centers.

I made this TEA flag to greet my guests when I have a tea party. I painted a teapot with roses and sewed lace and buttons on the bottom. They also make wonderful gifts for the tea lovers in your life.

I just love to look at all the wonderful blogs out there and I get so much inspiration and ideas. I hope when I get used to blogging myself I can be an inspiration to someone else.

Hello World

This is my first blog and my first post of my first blog. I am a married mother of two grown children. My husband is a firefighter so I have a lot of extra time to craft and decorate. My favorite things are roses, glitter, shabby chic, tea and anything to do with tea parties, crafting, scrapbooking, geneology, gardening and sewing. I love to paint roses on anything that will hold still as you can see by the picture above of the suitcase I found at an antique store. I painted it white, then painted the roses and added ribbon. Now I use it to store my wide assortment of tea bags.