Card Making ~ Noli Style

If you're anything like me, you keep every sweet handmade card your children or grandchildren have made for you. Your refrigerator is probably full to the brim with cards and drawings!

I was looking through the top drawer in my buffet this morning, hunting for an old metal toothpick holder that belonged to my grandmother (don't ask me why.... it's a long story....) but anyway, while rooting around in that drawer (a drawer that holds all manner of photos, cards, little stuff and nonsense) I came across this card! It was made by Noli with, I'm sure, a bit of help from mommy, and was my valentine a few years ago. 

Unfortunately, it's not dated but from Noli's picture, I'd say she was close to three which would make it February 2009. Her hair is still short and whispy -- just like her mother, her hair didn't grow much or thicken until she was well into her three's and four's.

It was made by gluing an embroidered armchair antimacassar to a used card (if there's anything that my daughter is, it's thrifty and totally into upcycling and recycling!) 

Isn't that butterfly sweet? and the pink and blue crochet edging?

The inside has recycled valentine tissue paper topped with a bird cut from a felted sweater on one side...

and a cute picture of Noli surrounded by flowers on the other! The background is water colored on card stock. Noli looks like a little waif in the picture with her soulful expression! I remember the dress -- a longish prairie style with tiny pink and blue flowers. 

Stephanie always made cards for me when she was small, and has passed that tradition on to Noli. 

Noli loves to make cards for every occasion, for everybody in her life -- some are plain with just writing and some are more elaborate with lots of glued on detail.

This is one that Noli made for my recent birthday (we don't talk about it because it was a BIG one...). I have no idea why she drew a puppy on it since we are all kitty people around here! But it's sweet and shows her writing abilities now at the summer after 1st grade. Don't you love little kid's spelling? Note the two T's in birthday and the backwards D! Cute!

And these are very detailed ones that she made for Stephanie for Mother's Day. I just had to document it in a pic! 

This one is Noli -- her hands are from tracing her own hands, and she crinkled the hair so it would be curly!

And the missing teeth! She has something like seven new ones now!

And this is a lovely purse

which opens to reveal some information about mommy

Note that in "the good old days" mommy liked to play with baby dolls,  not balls as it looks like -- there go those backwards D's again! And note the cute spelling of "especially" -- that's the one that should be in the dictionary! 

Boy, rooting through a drawer on a toothpick holder quest sure brings back the memories!!

sharing at

Thrifty Things Friday

A Favorite Thing

Pink Saturday
Blue Monday

Grandma's Briefs 

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A Special Dress for Noli!

We had a sleepover this past weekend! Noli had an "event" at school -- a sock hop! Since it was over at 8:30 and going home would put them there pretty late, they slept over at my house (I'm conveniently about middle ways between Noli's two houses) and then they stayed over on Saturday too! It was a pretty fun time!!

Noli is still pretty sleepy on Saturday morning!

(Sorry about the yellow cast -- didn't do the proper settings!)

Wild woman!

I wish I had curls like that!

Stephanie got an attack of "clean-out-itis" and cleaned up the very cluttered closet in my office.... yay! I'd been fixin' to do it for a long time, but procrastination reared its ugly head and I put it off, and off, and off. So this was a HUGE help to me!

Anyway, in that closet were hanging the three dresses I had made for Stephanie's first day of school in Kindergarten and first and second grades. Naturally, Noli had to try them on! Kindergarten was way too short but the other two were a good fit.

The first grade dress is a red jumper with a white blouse and hearts and bows all over! And heart buttons. And ruffles! Oh my, I can't believe I did all those ruffles! 

Noli loved it and wanted to wear it to school on Valentine's Day! 

I just couldn't get the color right, but the red is like that first pic above.

But doesn't she look cute in her mama's dress!

Still showing off that lost tooth!

When Stephanie was in first grade, they celebrated Johnny Appleseed Day -- wore red, bobbed for apples, played apple games. 

The newspaper took photos and the kids were in the paper! 

You can see Stephanie in her red dress!

I did a blog post about it a year or so ago --

  click here if you'd like to read it!

Ha! If Noli were bobbing for apples, she'd have a hard time with only one front tooth!!

And, it's loose!!

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♥♥  Linking Noli's dress over at Claudia's for A Favorite Thing. Because the dress is definitely a favorite thing.... and so is Noli!

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Special Santas ~ Favorite Things

I have lots of Santas to be displayed at Christmastime, but two are very special ones.  They both belonged to a very dear aunt and I am so glad that I have them today.

 I remember this roly-poly one on display in her home every Christmas. She painted it and I remember asking why the fur on his hat was black. She said it was so that you could see it since it was right next to his beard. I guess that satisfied me, but when Noli asked the same thing she insisted that it should be white and "of course you can tell his beard from his hat!" Can you believe it -- some 50ish years later, she asks the same question!

As you can see, he has a very round tummy! He's heavy so I guess he must eat a lot of Christmas cookies! He's made of a solid plaster -- I imagine my aunt painted him back in the 40s or 50s. She would spiff him up and repaint where necessary every few years but I have left him as he was when she gave him to me. I don't want to paint over her art!

I was thrilled when she gave him to me after I had married! She knew how precious he was to me and now he brings back lovely memories of my aunt.

This Santa, on the other hand, has been on a diet so he's not so chubby. The same aunt painted him in the 60s or early 70s and gave him to me sometime in the 80s.  At first I wasn't so wild about him but, over the years, have grown to love him. Sometimes I put Christmas cards in his bag, but lately I've let him hold some poinsettias.

He has sparkly glitter on his fur, and I love his blue eyes and cute bald head! Oh yeah, questions from Noli on the bald head too!!

Now I need to get these two guys put up in their rightful Christmas places. I kind of stopped on the decorating after Noli put the ornaments on the tree!

She decided that those yellow ornaments (another favorite thing by the way) should all be clumped together and there was nothing I could say that would change her mind! We ended up with a big area with nothing, not an ornament in sight, and those yellow ones all clumped together -- that girl can really decorate a tree! LOL! (Not to mention that red bead garland -- her idea of draping and mine are two different things!)

I don't care -- I'm just thrilled that this has become our little tradition each year. Doesn't matter that the tree isn't perfect! Because Noli is.

The yellow ornaments were made as a Christmas gift by my sister-in-law for her mother -- her house at that time was decorated in yellow and green. So Jan made six yellow and six green ornaments. After my mother-in-law's death, Jan asked me if I would like to have a set -- of course I did! -- and chose the yellow ones.

Aren't they beautiful? She wrapped styrofoam balls with ribbon and created the design with gold rick rack, gold sequins and pearl pins. I love them!

..... but I'd prefer them to be spaced out a bit on the tree.....  

♥♥♥  Linking my Santas to A Favorite Thing over at Mockingbird Hill

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Minnie, Freddy and Friends ~ A Favorite Thing

Every Halloween back when my kids were young, I would make their costumes for trick or treating. I started off with those cut 'em out and sew 'em together printed designs and gradually got more elaborate as time went on and they got older. Sometimes I sewed them from a pattern, sometimes we put together thrift shop finds, a couple of times they were jammies!

1984

There was a clown and Superman -- my daughter (Stephanie) was propped against the couch since she couldn't quite stand up on her own! My son (Adam) was very proud of his Superman rain boots! Superman appeared at our house until his suit was halfway up his legs -- those jammies got quite a workout!

1985

Then a pumpkin and a robot -- I loved those printed designs!!  Note the superman boots are now robot boots....

1986

They loved their matching glow-in-the-dark skeletons -- and were so excited about their bone necklaces which glowed too! I made matching caps out of a Halloween fabric to top them off. The best part was that they wore those skeleton jammies and could glow at will, with a lot of giggles included!

1988

Do you remember Freddy Krueger from Nightmare on Elm Street? I saw that movie (on VHS tape thank goodness.... I wouldn't have survived a real movie in the theater!) and it scared the living daylights out of me! Anyway, a number of years later when they had sequels, Adam wanted to be Freddy Krueger (no, he did NOT see any of the movies, at least not until he was grown up enough and watched what he wanted to!)

Anyway, I could not deter him, so we found a Freddy Krueger hand with the blades, a red and black sweater at a thrift shop, and got gooey stuff to be the burns on his face. Yuck! But I must admit, Adam was the cutest Freddy Krueger around! (But I told him he was scary and creepy....)

Stephanie was Minnie Mouse -- I can tell you that I will NEVER sew fur again!! And the gloves and yellow shoes! That was quite a costume to sew! But it did make the rounds of her friends and three of them wore it over the years! After a while I sold it in a garage sale so I'm betting that some other little girls got to be Minnie for Halloween!

Later on came Dracula (note the teeth and the pointy hair) -- Stephanie was a princess that year, dressed in shiny pink with big silver rick-rack and a tall princess hat, but I couldn't find a picture. I saved that cape and Adam has it now -- it would be a bit short on him now but he'll probably find some way to wear it!

Now that my costume creating days are over, I display some pictures around Halloween to remember some of those fun costumes! (I have passed on my Halloween Costume Baton to Stephanie -- she can make those kitty witch princesses for Noli!!)

Here she is in last year's costume -- a kitty fairy! 

All kitty fairies have wings....

♥♥♥   Linking Minnie and Freddie to A Favorite Thing over at Mockingbird Hill Cottage


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Puzzles, Ponies and Clowns!!

Boy, I've really neglected this little blog! I've been doing my posting over on my other blog, Magnolia Surprise, and the Attic has taken a back row seat! But I'm back now with a post for Rednesday to show off some neat reds that I've recently come across ....

Sometimes when I'm keeping Noli on a weekend, she likes to go to thrift stores and garage sales (a child after my own heart, she is)!!  I mean what could be better than a six-year-old actually WANTING to go to garage sales! Of course, this means that she will get "new" toys, twisting my arm -- "please oh please, puh-leeze can I have it? -- and I fall into her trap. And the little sneak usually scores a few freebies along the way!

So, we recently went to our favorite thrift store -- Noli being on her best behavior since she knows that's the only way she can pick out anything to buy. I'm always ready to negotiate with her, lining up her hopefuls and telling her she can pick two. "But I want this one and that one and I NEED this other one...." Into her trap I go -- Oh, OK, you can have it, you've been so good today.

STRENGTH --- I need STRENGTH to resist this small child! Can't do it, not ever and besides, isn't it a grandmother's right and privilege to spoil their grandchild? You bet it is!!

We found a really neat puzzle -- we put it together when we got home but I forgot to take a pic ....

Don't you love the colors? Are chameleons really blue? Red, yes, but blue? I dunno! Of course we had to talk a bit about how animals camouflage themselves (I'm always on the lookout for a way to sneak in a little learning!)

We couldn't leave the store without a few ponies -- this kid is pony obsessed! We found a bag full. 

And, the unicorn pony has a red mane and tail!!

And she found this big pony ("I NEED it for my Cabbage Patch dolls. I don't think it's a REAL Cabbage Patch horse but it looks like one, and I NEED it for my dolls to ride on. Puh-leeze? And it's PURPLE! Puh-leeze?") Who can resist?!!

So what did I find? Well, these two cool thermoses (is that right for the plural? Maybe it's thermosesses? Thermosi? Anyway, the gold one is HUGE -- that thing will hold a lot of coffee! And the red one is just a cutie I think.

And then I found these two clowns. Now I'm not a lover or even liker of clowns. I'm one of those people that just don't find them funny. They're not scary, unless they're Stephen King clowns but we won't think about those evil sharp-toothed clowns!! I just don't much like them. Well, I liked Red Skelton's clown but then I liked anything Red Skelton did!

Anyway, these two clowns are totally cute in their red jackets and playing their musical instruments. I like the big red spots on the violinist, and the way the drummer's toes stick out of his shoes! They are porcelain and made in Korea.

They and the thermoses (that must be the right one because the auto spell-check is not underlining it in red) will be happy and cozy in my Etsy shop soon, sooner, soonest! And if you like clowns, you know where these two will be!


♥♥♥  I'm linking my red thermos and clowns, and Noli's red puzzle and pony over on Rednesday at It's a Very Cherry World -- hop on over and see some more reds!!

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