Beautiful Beds!

Two days ago, I went to a Parade of Homes in southern Utah with a friend.  We had so much fun and of course took lots of pictures.  I wanted to share in this post some of the beautiful beds I shot while roaming through some amazing and gorgeous homes.  Sit back and enjoy!

This one was in a 5000 square ft. Italianate

A most beautifully built and decorated contemporary home.  Here is one of the guest rooms.

Loved this old gate made into a headboard.  So So shabby/rustic!  Loved it.

Loved the colors in here!

I was so intrigued by these sparkly pillows and the effect they gave.

there were lots of 4-poster beds!

Love these pillows, need to copy some of these.  I especially love the ribbon flowers.

Loved this style.  And the whole experience has inspired me to come home and redo and change some things.  And the first quick change I did was add new pillows to my own king size bed.  So the remaining pictures are of our Master bedroom bed.  The bed might be slightly outdated, but I was tickled with the new pillows on the bed, and I still thought it looked beautiful!

I have touches of red in my room, so wanted to bring out the red on my bed!  I really could use a new bedspread, but this will have to do for now!  I will be posting more of what I saw at the beautiful Parade of homes.  I only was able to get  through half of the homes, so we visited 14 of the 28, and then we had to return to our own Nevada homes.  But the experience was wonderful and i came away with loads of ideas!

ANNOUNCING! The Vintage Petite Jar Spring Swap!

Looking for a fun little Spring swap?  You have come to the right place.  Guaranteed to be loads of fun.  You would be swapping with one partner.  This is what we will be swapping. . . . .

Here is a 8 oz. 3.6" canning jar, decorated and stuffed with lots of Spring goodness.  

can be this kind (kerr or Ball)

                                    or this quilted patterned jar with one ring and one dome lid.

So below are the rules and details.  

1.  Decorate 1 8 oz. jar and fill it with little vintage things like spools, doilies, lace buttons, sewing notions, ephemera scrapbook embellies, etc. and can be Easter stuff too.  Make it special!  Please make this jar and contents be something you would be absolutely thrilled to receive.  You would be amazed at how much stuff you can cram into one of these little jars. You can get really creative with the decorating of the jar, and the contents, but please make sure it is either Spring, easter, etc. If you don't have a canning jar, but have a jar that it approx. the same size it is Okay, but preferably would like them to all be the same if possible.  Please have at least half of what you put in the jar be vintage.

You will be assigned 1 partner, and mail out date is April 1, 2012 and the deadline for swappers sign-ups will be March 17, 2012, and notification of partners will be March 19th.

2.  Comment on this blog post, and then email me to    ask@comnett.net   and put in the subject line:  Vintage Spring Swap.  Hope we can get lots of partners.  This time of year I just love looking for new swaps to join in on,  I did find any, so decided to host one myself.  

3.  Please include all your information in the email like your name, mailing address, blog (if any) and email address.  Thanks so much.  I hope you will join us!

Chalkboard hung and New listings for Etsy

For that French Bistro look, I just made this Chalkboard and hung it in my kitchen!  I have wanted to do this for a long time, so I took the existing picture and painted the frame and painted a board I had cut to fit it with this paint.

I will have fun erasing and writing new stuff according to what is happening at my house.  Yippie!

 And below are some new vintage listings for my Etsy shop, which is also called Something Special!

This sweet small pitcher and bowl.  I think it may be from the 70's.

This old one pint milk bottle,

which has an almost amethyst tint to it!  

An old boy scout pocket knife, whistle and other fun masculine things.

this came from an old 'Ideal' magazine of poems. 

The last three photos are all part of my "Masculine Vintage Bundle"  Lots of small and interesting items that will 

get in touch with the masculine side of mixed media artists. lol

I will be listing lots more vintage stuff this week, just need to get it all sorted and put together in bundles.  

Have a Great WEEK!

My Somewhat Vintage Birthday

My birthday or even birthtime is very close to Valentine's Day.  (February 13 in the mid evening is when I was born) I always had a heart shaped cake growing up, that my dear mother would decorate with beautfiful roses.  I still have the heart shaped cake pans that she used.  So because of this, Valentine's day has been very special to me.  Last night I went to bed very late after my husband already was in bed, I found a sweet, beautiful love letter and dark chocolate by my bed on the nightstand.  So before I even awoke to this Valentine's day,  it was a good good day!  I wanted to share some of my birthday presents.

I was so excited when I opened this beautiful ring.  Not vintage but love it just the same.  This was sent to me from my  wonderful in-laws.  I love the ring's contemporary yet little bit traditional style.  They truly have an appreciation for fine jewelry.  Thanks to Ron and Leslie!

Then a friend came over to give me a gift.  She knows how I love anything vintage.  First there was this never before used vintage birthday card.

the wonderful old movie "Sabrina with Audrey Hepburn"   It was one of my favorites from when I was young.  

this adorable vintage birthday doll for February.  When I was a little girl, I had some friends that would get these for their birthdays and I always wanted one with my birthstone in it.  It is a Josef original.  Isn't she sweet?

And this wonderful room Blackberry & Vanilla room fragrance.  Thankyou Camille for all the lovely gifts.  Love them all.

For the Dress Form Ball

My dress form is small, and is really just to hold jewelry, but I love it just the same.  It is perfect for my studio. Bought at a yard sale for $1.00.  I just finished decorating it, after I decoupaged it earlier, with vintage crochet lace and rhinestones.   It is just right for displaying one of my favorite costume jewelry pendants.  The Polka Dot Closet's fun Dress form ball is going on now.  I knew I had to get in on it.

I added rhinestones to the base.

I love the detail of these two laces.

And then I just had to add this little dress form that I made last summer for a dear friend after she had been in a terrible car accident.  She needed some cheering up so I made this. .

I printed some vintage French Fashion advertisements to put in the card holders.  My friend Tracy was very badly injured, and still in a hospital bed 5 weeks later, she loved this little gift and I was amazed at the good spirit she radiated in spite of all that she had been through!

Someday I hope to have a full size dress form particularly a vintage one.  But until then I will enjoy my little ones.  

and the WINNER is. . . . . .

Congratulations go out to Brenda Brown of Bumblebees and Butterflies, You are my WINNER.   Check out her lovely blog and her darling shabby bottle redo!  

Everyone who entered was assigned a number.  And her number was drawn.  I have contacted her blog to let her know.  I will be sending her all this!

 Happy Valentine's day to all of you and thankyou for participating!  I am so appreciative of all my followers and people who visit my blog and comment.  Whenever I get a new comment it makes me smile big.  Thankyou Thankyou!              Hugs from Michele

Can't get enough!

I am loving the Valentine's day swaps of this year and last.  I can't stop putting up Valentine's.  Here are the ornaments from the Valentine's Day Ornament swap I participated in hosted by Laurie at Indulge Your shelf.    Yesterday, I got a package in the mail.  We were suppose to make 4 Valentine ornaments.  Here are the ones I received yesterday.

I am not sure who did this one.  But it is made of layered wood and is just as pretty on the back side too.

This one is stunning, with the nest and the sweet glittered bird.  Someone spent lots of time on all the ribbon glued on a vintage spool.  

Here is a sweet little petite felt and lace heart lovingly stitched by someone

Another felt heart stitched by Wendy at stitchduchessscrazysanequiltingworld.blogspot.com

Laurie also had us make a Valentine card to send along with the ornaments.   I was also sent this beautiful card!  I love it!

And the back of the beautiful card.

All my blogging friends must know how much I like to hang up tag banners, or other paper banners that I put together.  I change these out according to the season or holiday.  

Most of these tags came from a swap of last February.  There were so many wonderful tags for Valentine's Day.  They are too wonderful to not be hung up and shown.  

Love this pop-out

In the middle I hung up the nest with the glittered bird that I just received.  

The other ornaments will go somewhere else.