It's The Vintage Variety Show

 It's the Vintage Variety Show starring Distressed Donna who obviously has not a clue of what the word LESS means and has decided just to ditch that word and concentrate on MORE.

First up:  MORE aluminum!

Regular readers know how much I love the soft gleam of tin and aluminum. 

Read about my collection here.

I could not pass up this aluminum suitcase with its dings and dents.

 Oh, he has his own travel stickers.  I see he was a Caribbean basking-in-the-sun type.

 MORE aluminum!  FIVE vintage cake pans.

Look - two of them have the scalloped edges.

 I have an idea for these beauties and it does not involve cake!

 A local upholsterer dropped off a pile of bolt ends at Habitat.  I picked out a blue and white ticking-looking linen, a red and yellow toile, and a blue toile.

Now I know toile has come and gone, but I have loved toile my whole 59 years of life.  So I love it whether it is fashionable or not.  

Believe me - toile always returns.

 One of the dealers at the antique mall was having a $1 sale because she was moving to the other side of the building.

I helped her by buying two adjustable tin pate pans, a snuff tin, two rolls of vintage lace, and the adorable whirling ballerina box.  She is very narcissistic - she keeps turning to face the mirror.  She need some upgrades in her decor and I need to figure out how to make that tune disappear!

I love the lace and will just add it to my pile.  



Is there a hoarder reality show for lace hoarding? 

 A wonderful Bingo game from the 1950's.  Look at those vintage cards, the instructions, and the wooden red calling number disks (I really do not know what you call them!).

Unfortunately the box is in terrible shape - full of tape from every decade.

BUT  all, and I mean all, of the pieces are there.

Don't kill me - I think I will break this up into pieces for altered art creators.

Of course, I will keep some!

I have never seen these.  They are Bible Memory cards for children to color or paint then sew around the pictures.  They depict a story or lesson from the Bible.

Here is the back of one dated June 24, 1906.  

The price 3c per quarter (it does not say how many cards you received) or you could choose 10c per year.  You saved two cents that way!

 Here are the fronts of a few of the memory cards.  Some have been colored, but most are just as they were sent.  Yes, there are MORE!  The stack included about forty of them!

Let me know if you have seen these before.

As you can see above, the cards originated from Elgin, Illinois.

 Two okay tole trays with grapes, a framed dried flower, an advertising ruler, and two mustard pillows.

 A vintage bag of millinery flowers attached to pearl hat pins, a silverplate baby spoon, three salts, and TA-DA, a deck of Chinese cards.   Each card has a different illustration.  Directions are in Chinese, but numbers are Western.  Unfortunately, the box for these suffered the same fate as the Bingo box.  Multiple wounds covered in tape.

PLEASE - do not tape boxes!

The small treasures are displayed on a homemade pedestal composed of a glass vase turned upside down and a white ironstone plate.  Whoever made these got totally frustrated and gave them to Goodwill.  There were seven of them.  This was the only one that the plate was centered on the vase bottom.  So I bought it.  I have even thought of using it for my spring mantel.

So if you are the culprit, er, creator of this pedestal, rest assured and dream sweet dreams tonight because at least one of your creations is being loved.

When I went back to Habitat to see if there were any windows, Henry had decided to have 50% day - he never lets anyone know ahead of time.

What did that mean?

MORE fabric bolts!

Look at these two dark patterns and look at those mustard pillows above.  I may have a match leading to a marriage here.  Stay tuned.

I was so excited about the fabric, I forgot to look at the windows.

 This poor little orphan girl sits in my booth.  I passed her sitting on the sidewalk outside the Salvation Army for four days.  I stopped each day and asked if anyone wanted her.  The clerks said no one but me.  Late on Friday afternoon  Chucks and I were headed for food.  As we drove by, there she sat.  A terrible rainstorm was coming.  I knew they would not bring her inside.  I could not leave her.  We pulled in and the first thing Chucks pointed out was she was missing a drawer and her mirror.  But she was solid - made of maple.  I paid for her, got help putting her in the back of the pick-up (she weighs a ton! Sorry, honey.) and we took her straight to the antique mall.  I am hoping someone will see her dressed in robin egg blue or pink raspberry (Thanks, Liz, for putting that color in my head! Go see Liz!).  A drawer is easily made or just slide in a basket.  Please take her home and make her loved.

Yes, ma'am, MORE wire baskets and you know they will not stay this new and shiny.  There will be distressing.




Okay, we have established that I have no concept of LESS and from now on will concentrate on MORE.  

I will resolve to use MORE of Horror Monster, my supply stash, in future projects.





It will be raining for the next few days so only indoor projects.  Chucks and I are still waging the battle of what to eat each night.   Since he retired, he would rather go out than eat at home.  The problem?  We do not agree on food choices.  As I think back, we were aimlessly driving on Friday looking for a place to suit both of us and we ended up saving that poor orphan of a vanity!

I am making chili for tomorrow night's supper - whether he likes it or not!  No orphans will be saved tomorrow.

See y'all!






  .

Pesky Peter, Piano Bench

 Pesky Peter, the piano bench, started out being my favorite piece I picked in the last several weeks.  However, I have come to revile him for his impish ways.

At first I had planned to just give his blue-gray finish a medium sanding so the details were shown to their best advantage. 

As you can see he is a handsome fellow.  I like a guy with great legs.  He has a nifty lift top.  He is very sturdy.

I am loving that color.





Oh, yeah, those are some beautiful legs.  Just a bit of wax and Peter will be good to go.  I just need a short break to check in with my blogger buddies to see what they are doing.

Well, Suzan at Simply Vintageous has an interesting post on sites to help your blog.  Read here!

If you read my hare bench post, then you know what is coming.

Yep, I was hooked on iPiccy and Block.

I felt Peter would benefit from my afternoon of playing with images.  I did make a special one just for him.

Take these three images from The Graphics Fairy over to iPiccy and combine them.  I used the ticket above as the base and the postmark and Eiffel Tower as overlays.

 This is the result - a beautiful image which I promptly took over to Block to make a four-panel poster.  As with the hare bench I carefully measured more than twice and as with the hare bench the image printed out wider than it was supposed to.  At least that is my story.  I am sticking to it.

The four panels

On the piano bench - too wide!

 First strike against Peter.

Mod Podged a shortened version

Faint overlay of Eiffel Tower

Faint overlay of postmark

 It was dark.  I was working on the hare bench and this bench in the living room.  There is only ambient light - no work lights.  I was also dying cloth in the kitchen.  The cats and dogs were helping.  That is my story and I am sticking to it!

The edges all matched.  Two coats of Mod Podge.  Three coats of satin varnish.  I was rolling and it was only 1 AM!

Something felt wrong.  I checked the hare bench - no, he was all finished.

I checked the cloth in the sink.  No, that was coming along fine and dandy.  

I checked on Peter who was nicely drying his final coat of varnish.

Whoa!  What is that?  N-O-O-O-O-O-O-O !!!!  Yes, I screamed.  I had forgotten many steps ago to wipe off the excess Mod Podge.  Now it was firmly encased in the varnish.

That is two strikes, Peter!

After ignoring Peter for two days I finally got the sander and went to work carefully taking off the layers of varnish and those ugly smears of Mod Podge.

Look!  It worked - a little more distressed than I first wanted, but I can live with it.



Here are three photos of Peter as he stands in the living room.  I might be in love again.  He is so handsome.  Maybe I will forgive those two strikes.  They were partly my errors.

Peter graciously opened his top so I could use him for staging some other projects coming soon.  I thought that he wore those fake hydrangeas well.  Maybe I should have painted a little message inside.  Or maybe a short piece of music.  I think I will move him over near the sofa and see how he looks there.

 N-O-O-O-O-O-O!!!  Do not drop on my broken little toe. No, Peter, I do not believe you would do that!

Three strikes, buddy.  You are out of here!

Chucks and I drove him over to the store this very afternoon.  I hope he behaves for his new owner.  I must go and put some ice on my toe. 

See y'all!







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