Ring In The New Year With Susan Branch - And Perhaps A Cup Of Tea!

I'm more likely to drink herbal tea tonight than I am champagne, so perhaps it's fitting that I received some tea-themed gifts for Christmas.
I also received three Susan Branch calendars!
Lori gave me these two....

   ...which was very sweet and unexpected since we (ahem!) do not exchange gifts anymore!

 Thank you, Lor - I love them, and will use both, obviously!
My husband gave me the large desk blotter calendar, which I also love and use every year, seen below:

Here's a peek inside the other two:

 

 (See - tea cups, teapots - tea theme.)
 And my daughter-in-law gave me this lovely tea cup and saucer set, stack of tea tins, and honey spoons:

 And Alice In Wonderland surely fits in with my tea theme, right?
("We're all mad here...").
Oh, and by the way - a Very Merry Unbirthday to YOU!
My friend Heidi gave me these:

The teapot is also a little music box, and how totally cool is that bottle to hold your "Drink Me" potion?
Perfect.
So - have a cup of tea, or a glass of bubbly or a "cuppa" whatever you like, and ring in the New Year, everybody!
Fireworks optional, but preferable!

Finally, A White Christmas Tree!

I have had small tabletop trees that were white before, but I have wanted a full sized, white Christmas tree for quite a while now.

I finally found a nice one six feet tall at a thrift store last December, but it was after I had already done my decorating.
Today I'm posting photos of my tree, but I'm running late and I will have to come back and add the whole story behind it as soon as I have time.
Meanwhile, here are pictures of it, in progress and then finally the finished tree.

I hope you''l revisit in a day or two, because I need to add details about this whole white tree "thing".
For now, I'm just going to tell you that it was kind of a big deal.
Details to follow.........

All Wrapped Up

When I have the time, I like to try and make the gifts I wrap look as nice as possible.
Some of them are simpler than others:

Some are more whimsical and colorful:

I have a thing for wrapping paper with lots of color on a black background:

This blue and green paper is vintage - and reversible!

Simple really can look very stunning, don't you think?

This paisley paper is another favorite:

I think the next one, below is one of the Martha Stewart Everyday papers I still have from KMart - oh, how I loved her themes every year - I still miss those!

The package below is for my friend Heidi - I always try to do something special on her packages, when possible:

Another red and green one, with a little different touch:

And last, but not least - it really isn't quite Christmas without Charlie Brown and Snoopy, is it?

...yes, and Woodstock , and a tree, and.....
Happy Christmas Eve everybody!
Try and get some sleep!

Special Vintage Finds For Christmas

I just wanted to share a few of the most special finds I've managed to bring home recently.
Let's start with this gorgeous Nativity trio, below:

I had seen a photo of this very same set in a copy of magazine, the current issue of "Vintage Holiday", on page 56.  It was in an article about Brynne Delerson of "The Gathered Home".
Honestly, I had just stared at that photo more than once, thinking to myself how lovely the figures were, and that I'd never seen anything like them - not in a photo in print or online, nor anywhere in real life.
I truly could not believe my eyes when I walked into a thrift store and found the VERY same set!
At the same time (same place), I found the beautiful papier mache angel below, also:

 I have quite a collection of vintage angels - but I did not have one like her.
All of those were certainly wonderful additions to my collection, and very special, indeed!
Lori actually found this ceramic cottage cookie jar you see in the next picture, and picked it up for me:

Thanks so much, Lor!
It's perfect - and it's the only one I have that truly looks "Christmasy"!
 I love it.
And it needed to be here to join the other cottages in my collection - but you knew that!
I found these two Wise Men, below made of burlap at a local thrift store.
The one on the left was missing his crown, so I fashioned one for him with things I had on hand:

Believe it or not, I walked into the same thrift shop over a month later, and who do you suppose was sitting there on a table, looking like he was waiting there just for me?
You guessed, it, the OTHER Wise Man!
I was very happy to bring him home, and unite the trio:

And I also found this lovely Christmas tree pendant:

I didn't have anything like it, and the sparkle of rhinestones makes me happy!
Hope you've managed to find some special vintage Christmas items, too!

What's Penny Wearing? #149 Vintage "Campus Girl" Quilted Calico Bathrobe

I found the cutest vintage robe at Junkee in Reno, the last time Lori and I went up there to visit our friend Tamra.
We had such a great visit; we LOVE going up there to see her.
And I also got to meet her significant other Gordon, too, for the first time.
They have a lovely home, and she fixed us a wonderful dinner one night.
She also took us around to thrift shops - a favorite pastime, as you well know.
I always want to shop at Junkee, too - I know I'll find some cool vintage stuff in that fabulous shop.
Even though I am writing this very late, I wanted to say a very special thank you to Tamra and Gordon, from Lori and I, both!!
So - here's the vintage robe:

Quilted cotton, with lace trim on the collar and pockets...

Cute yellow buttons down the front:

The sweetest detail with a bow in the back.....

I'm virtually positive it's from the mid-to-late 1960's.

The label alone is one indication of date!
"Styled By Campus Girl, Inc."

Super-cute, totally "granny chic" ; hey - I'm a Granny and I'm cool with that!
And it even FITS me.

But I'm still trying to decide whether to keep it or sell it!

The Last Leg Of Our Trip

Well, I must admit that it's taken me a good, long time to get around to this, but better late than never - and I still wanted to post it, so here goes....
The very last leg of our sisters road trip in May included a visit to Spokane, and a really nice visit with Lori's sister-in-law, Betsy and her family. They welcomed us with open arms and a great dinner the night we arrived.
She and her husband Scott live in a really neat old house that was built in 1918:

Here's a pic of Betsy and me. This was taken across the street from her house - we actually were lucky enough to be able to stay at her mother-in-law's home while she was away - thank you so much, Darlene!
(The white house you see in the background is next door to Darlene's.))

Betsy took us around to a few thrift shops, which is always fun - and then we went and had lunch at Hogan's, a really cute diner with great food.

We had SUCH a nice time with them, and I also got to meet Betsy's daughters Megan and Maryn, and they are both delightful young women.
 I'm afraid I rather talked their ears off that evening, but they truly did not seem to mind.
I love old houses SO much, and there were so many things about their house that I loved!
A cozy living room, a marvelous old kitchen, nice front porch, great back yard - like I said, so many things!
 I would practically kill for a huge basement like they've got - oh, the storage space seemed to go on for days!
Believe it or not, another thing I was crazy for was this old linoleum tile:

I'd love to have a floor like that in my house.
But this one, below was my favorite!

THAT would be absolutely perfect in our kitchen!
Here's another picture of a similar floor:

And back in 2000, Armstrong was selling a flooring called Spatterdash, which I wanted SO badly.
 Here's a photo of an ad featuring it, which I shared in a previous post:

But we have not been able to replace our old and ailing flooring yet. Hopefully we will, one day.
Okay - back to the subject of our trip (yes, old houses will distract me , that's a fact!)

Betsy and Scott also took us out to dinner at Waddell's; it was SO good.
I had their Caesar Salad and it was fantastic, but my favorite thing was when I tried Lori's Sweet Potato Fries with their dipping sauce!
I would really like to recreate that stuff at home - it was seriously good!
When Lori and I were on our way out of town, we were able to make a quick stop to see Chaps.

 The line at the register was so long that I didn't get to pick up one of these yummy-looking pastries:

All I had time to do was snap these few photos inside and out, and we hit the road again.

The one last - and VERY important - thing we wanted to do on our road trip was stop and meet our friend Deanna in Oregon.
It made us SO happy that we were able to work it out!
It happened to be her birthday, and we took her some flowers:

We "met" her through this blog, which she discovered because she had done Google searches looking for certain vintage items, and she'd found that I had written about quite a few of them over the years!
She is the same age as Lori, and through this blog, we found that we had SO many things in common.
Lori had also been able to meet her sister Linda, back when she was working in the Bay Area.
I'm so sorry to say that Linda lost her battle with cancer in the summer of 2016.
Here is a photo I took of Lori and Deanna:

Deanna, you were an absolute delight - and we would have stayed all darned day AND night visiting with you, if we hadn't needed to - you guessed it - hit the road again!
Thank you so much for welcoming us into your home, and I do hope we meet again one day!
Because that would be a very nice day, indeed.
I bought the card seen below from Deanna, because I simply fell in love with her artwork!

 Isn't it just so wonderfully bright and beautiful?!
She sells gorgeous cards made with prints of her photographs.
Below is a photo of her set-up from a church bazaar; I'm sure you'll agree that her photos/cards are fabulous!

 So, I think that does it, as far as my posts about our trip - although, you never know about me - I could pop in sometime with something I'd forgotten.
 But I know that I won't EVER forget about the great times we shared on that trip with family and friends both old and new.
 (At least I finally got this post finished and published before the year was out; since it seems that I am hopelessly behind on pretty much everything!)