Friday Find: Nut Grinder

My grandmother had a nut grinder like this one - that's probably the only way I knew what it was. You just put whole nuts in the top and hand grind them. It's perfect for one of my favorite recipes, Martha's Macaroons.

Friday Find: Kissing Salt and Pepper Shakers

Aren't they great? On the bottom they're dated 1956. She has been broken and glued back together, but still looks great on my kitchen table. Here's my question: which one is for salt and which one is for pepper? Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Yard Sale Finds

Here's a piece I wrote for the newspaper about a mint green teapot I found at a yard sale. Share your best yard sale story in the comments below.

Friday Find: dress for summer Saturdays

I stopped in Goodwill today and found this dress. I'm going to wash it tonight and take it with me on my little excursion to Gatlinburg this weekend.

All Knoxville locations have everything 50% off the last Friday and Saturday of each month so this dress only cost me three bucks. Yeah. I also found a couple of tshirts for $1 a piece to cut up and sew.

Friday Find: Tin for Ten

When I saw the 10 cent price tag on this pretty green tin, I knew it was coming home with me. I may take it to a friend, full of macaroons, or maybe I'll keep it on my craft shelf to store Velcro and elastic in. Either way it's brightening my day.

Spirographs rock.

I found my sister's old Spirograph set at my parents' house last month. I took it to school, and the elementary students really got into it for a while. They seemed satisfied with both the process and product. I brought the Spirograph home last night and made some designs at the kitchen table. I think there's something calming about working in a circle.

I heard from a teacher that Spirographs have become hard to find. I noticed there are a couple of collectible sets as well as some newer products with the basic idea on Amazon.

More vintage fun

I found this image (cover of McCall's Needlework and Crafts Fall/Winter 1962-63) on my newest favorite blog. Cathy of California is a vintage craft loving window designer in Southern California. Her blog is a resource for information on craft and design and full of fun images like the one above. I have spent a lot of time this week reading back into her old posts. I hope her collection of craft books and ephemera ends up in a museum one day so people can explore it.

I love the respect she gives this stuff. I think a lot of people are influenced by the design from the 1960's - 1970's, but that it's sometimes thought of as kind of a guilty pleasure. For me, Cathy's blog has somehow validated my love for some of the color combinations and design elements of the era.

And as long as I'm talking about this time period, here's a cool clip my musician boyfriend found. You've got to love early 60's television.

Elizabeth Cotten on Rainbow Quest with Pete Seeger

Friday Find: vintage food photography

When I spotted this book on a shelf of children's books at a thrift store, I opened it thinking I might find a Hansel and Gretel story. It's actually a book about German cuisine with amazing photography, entitled The Cooking of Germany. It's from the Foods of the World series from Time Life books, published in 1969.

Henry Groskinsky planned and photographed the pictures for the book made in the test kitchen and Ralph Crane traveled around Germany in a Volkswagen bus to take the field photos.

The caption reads, "Floral patterns of carrots, cucumbers, hard-cooked egg white, tomatoes, and leek tops beautify these pork chops in aspic."

Writer Ursala von Kardoff is pictured holding a crock of goose-fat spread.

I want a portrait of myself standing in front a cupboard full of my pretty dish collection and a tub of pimento cheese or something.

The cutest mushroom foray I have ever seen

eye candy


That's like the stove that Gretel pushes the wicked witch into on the right page.


Just look at that table cloth!

"a supermodern supermarket in West Berlin"


In case you are as into this as I am, I saw that the book is available on Amazon and here's the link: The Cooking of Germany (Foods of the World)

Going green...

My boyfriend brought over a poster for his band's St. Patrick's Day show. I took one look and wanted to make it green. We spent some of the afternoon painting posters with watercolor.

I also found a tie perfect for the occasion, though I'm not sure he will wear it. He did nix the idea of me embroidering a shamrock on it.

UPDATE: He wore the tie.

Orange

As a part of color week, I was looking for orange. I live in Knoxville, Tennessee, home of the Big Orange. The University's school colors are orange and white. I took this photo when I was in a photojournalism class.

I thought that was the only orange in my life, but then I noticed my coffee cup.

broken dishes

I love pretty dishes. My cupboards are packed with a delicate hodgepodge of teacups, dessert plates and juice glasses. This makes setting the table so much more fun because you can put together a unique setting for each place. But it is that much sadder when something breaks because you don't have another that looks just like it.

This glass (which was so nice to sip whiskey from) must have been what inspired me to make paper doll chains a few weeks ago. It broke last night during a collision with this coffee cup.

I always thought this mug would be so much better if it said "After While, Crocodile" on the other side. Now it has a large chip in the brim.

fabric on display

I found a bunch of abandoned embroidery hoops, put fabric in them, them hung them up on the wall. I like how it brightens things up and gives me an opportunity to see some of my favorite fabrics even if I won't have time to do any playing that day.

To keep the edges from showing, you could glue the fabric to the inside frame. I used masking tape because I anticipate wanting to change out the fabric. I think it'll be easy to have a new festive display for each season just by changing out the fabrics.

I will probably add more hoops. I'm thinking a large quilting hoop would look good.

Here is the other wall in my apartment covered in fabric.

Friday Find: fairy tale block puzzle

I was immediately drawn to this pretty little box. Then I opened it to find blocks with these beautiful fairy tale images.

I have it in my living room and occasionally I'll rearrange the blocks to make a new picture. It's a really calming way to spend a couple of minutes.

Friday Find

I found this children's alphabet book today. The illustrations are embroidered applique and have sparked a lot of ideas for things I want to make.



















The author/illustrator is Virgina Tiffany. Here are more examples of her work.
ABC (Golden Book)
Two Kittens
Tell Me, Cat

I heart neckties.

I mentioned that I was making my boyfriend a valentine with material that he is familiar with. Here it is. I arranged the bottom of two neckties to make a heart then stitched on some rick rack to tie it all together. I got this idea (and tons of others) from Diane Gilleland. Here's her tutorial.

Refurbishing Bangle Bracelets

I just put Japanese breakfast food stickers on this pretty blue bracelet. The stickers are rice, pickles, miso soup, chopsticks, natto, and umeboshi.

I bought sets of these breakfast stickers, along with sets of sushi and dessert stickers in Japan at one of the Maruzen chain book stores. I would love to find more of them one day.

I found the blue bracelet with this eighties survivor bangle in a thrift store . I have plans for it that I'll be posting soon.

Purple Polyester Find

I love this dress. The sheer sleaves, the pleated ruffle - could I be any luckier? I found it last week when I ran into Goodwill on my lunch break (in the same trip I found a vintage pop-up book that I will post about later). I wore it to my work Christmas party and had so much fun.