A Valentines Dinner with Transferware

Just finished our first annual Valentines dinner with out kids and grands ... so much fun.  I set two tables and made place card holders.  Of course the Dollar Store came in handy making the place card holders, ala, a sugared heart gum drop for a base, and a heart pick (7 for a dollar), which I sawed a grove into the top with a steak knife, before adding the cute cards made from a graphic that I found at Graphics Fairy.  I thought it looked rather like toile, and I always love how toile looks with transferware.

 Table number one is above, and table number two is to the right and below.  I used  my red transferware dishes collection for the first time ever.  That was a lot of fun, I paired them with my creamy white Rosepoint dishes, which I adore.  Thanks Julie.  The romantic lovers sculpture, from my bedroom, took over center stage, as you see.

1. The Menu of Love

• Individual heart shaped meat loaves
• Pleasingly pink mashed potatoes

Peas with carrots hearts

Rosy homemade croissant rolls

Tossed Salad with Raspberry Vinaigrette.

 

 And here are the crew, ready to feel the love of home cooking at Grandma's house.  The dessert was angel food cake with strawberry hearts ... yum!  Thanks for coming along, I wish I could send you each a plate of romantic dessert, hope your day is amazing!

Shadow Box Memories for Rudolph!

I have been nostalgic lately, as you  know from my parents photo project that I did last week. So this week I decided to put together the shadow box for my Dad's college days that I have been planning for years. 

At flea.o.logy a few weeks ago I found this awesome letter sweater for the University of Utah, which is where my father did his undergrad work.

I had his pocket watch, shown in closeup below, which I thought would work well, and with a clock collage page I found on Graphics Fairy behind it, I thought it looked great.  I had also, previously, found a small Utah pennant, which I hung from the shadow box.

I just wish that I had the gold pin that he got in 1935 when he served as Student Body President ... but alas, when one is a member of a family with nine children, one just has to learn to share.  

I loved the small trophy, and thought it was perfect in front of the polo team shot, that makes up the middle section, especially cool, since the clip from his year book, below, mentions his desire for "...bigger and better polo awards."

 

I also found this cool small American Indian sculpture (above) to add dimension to the shadow box, since the Ute Indian is the mascot for the University of Utah.  The cool thing is that the Indian's name is on the base, and it is Black Hawk, who was actually a Ute Indian... Love the little details that sort of accidentally worked out.

I am in debt, as always, to Karen at Graphics Fairy for the cool graphics that I used to embellish the shadow box.



Reinventing an Antique Photo Album

 

 

Today I wanted to share a bit of reinventing that resulted in the salvage of an antique celluloid covered photo album.  The album came to me with the cover in tact, but the binding of the album and the pages were pretty tattered.  I actually used the pages as picture matting, and tucked the album cover away.

 

This is what it looked like.

Fortunately I noticed that the album cover was just the right size to cover a smaller size collapsible file I also had on hand.  By covering a piece of cardboard for a new spine, and then bending (Scoring first with a straight edge and a razor blade) the card board sections that remained from the back of the original binding, and then gluing the new decorative spine in place.

Last of all, I glued the album covers to the outside covers of the collapsible file.

I now plan to used the fancified file to store family mementos.  Thanks for stopping by.