"T" is for Transformation

I'm joining Jenny Matlock for Alphabe-Thursday and our assignment for this week is the letter "T".  My granddaughter, Lillian, will be 2 in October so I decided to transform a 30 year old doll cradle that my daughter used when she was little so Lillian can put her "babies" down for a nap!  Lately Lillian has shown a real interest in her baby dolls so this little project seemed like the perfect choice for a transformation.  

This plain white cradle was a gift from my father along with a cute table and chair set that is also white.  The table and chairs are also in need of a transformation but that will have to wait.  At any rate, I never did anything with this doll cradle when my daughter was younger, so it just sat and collected dirt and dust as she got older.

Since Lillian's room decor includes some pink and green, I decided to incorporate those colors (along with a butter yellow) into painting the cradle.

I decided to personalize the doll cradle so I added Lillian's name along with some embellishments that I found at Michael's.

I also added the word "baby" because Lillian uses it so often in her vocabulary.  She takes her "babies" for walks around the house, and now she will have a place for them to go "night-night" while she takes a nap!

The trim at the bottom of the cradle is actually duct tape in a new snazzy design!

I'm not crazy about this side of the cradle and I wish I was more creative in using the self-adhesive embellishments.  I'm the type of person that has to see something and "borrow" ideas...I just can't seem to create on my own!

Please visit Jenny's blog and enjoy the "T" posts from other participants.

R is for Recipes and Memories

The whole idea of doing a book of recipes came to me when I came across so many of my mother's handwritten recipes.  A friend of mine, Cindy, was looking through my mother's notebooks, vintage recipe books, and handwritten notes and suggested that I keep them in a book.  I selected only a few pages of what is contained in the Recipes and Memories book to share in this post.  I hope that you enjoy my narrative pages (a trip down 50's memory lane), the scanned vintage photos, and the recipes.  You really should click each photo to enlarge so you can read and see the detail on each page. I'm joining Jenny Matlock's blog for Alphabe-Thursday and the letter "R".

                                        The Dedication Page to my mother and grandmothers.

      Four pages of childhood memories of our kitchen, family get-togethers, tons of food and love.

                                                               Some Italian recipes

                                          A staple in almost every kitchen~~~~~The Apron!

                                My mother's tattered apron...my grandmother may have worn it too.

                                                      So many happy photo memories

I really want my grandchildren to know part of their heritage and what it was like for me to grow up in the 50's, therefore, you can see the two children at the bottom of this last page.  This is not the last page in the memory book but it is the last page of this post.  I have 3 more typed pages for my grandchildren and a page that I have handwritten to them.  I hope that when they are older, all of this will make sense and they will treasure my memories as I have.



P is for purge and plates

I'm joining Jenny Matlock this week at Alphabe-Thursday for the letter "P".  Before I continue, you must realize that I'm home with our two dogs while my husband is in Tucson and, due to a dust storm and rain, our cable is out!  That happened Sunday evening and Direct TV won't be here to fix the cable until Thursday morning!!!!  With that said, I'm going to share with you some things I've done out of sheer boredom!

I've been meaning to clean the china hutch in my dining room but somehow I never found time...until now.  I looked at the contents of the hutch (way too much clutter) so I decided to purge and replace the contents with my mother's set of china.  Maybe I'm being very melancholy right now along with bored because in a few weeks it will be the first anniversary of my mother's passing.  At any rate, I took everything out of the cluttered hutch and started anew.

You can see the clutter behind some Easter decor.  I had plates, two sets of glasses and miscellaneous cups and saucers from garage sales all packed into the hutch.

After the purge, you can see my mom's china and some meaningful memorabilia on the shelves.

                                             A close-up of her dainty pink floral pattern.

 Now for the mess in the kitchen cupboard that held my wine glasses and everyday drinking glasses.  Another purge was in order.................
                                                                       Before

                                                                        After

Now for the cupboard that held the dishes we got for our wedding 33 years ago!!!  I think it is time to move on and use the dishes that were in my china hutch so......during the purge

                                                                           
                                                                         After

The whole wheat pattern on the Mikasa plates that we registered for before our wedding in 1978...so long ago~~~~~

                                  The plates that will now be used everyday

                                                      During the hutch purge



                Bright, shiny glasses ready for a new home in the kitchen cupboard.

 I found this cow creamer while I was cleaning/purging.  It is old as I believe my mom acquired it while we were living in IL.  My mom used to put milk in the cow and my daughter (now 31) would drink the milk out of the bucket that goes with the cow.

                    I also found these two egg cups that my mother had for many years.

This purge proved interesting as I also found this vintage pitcher with glasses that my mother brought with us when we moved to AZ in 1962.  I'm sure that she had it for many years before that.

Oh, the memories!!!  I remember eating my cereal out of these bowls when I was a little girl living in IL.  The design is so pretty.

I also found these plates that my mom saved.  My parents got married in 1943 so I'm sure that these plates were purchased before or shortly after their marriage.  Hmmmm...68 years old!

                My mom's bowls from IL.  Again these are probably close to 68 years old!

Now what????  I have the old Mikasa wheat pattern plates and cups from 1978 when I got married, and a very nice Noritake dinnerware set that we purchased years ago....why I don't know!!!!  The Noritake set was on a shelf above the Mikasa wheat set that we used everyday.  For the life of me, I can't figure out what made us buy that Noritake dinnerware set!

Maybe I'll sell the Mikasa wheats on ebay and save the Noritake set.  So with all the purging...I'm really only getting rid of one set of dishes!!!!!