Vintage Airplane Shoot...

Autumn is flying off to Florida with Kevin tomorrow.

Be safe and have a great trip, I'll miss you!
~~~~~

Autumn's vintage airplane photo shoot with Britt as the model....

I love these!

Vintage Feature

My beautiful and talented daughter Autumn Rose was featured on a vintage style dress maker's blog today. Check it out!
www.shrististudio-vintagestyles.blogspot.com/2010/06/whats-in-modelphotographer-autumn.html#comments

And here is some more of her work in an aol news piece. Her friend Eak was featured in this article and used Autumn's photos of him. He's been to my house before...a very nice fellow.

www.aolnews.com/weird-news/article/tattooed-pain-proof-eduardo-arrocha-looks-to-publish-poems/19527113

Summer Mantel

We honor the seasons at our house as part of our Native American culture. Also because we love nature and it just feels right to honor the gifts that the Great Father has given us in way of animals, the trees and plants, the changing seasons.

One way we embrace the changing seasons is to decorate the mantel.
This summer I've used sunflowers, lemons, a honeycomb, rocks and crystals, peacock feathers, sage and a smudging shell and lots of candles in gold, red and orange.
Some handmade items:
The sun medallion that Noah made (I adore that!) I've also added the gourd bowl I made a few years ago. I left the painting of my mom hanging that Autumn painted. We'll just call her "Mother Earth" for now:)

This weekend we'll have a bonfire in the back yard after the Pow Wow. We'll honor Dad with a prayer. (for Father's Day) we'll also do a Birthday blessing for Kevin. We'll roast marshmallows (just cause they're good!)
I'm also coming up with a strawberry dessert for the Solstice. The Ojibwa use the full moons to mark the months of the year. The month of June is Ode' imini-giizis meaning Strawberry Moon. So I'm thinking Strawberries are perfect! The Summer Solstice is also known as The Rising Day to the Ojibwa. It is a time of renewal, sacred ceremonies, a time to pray for healing medicines, good crops and good harvests.
Hopefully Noah and I will take a nice long quiet walk in the woods on Monday to refresh our souls.
I'd love to hear if you have any plans to celebrate the Summer Solstice!

Thrifty Finds and a Gift of Ribbons

My grandmother had the most fabulous collection of Salt and Pepper shakers. I loved to look at them when I visited her and sometimes I'd helped dust them.

I have such fond memories of standing in front of the book case looking at all of the whimsical shakers.

I want to have a fun collection for my future grandchildren. So I thought I'd get started now.

Here's the start of my collection of shakers that I found on our trip to Ohio, but first I have to show you this that I also picked up...

Isn't this the cutest darn squirrel vase ever?!!!

Squirrel Salt and Pepper Shakers: of course~

Squirrel with walnut and Tennis playing squirrels.

Coffee pots shakers and a Cat on a rocker with fireplace shakers.

All of these shakers were $1.50 a pair!

My daughter Autumn gave me these lovely ribbons yesterday. I love them all! Thanks Sweetie:)

Pretty as a Picture

My Daughter Autumn's latest photo shoots.

My Great-Niece Boo.

Autumn's Photography website http://autumnluciano.com/default.aspx

Progress and Gifts

Progress on my hat. Huzzah!!!!

Autumn and Kevin stopped by with gifts for me, just because they love me. Too sweet!

A rockin' Happy Camper shirt. Autumn took a photograph of their vintage camper and Kevin made the photo into a graphic and silk screened it on to shirts. They are a amazingly talented couple!
A lovely old blue and white plate.



and this cute squirrel card, remind you of anyone?

I found this photo of pretty mums on my camera and wanted to share it with you.

My seventeen year old son Caleb took this, I thought it was so cute that he would photograph flowers. Sometimes they just surprise you, don't they?

A little of this, a little of that...

Not much excitement around here.

Ready for the Not Back to School Carnival next Monday in the park with our homeschool group.

Now, I know what to do with this!

But with this... I'm clueless! I want to make a hat. Now I just need to watch some Youtube videos on how to knit with circular needles and how to knit a hat. Wish me luck!

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Some rather pretty posies, don't you think?

Love is in the air...

Think~ Autumn Rose, pumpkins, leaves, shabby chic, amber colored candles glowing,

cake and champagne, cider and doughnuts, 50's style, a Victorian mansion, October 2010

and two soul mates!

Thrifty Finds and Smashing Pumpkins

I found this shirt for Noah at a thrift store in a small town earlier this summer, brand new but very vintage cool! I love the embroidered bucking broncos on it and the pearl snaps. He looked pretty rockin when his sister Autumn took him to meet Jimmy Chamberlin from the Smashing Pumpkins. (see Purple Squirrel for that post.) Noah's hat came from Autumn's yard sale.

A lovely little embroidery piece, prefect for a pumpkin and some candy corn to sit upon.



A Beistle Company vintage witch in a brown dress with a honeycomb cauldron. She's sitting on my mantle... I know, it's a tad early for Halloween decorations. But I just got her this weekend at an antique shop, why pack her away for a few weeks?

The Beistle Company was founded in 1900 and are still in business today.

Poison Cupcakes?

Stopped in at Michaels yesterday to buy some new paint brushes. The brushes were 25 % off this week. I found this wonderful brushes that have a rubber cushion grip to them. They are so comfy to hold, I'm lovin them.!

Of course I had to browse the halloween stuff. I really want to get my Halloween stuff down from the attic, I'm fighting myself on that. Any whooo....

I just had to pick these wicked cool cupcake wrappers from the Martha Stewart line for my daughter Autumn who loves cupcakes and vintage halloween graphics. She's love to throw theme parties and is having a Day of the Dead party this year. There is another design in the pack a spider with the word Beware on the side. They come in a 48 ct. pack.

Autumn Rose has a really cute blog with hardly any readers, so if you have some extra time you should pop in and say Hi!

Sliver Twine From a Valentine

For Autumn...

Happy Halloween~~~

I've been making some Halloween decorations for Autumn. (She has her own home now.)
Autumn really loves vintage Halloween...just like her momma!

This is a painted hat box decoupaged with some old vintage Halloween postcard images. A
paper mache skull with vintage crepe paper collar, (I was thinking Shakespere~ish ?)
a vintage postcard image made into a stand-up photo trimmed in vintage silver tinsel garland. I added a flickering electric candle for some glow effect.

I love finding old tinsel, garland, crepe paper at yard sale, flea markets and thrift stores. I'm like a kid in a candy store when I find some!
Autumn was helping Kevin's mom clean out her basement and they sent over a bag of goodies; the hat box and the vintage crepe paper were two of the things in the bag that I used for this piece.

I think I'm about ready to switch gears soon, It's time to get back to some embroidery and I've started knitting my second scarf. Really, we have way too many crochet scarves around here already. I'm going to watch some Youtube tutorials on how to knit hats. I cannot for the life of me learn out of a book... hmmm... I should of been a hands on, interest led homeschooler. Just thing of how much I would know by now! Well, it's never too late, right?

We're going camping again this weekend for 4 days. This time we are going with my sister and her husband and our good friends Joe and Jackie with their kids. (Joe was our best man in our wedding.) Our campsite is right on the Thornapple River bank. On Sunday we are going on a 4 hour canoe trip... I keep wondering "what the heck do I do if I need to go to the bathroom during the trip?" uhh... pull over and use a tree?
*Also please, oh please let there be no crazy raccoons running around my tent at night!

Charleton Park/ Flea Market and Historic Village

Saturday we met up with Autumn and Kevin at Charleton Park which has a historic Village. They were also having a flea market that day. Bonus! But the museum part was closed which is weird for a Saturday. That was disappointing because it has a bunch of Civil War artifacts.

We had a good time walking in and out of the historic homes, businesses and the school house.

This jail cracked me up!

My Flea Market Finds:
I love this pitcher! $3 Nesting mixing bowls, $7

Look Who's in the Paper...

Noah!

Showing off some serious wizard action yesterday at Harry Potter Camp!
We saw the movie today:)

Altered Caleb...

This photo of Caleb was taken by Autumn about three years ago when Caleb was 14 years old... (he really dislikes his hair in this photo.) I had fun making him into a Rock Star Fairy...