another thrifty Thursday.

Published on by Quandie22 Comments

Many moons ago I took you all on a tour of my friend Meggan’s house.  I once said that I consider Meggan to be a master thrifter.  Now that I know her a bit better, I think it would be more accurate to say she has her doctorate in thrifting.  I’m not sure what her doctoral thesis was, possibly the guest post she wrote for us last year about packaging Christmas gifts in vintage suitcases.

I’m sure she could quite easily defend that thesis before a panel of thrifting experts!

Time flies, and we both have busy lives, but Meggan and I try to get together every now and then for a thrifty Thursday.  Meggan’s favorite thrift shop is just down the street from me, so she swings by to pick me up and we spend the evening thrifting.

Historically our thrifty Thursdays have always fallen on bitterly cold winter days.  As in below-zero sorts of days.  But we got lucky this time and last Thursday was a balmy 40+.

Not only did we get lucky with the weather, but we also got lucky with some great finds.

Ironically, I didn’t buy a single Christmas item.  Which isn’t to say they didn’t have plenty to choose from.  We did get a laugh or two out of making fun of some of the tackier items.  And I have to say, if you collect a Christmas village you should be heading to your local thrift store.  There were lots of village pieces including several pieces from the various Dept 56 villages.

I keep eyeing up those little houses because I absolutely loved the way Amy displayed some in her house last year on a pile of giant books.

Looking at that photo makes me think I should head back to the thrift store and buy Ebenezer Scrooge’s house after all!  Amy’s display proves that you don’t need an entire village, just a few choice pieces can create an adorable vignette.

Although I didn’t find any fabulous Christmas items to purchase, I did find a couple of vintage wooden advertising hangers.

It pays to dig through the rack of plastic and wooden hangers to look for a couple of gems like these.  I was pretty excited to score not just one, but two!  Looking at the one that says “U.S.A., Hawaii, Canada & …” makes me wonder if it pre-dates 1959 when Hawaii officially became our 50th state.  What do you think?

I also found a thrift store unicorn.

Usually the luggage aisle at the thrift store is pretty dismal, but every once in a while, in a cloud of magical pixie dust, I find a nice vintage suitcase.

Meggan talked me into this little rocking chair.

I was going to pass it by.  I’ve got a bit of a back log of chairs to paint, and chairs are not my favorite.  They are putzy to paint and they don’t sell for much.  But Meggan pointed out how adorable this one is, and suggested I paint it pink.  I’m not sure I’ll paint it pink, but it definitely will get a paint job of some kind!

Meggan also talked me into this plaid blanket.  She thought the colors were perfect for my guest bed.

And she was right, the combination of pink, coral and yellow is perfect on my Jenny Lind bed.

At just $3.49, why not?  I can use it for now until I find bedding I like better, and then I can just donate it back to the thrift store!

I purchased a few other odds and ends that didn’t make the cut for a ‘before’ photo, including the shelving board that I used to make the Christmas Tree sign for my sister.

It wasn’t until we were headed up to the checkout counter that I spotted the find of the day.

A pair of library chairs!

I’ve painted a few of these in the past.  I think my favorite was this one, painted in Fusion’s Brook.

Meggan says she can picture them painted black though.  How about you?  What color would you choose?

 

a two-faced suit case.

Published on by Quandie37 Comments

One of the things I started painted on the painting day that I shared a last week was a suitcase that I picked up at a garage sale last summer.

That’s it in the ‘before’ photo above.

I think it looks slightly more interesting in that photo that it really was.  It was just your basic hard sided Samsonite.  So I decided to paint it.

I started by painting the bottom portion with Fusion’s Coal Black.  Once that was dry, I taped off a line and painted the top portion in Fusion’s Casement, which is one of their brightest whites.

If this is starting to feel familiar to you, that’s probably because I’ve painted a few of these over the years.  You can see them here, here and here.  That last link is to a post from 2015 when I was going to have a suitcase painting class at my house.  That idea was a bust, by the way.  No one signed up, which was a bit of a bummer.

But anyway, after getting that far with the suitcase I was debating what stencil to use on it when the Christmas sign I painted for my sister caught my eye.

I realized it would fit perfectly on the suitcase.

How cute would that be set up beneath your Christmas tree?  Or sitting beside the door in your foyer to welcome your holiday guests?

But of course it occurs to me that no one wants a suitcase that they can only put out at Christmas.

So why not add a different stencil to the other side?

Once Christmas is over, you can just flip it around.

Now it’s a two-faced suitcase!

the art of the thank you.

Published on by Quandie46 Comments

This year my birthday fell on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.  Taking the day off at my day job would have made for a very nice five day weekend.  It seems like a bit of a no-brainer, right?

But I didn’t do it.  Why?

Because my co-workers always make my birthday feel special.  This year they made Eggs Benedict for me, my favorite!

Not only that, but I got some awesome birthday presents from them.  Really, who doesn’t want to show up at work if there will be presents?

Since they went all out I wanted to do something special in return for the thank you notes, not just send store bought cards.  Now, before you start thinking that I am super clever and just came up with this idea out of the blue, I have to give credit to my friend Annie.  She did something similar for her wedding thank you notes many years ago.  Those thanks you’s were so fun and clever and the idea has always stuck with me, so I borrowed it for my birthday thank you’s this year.

Step no. 1:  take photos of the gifts.  Remember to leave some white space in your photo to have room for the wording.

Step no. 2:  add ‘thank you’ using Picmonkey or some other photo editing software.

Step no. 3:  print your photos on matte photo paper and cut them out.

It couldn’t be easier, and now you have customized thank you notes for your friends and family.

It really didn’t take very long, maybe a couple of hours from start to end.

Well, unless you count this next one because it did take me a little bit longer to drink that whole bottle of wine.

My co-workers tend to know me and my non-collections pretty well, I received not just one but two vintage cameras this year.

With Christmas coming up, maybe you’ll need to make some customized thank you notes of your own!

What do you think?

traditional red & green.

Published on by Quandie14 Comments

So far I’ve shared a pretty in pink Christmas including some pretty pink ice skates  and Christmas in black & white.

But maybe you are more of a traditionalist and you prefer the classic red & green!

I’m not much of a traditionalist myself, but I have a handful of red and green holiday decorations that I just can’t seem to part with.

Plus, I whipped up a couple of Christmas decorations in red and green to sell at Reclaiming Beautiful this year.

For starters, I found this oil can at a garage sale last summer and loved the patina of the red paint.

I washed it up with some Dawn dish-washing liquid (to cut the grease), I added a couple of Tim Holtz rub-ons, and then I clipped on a Dec 25 card.

It definitely makes for a unique Christmas decoration, despite its classic red color.

Next I purchased a green kid-size shovel from my friend Sue a few weeks ago.  She always has the best garage sale finds.  Unfortunately, I neglected to take a ‘before’ photo of it.  But I added a “Merry Christmas” in adhesive backed white vinyl that I cut on my Cricut machine.

I already had another similar shovel that I stenciled last year …

The shovels would be perfect hung on a door.

Last year I used the older one in the planter on my deck.

And finally, I painted this Christmas Tree sign for my sister using traditional red and green yesterday.

She stopped by to pick it up, and already has it hanging on the wall above her Christmas tree.

How about you?  Are you a traditionalist who loves red and green for Christmas?

P.S.  congrats to Melissa from New York who won my blogiversary giveaway!

another cutie patootie chair.

Published on by Quandie19 Comments

Every time I see little kid sized wooden chairs I snatch them right up.  They are so fun to paint, and they always turn out adorable.  You can see some of my previous chairs here and here.

So when I saw this pair at a garage sale in September, I bought them.

Then I tucked them away to become winter painting jobs.  I made a point of saving some of these smaller projects so I would have easy things to paint inside the house this year.

So last weekend when I had my sister and my friend Terri over to paint, I pulled out one of the chairs to paint myself.

I prepped the chair by washing it down with some TSP Substitute.  I was planning to paint it with milk paint and I would have been OK with some chipping, so I didn’t bother to do any other prep.  If you want to control the chipping, a good way to do that is to sand your piece well before painting, but I skipped that on this one.

Then I mixed up some Homestead House milk paint in Maritime Blue.  I used this color once before on a galvanized watering can and I knew it was a lovely shade of blue.

I painted two coats of paint on the chair.

Next I added a stencil to the seat using a warm white acrylic craft paint.  Once dry I sanded the chair fairly heavily to give it that well worn appearance since I didn’t get much in the way of chipping at all (despite my lack of sanding).

For a top coat over the milk paint I decided to pull out a jar of Fusion’s new wax.

The Fusion people sent me a few different jars of the wax to try out (including that jar of Rose Gold wax that is being included in my giveaway).  In addition to this clear Furniture Wax, I also have the black, the copper and the espresso.  I’m looking forward to trying each of them over the next several months and letting you know what I think.

But for today, I used the clear wax on this chair and I loved it.  It is very lightweight and spreads much more easily than other waxes.  I would compare it to the difference between spreading your toast with butter that has been sitting out on the kitchen counter versus butter that came out of the fridge.  Not only is it easier to spread, but you tend to use a lot less of it.

It also has only the most mild of scents, not a chemical smell but just a pleasant waxy odor.

Much like the Homestead House and Miss Mustard Seed waxes, this new Fusion wax is also environmentally friendly and doesn’t require the use of a hazmat suit while applying.

Today’s q-tip:  remember that you do not have to add wax (or any other top coat) over Fusion paint.  It is durable and washable without the extra step of a top coat.  However, some people like to add wax for aesthetic reasons.  For example, adding a dark wax to give a more aged appearance or to highlight details.  The new Fusion waxes will work beautifully over Fusion paint for that purpose.  They will also work over milk paint as a top coat to add some additional durability and protection.

I have to say that I haven’t been waxing as many pieces as I used to because of the labor involved in applying and then buffing the wax, but this wax was so easy to apply.  You’re definitely going to see some more waxed pieces from me now.

Be sure to check out Fusion’s website to read more about their new waxes!

By the way, while I was writing up this post I had to google ‘cutie patootie’ to see if that was really the correct spelling.  Here is the Urban Dictionary’s definition …

someone or something so cute that the word cute itself has to morph into something cuter, thus cutie patootie was born

LOL, so, I’m not sure if this chair is cute enough to really qualify as ‘cutie patootie’, what do you think?

a few of my favorites.

Published on by Quandie52 Comments

This year I decided to pare down my non-collection of vintage ornaments.  Or maybe I should say ‘refine’.  Yes, I like the sound of that better, I decided to refine my non-collection.

I pulled out all of my ornaments and went through them one by one.

I started with all of the solid colored balls.  I sorted them by color and I packaged all of them up to be sold at Reclaiming Beautiful.  Next I sorted through the rest of them and set aside any that I didn’t absolutely love, and those got sold as well.

Leaving me with just a few of my favorites (that is totally sarcastic, unless you consider about 150 or so ornaments to be ‘a few’, bwa, ha, ha).

One of the characteristics that pretty much guarantees a spot in my ‘favorites’ category is hand-painting of any kind.

I find the hand-painted ornaments just so darn charming even when it’s nothing more than a couple of swipes with a brush.

The ornaments also have to fit into my color scheme of pink, aqua, green or silver.

I don’t have a lot of green ornaments, and you’d think this would be a fairly common color, but for some reason it doesn’t seem to be.

But sometimes I deviate from my color palette if the ornament is pretty enough.  For example, just a handful of blue ornaments made the cut.

I also have a small contingent of gold ornaments.

I can’t really explain why these next two ornaments, with their oranges and yellows, made it through.  Except that I love those daisies, and the combination of orange, hot pink and red works for me too.  I think both of these have a 60’s vibe, don’t you?

This last ornament is one of my particular favorites with its hand-painted flowers.  I think they are supposed to be lily of the valley, or possibly white bleeding hearts.  What do you think?

If you are new to my blog and you haven’t already heard me say it, I find most of my vintage ornaments at garage sales and estate sales.  Oftentimes people are selling a bag full of ornaments and the vintage glass ornaments are mixed in with plastic, pipe cleaner, wood or other sorts of ornaments.

It’s less common to find ornaments as a set, or in their original box, but I do sometimes find boxes.

It’s even more rare to find boxes in really good condition like this one.

I almost never find a boxed set of ornaments intact like the one shown above.  I purchased all of those ornaments separately and then put them in a box that came with other mismatched ornaments.  Antique shops will almost always break up sets like these and sell them individually.  I think it’s easier to sell single ornaments for $3.95 each than it is to sell a box of a dozen for $48.

This year I put my silver tree full of vintage ornaments up in my Q Branch next to my giant English cupboard, just around the corner from my black and white decorations.

My pink painted gift boxes are perfect underneath it.

Speaking of which, don’t forget, tonight is the deadline for leaving a comment on my blogiversary post to be in the running to win the Seven Swans a Swimming box full of goodies.  If you haven’t left a comment yet, you still can up until midnight tonight (US Central time).

And gosh, I totally forgot to mention it in my original post, but Fusion also provided a jar of one of their new waxes to throw in with the giveaway.

This is their Rose Gold wax.  I haven’t tried this one yet, but I have tried the new Clear Wax and I loved it (I’ll be sharing more on that tomorrow).  If you win, I hope you’ll try out the Rose Gold wax and let us all know how you like it!

cut and carry.

Published on by Quandie40 Comments

Last summer I was at an estate sale and found a whole pile of old hand saws for sale.

Apparently I am just drawn to anything with a chippy painted finish, including old hand tools, because that red handled saw just jumped out at me.

My initial thought was “I bet that I could paint the other handles to look just as old as that red one using milk paint,”  sort of setting a little challenge for myself.  In my humble opinion, the greatest quality of milk paint is its ability to create an authentically aged looking finish.

Plus the price was right, so I bought them.

Next I dug out some Miss Mustard Seed milk paint in Boxwood (green), Tricycle (red) and Typewriter (black).  I mixed up just about a tablespoon of each color and I painted each handle a different color.  The Typewriter covered in one coat, but I needed two coats of the other colors.

Once dry, I sanded to distress them and then added a little bit of hemp oil as a top coat.

Now, you be the judge.  Here is the original finish on the red handled saw …

And here is the Boxwood milk paint finish …

Well, what do you think?  Does it look legit?

So now I’ve proven what you can do with milk paint, so what in the world am I going to do with old saws with Christmas colored handles?  Add stencils of course!

I used a stencil that I purchased from Etsy.  The entire stencil didn’t fit perfectly on each saw blade so I just used bits and pieces and fit them where they looked good.

I added some 3M Command Strips to the back of each saw so that they could be hung on the wall …

or perhaps attached to an outdoor window box?

The black handled saw ended up being my favorite, and it would have looked great in my black & white Christmas display.  But I ended up deciding to take them all in to Reclaiming Beautiful so see if anyone else wanted a Cut & Carry saw!

painting day.

Published on by Quandie19 Comments

A while back my friend Terri mentioned that she’d picked up a couple of boxes and a little stool at a garage sale that she wanted to paint up for Christmas gifts.  So last weekend I suggested she come over to my house for a painting day.  I invited my sister to join us as well.

Terri has become a big fan of Fusion paint since painting her kitchen cabinets with it earlier this fall.  I am planning to write a post about her kitchen, but I haven’t quite gotten around to that yet.

So anyway, she wanted no part of using milk paint, she just wanted to stick with the Fusion.  She started with the little stool and some Limestone.  Once it was painted, I suggested she add a stenciled number to it.  I just happened to have some number stencils that I thought would fit perfectly.  So I asked her what her lucky number is and guess what?  She doesn’t have one!  Of course mine is 22, or in a pinch just 2.  When Terri asked my sister if she had one, she immediately answered “Five!”

Doesn’t everyone have a lucky number?

Well, Terri has one now!  We officially chose the number ‘7’ for her (which, by the way, is the number of siblings in her family).

She chose Coal Black for painting the larger of her boxes, which will be a gift for her son (I’m pretty sure he doesn’t read my blog, so no spoiler alert necessary).

We went through my stash of stencils again for this box and Terri chose the Apothicaire stencil which I think has a more masculine vibe.

Although I only included one of the smaller boxes in my ‘before’ photo, Terri actually had two of them.  The first is intended for her daughter and when I asked her what color she wanted to paint it she settled on yellow.  Believe it or not, Terri carries around the lid to a can of yellow spray paint in her purse that exactly matches the yellow in her daughter’s living room.  Talk about a dedicated mom, right?

It happened to be almost the exact shade of Fusion’s Prairie Sunset.  I had to dig around in my paint stash, but I knew I had a little sample jar of that color somewhere.

I had just enough paint left in the jar to cover the box one time.  Since we weren’t sure if one coat would do it, we started with a base coat of Fusion’s Little Star, which is a brighter yellow, and then we covered that with the Prairie Sunset.

And that’s your q-tip of the day:  if you aren’t sure you have enough paint in your chosen color, but you know you’ll need more than one coat.  Use a similar color as your base coat saving your final color for your last coat.  I suppose you could also just buy more paint, but that’s not very frugal, now is it?

Terri’s second smaller box got painted in the Limestone.  She’s keeping this one, along with the little stool, for her own craft room.

By the way, she chose the warmer Limestone white for these pieces because she also has this dresser in her craft room …

I painted it last spring in Miss Mustard Seed’s Linen which is also a warm white and is very similar to Fusion’s Limestone.

You might be getting the impression that we only worked on Terri’s projects on painting day, but that’s not the case.  My sister brought over a little oil can to paint, but I neglected to get any photos of it.  And I had my own stash of stuff to paint …

But, uh, I sort of didn’t manage to get any of my own pieces finished!  So, you’ll just have stay tuned to see how they all turn out!

Christmas in black and white.

Published on by Quandie29 Comments

First things first, I want to say a huge thank you for all of the kind and really supportive comments many of you left on my blogiversary post yesterday!  You guys are the real reason why I keep doing this blog!  If you didn’t see that post yet, be sure to check it out and leave a comment by Thursday to be included in the giveaway drawing.

Now, on with today’s post!

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that not many of you immediately think of black & white when it comes to Christmas decorations.  But I’m about to prove that it can be a festive combination (I hope so anyway).

A couple of years ago my sister gave me this funky barn wood Christmas tree.

She was definitely on the right track with a gift for me.  It’s distressed and rustic, which I love, but the traditional red and green just weren’t working for me.  Especially with the black ‘trunk’.

So I decided to give it a q-style makeover.

I started by painting the horizontal boards with Miss Mustard Seed milk paint in Linen.

Next I added an IOD transfer.

This is the small (11″ x 14″) Memoir transfer.  I cut it apart in sections to fit perfectly on my tree.

One caution I have for you is that sometimes the transfer backing will lift off chippy milk paint rather than leaving the transfer on your surface.  You can see where that happened on the right portion of the scroll-y design around the word “memoires”.  That’s just something to keep in mind if you are pairing a chippy milk painted piece with a transfer.

Personally I’m OK with this look, I just think it adds to the overall distressed style I’m going for.  But it could be frustrating if you don’t expect it.  You can prevent this by adding a sealing top coat (Miss Mustard Seed Tough Coat Sealer, or the Dead Flat I used later) over your milk paint first, then adding the transfer, then adding another layer of top coat.

I added my transfer directly over chippy milk paint though.  Once applied, I sanded lightly all over and then added my top coat of The Real Milk Paint Co’s Dead Flat finishing cream.  I really love how easy this stuff is to use.  No worries about drip marks, no smells, flat sheen, soap and water clean up, and a little goes a long way.  The Dead Flat will help prevent any further chipping.

And now it looks like this …

I loved it so much that I decided to hang it next to my specimens cupboard and decorate the whole area with black & white Christmas decor.

My painted black & white sled is leaning on the wall under the ‘tree’.

I draped a faux evergreen garland with cotton bolls, that I picked up on sale last year, over the cupboard.

My friend Sue gave me the calendar for my birthday.  Although she bought it at a garage sale (she seriously always finds the most amazing things at garage sales), there is a sticker on the back from Decor Steals.

She had it set to my birthday when she gave it to me, and I thought that was so clever, so why not set it to Christmas Day to instantly turn it into a Christmas decoration?

Normally I have a photo of my grandmother on the little metal wheel that hangs on the knob of my cabinet, but I switched it out for the holiday too.

I have no idea who The Binke’s are, but I love their black & white holiday post card!

So what do you think?  Is a black & white Christmas for you?

Or do you prefer more color for Christmas?

four years in.

Published on by Quandie228 Comments

It’s my blogiversary!  As of today I have four years of blogging under my belt.  I’ve written 736 posts and had 121,042 visitors to the blog with 338,987 views of my posts, and those numbers don’t include those who are following via email (another 86,000 views for 2017 alone).

Wowza!  I definitely did not see those kinds of numbers in my future when I started this blogging thing.

I started my blog on Thanksgiving weekend, 2013.  The only reason I started then was because I happened to have some time on my hands with the four day weekend.  I wasn’t thinking ahead to the idea that my upcoming blogiversaries would coincide with Thanksgiving weekend and thus become the perfect opportunity each year to express my gratitude for my readers.

In other words, I couldn’t have planned that better if I’d tried.

So here we are at the perfect time of year for thinking about the things we are thankful for, and I want to take this opportunity to say that I am extremely thankful for all of you!  I have the most supportive, thoughtful, kind, enthusiastic, insightful, creative … well, let’s just face it, positively brilliant readers out there in all of blogland.

I cherish each one of you and I appreciate each and every comment that you leave whether it be short or long.

It wouldn’t be a blogiversary celebration without a giveaway, so be sure to read to the end of the post for more details!

In light of the announcement earlier this fall that this will be the last season of Fixer Upper, I’ve been thinking about longevity a lot lately.  How quickly people rise to the height of fame, and then either move on to other things or disappear off the map entirely (not that I’m saying that will happen to Chip & Joanna!).  Or conversely, how many start something and then just fizzle out quietly.

I’ve been at my day job for 30 years (I know, crazy right?), we’ve lived in our house for 29 years.  We’ve been married for 28 years (yes, Mr. Q and I shacked up before we got married).

And I’ve been painting furniture for more than 20 years.  Since long before chalk paint or milk paint became all the rage, and definitely before blogging was even a thing.  Actually, the internet itself was just getting rolling back then.

I know it’s terribly ‘old school’ of me, but I place some value on longevity.

I guess it goes without saying that when I find something that works for me, I tend to stick with it through thick or thin (whether it’s a job or a marriage, or so far even a blog).

That seems to definitely be the exception rather than the rule when it comes to blogging.

I’ve watched so many blogs come and go over the past four years.  And I totally get it.  Blogging is very time consuming, and the financial payoff for most is fairly minimal if not pretty much non-existent.

I could work harder to promote my blog, and I could ‘monetize’ it (by adding those annoying pop-up ads).  I know there are a handful of bloggers out there who have been able to quit their day jobs and live on their blog revenue, but I think that is pretty rare and not always long lasting.  I have no plans to ‘monetize’, and in fact I just upgraded to the next level of WordPress which means you’ll no longer even see those ads at the bottom of each post (you’re welcome!).

I do get one awesome financial benefit from the blog though, free product.  I’ve gotten paint and other supplies from Little Billy Goat, Rachel Ashwell, Real Milk Paint Co, Fusion, Homestead House and Miss Mustard Seed.  This benefit has been totally amazing!  It’s like getting a fun gift every time I receive a box of stuff in the mail. Although most of these have been one time deals, the Fusion/Homestead House people have been incredibly generous in continuing to send product on an ongoing basis.

Over time I’ve dabbled with increasing my exposure through HomeTalk and a Facebook page, and I’ve thought about adding Instagram.  There seem to be a million other options for social media these days.  But those things all take up valuable time that I’d rather be devoting to either refurbishing vintage furniture or to writing the blog posts themselves.  After putting in the time at my full-time day job (the one that actually pays the bills), there are only so many hours left in a day and I have to choose what I spend them on wisely based on my personal goals.

So, if I’m not doing this blog thing for financial gain and I have no immediate desire to focus on expanding my exposure, why am I doing it?

The answer is really very simple.  Because I love it.

It totally makes my day when I get comments from you guys about how much you enjoyed a post.  I also get a huge kick out of meeting people and having them say “I just love your blog!”  It’s always fun when someone tells me they were inspired by one of my projects.

I really enjoy the photography side of blogging as well.  Staging a piece to take photos of it is one my favorite aspects of blogging.  I’ve been working on improving my photography skills which has been pretty fulfilling.

Writing blog posts is also something I enjoy.  I’d never considered myself much of a writer before, but as it turns out I take some pleasure in writing a good blog post.

But most especially, I really relish the process of taking a beat up old piece of furniture and giving it a new lease on life.  I feel a certain zen-like sense of peace when I am alone in my workshop with some Pink Martini playing (anyone?) and a paint brush in my hand.  I could (and often do) spend hours just painting stuff.  I know I would do this with or without a blog.

You see, I am a furniture painter first and a blogger second and maybe that’s why I have managed to keep at it for four years now.

So thanks to all of you for sticking at it with me, and here’s to many more years!

As I mentioned at the start of this post, it wouldn’t be a blogiversary without a giveaway right?!  I wish I could just send this gift to each and every one of you, but that isn’t possible so instead I will draw a name at random from the comments left on this blog post by Thursday, November 30 at midnight (U.S. Central time).  The winner will receive a Seven Swans a Swimming box, a copy of the issue of Vintage Holiday magazine with a story about my ornament non-collection, a jar of Fusion’s English Rose (provided by Fusion!), five vintage pink bell ornaments (crossing my fingers that they will arrive intact!), and a pretty hair pin I made using a pretty vintage earring.  I might find a few other things to toss in as well.

Best of luck to you!  And thanks for helping me celebrate my 4 year blogiversary!