Vintage Hats Vintage Millinery Flowers

I'm back and I must say, I'm so looking forward to having my routine back to normal!  It's been a busy week and I'm worn out.  But now things can settle down and I can get back to stitching, sewing and glue-guning!  LOL!!!

We've done some shopping this week and I found 4 Vintage Hats with Vintage Millinery Flowers in the antique mall.  I buy these old hats and then take them apart and use the Vintage Flowers on my projects:

And here are the Vintage Millinery Flowers that I end up with:

I save everything from these old hats that I can.  If there's trim or usable fabric, I save it.  Waste not, want not! Would you like to see how to take these old hats apart?  See my Taking Apart Vintage Hats Tutorial.

I use these Vintage Flowers on my Crazy Quilts, Fabric Cuff Bracelets and other projects.

In other news, my sweet friend Cathy Scalise of Treasured Heirlooms included one of my Crazy Quilt pieces in a beautiful Etsy Treasury.  If you have a free moment, please see that Etsy Treasury and please leave a comment.  If it gets enough views and comments, it may make it to Etsy's front page!

Happy Christmas!

Just want to take a few moments to wish everyone a very Happy & safe Christmas Eve & Christmas Day. 

Scott is taking me out for breakfast tomorrow and then to the antique mall.  Hoping to find some new little goodies for my stitching projects! 

A New Litter Of Crazy Quilt Cat Dolls!

I just finished wrapping my gifts and now I'm making soup.  Smells good!

I'll keep this post short today as I know everyone is quite busy.  I just thought you'd like to see my latest Crazy Quilt Cat Dolls.  Perfect for Valentine's Day Gifts!  Yes, I am already thinking Valentine's Day!  I love the pink and the cupids and the hearts!  Anyway, here are the kitties:

These are all available in our Boutique.

I'm off to check on my soup.  Have a great evening everyone!

Toffee Squares - Cookie Recipe

For today, I wanted to share my absolute favorite Christmas Cookie recipe.  My mom has been making these cookies since I was little.  Not only are these my favorite, but they're my aunts favorite of mom's cookies as well.

TOFFEE SQUARES

1 cup Butter
1 Egg Yolk
2 cups Flour
1/2 cup Chopped Nuts
1 cup Brown Sugar packed (dark brown sugar is best)
1 teaspoon Vanilla
1 - 6 ounce package of Chocolate Chips melted

Cream butter and sugar.  Blend in egg yolk and vanilla.  Add flour and mix well.  Spread in greased 15 X 10 inch jelly roll pan.  Bake in moderate oven, 350 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes.  Remove from oven and immediately spread with melted chocolate and nuts.  Cut into 24 squares.

Enjoy!

Christmas Week

I have been stitching but I know everyone is busy so I haven't worried about blogging too much this week.  I've also been helping mom out.  As you know, she had gallbladder surgery last week and is doing well.  Surgeries aggravate her depression though, so she's having a tough time with that.

My Simba is doing better.  He's still too thin in my opinion but he has put a little weight back on:

He's been playing more!  It's good to see that.  He used to play all the time and still chased his tail until the Colitus set in.  Now he lays on the sofa and plays with that little pink fuzzy ball all the time!  The only problem is, he knocks it on the floor and then I have look for it!  LOL!!!

Here's one of my latest finishes:

The design is from my collection of vintage iron-transfer patterns.  I've crayon tinted it and bordered it with a white and blue pin dot fabric.  I just added it to the shop.

At the moment, I'm working on some little baby things using my vintage patterns.  I thought it would be fun to offer some baby items in the shop.  I plan to start on Block #5 of my Marie Antoinette quilt later this week.

As for Christmas, I just have to wrap my gifts!  I put my little tree out yesterday, and my little glitter houses that mom & I made last year so my living room is sparkly but not overwhelming to me. 

If you've been a long time follower of my blog, you know that I deal with ADD/ADHD, Depression, Anxiety and Seasonal Affective Disorder.  This is the most challenging time of year for me.  But I'm glad to say, that after tomorrow, it starts staying light out longer.  I know it won't be noticeable for a few weeks but it's good to know that we'll be gaining a minute of daylight every day!

If you cope with any of the disorders that I mentioned, or if you deal with the holiday blues, you might find this article on Coping The The Holidays helpful.

I hope you're having a nice holiday season.  I'll be back tomorrow with my favorite of mom's Christmas cookie recipe.  If you basic baking supplies on hand and a bag of chocolate chips, you'll be able to whip these up!

Update On Mom

Mom's surgery went well and she'll be home this afternoon.  I'm getting my hair done at noon and then I'll pop over and see if she needs anything.

For now, enjoy this sweet little video from the 1950's, Hardrock, Coco & Joe!

Notes From Mom - The Dress Box

As promised, I have a new blog post from mom!  She's sharing one of my favorite childhood memories today.  Enjoy!

Hi Everyone!   It's me Adria, Pam’s mom.  The one who is in trouble all the time. My gallbladder surgery is Tues. Dec l4 and I will be very happy to get it over with so I can enjoy my Christmas.  

As of Nov.1st, I had all of my shopping done (I try to do that every year.  I also have all my presents wrapped and have made some spiced peanuts, Swedish nuts (the Jewish people call them Masugga Nuts), I have toffee candy in the freezer and 8 kinds of cookies in the freezer, and speaking of cookies I have a cute story to tell you.

This is a story about my mother.  My mother had a very serious depression when I was 6 yrs.old and lost her sense of taste and smell just as I have now. Because of the loss of these senses she was never very interested in eating except for things that were crisp or crunchy.  Mom always liked my cookies especially the Christmas ones.  I always gave her a box of Christmas cookes but one year she kind of one-upped me with it and it was really fun.  Even Pam thought so and we still talk about them after all these years. 

Pam & Grandma.  I was about 6 weeks old here.

You see my mother saved a very large dress box, which at that time were bigger than now.  She gave the box to me and asked me to fill it for her.  At that point in my life I was used to making 25 to 30 different kinds of cookies for Christmas.  I lined the box with waxed paper and bought a big supply of cupcake papers & started to line them up in the box.  As I added the cookies I pushed them over very tight and kept filling up the box.  Needless to say she was extatic! 

Pam making cookies with Mom.  I was about 8 years old here.

My mother lived with 2 of her sisters at the time and one was bedridden with RA.  My mother was very posessive of those cookies.  She did let my 2 aunts have some but only if she was in the right mood.  She also had a sister with 8 kids and if they showed up, she hid the cookies .  They were hers and she wasn’t going to share.  It always made me laugh because all she had to do was ask for more and I would have made them for her. 

In addition to the cookies I always made her a pound cake and a nut bread too but she just wasn’t willing to share those either.  She just loved the things I baked for her even though she couldn’t taste them..  This has been a very, very enjoyable memorie for Pam and me and we still laugh about it. 

Pam & Mom, Valentine's Day in 1969.

 I no longer make that many varieties of cookies, mostly because we just don’t have enough people to give them to.  I used to give both Pam and Kathi cookies as a Christmas gift for the teachers.  I understand that doesn’t work any more as the prime gifts are now l4K gold, new cars and anything else that costs much more money than a plate of cookies.  Back then the teachers were very happy to get baked goods so that they didn’t have to bake so much themselves.
 
Well that is all for now, but I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Love, Adria

Embroidered, Cottage Style Accent Pillows

Just a quick post for this evening everyone.  I just added these Embroidered, Decorative Pillows to our shop:

I'm really into my iron on transfers these days so I thought I'd stitch up a few pretty shabby chic pillows!

Tomorrow, I'll have a new blog post from mom.  She'll be sharing a wonderful Christmas memory with you from when I was little!

Until then, have a great everyone!

Marie Antoinette Crazy Quilt Block 4 Completed!

I finished up on Block #4 of my Marie Antoinette Crazyquilt:

And as a refresher, here are blocks #1,2 & 3:

I'll be back later with some new pretties to share!

Marie Antoinette Crazy Quilt Block 4

Well, after a week of non-stop racing, my mind has finally quieted down.  Oh, I just hate that racing!!!  I feel more focused and settled today.  I'm so looking forward to the day after New Year's when I can start tapering off of the Zoloft some more!

In the meantime, I started on Block 4 of my Marie Antoinette Crazy Quilt:

When I finish up here, I'm going to stitch on it for a while before going over to mom's.

Before I head out for today, I thought you would enjoy this sweet little video from the 1950's.  If you grew up in the Chicago area, you might remember seeing this on WGN!

Jewelry, Cuff Bracelets, Seashell Brooches, by kittyandme on Etsy

Yes, I'm still breathing!  LOL!! 

I've been reworking all of the listings in the shop for SEO (Search Engine Optimization).  Do you have any idea how many times I've typed in "by kittyandme on Etsy?"  Ok, well first, I had to do some research on SEO.  I remember when the internet was easy.  A cute little title and few keywords and that's all we needed.  Of course, I remember when television was the same way.  You turned it on, you watched tv.  Nothing else to do.  Now, I'd have no tv if it wasn't for Bubba.  Thank goodness he knows how to plug this into that and that into this and blah, blah, blah.  Why does everything have to get so complicated?

Anyway, I have some new pretties.  First are my Seashell Brooches:

I felted the background and then added embroidery, beads, seashells, pearls and fish. 

I also finished up on some Cuff Bracelets that I started awhile back:

I did some felting directly on the fabric, added some cheesechoth, some netting and vintage flowers.

In other news, I started on Block #4 of my Marie Antoinette quilt.  I will have photos of that (hopefully) tomorrow.  I also sewed up 2 of my embroidered pieces into pillows this afternoon.  I still have to stuff the and then I'll share those photos.

Yes, I keep myself quite busy.  Keeps my mind off the depression and the SADS.

I'll be taking my little computer over to mom's on Friday.  She has several nice Christmas stories that she would like to share with you.  I'll have to ask Dad to get the family photos out so I can include some with mom's stories. 

Snowflake Angel Ornaments

A quick post for now Ladies.  Just thought I would share mom's latest creation:

To order, click here.

I'll have some embroidery to share with you shortly and I'll be getting back to some more crazy quilting when I finish up on my current projects.

Not feeling too chatting at the moment so I'll be back later.

Pat Winters Gatherings

Not feeling great today Ladies, so I'm going to send you over to my sweet friend Pat to see the eye candy on her blog. 

Pat Winters Gatherings Blog

And So It's December.....

A difficult time of year for me but with my Winter project and other activities, I'll get through it.

I finished up on Block #3 of my Marie Antoinette quilt:

And as a refresher, here is Block #2:

And here is Block #1:

I'll wait about a week and then I'll start on Block #4.  In the meantime, for those of you who love this time of year, I thought you would enjoy this sweet little video from the 1950's.

Suzy Snowflake