Spring Flowers Everywhere - Even Your Wardrobe

If you've never been thrilled to the very edges of your soul by a flower in spring bloom, maybe your soul has never been in bloom. ~Terri Guillemets

Everywhere you look colorful flowers are popping up in gorgeous colors – despite the snow and dreary weather (at least here in the Midwest).

No, flowers are not poking through the snow yet, they are showing up on a multitude of fashion items: dresses, blouses, purses, jackets, skirts etc.

And I am not just seeing a floral mirage; its official according to People StyleWatch and InStyle!

Many of your favorite fashion icons are donning these romantic beauties. You can see Natalie Portman in the People Stylewatch page above. But others are popping up too….

Now, as flowers have been a theme eternally, you will also find this look in vintage styles. Etsy is a great place to start this search for affordable, trendy vintage floral fashions.

I think my favorite is Selena Gomez with a sophisticated ascot blouse of a crisp white background upon which magenta and navy flowers are happily floating.

Get the look with a fantastic (affordable) vintage blouse by renowned designer Vera Neumann in a soft purple and tan tulip floral. This blouse available at www.lucysclosetvintage.etsy.com. (Click on photos to take you directly to items in this article.) This Vera blouse really has a similar feel as the one Selena is rocking.

Then there is Lauren Conrad. She has her own fashion line for Kohls and she is including these romantic images in her line as well. Here she is modeling one of her own. But you can get a similar look in vintage with a purple floral print & high waisted green and purple satin cumberbund dress at www.oldage.etsy.com.

Wanna try a look like Scarlett Johansson?

Check out these Scarlett Johansson look-a-likes.

Pink dress available at www.Sweetheart.etsy.com.

Green dress available at www.thepigeonchest.etsy.com.

Or do you prefer the styling choice of Kristin Cavallari?

Get a similar look to hers at www.BBDexter.etsy.com with this 1950's Halter Swing Dress.

Or define your own style and really go for the vintage look with these 1960's Dirty Dancing inspired summer sleeveless blouses with peter pan collar available at www.lucysclosetvintage.etsy.com.

Even the T-mobil 4G girl is wearing floral.

If you've never been thrilled to the very edges of your soul by a flower in spring bloom, maybe your soul has never been in bloom. ~Terri Guillemets

Get your soul and your style in bloom.

Where oh where did the time go? ....oh that's right I have kids....so time flies at WARP SPEED!

I have been meaning to blog and just don't get to it. Partially because I put so much pressure on myself to come up with something clever. So today, all pressure is off. I am gonna show you what I am focusing on in my shop. I am focusing on bringing www.swoonantiques.etsy.com up to speed in two categories: Tablecloths....Bark Cloth and Sewing...Patterns.

Today I listed two new tablecloths. The first one epitomizes True Spring. It features wonderful colors, floral design and has a light and airy feel to it. Something to brighten your day when the snow begins to melt!!

Look at that I mean doesn't that just make you wanna start to garden and have iced tea?

The other tablecloth I listed today evokes summertime fun. It features ripe red strawberries being poured into their cherry yellow cartons for market. I wanna whip up a batch of homemade lemonade infused with a strawberry syrup and strawberry garnish and watch the kids run through the sprinkler.....oh wait, its 36 degrees out today. Well one can dream.


I have added some new items to the bark cloth category - and I don't mean gags for barking dogs! Cool vintage 1940s 1950s bark cloth cutters that are just perfect for your next craft project......maybe for the throw pillow for your porch glider this summer!


















I have many more fun retro tablecloths that are currently in the shop and will be adding more in the coming days. I also plan on adding some more Bark Cloth pieces. So stop by and check them out.

Maybe tomorrow, I can blog about all the new sewing patterns I have been and will be adding. Check back soon!

Summer Vacation for Mommy!

The kids are back in school. As much as I love them, this is always wonderful time of year for me…..its like Summer Vacation for Mommy! I climb out of the "Mom" role for a few hours each day and crawl down to my "Lair"!

My “Lair” is the basement of my house out of which I run my business. It is also where I warehouse all the stuff I sell. It is called the “Lair” because it beckons to all who love vintage. Once they get down into it, it is a dangerous place; way too many goodies to pass any up and way too many things make it difficult to walk! I would guess that I have only about 1-2% of my "Lair" merchandise listed on my sites.

I have headed back down to the “Lair” and started to organize (though it does not look organized in the photo!) and plan new merchandise listings. I hope to start photographing and loading items in my shops as soon as possible. Please check my shop often to see what new goodies have surfaced from my “Lair”. I very much look forward to updating my shops, promoting my shops and selling lots of cool vintage stuff!

Also newsworthy, I have joined an esty team vmteam Vintage Market Team. This is a team of etsy shop owners who also sell vintage items. Check out their site and see what other vintage items you can discover! It really is a great, condensed source of funky, retro, antique, vintage stuff…http://vintagemarket.ning.com/. If you like vintage, this is nirvana!

Beauty - As Seen From 10-Year-Old's Eye.

Today I downloaded a bunch of photos from my daughter's camera. There were many silly ones with girls wearing different hats, there were several blurry close-ups of someone's nostril (yuck) and many blurry dark shots obviously taken with no flash.

But there were also a few really great shots of her brother hanging out in a tree, a darling shot she took of her dad and her brother before they went into the tent on a backyard camping adventure and then these.....


































We think of our kids as "kids", who really only worry about candy, fun, friends and trivial things. It is really heartwarming to know that sometimes they can see more broadly and see the beauty in their world.

WINNER!! Give Away - Holiday Gift Tags

We have a winner for the Holiday Gift Tags Giveaway!!

Congratulations to Valerie!!!

Thanks to all who entered and who read my blog!

If you had your heart set on these gift tags, they are available for sale on my site, so them you can still get some!!

Merry Christmas!!!

Virtual Food Drive

As I made my daily Starbucks run, I was listening the radio. There was an interview with a person from the Greater Chicago Food Depository. They were talking about the need for donations, particularly in today's economy. Apparently more people are turning to soup kitchens and food depositories for help; people you wouldn't expect, even those with college degrees.

Here are some stats from the Greater Chicago Food Depository:

• Thirty-nine % of the households who receive food from the Food Depository include at least one employed adult
• About 33 % of the people the Food Depository serves are children under 18
• 10 % of study respondents were 65 and older
• 25 % of households served have at least one family member in poor health
• 22 % of clients surveyed live in the suburbs
• 10 % own the place where they live
• 9 % of clients are homeless

In the past my daughter and I would do a door-to-door food drive in our neighborhood that I would then take to a local food pantry. As the kids have gotten older, life has taken me in every other direction and we have gotten away from that tradition – it’s time to return course.

So I have decided to hold a Virtual Food Drive with Greater Chicago Food Depository (a charter member of America's Second Harvest national food bank network). You can:

• donate whatever you want
  
• spend however much you want
  
• you don't even have to leave the comfort of your desk chair!
• it's tax deductible!
  

Food Drive - Click Here

When you click on the link, you will be taken to a secure server where you can shop for the foods you want to donate. You money goes a long way because the The Greater Chicago Food Depository gets a special rate on the items you select; your money goes farther with this process that it would if you shopped for the food yourself.

So if you, like me, have a very crazy life, but long to help others, together,let's get out the virtual wheelbarrow... please consider donating to the Greater Chicago Food Depository with me. Tis the season.

Fall Color Falling Leaves Decoration How-To

A week or so ago, while watching the Martha Stewart Show during my lunch, I saw a fancy-schmancy designer talk about doing the décor for high-end parties. He and Martha were discussing décor for a fall-themed party. One of the décor elements was to simulate falling leaves right in the party venue. This was done by taking real, fallen leaves and gluing them to mono filament (fishing line),then hanging them from tacks in the ceiling.

Well the overall effect was fantastic. But better yet, I thought it would make for a great Fall project for me and my kids. Plus it would make for a beautiful decoration to bring the outdoors in during one of Mother Nature’s biggest shows! Indeed, I was right on both assumptions!

We had perfectly beautiful Fall day here the weekend of Halloween. We went to the wooded pond near our house and hunted for leaves. What a great time we had! We found Linden leaves, Maple leaves, Oak leaves, Birch leaves, and even Ginko leaves! Believe it or not, we even found wild raspberries still putting out fruit with a vengeance! We even found a dead raccoon! Yikes!

The kids collected until their Halloween pumpkin buckets were full. Then we came home to begin the project.

First We Dried & Pressed the Leaves.

We made our own leaf press by using paper towels, old cardboard boxes and bungee cords. Here is the “how-to”.

1. Take a piece of cardboard and place two paper towels atop it.

2. Then the carefully arranged one layer of leaves, being careful that none touched and none went past the edge of the paper towel.

3. Place a paper towel on top of that layer and arrange more leaves.

4. Repeat until all leaves are accounted for.

5. Take another piece of cardboard and place it on top.

6. Secured the bundle tightly with bungee cords. You could also use a large heavy book, rock or even a canister of flour!

7. Leave alone for several days until leaves are dry and pressed.

Then We Made the Decorations.

I believe the Martha Stewart directions called for some fancy glue and “mono filament” (fishing wire). But we didn’t have either. So we just used good ole' Elmer’s school glue and embroidery floss.

1. Gather your mono filament, embroidery floss, yarn or dental floss…. whatever! Cut it to the length you desire.

2. Find two like-sized leaves. Lay one face down on table. Add a dollop of glue to its back.

3. Next take your mono filament, embroidery floss, yarn or dental floss and place it in the dollop of glue.

4. Then take the other leaf and apply to the first leaf with glue and string.

5. Press down gently to adhere.

6. Move down the string to your next leaf grouping.

7. Repeat until desired length is reached.

8. Put aside to dry.

Finally, We Hung the Leaf Decorations.

We placed the decorations in our door jamb to bring the outdoors inside; to make it look as though leaves were falling in the house.

Looks pretty cool and the kids are absolutely thrilled.

Celebrate Fall Leaves by Bringing Them Into Your Own Home!
If you are looking for more ways to celebrate Autumn and its bounty of beauty, take a look at these cool things I found on Etsy. Plus check out my site for recent additions of fall themed items.

At www.fineline-antiques.com you will find several leaf-themed items:Vintage Vera Neumann Scarf,Vintage Bark Cloth Cutter, and a Hand Made Therapeutic Grain Heating Pad.













There are some really great vendors online that are also offering ways to celebrate Fall.

Here is a really ethereal fine-art print of Autumn leaves falling into a vintage train case. You can find this and other phenomenally beautiful nature photographs at www.irenesuchocki.etsy.com.

Take the Fall beauty indoors again with these great handmade soaps. These chocolaty-brown soaps with maple leaf and acorn adornments look almost good enough to eat!
Soaps by www.ShopDavinia.etsy.com.

Finally take a look at this unique item Autumn Leaf crayons by www.Missing6.etsy.com. Made of 100% non-toxic recycled wax based crayons, these almost look like Raku pottery and embody the color and beauty of Fall.


Whatever you do, be sure to make the most of Nature's Fall display before it resigns to a naked quietness for Winter's sleep.

Traditions

Mid October, just about when the leaves are at their peak of screaming fall colors, I start thinking about what I call the “End-of-the-Year Slide”. This is the time when we get pummeled with holiday after holiday after holiday. At times it can make us feel exhausted, overrun and not very festive and cheerful. But just remember, while we are driving to yet another holiday obligation or errand, we are doing all these things for a reason: We are trying to making memories for ourselves and our families.

Holidays and festivities are often deeply-rooted in traditions; things we always do every year on certain occasions that make our lives and holidays richer. The constant errands, projects, and parties are all ways of creating, adding to or maintaining traditions that, in the end, add to our family's mental memory books.

Now Halloween is almost upon us and one of my personal traditions is to procrastinate with the kids’ Halloween costumes. What makes my procrastination particularly bad is our family's tradition that we make homemade costumes. This tradition allows us to spend quality time with each child discussing what they want to dress up as and why. It also affords us the opportunity to get creative with the kids in discussing how we will make the costume with the clothes and supplies we have on hand. Since my daughter is a hockey fanatic and a hockey player, many years her costumes are hockey related. This year, we added a little gore to the hockey gear costume and made her into Bobby Hull of the Chicago Blackhawks. My son is a Star Wars character so we took some old black adult t-shirts and cut them up into capes and hoods and stapled them all together.

Once Halloween is over it seems Thanksgiving comes rushing at us like a defensive lineman! It is only about three weeks, but it feels like one week. I often rush and scurry to get things just right so that our Thanksgiving is just perfect: groceries, cleaning, setting up the guest room, etc.

Our Thanksgiving traditions:

• Dad & Grandpa Make the Meal – isn’t that a great twist on tradition! This year we are going to add a new Thanksgiving tradition; the main chef will be wearing my Thanksgiving apron, which you can view on www.fineline-antiques.com under holidays.

• Mom (me) Makes the Traditional Dessert – the same ice cream pumpkin pie I have made since I started having my own thanksgiving. Another interesting twist on traditional Thanksgiving rituals. My family requests it each year. See below for recipe

• The Fight About the Meal TIME – since the men are making the meal, the timing of the meal is always built around the football game.

• Dress Comfortably – No dressing up this day. We have a casual relaxed day wearing just jeans or whatever we are comfortable wearing.

• Dog Thanksgiving – The dog gets a delicious plate full of do-friendly scraps after the meal. The best part is we get a stopwatch and time how long it takes him to eat it.

• Never Shop on Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving shopping frenzy) - But I do get out the gift-giving list I have been creating all year and start to edit it. I also check my wrapping paper, ribbon and gift tags.

Check out www.fineline-antiques for some darling, vintage-inspired gift tags for your holiday hostess gifts or your Christmas gifts. While you are there take a look at our Holiday category for Thanksgiving decorations and supplies.



If Thanksgiving came at me like a defensive lineman, Christmas comes at me like a linebacker!

Shortly after Thanksgiving, we get our family Christmas Tree. We like to go to the one of the local farms and cut down a fresh tree. This way the cut on the trunk is fresh when we come home and we can set it up right away and we don't need to bring the chainsaw into the living room to make a fresh cut. (That was a childhood tradition for me - my parents would always fight about my dad bringing the chainsaw in the living room in order to make sure the cut was fresh on our lot-purchased tree). We have cut down our own tree for many years and it is now a solid family tradition. Every year there is something memorable about our tradition.

• One year we had a baby in a backpack on our backs.
• Another year my daughter was sick but insisted we go so she was wrapped in many blankets and miserable but happy.
• Every year dad has to lie down in the snow and crawl under the prickly branches to cut down our tree…our hero!
• We ride out to the grove of trees on trailer attached to a tractor. We are wrapped in blankets and can see our breath in the air as we chatter about what kind of tree we are gonna get.
• Last year was truly picture perfect. There was a nice covering of snow and the section of the farm we went to had many mature trees. Many trees had their boughs dusted with snow. It was so beautiful and quite, I felt like we were in a make believe world.

Although the last quarter of the year is crazy busy and, quite frankly, exhausting for me, I also love this time of year. I love the spirit and ritual of it all and look forward to each and every one of our traditions. But more importantly, our traditions help to give our children very vivid memories of their childhood. And that END is worth all the headache and exhaustion.

Frosty Pumpkin Pie Recipe
I think this recipe is from Southern Living, but I cannot recall.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• ½-cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 1/8-teaspoon salt
• 1-teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ¼-teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/8-teaspoon ground cloves
• 1-quart vanilla ice cream softened
• 1 ½-cups gingersnap cookies finely crushed
• ¼-cup powdered sugar, sifted
• 1/3-cup melted butter

First make the gingersnap crust.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a 9-inch pie plate, combine gingersnap crumbs, powdered sugar and butter.
3. Stir well and firmly press mixture along bottom and up the sides of the pie plate.
4. Bake for 4-5 minutes.
5. Let cool for at least an hour.

Then make the filling.

1. In a very large bowl, combine pumpkin, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. Stir well.
2. Fold in the ice cream and combine gently.
3. Spoon filling into prepared pie crust.
4. Cover and freeze 8 hours or overnight.

Then eat the deliciousness.

1. Remove from freezer and let stand at room temp for 10 minutes.
2. Add slices to plates with a generous topping of fresh whipped cream.

Special Addition.
Our special touch on this pie is to add whip cream with a special flavor. When making our whipped cream, instead of using vanilla as the flavoring, we add Bailey’s Irish Cream. Give it a try, you will be wowed!

Fall Fashion Trends

Fall has already begun and traditionally we look at Fall fashion trends prior to the start of Fall. However, seeing as how I just discovered blogging in October and Fall began on September 22nd, I am a posting this a bit late. But better late than never.

Fall Fashion Trends 2008 show a Return to the Classics….

Plaid: Fall magazines and websites show lots and lots of plaid, particularly plaid on plaid.

Country Life: A return to the country life a la Ralph Lauren circa 80’s/90’s. We’re getting back to that look with very tactile type fabrics such as tweeds, velvets, furs, but in classic styles like high-waisted pants.

Feminine: You will also see lots of feminine touches: flouncy blouses, chunky sweaters, and lots of ruffles. Lots of ladylike handbags will also be present.

Jewel Tones: Contrasting the Feminine is another fall trend, which accentuates the body: long, lean silhouettes in monochromatic color schemes, particularly purples, citrines, and teals.

At FineLine Antiques, we try to stay on top of trends and offer you signature pieces for your wardrobe.

Check our site for Fall Fashion Finds like robust vintage fur coats, plaid skirts and monochromatic designer dresses.

Mention this blog for a 15% discount until October 31, 2008.