Second Hand Chic...

This morning after my morning coffee and morning online shopping, I decided to visit a darling vintage shop I just found out about, where else, but through my blog!... I visited Kelly at her blog Second Hand Chicks for Vintage Christmas Monday this past week... I fell in love with the photos on her blog of her shop, and decided to check her profile to see if she sold on line... I couldn't believe it! Her shop is located in Salt Lake City, Utah, just about 25 miles from my little town of Centerville!... I was ecstatic and knew I must visit her today for her open house and sale!...


I was greeted by her adorable assistant Caitlin, who welcomed me and assisted me with my treasures...

Then I got to meet Kelly, the shop's owner, and it was like visiting again with a dear friend you haven't seen in a while... Kelly has such a bubbly personality and we chatted and laughed and had sooo much fun!... we both agreed we are addicted to blogging... and I couldn't wait to get home and post about her shop!...

I will let the photos of her shop do most of the talking, as I think they speak for themselves...

She has such a variety of wonderful vintage items... one of my favorite spots in the shop was the wall of old photographs... I stood there and looked at all of them for so very long,. wondering about these people and what their lives had been like, and why their family didn't keep their precious photographs...

Another favorite part of the shop (I loved the WHOLE shop, but certain areas made me very emotional)... is her display of religious items...

I spent several hours there, and had such a wonderful time and brought home so many beautiful treasures... I will post pictures of my findings in a future post... Kelly was so gracious and sent home many little extra goodies for me as well... Merci sweet Kelly!... If you live in or near Salt Lake City, Utah I hope you will visit her shop "Second Hand Chic" located at 2006 South 900 East... If you do not live close enough to visit her shop, please visit her blog Second Hand Chicks... be sure to tell her Julie Marie sent you! ... Bisous...

'Tis the Season...

I hope everyone had a beautiful and blessed Thanksgiving Day... ours started out with our morning Nature walk... my very favorite time of the day... then home to fix our Thanksgiving meal... dinner is over... dishes are all done... decorations are all up... we will turn all of our Christmas lights on in just a bit, inside and out... making our holiday season "officially" here... this is my pink shabby tree... the ornaments are not vintage on this one, just precious little shabby treasures from some of my favorite shops...

Speaking of favorite shops, I hope you will all visit my sweet friend Karyn of French Charming tomorrow... Karyn is such a doll, she is compiling a list on her blog of all the beautiful online boutiques and shops to make our Christmas shopping easier and alot more fun! If you have not visited Karyn, please do! She would love to add your boutique or online shop to her list! Tell her Julie Marie sent you! Thanks also to my dear sweet friend Bunny of The Paris House... I won her giveaway recently and my beautiful flower necklace and extra surprise arrived... I love it!... I also want to thank sweet Marie Antoinette for the lovely Christmas cd's she surprised me with... and also thanks to my sweet friend in Hawaii, beautiful Anna at Hula Gypsy... I recently ordered some beautiful vintage brooches from her shop and she also included several other surprises for me, including a sweet little vintage elephant brooch she named Shaba, in honor of my little baby elephant we are fostering in Africa... these three ladies all have beautiful shops as well, I hope you will visit them too!... Merci sweet friends, I adore you!... Bisous...

Guardian Angels...Adding one more BIGGIE to my list of "Thankful Fors" right now...

All of my guardian angels must have been watching over me today for sure... Jack had gone for the day when I noticed the strange smell I thought I had smelled last night in our house was getting stronger... and stronger... I have terrible allergies and am very sensitive to even the slightest scent... only this one wasn't slight... my head was aching and I was really stuffed up... and really tired...I started checking around the house... I found the cause... I had forgotten to turn off a burner on our gas stove last night, the flame had gone out, with the burner still on, and gas had been leaking into our entire house ever since 5 pm last night.. I hurried and called the gas company and they sent a man right out... the dispatcher told me to open all the doors and windows, go outside with my cell phone and wait for them... I did... In less than five minutes their man arrived... he checked the entire house with his meters... luckily he said by opening the doors and windows when I did it had started to dissipate and was not now at toxic levels... he told me with the amount of gas that had leaked out in all those hours, a spark from almost anything could have caused a terrible disaster... he checked inside and out for any possible other leaks... everything is now fine... just my nerves shot... it could have been worse... ALOT worse... so, today, right now, I am adding one more thing to my list of "thankful fors"... I am thankful Jack and I still have our home... and no one was hurt... and thankful for guardian angels... Bisous...

A Woodland Christmas...

Welcome to our home... I love to decorate for Christmas and try to use every single decoration I have collected throughout my lifetime... Christmas is such a magical time of year, it is only right that these treasures get to make their yearly appearance!... Today I am posting our woodland decorations (some of them anyway, I won't attempt to photograph them all!)... A berry wreath is a tradition for our front door... please come inside!...


Our living room is one of my favorite rooms in our home... it is a bit crowded, as I said before, I don't like to part with things, so we use just about everything we own!... Here is our woodland Christmas tree... (do you have trouble photographing a whole tree like I do???)...It is filled with all kinds of little critters, squirrels, raccoons, bears, wolves, foxes, bunnies, birds, every kind of little critter you can imagine...

It would not be the woods without Little Red Riding Hood...

I made sure the big bad wolf was not TOO close by... plus, he is a nice, friendly wolf, I can tell by the look on his face...

I used to have a favorite store for many years called The Nature Company... it has been closed for a number of years now, so sad... most of my little hand carved wooden Nature ornaments came from there... a beautiful Snowy Owl...

I LOVE my little chipmunk...

This bear doesn't hibernate until after Christmas...

Another one of my favorites is this little tree froggie...

A happy raccoon...

A beautiful moose...

If you have read my blog much at all, you know how Nature plays such an important part in my life... Jack and I take our approximate three mile Nature walk every morning, and it is my favorite part of the entire day...we live in the foothills in our little rural town, and see many of God's beautiful creatures on our walks... As Christmas approaches, I hope you too will take the time to notice the beauty of Nature and all He has created... Bisous...

P.S....Today I received a beautiful surprise gift in the mail from sweet Marie Antoinette in Mississippi... she sent me a package full of beautiful Christmas carols cds... Merci sweet Marie!... I will so enjoy them all!...

A bittersweet Christmas love story...

My daddy as a little boy and my great~grandma Souders...


Before I even begin this post, tears are welling up in my eyes... for the last four or five years, my sister's family and Jack and I have "adopted" a grandma or grandpa for Christmas... my dear brother~in~law Wes draws the names from a tree at his work, and we "adopt" our grandma or grandpa for the year... these aren't just any grandmas and grandpas... ALL grandmas and grandpas are special, but these are especially so... these dear ladies and gentlemen have been abused by their own families, both physically and mentally, and placed in a protected home run by the State... my heart aches for them... I must tell myself they are okay though... no one will ever hurt them again... they have become each other's "family" and they act as one... and they have come to know this place as their "home" ... which it always will be... the abuse they have endured is to the extent that those who were "once" their family no longer are and they are not allowed to visit... which is fine with me... what they have done to these dear people is unconscionable... Okay Julie Marie, dry your eyes and finish the story... I am waiting for word from my brother~in~law as to whose name I have this year and their little "wish list"... their wants are small... cozy slippers, hand lotion, key chains... a little box of chocolates... last year we had an elderly man who wanted items from one of the local universities here... I had such a wonderful time gathering little treasures for him... I found some fleece at the fabric store and tied him a little blanket with the university's logos on it... one of the times they wanted Big Band music and my sister got them wonderful cd's from the 40's... I am not rich by any means, but I would spend my last dime to make sure my "adopted" grandma or grandpa has a blessed Christmas... we never get to meet these grandmas and grandpas and they never know just who sent them their gifts... I just mark on the tags "from someone who loves you"... Sometimes people have asked me how I can love someone I don't even know... my reply is always the same... "How can you not?"... The happy part of this story is that these dear grandmas and grandpas have the strength and faith to go on living... they love each other, and feel safe once again... Christmas Eve they have a big dinner and a dance and the ladies get all dressed up, and excited... oh how I wish I could see them! I have a beautiful picture that runs though my mind of these beautiful women and their handsome "dates" dining and dancing and anticipating Christmas morning with the excitement of a young child... many of them are in their late 80's and even some in their 90's... When I get the name of my grandma or grandpa and shop for their little "wish lists" I will post about them... we never let anyone go without, if there is a name left on the tree, our family always takes it as well... I have the most wonderful family in the world, and soon I will have a new "adopted" grandma or grandpa to love... Bisous...

Vintage Christmas Monday...

Hello dear friends... I just found out about a blog party hosted by Joan at Anything Goes Here called "Vintage Christmas Monday" and joined in the fun!... Please look at my two previous posts with many of my vintage Christmas decorations, and I will be posting more each Monday from now until Christmas! Be sure to click on the link to Joan's site or the button on my sidebar to visit all of the other lovely blogs...


Hope you all enjoy my Vintage Christmas treasures...the memories and the people who once owned them who are now long gone are just priceless to me... Yes, I am a very emotional, sentimental lady!...Bisous...

Christmases Past Brought to Life Again...

Hello friends... If you saw my previous post, you saw many of my beautiful vintage Christmas ornaments and decorations out and ready to use... wow! After three days of decorating almost nonstop, I think I am finished! When we moved into our new house last April, it seemed really big for just the two of us... it is plenty big for Jack and I... just not big enough I guess for all of our "stuff"!... I don't like to part with things, so I must make do... All of my vintage ornaments would not fit on the new tree we bought just for them, so I used as many as I could on the tree, and the rest here and there throughout our home... we opted not to use my vintage strands of lights that are from the late 40's, they work still, but not sure how safe they are! So we got a pre~lit tree... also I was unable to use my cardboard reflectors as they only fit the old vintage bulbs... reflectors were used during WWII to discourage wasted electrical power and also due to the dangers of enemy attack "such lights should burn only when the occupants are available to put them out promptly in the event of an air raid alarm"...(from the Office of Civilian Defense 1942)... I love knowing the history behind things!... So, here is our tree...


Lights on!...


Most ornaments are from the 1940's and 1950's with a few from the early 1960's... most of the little lamps, coffee pots, teapots, etc are from West Germany...

The swirly ones like the pink pear shaped one in this photo are from Poland...the little umbrella ornament is listed in one of my vintage Christmas collectibles books as having a value of over $100 ten years ago... yikes! I hope I never drop it!... it came from an estate sale where I paid ten dollars for an entire box of ornaments from that era... I would cry more for sentimental reasons if it broke than monetary though... to me it is the memories from days gone by that are priceless...

Little birds from Czechoslovakia...

I had forgotten I had this very old mercury glass elephant... I named him Shaba, after our baby elephant we recently adopted from Africa...

My vintage birds all have spun~glass tails... my friend from Germany who owns a beautiful shop nearby tells me the newer birds no longer have spun glass tails... these are treasures to me...

These old indents are some of my very favorites...

This one is my pride and joy... this is a Pre~WWII Dresden ornament... don't you just love the crown on this beautiful peacock?...

This angel was mine when I was a little girl... she is missing a part of a wing... I love her even more...

West German little lamp...

Teapot from West Germany...

Another favorite...

I love my birds!...

A very rare Saint Nicholas...

More from West Germany...

Felt reindeer and elf...

Pine cones from Occupied Japan...

More from West Germany...

The indents are so delicate, I love them...

A very old, beautiful porcelain and net angel watches over the tree, blessing and protecting all of these treasures from so very long ago... I got really emotional and sentimental while I was putting up this tree... I felt a closeness to the previous owners of these lovely ornaments, I always feel that way about my vintage items, but at Christmas, even more so... I promise I will always take care of these heirlooms that have become a part of "my" family now... I think their owners who have passed on can tell how much I love their possessions, and I love the people I never knew, but in a way, feel like we know each other now... My books list many of these as very rare and expensive... to me they are priceless... just like the families they once belonged to... Bisous...

P.S. It was Jack's idea to get a new tree to put my vintage ornaments on... he thought we needed a tree in our office... said I was in there alot on the computer these days... (he's right!)...tee hee hee! Thanks Jack! PPS I will post my pictures of our Nature tree, my small shabby pink tree, and other decorations after Thanksgiving... I know, I know, I said I was going to wait to post my vintage tree too... what can I say... I get too excited!...