Labeling Things

I can't remember where I first saw someone using vintage Scrabble letters. It might have been Judy over at Anybody Home http://judyh58.blogspot.com/. In any case, I now have become addicted to labeling items with the Scrabble letters or vintage blocks. I'm not sure what need it fills for me, but it somehow feels satisfying.

I have a confession to make about the crow. I don't think that was actually meant to be a crow. I got it at a garage sale. I think it may have been intended to be a dove, but it was painted a garish metallic gold. Thinking I could use it some day, I bought it.

This Halloween season, I saw a number of "blog girls" using crows in fall displays. Gotta love spray paint...and there you have it.

A Weekend Wandering Walk in Waterview

Bruce and I love to take long walks, especially on the weekend. Last Friday, I met with a retired Navy Captain about a special project I am working on for the City of Portsmouth. I had never been in his neighborhood of Waterview before, but it was breathtaking. Bruce and I returned for a walk over the weekend. Of course I thought about sharing it with all of you.

I love tudor-styled homes. I used to live in one when I was little on Knollwood Road, although it was painted white and red instead of the traditional creamy white and brown.

The homes in Waterview are situated around the Elizabeth River in Portsmouth. The Navy Captain's house is the white one with the red shutters. It was a lovely day in the high sixities. I hope you enjoy seeing the sights as much as we did. I usually take most of the pics for this blog, but all of the ones in this post are Bruce's. That's why none of them are blurry.

Junking Surprise...October Moon in November

Some days are just serendipitous and your spirit often seems to know it is coming. For several days, I'd felt a prompting, a whisper, a little bird in my ear telling me to go to that junk store over behind the Suburban Pharmacy. I think it is part of having the junque gene in your DNA.

This internal prompting puzzled me a little, because the last time I'd been in that store, it depressed me. It was really downright cold and raw inside. The store was unkempt, dirty and the stock didn't look like it had changed since 1972.

YOU know what I mean. Not cool, dusty junque, but rather nasty old plastic drinking glasses, sad rusted metal walkers with tennis balls on the bottom and broken down furniture And not the broken down charming kind you can transform. No cool chairs with a carved back and the seat missing where you can put a geranium in a pot in the empty seat and set it next to the fence...just broken down. The kind that makes you feel sorta creepy. So why the urge to go the the old vintage store? It probably was still closed, I thought, as it had been for years.

The pictures above are of the reborn vintage store, October Moon. What a wonderful surprise! Sadie and Buttons (so-named because people said she was as cute as a buttonm when she was little) were glad to help me. I picked up a sweet vintage flower print in a wonderful frame which I'll show you in another post. I'm debating about painting the frame. I'm so glad that little bird put a "bug in my ear."

Please note the chairs that I have pictured above with the close up on the seat. The chair's seat is woven from old ties! Buttons told me that a gentleman from Connecticut restores these chairs and she couldn't live without them for the shop. They are spectacular. Some much more crafty person than I am who might be reading this should be able to apply this idea to a multitude of other applications.

I love a good vintage, junking day!