I HEART Pocket Letters!

Wonderful Laurie of Indulge Your Shelf sent me my very first pocket letter this month. I've been seeing lots of pocket letter swaps lately but hadn't joined any. This one has a pretty Valentine theme, and came in a cute envelope with a vintage card and the sweetest tag.

The vintage card is embossed and oh so adorable. And that tag! What's not to love - lots of pretty layers, a precious little girl with her pup, and some of my favorite trim at the top. The rosette is the icing on the cake.

The pocket letter has pretty papers, bits of ephemera and trim. Some things are attached but many are loose so they can be used for projects. I don't think I could bear to disassemble it! 

 This first row of pockets reminds me of Laurie's love for all things Jane Austen. 

The middle row has pretty ephemera bits and some vintage buttons.

The bottom row might be my favorite. I love the aqua ephemera in the first pocket. The second pocket has chocolate (!) and the third has the sweetest Dresden cupid.

If you'd like to see more photos of this and another lovely pocket letter Laurie created, visit her blog here.

I'm creating a pocket letter to send to Laurie and will share that soon.

A Slow Start to the New Year, OR "What? It's February Already?"

This year is whizzing by, but I've been under the weather since the week after Christmas so haven't accomplished a lot. Nothing serious - just a cold-turned-sinus infection that won't go away. 

Yesterday I made it to my first two estate sales since well before Christmas, but the pickings were slim. One sale had a few vintage things I would have loved to purchase, but the prices were horrendous. The second had great prices, but hardly anything I wanted. Here are my meager purchases.

 The book isn't vintage, of course. I've seen the movie a couple of times so no surprises, but for fifty cents it should be a good read when I don't have any library books on hand. 

I've been trying to spend some time organizing. My favorite vintage lace has been mostly piled in a box on a shelf, but lately it was taking up more and more space so I decided it was time to make some sense of the mess. Here's what it looked like when I pulled it from the shelf.

And here's what it looks like now. With other pieces pulled from around the room, the collection expanded to two boxes.

There are a few more pieces to be ironed and carded, but this project is almost complete - at least until I buy more lace! Here are a few of my favorites.

This next shows a card of narrower lace and a couple of pieces I picked up when I visited French General in 2012.

While I was organizing, I pulled out some lace and a few other items and listed a few lots on Etsy. These two have already sold. The cream lots sell quickly.

I liked the two photos above so much that I used them for some of the MOO business cards I ordered last week. I love MOO, because you can use multiple photos for the back of your cards and their paper is nice.

This blue lot includes some fun embellishments. The color lots take a bit longer to sell, but just the right person always comes along.

After Christmas I found this Smith and Hawken plant stand at Target and had to have it for my work table. Can you see it among all the clutter on the shelves in back?

I was using just the oblong white basket that's now on the lower shelf. It held all my tape and tags, but my stapler and other things were scattered about. It's nice to have everything together when I'm creating or packing Etsy sales for shipment, and I love the look of this piece.

The lower shelf holds tape, tools, tags, pins, and more.

The upper shelf has inks, markers, scissors, and more tags. There's still a bit of space to be filled. 

Those are my accomplishments for the last few weeks, along with a bit of watercolor and journal pasting. I'd love to hear what you've been up to!