Hello, My Name Is...

...Stephanie, and...

I have a problem...

Remember Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the classic cartoon?
Remember the Island of Misfit Toys?

Seems my home has recently become the Island of Misfit Books...


I love to go antiquing.

Perhaps I should say I love to go JUNKING because honestly, I know absolutely nothing about true value of most of the stuff crammed into antique shops. If I like it and feel it's a fair price (fair price=how much is in my budget on any given day), I will buy it, no matter the condition. Yes, I am the sucker the dealers see coming...but I am usually a happy victim when I leave...

And lately, it seems, I can spend hours going through the stalls selling old texts.

The book above caught my attention because of the painting of this artistic woman. I only wish I looked a fraction as elegant when painting.

The rest of my recent score was more juvenile in nature...

This Little Golden Book, with its' missing clock hands, would be symbolic of both my love of misfits and my complete lack of time management skills when I am going through book stalls. My watch has no hands either when I am lost in piles of vintage paper....


Of course it had to come home with me...my favorite image is this sweet little girl in her pink swimsuit...

The Breakfast of the Birds

I admit it, some of these books I bought just because I liked the cover. This is the first example. It's such a cheerful blue color, accented by cherry red...it made me smile and that was reason enough to bring it home...


More birds and kids...

Mrs. Leslie's Books for Little Children The Robin Redbreast Series

None of these books were in ideal condition, but this one needs more attention than most.

Still trying to figure out how to get that....musitness...to go away. But if there is one thing I have learned, it is that through Google-ing, one can find the best way to do just about anything.

"Mr. and Mrs. Robin were deeply pained by Dick's bad conduct."

Can you imagine telling your child that their behavior "deeply pained" you (I cannot)?
How genteel...


I think the oldest book I found is this primary geography school book.

It's full of wonderful illustrations like these...
and my favorite map...

Not because the focal point is my home state....look a little higher, where Oklahoma should be...that there's Indian Territory...


And last but not least, this picture word book had me at hello...
The colors, the subject matter, the stripes...I was sold at first glance, didn't care what was inside (which is not quite as whimsical and allot less colorful)...

I heart cherry eating giraffes in BK crowns!

And what's not to love about a cute li'l fluffy bunny?

I'm such a sucker for the cuteness!

Believe it or not, there are even more books I collected on this trip...but they will have to wait for another day...

Until Next Time...

On This Memorial Day...

May you....

Enjoy summer's first wave of sweet watermelon...

Sharing with your best friend makes it sweeter, doesn't it?

Or maybe enjoy a relaxing day, at one with nature...

She's smiling because she doesn't have to mow (yes, this weed patch is the back yard of my new house!), but her humans do now that they have finally got the lawnmower charger out of the box it was buried in...

May you NOT have to mow on this holiday!

But most importantly, may you remember (and mentally thank) all those that gave everything to protect this great flag...

Got lots of stuff to share this week, some new shop items and some nice antiquing finds.

So Until Next Time,

A Few of My Favorite Things...

Been thinking lately (it's ok- it didn't hurt too much) that I want to start sharing some of the great stuff that I come across in my online wanderings.

I'm sure I'm not unusual in that I love to window shop on Etsy.
I love to explore the tables on Poppytalk Handmade. And I'd like to occasionally share with you some of the nuggets I come across...


All this because I came across this shop, when checking my Poppytalk table this morning....
Oh my, I love these bears...just a perfect blend of vintage and whimsy.


They are made by a shop called Mary's Granddaughter on Etsy.

And this must be my lucky day (and maybe your too if you they catch your fancy), because Mary's Granddaughter is hosting a giveaway on her blog...

Go check it out...
I've already put my name in the hat!

Until Next Time,

I'm so excited!

Tooting one's own horn isn't the most comfortable thing in the world, but honestly, this kind of thing doesn't happen every day (not for me anyway)...

I am so excited and thrilled and flattered about this I just have to share!

My simple little Salt and Pepper Tags were picked by Country Living Magazine editor Katie Woolsey when Etsy's Storque asked her to be a guest curator.

Exciting in itself, for sure, but earlier this morning, when I did my daily run through Google Analytics, I see "countryliving.com" as a referring site to my shop...

Click here to see the slideshow on the CL website....

I am definitely not used to this kind of attention, so please forgive me while I act like a complete Yahoo...carry on...

P.S. There are some really nifty choices in Katie's story...Lots of shops I wasn't familiar with, but I have been a big fan of Yeehaw Industries for quite awhile. Their election posters last fall were the funniest things I have seen in a LONG time!

Oh well, back to the usual Manic Monday...Have a great day!!

Until Next time,

Meet the Bowheads...

Thought I'd give you a sneak peak of things I'll be working on while I'm watching the Survivor finale tonight (now that the "Dragonslayer" is gone- thank goodness- I don't care who wins, but I still have to watch) .

These girls are almost done....Remember back in the 80's when we all used to wear those hair bows on our pony tails?

I suppose it might have just been a Texas thing, but the girls who wore those ribbons were called "bowheads", for obvious reasons...so when I found these sweet baby doll stamps, the first thing I thought: "look, bowheads!"


OK...they don't all have bows.
There's a hat or two and some sort of head dress (feathers?), but they all have some sort of accesory on their noggins...


Every group has its' rebel, though. In this case she's a rebel without a dress as well as a hair bling...

I guess when you're brave enough to go to the party nekkid, you don't need no stinkin' bow...

Wonder if that's why she's my favorite?

Until Next Time,

Oh.My.BLEEP.BLEEPity.BLEEP. Goodness.

As Charlie Brown might say:

AR-RR-GGGG-HHHH!!

Being the optimist that I am, I tend to think that nothing will ever go wrong with any of my online ventures. Someone forgot to send that memo to my blog....

As you can see, we've got a whole new look going, not by choice.
But I am really happy with it nonetheless.

I just have to say a few things.

1) Picnik ROCKS!

If angry Kitty at the top of the post is my "before" shot, happy Molly (only the best poochie in the entire universe!) is my "after". I made the banner and all of the buttons with picnik's editing tools, and they were awesomely easy to make...

Let me stop right here to add that it is WAYYYY past my bedtime, so if I sprinkle this post with a few too many "awesome"s and "Super!"s, you know why...

2) There are TONS of great blogger tutorials out there, all to be found with just a few keystrokes and Google!

Blogger Busters was my fave, with tons of different tutorials on almost any change you can think to make to your blog. I just hope that if you decide to make changes, it is by choice. Not by necessity, like me.

It was a heck of a way to spend a VERY pretty Friday...
And that's all I've got to say about that.

Until Next Time,

The Forever House....

Happy Tuesday, fellow bloghoppers!

Many thanks to all for the overwhelming well-wishes and kudos sent to Mr. Sunshine since his return last week. Your kindness is one of the many reasons I love this little handmade online community we're all citizens of...

One thing I did very little of during Mr. Sunshine's deployment was to just sit down and start to paint....whatever came to mind....

There was a time when painting was ALL I did....

That started with his first deployment in 2004.

In between then and now, there was a move or two (or three), some health problems for both me and Mr. Sunshine (and a few other family members), the loss of my Father, and a second deployment . Major creative mojo killers taken individually, let alone racked up, one on top of the other in quick succession.

So it has been a long time since I just sat down and exhaled, releasing everything- the tension, obligations, the pressure to make something with selling it in mind- and just creating for me, myself and I...

I have always, always, been fascinated with houses.

I paint them often. Cute little cottages, folk art inspired saltbox houses, houses for critters (barns), houses for worship (chapels). I think every painter has a favorite subject, like winsome little girls with big eyes, still life florals, whimsical animals, and on and on. Mine is houses.

We moved often when I was a child, and each new house was an adventure, a new start. Maybe it was the new color I got to paint my room every time we moved, I honestly don't know...but moving did not bother me that much...


As an adult, I have lived in many, many houses...not so much of an adventure anymore and new starts are over-rated, specially when you have teens who don't consider this lifestyle exciting.

Some houses I have loved, others I have loathed. But each has contributed at least one tick (some positive, some negative) to my mental check list of what the "forever house" (the one we move into after Mr. Sunshine retires from the military and hopefully NEVER leave again) will, and maybe more importantly, will not have. I pity the poor Realtor who has to deal with me in a few years...

Anyway, I sat down last night and just painted. When I did, of course what naturally came out of the brushes was this wee little purple house.

I sketched a series of three small canvases, all featuring (of course) a house or two, connected by the yellow brick road you see above....

A happy, simple little painting....
this is what happens when I exhale...

How about you?
What is your "happy, just for you" crafting groove?
I would love to read all about it....

Until Next Time,

Moving Right Along....

I promised a few pictures from my new studio....

OK "studio" is a very ambitious word, but I sure like the sound of it, much more so than "work room" which is what I suppose my space really is. Just humor me, if you don't mind too much...My studio is turning out quite nicely, I do believe...

I have a love of all sorts of old "stuff ". If you ask Mr. Sunshine, he would not call it stuff, but as this is a g-rated blog, I won't go there. I'm known to bring home all sorts of misfit bits and pieces, parts of things, somehow separated from their original homes....shutters, dresser drawers, things that even I have no clue as to what their original purpose was. Often I never figure out what the heck to do with these "treasures" (every time I use quotation marks , that's an example of a term that my very patient husband would describe very differently...let's just say one woman's treasure is another man's junk...) and eventually I pass them on, hoping that a kindred soul will find them and help them find a new purpose. I know I'm not the only one of my kind....I suspect some of you might also be secret "stuff" collectors as well...

One of my favorite finds has found a home in my studio.

This is an old cash register drawer, turned upside down and obviously hung on the wall.

Perfect little compartments for all sorts of vintage bits and pieces...

...one of my favorite dollies (made by my friend Chrisi at Sugar and Spice ) and illustrations from vintage Dick and Jane type books (purchased from Chloe Rose Designs )....

I like these old watercolor trays...don't ask me why because I'd say "I just do"...such a bad answer, but some things just are what they are....

The trays that at one point held tens and twenties now serve as storage for my growing collection of vintage children's playing cards (my friend Kath often has these in her shop: I NEED that )....

... close up of my Fisher Price Learn to Tell Time Clock...as a little girl, I played with this til I broke it, but it still looks great! I love the graphics and the colors... fond memories attached to this old toy...

Run Forrest colored Bunnies, Run!!
Another post Easter clearance steal...not sure what I will do with these guys. Remember what I said about the watercolor trays? Ditto....

And I did manage to get a few of those smile inducing plates hung up...this is only about half of them...guess my eyes were bigger than my wall space....

Another found treasure that never had a purpose....
I *think* I got this sweet pale pink glass bowl from my step Mother. I have held onto it through many a purge (remember, I move, on average, every two years... we purge allot!) just because (I seem to do allot of that, don't I?). It's so pretty (the photo does not do it justice) and now it has a purpose- to hold the "thank you" tags I include with every order. It's nice to have them in an easily accessible spot...

And since the theme of this post is turning out to "just because", I'll include a pic that I have no dialogue for, just thought the ribbons were pretty, all lined up like that...and hey, any pic with a touch of Disney is OK by me....

Hope you enjoyed my little photo tour....I am hoping to have some new tags to share with you later this week (and if we're very lucky, maybe even some "welcome home" pics of Mr. Sunshine- how's that for dropping a bomb and running?)....

Until Next Time....