Writing Well

In a very old and shabby looking leather bound book as large as a 19th century family bible, I happened upon several curiosities I have to share with you, dear readers. Of course, I may need a gentle reminder to pen a note rather than send an email to someone special. But it's hard to resist, not to mention avoid, the subject of the article above when it appears in its large calligraphic letters and be-ribboned border followed by two subheads on points I should probably revisit before filling my fountain pen. My continuing education on social etiquette aside, I admit it wasn't just the subject matter that attracted me but the use of more than four type styles in as many lines of headings.

I'll continue to post more delicious excerpts from this wondrous book as I gently turn the pages back in time and manners.

Reclaiming Building Materials

I have a dream that someday I'll have a little dream hut in my garden. My dream hut will be built with reclaimed materials and salvaged supplies. The windows and doors, stylishly mismatched, will bring their own history and character to the eclectic little hideaway.

Beautiful dream house ideas and inspirations may be found in Thrifty Chic by Liz Bauwens and Alexandra Campbell with photography, as seen above and below, by Simon Brown.

Red, White and Blue

Have a safe and relaxing 4th of July holiday weekend.

Click here to make your own star medallions and for more holiday decorating ideas from Martha.

Make Your Own Pearl Necklace

Abby Larson at Style Me Pretty has featured a beautiful and talented bride wearing this fabulous multi-strand pearl necklace. The bride, Stephanie, made it herself with beads and claspy parts she got at Michael's. Click here to get all the info and be inspired to create your own.

Before and After - Garden Bench

How long can pleasing decay pass as a theme in my seating options? I have tried to be comfortable with the whole shabby chic approach to neglected metal garden furniture. But, it's not for everyone. Some friends look uncomfortable sitting back against a rusting, flaking settee in a strapless summer dress on a humid afternoon.

This year my list of warm weather projects was topped with a plan to refurbish the garden furniture and spiff it up a little. I am hesitantly sharing my first attempts to do just this.

Garden Surprises

This week my oak leaf hydrangeas have started to bloom. The showy white flowers are fragrant and huge. As pretty as they are in early summer, the color and beauty continue to be interesting through all four seasons. In late summer and early fall, the blooms will turn a pinkish brown. They look as dreamy as a sepia tone photograph. When the weather turns cold, they lose their leaves and the bark starts to exfoliate in a pleasing texture. In early spring, they begin to leaf out and grow taller with bigger leaves at the top, creating a little canopy of shade.

This week also brought out a hungry baby bunny. The little ball of fur was undeterred in its pursuit of grass to nibble on. Thankfully, it hadn't found the hostas yet!


One recent summer, a roaming band of wild bunnies went wild in the hosta beds. They ate everything they could reach and successfully consumed every single hosta. A gardening friend suggested I sprinkle red pepper flakes to deter the cottontails the next time. The following summer, a sly red fox chased the bunnies away. So far, we haven't seen too many surprise garden visitors.

A Card for Dad

This occasion to recognize Dad calls for a hand made card, or at least a card that looks hand made. These are a few examples of appealing themes that don't feature convertible historic cars, backyard grills, a mug of beer or a trophy for the number 1 Dad.

I have a weakness for cards with doodled or fabric ties, a frequent gift for my Dad. The vintage floral card seemed an unusual find addressed to Dear Father. And although the tea bag card bears a weak pun, it's refreshing token for a Dad who enjoys a spot of tea.

Happy Father's Day!

Make Your Own Jewelry from Miniatures

Doll house miniatures don't have to sit on the tiny mahogany table in the tiny formal parlor waiting for someone to play. It's time to bring the dainty diminutives out in the big world. Sally Cameron Griffiths shares her tips on converting her doll house finds into rings, earrings and necklaces with a little glue, jewelry parts and a pair of pliers. Here are the instructions from the Guardian to create your own recycled and wearable tea set.

Summer Floors for Frugalistas

Summer is a time to lighten up your home and relax your furnishings a bit to reflect your more casual approach to living and entertaining, in- and out-of-doors. Offer your floors a little breather, too. Roll up your wool carpets and area rugs and let your pretty floors be exposed for an airier feel and a fresh look.

If your floors are calling for a little more interest, try a taped design. Less expensive than paint and less permanent, you can add a border design to a virtual rug in vinyl floor tape or painter's masking tape.

For a light and colorful look to decorate your stairs, try your steady hand to paint stripes or a pattern like a stair runner. Marking out your pattern with tape will keep your lines neat and even. Thrifty Chic offers a striped DIY staircase project, top. This Old House Journal offers a bolder diamond design. Interior Transformations by Ann Grafton offers a subtle solid color painted runner. Or take inspiration from Jim Lambie and his spectacular taped floor installations.

Make Your Own Vintage Postcard Wallet

Country Living teaches us how to sew a simple wallet or card case from an old postcard. Vintage postcards with noteworthy photographic images or graphics work nicely, but it might be fun to use the back of a postcard. An old stamp, a curious cancellation, a beautifully penned address and handwritten message may be a more visually interesting choice. Click here for the supply list and instructions. Go green with sewing crafts!

ReStyle Vinyl Tablecloths

Warmer weather brings us inspiring opportunities to enjoy the great outdoors. Here are a few ideas to help spruce up garden furniture for entertaining, organize a picnic outing or take-off for a day at the beach. Go green and crafty - recycle an old vinyl tablecloth to create a new summer accessory for your earth-friendly style.

Martha suggests creating outdoor pillows, above, from easy to clean vinyl tablecloths. You can also apply a waterproof sealer to the seams for better weather resistance.

Design Sponge recommends making a double sided picnic blanket with the vinyl for the ground side and flannel on the reverse. Add a ribbon to tie it all up.

Crafty Daisies teaches us how to sew up a great sized beach bag with her choice of vinyl tablecloth fabric.

Enjoy!

Hold That Thought

Book markers can be made of almost anything. Of course, they work best if they are flat and don't really alter the book in any way. They can be as simple as a recycled scrap of paper or as formal as a four-color printed reproduction of a beautiful design. I recently found this vintage style, cross-stitched and embroidered book marker. It made me smile and think of my mother.

The sweet message reads "When this you see, remember me." My mother loves to read and she's a fast reader, too. But for the thousands of books she's read, I have never seen her use a conventional book marker. When the time comes to mark her page, she will use whatever she finds within reach, a corner torn from a newspaper or magazine or an unused paper napkin is her usual choice.

When I saw this book marker, I had a eureka moment and had to buy it for her. Maybe my mother needs a special book marker she can keep nearby and call her own. As for the hand stitched message, the words should not refer to remembering me, the giver. They should refer to the book marker itself. Using the pretty little book marker, thoughtfully handmade for a glorious reader, is in fact what I hope she'll remember.

Recycling Ties

Isn't this fabulous? The typeface, designed by Ed Nacional, a student at Parsons in New York, is called Tiepography. His impressive collection of ties comes from his Dad's hand-me-downs, flea markets, thrift shops and a few special purchases. Going green with great design ideas!

Brain Helper

The world's factual knowledge is now computable and accessible to you. You may not have been staying up nights worrying about comparing historical weather patterns or conjuring graphs to improve your household energy usage, but this is very cool. Different from a search engine, the computational knowledge engine draws from a huge collection of original data sources, not just other web sites. It also performs numerical calculations.

So, go ahead and try the newly launched Wolfram Alpha. Enter the names of two cities to get a comparison of the populations, the distance in miles between them and the time it takes to fly from one to the other. Enter your choice of a food, for the nutrition facts, calories, fat content and more. Did you know a poached egg only has 50 calories? Try something challenging.

The introduction by its creator, mathematician, scientist and software entrepreneur Stephen Wolfram is fun and helpful as a launching point.

Make Your Own Vintage Map Bracelet

Craft Stylish teaches us how to create a vintage map bangle bracelet. Scavenge around for a old road map from your glove compartment or another recyclable paper source. Click here for the supply list and easy instructions. It's fun and green!

Vintage Cards for Mother's Day

Julia Ward Howe, poet, social activist and author of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" proposed a Mother's Day in her 1870 proclamation, in reaction to the devastation of the Civil War, encouraging women to come together to oppose war and promote peace. She also believed in the equality of women.

Anna Reeves Jarvis, teacher, local activist, worked for better sanitation for both sides of the opposition during the Civil War. After she died, her daughter Anna Jarvis continued with her mother's work and tried to create a day to honor all mothers, living and dead. In 1907, she gave out white carnations to all the mothers at St Andrew's Church in Grafton, WV. On May 10, 1908, St. Andrews offered a Sunday service honoring mothers. In 1914 Mother's Day was created in the United States.

Happy Mother's Day!

Symbols of Summer from Coke

The Coca-Cola Company is releasing five new limited edition designs on Coke cans this summer. The minimalist graphics feature a striped beach ball, aviator sunglasses, surf boards, a charcoal grill and stars and stripes. Coming soon!

My New Old Sewing Machine

Do you have something in your home you hold onto that takes up precious space and may be infrequently used, but when you need it, you are so grateful that it is exactly where you stashed it, if only you could remember where?

Although I may go several months without using my little old sewing machine, I do need it on occasion. So I pull it out, dust if off, drag it over to the dining room table and in seconds I'm threaded and readying the speed controller underfoot. This system worked smoothly until one fateful Sunday afternoon in early December when I was putting the finishing stitches on a simple linen towel project.

The whirring sound of my almost completed gift uttered a grinding, crunching sound. I shook my head in slight disbelief that my reliable Touch and Sew, circa 1968, stopped without my provocation. I checked the thread was unbroken, peeked into the bobbin case for a jam, manually turned the hand wheel and it still wouldn't budge. Not exactly knowing what to do, I lifted all the irrelevant panels and hinged doors to notice absolutely nothing wrong. I tried turning off the power as if to re-boot and make this bad dream go away, but the jam remained.

Disgusted at my mechanical ignorance, I called the local sewing and craft shop. "Sorry dear, we don't do repairs on antique sewing machines here." I called my local home fabric source. "Sorry dear, we don't deal with that here. We have our own workshops to do all the sewing for us."

I sat back down, steeled myself, selected a fine looking shiny needle from my pin cushion, threaded it and started to create my own tiny row of stitches. I felt like I had traveled back in time to the days before electric sewing machines or to the prairie of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

I have looked at new machines, I looked at old machines, I waited patiently for the right solution. This weekend I bought a Singer 522 Stylist for all the wrong reasons. I needed a working machine. I liked the built-in table. THC said he needed something mended. I have a soft spot in my heart for old Singer machines.

It looks great. It seems to run well. But it's a little tricky without a manual. Oh dear, being green is sometimes a steep learning curve.

Groovy Style

Big, bold and beautiful in purple rings good morning 1975 from Westclox.

Groovy girl gift boxes from the late 1960s deserve a revival of some sort.

Transparency's the key for this acrylic chair, maker unknown, made in Brazil, circa 1970.

Pink, orange, and yellow define this room from Family Circle's Do It Yourself Encyclopedia, 1973.

Great 70s product design for the Uncola - crisp, refreshing 7up.

Milton Bradley was up to speed with its paper dolls, circa 1967.

Very mod Op shades from Argentina, mid 1960s.

For more details on these selections, just click on the images. Thanks for following 973's Groovy Week and our celebration of little known, but undeniably groovy designs.

Go Go Be Groovy

With Go Go boots this fabulous looking, it's hard to pick which retro color is my fave.

Why not wear two contrasting patterns like stripes and dots together?


Now for the men, nothing says 1971 like a hand-knit belted sweater.


For the man seeking comfort in his dressed up threads, 1975 remains the heyday of the leisure suit sans wide lapel, cuffed sleeves and bell bottoms.


For more information on the groovy week selections above, simply click on the images.

Groovy Designs

Looking around for some inspiring groovy images brought me to groovy fabrics. I love the now-vintage fabrics of the late 60s and 70s. Textile designers today are introducing some of these bold patterns, imagery and colors in new collections, which are easier to find than the originals. I happened upon the groovy guitar pattern and was immediately drawn to it. It comes from Michael Miller Fabrics, started in 1999 by Michael Steiner and Kathy Miller.

The groovy element continues in these MMF swatches.



For more info on groovy fabrics, just click on the images.

For more inspirations, check back during 973's Groovy Design Week.

Groovy, Baby

I can't help but say "oh, groovy" each time I uncover this puzzle from the depths of my storage room. I am more tolerant of it now than when it was donated to me years ago from an older friend with a child born in the 70s. It was crafted and stamped Child's Play from Asheville, NC. I have a little trouble envisioning it as a toy that parents would embrace today for a young child. However, for an older child or adult of any age who is interested in retro fonts and lettering, it's a thoughtful re-gift.

Speaking of groovy fonts, here are a few I recently found at dafont.com:






Do you have a font or object that evokes groovy? Then by all means, please send it along to 973Third@gmail.com or leave a comment here.

We'd love to hear from you, baby!