Decorating for Christmas with Vintage

A couple of years ago here I gave a tour of our house at Christmas. Given that we decorate pretty much the same way every year, this is basically what it looks like again right now as we await the big day.

This year I thought I'd pick out some of my favorite ways to decorate with vintage from my Pinterest board, named, not surprisingly, "Decorating for Christmas with Vintage."

I love this use of a vintage scale and bowl, along with greens and pine cones and what is probably a vintage carved Santa, to create a festive look:

And here's another vintage scale that's topped with a wire basket filled with ornaments:

I've sold a lot of vintage scales over the years, and here's one in my shop that could work for either of the above decoration ideas:

And here's a way to use vintage canning jars:

I do want to get some bottle brush trees and try this! Meanwhile, I've sold a lot of vintage canning jars in my shop this year, but have a few left:

Here's another creative way to use canning jars, filled with candles and put into a vintage box with greens and pine cones:

A fun way to decorate with vintage in recent years has been to find old, rusty Tonka trucks and fill them with greens, Christmas ornaments, pine cones, or, as in this one, the ever-popular bottle brush trees:

I've got one Tonka truck left in my shop:

For those who live in cities, I've even got pine cones from our 25 wooded acres here in New Hampshire:

 White milk glass, which I've blogged about before, is also great when filled with greens:

And a few pieces of milk glass are still in my shop: a trumpet vase, a group of four vases, and a pedestal vase:

I also like the vintage medicine or apothecary bottles, which are painted white and filled with greens and small glass ornaments:

If this works in your decor, here are some vintage bottles in my shop, which I filled with greens: 

There are so many great ways to use vintage items in your Christmas decor. Right now the only vintage Christmas decorations I have left in the shop are an angel ornament and a group of molded ornaments:

However you decorate your home this year, I hope your Christmas is a joyous one and that your New Year overflows with blessings!

Bring on the Vintage Baskets!

I'm a huge antique and vintage basket fan and collector. To prove it, here are several pictures of my kitchen ceiling, where we hang some of our finds (along with pots and pans):

Bring on the Vintage Brass!

Vintage brass adds a sparkle and vitality to any decor.

Made from two natural elements, copper and zinc, the similarity of brass to gold in both flexibility and color accounts for its popularity from Medieval times to today.

Once, highly polished brass was the most desirable because it looks like gold. But today, with the surge in decorating with vintage, brass with aged patina is also sought after. And the question becomes: to polish or not to polish?

Actually, I think it's up to the preference of the owner--and the type of item. Some items I polish and some I think look great just the way they are.

Collecting Cast Iron

Every day I use cast iron pans in my cooking. Couldn't do without them.

Collecting vintage cast iron has become increasingly popular in the last few years. Not only are cast iron pans and other cooking utensils handy in the kitchen, but they're also wonderfully decorative when displayed on the wall.

Musings on Vintage Milk Glass

I didn't always love milk glass, as pretty as it is.

I knew that some people collected it, but I was into blue and white, my own personal collecting passion.

Musings on Vintage Mason Jars

I love vintage Mason jars!

If you came to my house and saw how many I have you'd realize what an understatement that is. I started out years ago collecting the big aqua ones with the zinc tops.

I use them in my kitchen pantry to store dried beans and peas and flour and sugar and various cooking needs.

Selling on Etsy: A Frustrating Lesson

It was one of those days....

Last Friday I photographed a terrific vintage glass cloche and gray marble cheese server for my Etsy shop:

I filled out most of the necessary listing forms: title, description, tags, etc., but ran out of time to finish it completely, since we were heading out to a football game in Vermont and I had to pack and otherwise get ready to leave.

A Hurricane, A Broken Mug, and Etsy

Last week most of the world was watching as one of the largest hurricanes on record, Irma, headed straight for the Caribbean islands and Florida.

Since we have friends in the USVI, Puerto Rico, and throughout Florida, including my brother in Tampa, our concern, focus, and prayers for all in Irma's wake was intensely personal.

Fortunately, all our loved ones were safe, with only minimal damage, but the devastation throughout this region was massive, to say the least.

Just after the worst of it had passed, I heard a "cha-CHING" from my iPhone, signaling a sale in my Etsy shop. I looked to see what had been sold:

Fabulous Finds & A New Friend at the St. James Fair, Woodstock VT

My daughter, who lives in Woodstock, Vermont, said I absolutely had to come. The St. James Fair there, now in its 92nd year, was something not to miss.

We live about an hour and a half away in New Hampshire, so it's not a long drive. And since it was a great excuse to spend the weekend with the family, we drove over Friday night for dinner.

But on Saturday morning, at 9 a.m., my daughter and I were there, scouting out what we wanted to make a mad dash for once the ribbons encircling the tents were cut precisely at 10 a.m.

The Unexpected Journey of a Kentucky Derby Hat

When I found it, I had to buy it. Even if I would never make it to the Kentucky Derby.

Maybe one of my Etsy shop customers would, I thought. It was definitely an amazing vintage hat!

My Etsy Studio

Okay, first off, I often dream of having the perfect studio: white walls, tall windows with great natural light, lots of room to store all my items and pack them up when purchased,,,,,

Brimfield Bound!

Looks like it's finally happening, and I'm getting excited.

Even though I used to be an antiques writer and I've been an Etsy seller now for several years, I've never been to the Antiques and Collectibles Capital of the U.S.: Brimfield!

Since 1959, Brimfield, Massachusetts has been the site for three annual gatherings of antiques and vintage dealers--thousands of them--who come from all over the U.S. to display and sell their wares: 6 consecutive days (Tuesday through Sunday) in May, July, and September.

Vintage Hats and Etsy

This week some of my vintage hats were featured in "50 Gorgeous Vintage Hats" in a fun blog
called "We Heart Vintage," written by Mary, who--according to her bio--is "a mum, web designer and vintage-addict from a small village in the UK":

You really should take a look at the amazing array of hats featured here--such a wide variety of colors and styles, really interesting!

Celebrating Three Years on Etsy

Three years ago this month I took the plunge and put my first items up on Etsy.

Actually I joined in December 2010, but it took me months to figure out what was going on. If you want to read how it all started, you can check out my first post titled "What's Etsy?"

Which was followed by my second post, titled "First Listing," and then "Filling Up My Shop Little by Little."

In April 2011 I finally made my first sale, a Beacon Hill Staffordshire dinner plate:

which I recount in a post titled "Life So Far on Etsy." Today I wouldn't take a photograph for my shop like that, because I now prefer to shoot against a white background--for a lot of reasons, one of them being a consistent "look" among the listings and another the fact of being more often picked up in treasuries, which hopefully gives the seller more exposure to a wider buying audience.  These things you pick up and learn as you go along. Not every Etsy seller agrees with photographing against a white background, but I've become a die-hard about this.

The Beauty of Vintage Bottles

Over the years I've sold a lot of bottles in my Etsy shop.

Last week a fellow teammate of mine on the Etsy Pickers and Sellers Team (known affectionately as "Epsteam") bought this bottle:

She said she has a collection of bottles displayed over her kitchen cabinets and took them all down recently to wash. After rearranging them, she found she could use a few more, so went looking on Etsy ~ "Of course I searched on "Epsteam glass bottles"!" she said.

A Passion for Books: An Encounter on Etsy

Books have always been a special love. I was a reader from the moment I grasped "Run, Spot, run!"

As I grew up, books were given to me for birthdays and Christmas because my family and friends knew I loved to read. Once I was out of college, married and living on a budget, I started buying books at sales, a practice that continues to this day. I always look forward to that final day "bag sale," where you can stuff in as many as you can for a few dollars!

Vintage Fashion and My New Etsy Model

There's a whole new look to my shop these days with the arrival of my new model:

Here she's photographed wearing a lime green silk sheath dress from the 70s. A great dress, but her presence among the pictures in my shop adds a real buoyancy to all the listings. This is a story about how her arrival came to be:

Plate Passion

I love plates. Colorful vintage plates. Not only are they functional, but beautiful when displayed in a hutch:

For a long time I've been collecting blue and white plates, like the display above.

New Year, New Etsy "Studio"

(Note  4/7/16: For some inexplicable reason, a number of photographs used to illustrate this blog post disappeared. I have re-written the post, accordingly, as I'm loath to simply delete it. Hopefully you'll enjoy it anyway!)

One of my New Year's resolutions is to write a new blog post every week. Well, we'll see how that goes...

So today, being snowbound in New Hampshire (schools are closed for the second day in a row, probably just because it's so cold here right now with temps of about 3-5 degrees and a good wind chill going), 

I decided that this was a good time to write a little bit about my new Etsy "studio."

A Reunion on Etsy

One of the fun things about selling vintage on Etsy is the people you meet, both customers and other sellers. I've written here about some of these encounters.

Recently I re-encountered an old friend, B. J. Elvgren, who sells her amazing handmade creations on Etsy (here). Years ago we'd met each other through our husbands--both playwrights and both at the time teaching theatre and playwriting at universities in Virginia and New Jersey. Her husband had invited my husband to give a talk at his university and I went along, spending a wonderful several days with B.J. and Gil sight seeing, talking, and admiring their antique-filled home. B.J. also had a beautiful studio filled with her quilted creations, and I bought several pillows from her that still grace our living room couches.

Time passed, and after a hiatus of quite a few years, B.J.'s husband got in touch with mine over some business. During their email conversations, my husband happened to mention that I had an Etsy shop and gave the URL. Gil said that B.J. did, too, and almost immediately I received a convo (Etsy lingo for its internal email system) from her saying that she'd checked out my shop and loved it. So I clicked on her shop link--I knew I'd love everything because I knew how talented she was--and got back to her and before long were talking back and forth and wondering how we could all get together again.

Then, after responding to a convo from her, I went back to check my Etsy activity stream for any new purchases. Suddenly I saw that wonderful green "view order" sign on this item: