Sparkly Table Setting

These are interesting battery operated lights that change color. Click on pictures for a closer view.

The table cloth is just a large piece of sequinned fabric.

A teapot tied like a gift box with a ceramic bow.

Napkins with napkin rings made with a garland of tinsel. Silver colored chargers are very effective as placemats.

These are cards from the 19th century from Victorian Trading Co. catalog. I could not decide which ones to post today so I posted them all. I love the look of the landscape and the way the roads used to look with the wood fences and railings. I like the scene outside the window. One of these cards is called "Arriving at the Inn". I can imagine what it is like inside the inn, with the warm fireplace and a hot meal. Be sure to visit www.lovelywhatevers.blogspot.com for some winter scenes. These posters can be ordered and framed for your home. I do wish someone would devise frames that would be back and front so that winter scenes could be just turned around in the summer, giving double use to the poster frame.

Easy Paper Book

Love and Happiness to Everyone

on this Special Day

This is an easier book, made with various card and paper products. Punch two holes, from the lower edge of the pages and cover. Cut the pages slightly smaller all around than the piece you are using for the cover. Thread the wired ribbon on the inside and tie on the outside of the book.

These smaller books give you a chance to experiment with cover designs, and decide what works or does not work, enabling the next one to be more to your liking. Children love the little books and care not if there is a mistake in them, so they will not go to waste.

I called this one the "Gift Book" because I put all the stickers I had saved, of wrapped gifts. The next ones will be using stickers like tea cups and tea themes, or cakes, and roses. I used paper that was already glittered for the pages of this book.

Use a Box to Make a Book Cover

This book is made a little differently than the previous one. It is a small book made from the snack raisin boxes for packed lunches.

First, you have to cut off all the flaps and folds until you get to a three sided section: one narrow between two wide sections, like this.

Cut paper a little larger than the piece of cardboard, so that you can pull the excess over to the other side, like this.

Here is the other side, completely covered. You can't use a card stock in this step, because it does not fold over as easily. This is a printed paper, normal weight, like typing paper.Then cut a piece to cover the back, leaving some of the trim showing. Here, I have used mylar paper from a gift bag purchased at Dollar Tree.

Punch one hole at each end, instead of two as in the previous post. Trace around one side of the book to determine the size of pages. Fold a piece of paper several times and cut pages on the fold. Make the pages a little smaller than the book.

Punch two holes in the pages, just like in the book jacket, and thread a ribbon through them, like this.

Tie the ribbon through the outside of the book jacket.

Add stickers or clippings to the front of the cover, like this.

This book is for a little girl who is two years old on December 25. She likes to be read to, but there are no "girl-books" around the place.

Some of the inside pages are just stickers from the dollar store,

and catalog clippings.

This one was made by a 9 year old boy, using construction papers as coverings and pages. He calls the book "The Luxury Rabbit" because Candy, from Alberta, sent me a glittered rabbit sticker that he used. He has had his eye on that sticker for quite some time and was so happy that he got to have it.

He uses stickers to fill the pages.

Now that you know how to make a book jacket out of a box, you won't even need a box any more. These book covers can be cut from card stock or heavy scrapbook papers. In case you think you have to have some skill or talent for things like this, let it be known that I never use a ruler. I "eye" everything.

When making pages or shapes or card designs, I often begin by folding paper on a straight edge, re-folding, until I get all the edges I want, then unfolding and cutting it out for a pattern. Projects like these are pretty even when you aren't accurate, and they are very hard to mess up. You can always paste over them again, if you do. Even if the box and pages are not cut straight, it makes a pretty little book. The attitude toward quiet endeavors like this, is not to "get it done" but to enjoy the color and the texture and the creativity of it all. I don't worry about how it will turn out.

Book From a Box

Try using an empty soda-bicarb box, raisin box; any small box. If you get a box that is too big, the binding will be so wide, it will take too many pages to fill it up.

Any box will do if the side of it is not very wide. Open up the box and cut off one narrow side, leaving three sections: two wide sides and the middle for the binding of the book. It will similar to the three ring binders.

Pages can be made from construction paper. If you have them ready, they can be traced on to the cardboard. Put the edge of the page up to the edge of the little section, called the back binding. Cut to fit, and repeat on the other side.

The book binding should now look like this. Gather up your spare papers to cover the outside and inside of this binding. You might have to piece some of it to get them to fit, if your book bigger than the paper. Smaller boxes fit just fine on regular sized papers.

Cover the outside. It is beginning to look like a book now.

Have your pages ready and punch holes in them. These holes will have to match the holes in the binder, so you may want to punch your book jacket first so you can line up the holes with the pages.

Using glue, cover the inside of the book. If you have no white glue, it is easy to make a paste with flour and water. Paint it on the cardboard with a pastry brush.

Punch two holes on each end with your hole puncher, like this.

Pull wired ribbon, string, cording, rope, or anything you like, through the holes in the pages, but do not tie them. Shown is narrow wired ribbon.

Lay the pages inside of the book. Then pull the ribbon on each side of the pages, through the two holes of the inside of the binder and tie them into little bows on the outside. Shown here is wide wired ribbon in silver. It is easy to get wide ribbon through the holes when you twist it first and insert it.

Using your decorative edge scissors, make edgings for the inside and outside of your little book and paste them down.

To make pages, just cut out things you like from catalogs and magazines that you might discard. Then cut pieces from glitter paper or any kind of colored paper you have. For the dark green border on the inside cover, I used the paper from a green envelope.

Some of the scraps on the inside pages.

This is the inside back of the book.

Click on for a larger view. Decorative scissors were used to cut borders of glitter paper for the edges on this book.

These little books can be what you want them to be: Primitive, country, romantic, seasonal, thematic, and personal. They are great for children's projects when they are learning about a particular subject, and they are relaxing to do if you just want to cut and glue. When we were young in the 1950's, cutting and gluing and creating was something we did when we were recovering from illness, snowed in, or for an activity to fill a lazy dazy day of summer.

Living the Slow Life

Holiday Impressions by Susan Rios (click for a closer view)

Christmas Cottage by Susan Rios (click for a closer view)

These homey scenes are the newest creation from http://www.susanrioseditions.com/ Just click on "Christmas Cottage" on the left side and view 4 or 5 pages of her altered paintings, where she has added colors and ornaments for the season, to many of her original paintings. Since I enjoy the altered looked (making more than one use of things) I think these paintings would be a bright spot for the home.

Snowed In Today

Snowed in can be a good thing, as it encourages the slow life as we once knew it. The fifties were only 10 years, and contrary to the rumors spread by those who were not even there, those years were not "fantasy" but reality. Much of the slow life was due to the fact that most women were home-based, and even if they earned money from the home, they were not as pressured to do everything. Men worked and brought home the bacon, as it was said, and women guarded that money and watched the out-go of it as carefully as they watched the in-come. That is one reason that we made so many things. We saved the money for things we could not possibly produce ourselves, but we also did not feel we needed a lot in order to be happy and fulfilled.

My own family spent many days snowed-in on the homestead, which I wrote about in the chapter called "Songbird in the Snow" in "Just Breathing the Air."

This is the beginning of the snowfall here where I live. It got much deeper after the photo was taken. In winters in the 1950's my parents enjoyed a large puzzle that would take all winter to put together. One of my brothers did not like puzzles, so my mother and father would always save out the last two pieces for him to put in place. It became such a tradition, that now that he is in his 40's, they still leave out two pieces for him, for when he drops by for a visit.

I recently put together the pink house by the sea by Nicky Boheme (available at the Dollar Tree for only a dollar) but it was very complicated. I got stuck around the seacoast of the painting and decided to give it up and go take a bath and get ready for bed. When I came back, there was the entire puzzle put together, with two token pieces left out for me, by my daughter, who loves puzzles. I don't care for them particularly, but the pink cottage by the sea was so tempting, that I made an exception. Personally, I could never figure out how some manufacturer could take a perfectly beautiful photograph or painting, chop it into a thousand pieces, and torture someone to put it back together.

For relaxation, I like to play around with different looks in table settings. When the photo-shoot is all finished, the family sits down to a meal using the new arrangement. Here I have used fabric and a few old cups for a green scene. Everyone enjoys the next "scene" for a meal time.

When I have homemaking classes for girls, I get out a variety of mismatched dishes and let them create their own place settings and centerpieces. Aqual lame fabric used as table cloth for this setting




This is another altered box, and can be made from a tissue box or half a saltine cracker box. It is first covered in white paper, any kind. Paint white glue on with a brush and just wrap and cut paper to size. Then paint glue over the top of that white surface and place tissue wrapping paper or any kind of napkin with a pretty print on it. While still wet, sprinkle with white glitter or iridescent glitter. Let dry in front of a heater or just let it set for an hour or so until dry. With a hole-punch, make holes on the sides and thread a wired piece of tinsel or ribbon through it. This box will hold a supply of hand made soaps. or maybe some small loaves of pumpkin bread for someone. In the 50's we used boxes for many different things and were always thrilled to get a nice box, so much so, that when a new box of Kleenex or any kind of dried food like oats, came into the house, we would say "I get the box!" and the first one who said it got the box.






There is a way to make a book binding out of the cardboard of some boxes, much like a three ring binder, which I might show sometime in the future. We used to have hours of engrossed contentment making our own little books.








It seemed that people were not in any particular hurry in those days, and if they could not get something they needed or go where they wanted, people became very resourceful with what was available. My mother spent a lot of time writing letters, reading books, knitting, making jewelry from resin (she bought a kit and put sea shells and local dried flowers in the pieces) and telling her own stories. Many women of the time worked very hard at home, and so their relaxation and luxury was in these things, which meant that others would benefit from their efforts.






To afford more time for things like quilting or painting (it seemed like everyone, including the men, were artist in those days and they loved to paint the scenery), women would put a huge pot of soup or stew on the wood burning cook stoves and a big pan of corn bread in the oven. When anyone got hungry, they would take a break and get the plates filled. Sometimes women brought their ironing (everything had to be ironed because you could not even get your shirt buttoned if it was not pressed. Fabric was that wrinkly), and ironing boards and visit with each other while they did their work.






I will try to write more about some of the ways of women in the 50's before life began to be so fast, including how they dressed, and what sort of feminine things they liked. Yes, they did like dresses and they did fix their hair and enjoyed pretty things like a new purse, shoes and gloves, and yes, they did make themselves presentable in the home. I've heard that people think it was all a fantasy, but even the every-day photographs of the time show the women looking as though they looked after themselves. Some did not, but it was not the trend to look dressed down or casual.