Wedding Day and Bracelets to Wear

Good Morning! Today is the wedding day of my dear friends Lou and Bonnie. Lou's sister Debbie is here from Ohio for her brothers wedding....she is also a dear friend and a sister to me. She knows I have a passion for buttons so she has been buying and collecting buttons for me in Ohio and presented me with a HUGE stash of all kinds of colors and sizes of fabulous vintage buttons. I was overwhelmed! In the stash was the most spectacular bracelet I have ever seen. I first saw bracelets like this in an antique shop in Skaneateles, NY, behind the glass in a case. I believe it is the way these were originally made and I loved the look. I went home and started making them to sell in my Etsy shop, The Button Lady. I know the time and work that goes into making one of these bracelets, not to mention the time gathering and matching the buttons to be used. So you can imagine when I opened the box with this bracelet in it......WOW!

Can you say Vintage?! I actually am going to wear this today to the wedding because as it turns out it matches my outfit exactly! And I am bold enough to wear this and it is kinda ME!

Here are a few samples of the ones I made.....they are definitely more wearable and each one is one of a kind.......they are listed in The Button Lady shop. One of these with your holiday outfit is all you need to accessorize!

Have a wonderful weekend!
AnnMarie

Love

Wow, what a whirlwind of a weekend!
My husband Frank and son Michael and I run a Christian Community Theatre for the Arts called Impact Theatre in our town's Town Hall once a month. Frank decided that we should do a dinner theatre - dinner and a whole evening of drama by our in-house troupe, the In Your Face Players. So after months of practice and plans we had it Friday night. Our good friend and troupe member Lou, his fiance Bonnie, his sister Debbie from Ohio and other helpers prepped and made the meal of homemade sauce, rigatoni and garlic bread. We served it free of charge to about 80 very appreciate guests. The whole night went so smoothly and we, as well as the guests, were blessed immensely. Love. We ministered out of love for our savior Jesus Christ and for those that came.
(If you are interested in what Impact Theatre is all about visit here: http://www.impactdrama.com/)

Then Saturday morning I was up bright and early to babysit my 6 year old granddaughter Cassidy. I went to her house, which was a blessing for me because we had 5 hours of one on one grandma, Cassidy time. Love.

Saturday afternoon my daughter Jena, son-in-law Britt and baby Chloe came by to visit. Chloe was wide awake so I took advantage and took some pictures. She is 2 1/2 months old. Love.

This morning at my church, Living Word Assembly of God in Ontario, NY, we had a guest Pastor speak and it was so good. He spoke on 1 Corinthians 13, the Love chapter. You know, love is patient, love is kind....the one you hear at a lot of weddings? He broke it down verse by verse and made it clear that if we do all the things in each verse, like speak all the languages in heaven or on earth, have the gift of prophecy, or faith, and gave everything we had to the poor, but did not have Love in our hearts while doing it all, we have nothing and have done nothing to please God. Then he made us all recite along with him verses 4 - 8 but putting our NAME in instead of  Love. Try it! It is quite humbling! I'll start it for you.....

"AnnMarie is patient, AnnMarie is kind. ________does not envy, _______does not boast, ______is not proud. ______is not rude, _______is not self-seeking, ________is not easily angered, ________keeps no record of wrongs. _______does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. __________always protects, __________always trusts, __________always hopes, ______always perseveres.
_________never fails."

Wow, do I fall short of everyone of them! So humbling.....how do you feel after putting your name in place of  Love?!

Have a wonderful Sunday afternoon!
AnnMarie

Happy Saturday! How did you spend your day?

It is really cold, windy and rainy here today in Upstate New York. We had plans to be out and about but stayed inside instead with the heat on! My husband Frank and son Michael were playing Wii most of  the day so I went off to my creative room in the back of the house and started gluing.......here is what I came up with.....

Wow, did this come out making a huge statement! I am sure there is someone out there that this would look fabulous on! It could be dressy or casual, whatever suits your style and personality. It is listed in The Button Lady shop on Etsy.

I also worked on this photo ornament. The buttons are all vintage and I think it really has a Retro feel to it. It brings me back to my childhood Christmas' when red, green and white were really the only decorative colors for the season. Now there are so many different color schemes you can go with in your holiday decorating. I added a large jingle bell to the ribbon hanger. A small 1 1/2" photo of your cute baby or kitty would look great in this. This ornament is listed in my NaNa's Things shop on Etsy.

So I played with buttons and glue most of the day. The homemade pizza and wings are in the oven for dinner and then hopefully there is a good movie to watch later with my son Michael while I cuddle under my Slanket. Do you have one of those? Great invention for the Northeast!

Have a great evening!
AnnMarie

Pumpkin Cookies and Pumpkin Bread Recipes - THE BEST

I love that everywhere I drive this time of year I see scenes like this on the roadside. I am blessed in that I can drive back country roads to alot of places I go and so that helps add to the Fall feeling in the air......

Every year I HAVE to make these pumpkin cookies. My daughters insist on them, maybe because I have been making them since they were little. You could say that they are vintage! Actually it is a Libby's canned pumpkin recipe I found in a Woman's Day magazine in October 1983. So it IS a vintage recipe! They are fabulous, vintage or not, and now when I make them every year my granddaughter Cassidy helps me decorate them........they are especially good with peanut butter as frosting....YUM!



Pumpkin Cookies

4 cups unsifted flour

2 cups oats

2 tsp. baking soda

2 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. salt

1 ½ cups butter or margarine, softened

2 cups firmly packed brown sugar

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla

16 oz. can pumpkin

1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. Combine flour, oats, soda, cinnamon and salt; set aside. Cream butter; gradually add sugars, beating until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla; mix well. Alternate additions of dry ingredients and pumpkin, mixing well after each addition. Stir in chocolate chips. Form round shapes on greased cookie pan and add more dough for stem. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

Frost with icing or peanut  butter. Decorate with chocolate chips, candy corn, raisins or nuts.

Makes alot!

Another fabulous recipe that I have been making since my girls were little, is this pumpkin bread. It is THE best pumpkin bread I've had.......it is the only recipe I've used for almost 30 years and usually anyone who tastes it, agrees and wants the recipe. My daughter Jena makes it every year to take to her grandmothers house on Thanksgiving (even though my mother-in-law has the recipe too!). It is always a treat because we only make it once a year.

Mom’s Fabulous Pumpkin Bread

3 cups sifted flour

2 cups sugar

½ tsp. salt

½ tsp. cinnamon

2 tsp. baking soda

2 tsp. baking powder

¾ cup vegetable or canola oil

2 cups canned pumpkin

1 cup chocolate chips

In a large mixing bowl mix together dry ingredients. Add remaining ingredients and mix well. Bake at 350 for 1 hour in a bundt pan or 55 minutes in 2 loaf pans.

Enjoy these recipes. Can you leave me a comment to let me know how you like them, pretty please?

I'm a Vintage Junkie

Just received this charm in the mail today. I LOVE IT!

It was the inspiration for naming my blog. I saw this charm in a shop on Etsy awhile ago and put it in my Favorites. When I was setting up my blog I wanted a name that described in a few words all that I wanted to talk about. I love vintage things and antiques and love to go to garage sales, flea markets, thrift stores and antique stores rummaging through all their stuff looking for treasures. My house is full of vintage items and antiques so I am surrounded by this passion of mine everyday. I remembered this charm from Etsy, went back and looked it up and knew that this was going to be the name of my blog. It describes me perfectly!

I had to order it for myself. It is going to be a great conversation starter and opening to talk about my two shops on Etsy! I ordered it from http://www.etsy.com/shop/ssdjewelry  Melissa is the jewelry designer and each charm is made to order. It was worth the wait! I even got my wonderful husband to buy it for me as a gift!

Have a wonderful weekend. It is going to be gorgeous here in Upstate NY!

AnnMarie

I did it! I opened my second shop on Etsy!

I am so happy to announce that I have opened my second shop on Etsy....NaNa's Things. It can be found here: http://www.nannasthings.etsy.com/
There was a little setback in naming my shop. I knew it was going to be NaNa's Things from the very beginning, so I had a custom banner made. When I went to register my new shop, my name was not available! It was too similar to other shops on Etsy. Oh, no!! I played around with it and came up with NanNa's Things, which sounds the same, just has an extra "n" in it. So, if you use the above website, when you get on there, the banner reads NaNa's Things. I can reorder the same banner fixed with the new name, and this is something I am contemplating about.

Anyways, I thought I wanted to just list all the things I have collected over the years but going out and finding new, old things is a lot more fun! There is a great shop down the road from me that buys out estate sales and she has the best stuff! So, my shop is going to be full of my old things and the new old things I have been finding, like these dolls - I like to think of them as a new bride and groom because of their clothes and the way their faces are painted...

Wooden Peg Dolls

I've also been having fun taking apart my 1980's jewelry and making something new out of it, like this necklace - that is a brass door lock plate that everything is mounted on.

and this one, which is two old earrings layered together....

I am starting to concentrate on Christmas items. I have the first three plates of the 12 Days of Christmas series from the Royal Grafton fine china company -

And I am making photo ornaments out of vintage puzzle pieces. This is the first one I've made and it has pieces from the General Bear, a puzzle in the Russian Fairy Tale Series by artist Lev Lominago....

I just got my fishing license on September 30th....the season started October 1st. I have had a love of fishing ever since my grandfather took all four of us grandchildren out on the boat on the St. Lawrence River in the 1,000 Islands. I caught a lot of fish and I was hooked (pun intended!).I was maybe 10 years old, or less!  I haven't fished much since then and when my 13 year old son Michael got a nice fishing pole and a lifetime supply of tackle from his Uncle Lou for his birthday, I got hooked again. I started taking him fishing at the local marina, helping him bait the hook and take the fish off until I was chatting one day with the Town Clerk's assistant in Palmyra. She warned me how without a license I could not even help my son. The DEC patrols the area a lot and if you get caught, there is a nice fine to pay. What was I to do? I had to help my son (and get some fishing in myself) so I got a license. This long story has been told to tell you how when I saw this cool fishing lure in a flea market shop, I had to have it. It is a lure for fishing for muskie or pike, those big, ugly fish with teeth. There are even some teeth marks on it! It has a name...it is a Red Eyed Wiggler Spoon fishing lure from the Hofschneider Tackle Co. right here in Rochester, NY.  I knew right away I would make a necklace out of it.

I might have to keep it........

It has an antique gold Boho chain and the capped bead on the bottom is from the bottom of  a 1980's earring of mine.

I have a lot more to list  and I will be doing a lot more shopping for new treasures, so please check my new shop out when you get the chance.  Have a wonderful evening! AnnMarie