Beautiful White Vintage Suitcase

This is one of my favorite pieces. Something about white luggage is so appealing! And the black flowers just make me smile. It definitely looks like it should travel to someplace special, someplace romantic, like Paris or Rome, New York or San Francisco or how about to the Super Bowl in Arlington, Texas?! No, I don't picture this white beauty going to a football game. I can't see it packed with Pittsburgh Steelers' terrible towels or Green Bay Packer's foam cheeseheads! No, it needs to be full of sexy lingerie, black high heels and expensive perfume. But that's just in the movies, right? T-shirts, jeggings and tennis shoes are more likely and those are perfectly fine. But maybe one day...Paris.

Is this the sweetest vanity chair you've ever seen?! We've fallen in love! We found this at an estate sale in Arlington, Texas last weekend. It looks like something out of a movie star's home!

I want to live in a world where we wear a beautiful apron such as this to cook dinner for our friends. It's obviously not a "daily" apron, but one to pull out and iron to wear for a special dinner. I imagine Lucy Ricardo wore a similar one when she cooked for Ricky's night club owners or talent scout. But it would make a cute Valentine gift for yourself! Check it out on www.peacetraveler.etsy.com.

This precious bistro set is from the early 60's I think. It's made by HomeCrest. This was a great find at an estate sale in Dallas! It's such a happy little set, just had to share.

Here are some treasures we purchased at various estate sales, garage sales & thrift stores.

Where Does Motivation To Clean the House Come From?

I wish motivation came in pill form. I'll take two please. Unfortunately it is up to us to motivate ourselves. I had a friend tell me once that she loved to get up in the morning to a messy house. A messy house?! I simply cannot imagine. But she said that she knew the task at hand, that she was capable of doing it, how long it would take her and that she would feel so good after the job was done. She said she could picture how it would look after she was done and knew how proud she would feel. And so that's what made her feel happy when she woke up to a messy house. That my friend is self-motivation. I find it so amazing and respect her so much for that ability. When it comes to cleaning house, I have found a couple of things that motivate me. I love decorating magazines and television shows. Seeing beautiful rooms decorated with gorgeous furniture, fabrics and colors inspire me to want my house to look like that. So when I vacuum, I may move my couch, chair or rug. As I dust, I'm likely to redo the arrangement of items on the mantel or coffee table. I move pillows around and light candles. Last week I took up a rug and moved a flower arrangement to the coffee table. It's just my way of turning a job I hate into a job I love. This weekend I found a wonderful place to get new motivation! It's a blog called The Lettered Cottage. Kayla & Kevin Palmer have wonderful decorating ideas, pictures and how to's. I absolutely love it! So my plan for this week's housework is to meander around their blog, look at pictures, soak up some of their ideas and once again find the motivation to sweep up the dog hair and scrub the toilets. Where does your motivation to clean house come from?

New Adventures in Thrifting!

In Texas, the weather changes daily, especially during the winter. Thursday night I heard it was going to be 70 degrees on Friday, so exciting for my day off. Then when I turned on my street that evening I saw my neighbor had posted a garage sale sign! Before I even turned off the car, I had dialed my daughter's number and we quickly made plans to join his fun! She boxed up what she could get together at her house and headed over to my mother's house to retrieve a truck full of boxes and misc pieces stored in her garage. Then she unloaded here and went through our vintage storage room, otherwise known as the spare bedroom. So in just a couple of hours, we had plenty of good treasures for a good neighborhood garage sale. We made a trip to Walmart for some pricing stickers and set up card tables in the driveway. The next morning, Cristy emptied boxes and somehow turned a ten second decision into a full fledged sale! The weather was gorgeous and people flocked to our house! I think people were just tickled to get out of the house and enjoy the beautiful weather! We had quite a variety of items; vintage Barbie things, vintage hats and purses, an antique trunck, vintage glasses and jewelry, cake plates and covers, and even an antique sled! Our sales always bring a a lot of compliments about the style and quality of our stuff. My daughter has a good eye for buying interesting things. We enjoyed talking to our customers, who ranged in age from 3-90 years old and we made a new connection, a barbie expert ! We had it Friday and today until 5pm. Then we loaded up the back of her truck and took it to goodwill. Of course I had to run inside and make sure they didn't have any new "must have" treasures. After all, The Dallas Flea is coming up soon and we need to replinish our stock! So, although tomorrow we might be a little sore, we now have a small bank roll to hit some more estate sales and restock for The Flea! P.S. although we did not buy anything at Goodwill, we did buy two cool vintage items at our neighbor's garage sale!