Smile!

Salt Cellars

I love vintage salt cellars or more commonly known as salt dips. I have a few I have collected over the years, but I want to find some more. Mostly around here they are just the clear cut glass ones.

Sometimes you can find the colored cut glass.

And every antique store I go in has the nesting chicken salt dips, which tells me they are more than likely reproductions due to the large volume of them I see. But I still love them. I actually have the rooster in jadeite, white & blue speckled and pale pink. But you can see there are a ton more I don't have.

They come in many shapes and sizes solids and patterned.

Some even come with an itty bitty spoon to scoop out your salt.

I have even found pictures of some that are floral in shape.

Some salt cellars are bigger and were used to keep salt in that you would spoon out into individual dips. Although I think the ones below are probably more modern. But they are pretty.

I love the ones that bold, vibrant colors.

And I adore these with the cute shapes and designs.

But the one I want really bad right now is the one in the blue/green carnival glass. I am in love with these.

Curious if any of my readers collect salt dips?

Memorial Day

Whether you are visiting a cemetery, attending a cookout or opening your pool, please take a moment to remember those who have given their lives to protect the very freedom that allows us to choose how we want to spend the day. They gave their lives for each and everyone of us. And that matters to me. So I would like to say thank you sir and thank you madam to all those who have died in the fight for our country.

One thing led to another....

My friend, Mendi, at work asked me yesterday if I needed baby food jars for any crafts for VBS. I thanked her and said I already had all my crafts lined out. Then I remembered I saw something on Pinterest one time that I wished I had some baby food jars. So I told her to bring me a few this morning to work.  I got up this morning and had to go to Pinterest to see what it was that I saw for baby food jars. Bad idea. I have now told Mendi to bring me as many jars as she wants. 

I have been trying to find just the right size glass containers to put my Jello or chocolate pudding in when I make it so I can have individual size servings to just grab and eat. I'm not sure why I never thought of baby food jars. This would also be great to make servings in for my Reese's peanut butter brownie trifle to give to people who say "save me some" when I make it.

There is a fundraiser in July for my friend Stephanie who is going to be undergoing a double lung transplant. They are asking for craft donations for the craft booth at the fundraiser. Many of these ideas below would be perfect for the fundraiser.

Allen and I made bath salts years ago and gave them to the nieces for gifts. They were a huge hit.

One site even gives you directions on how to dye baby food jars. That would be easy and fun to give them some color.

I'm saving this idea for Christmas. I am going to go ahead and make the jars, but can fill them when Christmas gets here. It would be cute to make a set of three. In one put cocoa mix, another could have chopped up peppermint, and mini marshmallows in the other and a recipe for peppermint hot chocolate. 

When I was looking at these jars, I got slightly sidetracked (as I always do) with other things on the boards I was on. And when this popped up, I decided this is what I want to do for a centerpiece for my summer decor.  

If I can find the right three tier piece, I could change it out at holidays. Love this fall one.

And this one for Valentine's.

This is another cute one for Valentine's but I like the three tiers better.

And one of the sites actually had this on it and I fell in love with it. It gave a link on where to buy it. So still wanting it, I visited the link. I saw the price. $179.99. For an ironing board? That I would rarely use? Hmmm, no thank you. I'll use my $7.99 one I got from Walmart on sale one time.

Well, I finally pulled myself away from Pinterest and got this blog written. So now to do some housework before I go to work. It's a three show day so that means they feed us lunch. I heard it is going to be from one of my favorites...Chambers Market. Hoping it is barbecue. That's my favorite from them. Have a great Saturday!

Graduation Day

Yesterday was an amazing day. Two graduations of two grandsons. The day started off with Colby, my youngest grandson, graduating from kindergarten.

Receiving his diploma.

I love that smile. It just melts my heart.

And my oldest grandson, Garret, who is Colby's big brother graduating from high school.

I am so proud of Garret and what he has achieved. A piece of my heart is breaking knowing he will soon be leaving for college.

I know my son and daughter-in-law are so proud of him. They have done an amazing job raising such a fine young man. 

I am sure he is destined for great things.

It was a great day. Not every little boy gets to graduate the same day as his big brother. A very special day and I'm so glad I got to attend it all.

We went out to eat at Calhoun's afterwards with both sides of the family. It was truly a great day.

Skipping class....

I have two graduations to go to today. I'll be sharing pics tomorrow. 

In honor of school nearing a close, thought it would be fun to do this today.

Let's have a little fun. If you were still in school and these were the teachers and you were in these classes, which class would you make sure you never, ever skipped?

As for me, I would make sure I went to Biology and Music every day. I may even fail so I could repeat them another year. Ha ha ha.

Over the hump day....

I'll be heading into work soon. But first, I've just been sitting on the couch enjoying the view out my window and writing my blog. We've had a few dreary days with rain and cool and sunshine and then rain and cool and sunshine. It is great to see a beautiful day this morning. Hope it lasts all day.

Yesterday, I met up with my assistants for the VBS craft class and we did the prep work for the projects. We had a blast. At one point Doris said she felt like she was Lucy on the assembly line at the chocolate factory. I guess three of us sending her "telescopes" for the final step did get a little overwhelming.

After that, I went home and wanted a little snack. I was going to have a couple little gingerbread mini muffins I had made the day before. But then I remembered I had some caramel dip and wondered what that would taste like. It was awesome. I have found a new combo.

When it got time to get ready for work, I washed my hair and dried it. As I dried the very last of my bangs I heard a pop and looked over and a flame about the size of a candle flame flared on my cord/plug and then went immediately out and the cord fell right off the plug. It was old and has been a very faithful hair dryer. I'm just glad the fire wasn't worse and that my hair was finished when it happened. Guess who has to go get a new hair dryer today.

I hope everybody has a great day. 

Picture Frame Crafts

I have a large collection of picture frames that I have taken down over the years. I don't part with them "in case I need them". So I occasionally look up ideas. I saw this one on Pinterest so I recently made one similar to this for a dear friends birthday. His mother's favorite song was "What a Day" so I found the music and printed it on parchment paper and framed it for him. He was thrilled to pieces.

I also found people who had painted chalk board paint on picture frames and mirrors. I keep planning to do this but don't have any bigger frames. I'm keeping my eyes out for one at a yard sale.

These crosses with flowers are very pretty and they could work on any size or style frame.

Another cute and simple idea for a gift.

I just love this one. It is perfect for someone with rustic decor.

I was going to do this last Christmas but never got around to it. Hope I remember it this year.

These are really cute and you hang photos on the clothespins. I just love this.

Put plain or lined paper under the glass in a frame and decorate the frame and you have an instant dry erase board. I have done one before and it was fun to decorate. I  just used a bow and big button with my initial in the corner of the frame. 

This is plan and simple, but very cute.

And I adore this. The only thing I couldn't figure out is why the brown paper in the white frame? A snowman is all white. So I would change that up a bit.

There you  have it some nice ideas to use those old frames laying around your house.

My day so far....

Well, I had a good weekend. I'll post some pics of that later this week. But I went to the Blooming BBQ & Bluegrass Festival before I went to work Saturday. Sunday I was off so I went to dinner with the whole family for Caleb's birthday. I slept really good the last two nights and took a nap on Sunday afternoon so I am totally rejuvenated today. 

In fact, I am so rested that by 9:30 this morning, I had already washed all my throw rugs and got them dry.

I did my weekly wipe down of bathroom and kitchen cabinets, stove and refrigerator doors with lemon Pine Sol.

I have made a sample of the three things we are going to do some prep work for tomorrow on my VBS workers craft prep day. Also this morning I pre-cut the paper for the 48 bookmarks and the 48 telescopes we are doing prep work for tomorrow.

I live right behind the store, so I ran out to get some much needed items, i.e. Junior Mints and a Twinkie.

I have already made almost 4 dozen gingerbread mini muffins today. All by 9:30. 

Then I took a break and had some biscuits with peanut butter and a bowl of homemade apple butter with a big glass of chocolate milk for my breakfast around 10:00.

Today is the birthday of my oldest niece, Christy Dawn. She is my sister's first child and my mom's first grandchild. Here are a few of my favorite pics of her. As the Aunt, my job is totally embarrass her with old pictures on her birthday. This one was at a pond we went fishing at. She was the queen of Cheetos.

An Easter Egg hunt at Mamaw's.

Setting on the porch at Mamaw's holding the kitty. I think its name was Oreo but I can't remember.

One of her early school photos.

One of her last school photos during the curly hair stage.

The straight hair stage. Not sure which baby in the family she is holding. It may be her niece or one of the cousins babies.

I can't tell her age or she will get me. I can tell you she is no longer 41 and that it will be a year before she turns 43. But I can't tell you her age. :)

She was our first baby in 9 years in the family so she got a little spoiled. She is the one who gave me the nickname B because she couldn't say Brenda. I have been Aunt B for 40 some years. Happy birthday Christy Dawn. I hope you have a great day.