Bella Dia

Vintage Children's Books

Slowly, slowly I'm getting pictures into Flickr and posted into their appropriate groups. I wanted to get going with pictures from the vintage children's books I have - an old love of mine. These are from two of my most recent finds (much easier to access since they're at the top of the pile versus the bottom).

This book is called Funny Town, written by Eve Merriam and illustrated by Evaline Ness. I picked this up solely for the illustrations, I haven't even read the whole story yet, but the colors and graphics are really wonderful and so representative of the 60s. The book was printed in 1963.

This is the title page of Children on the Map by Cecile and Billie Salway, copyright is 1938. I love the font used in this one. It features children from different countries and a page of information about what their lives are like.

Be sure to check out the Vintage Children's Books group on Flickr.

Nifty Thrift - new Flickr group

Hi all! I've created a new Flickr group called Nifty Thrift. It's a place to put pictures of all your cool thrift shop, etc. finds and do some swapping if you so desire :D Click here to join and start posting.

Chloe

I'm not exactly sure when Bring Your Pet to Blog Day is but I got this sweet picture of Chloe so I thought I'd share. She takes her naps on top of the kitchen cabinets so this is her greeting us when we got back from errands.

Thrifting is A Good Thing

I did a little thrifting over the weekend and got this Ransburg cookie jar that I'm so excited about. It's missing its lid and the paint is a little chippy but now I don't have to worry that it will get injured in our active household.

I loved the color of this Pyrex dish so I picked it up too.

I didn't find too much fabric, just a yard and a half of this fabric and a couple of yellow floral sheets that are already in the laundry.

I'm noticing that these are rather coordinated; hmmm, totally by accident but I find that happens sometime. You know, you go buy fabric and you come home and realize everything is in shades of pink or little florals. Funny how that happens :)

I'm a little slow on the upload but this fabric will go with some others that I've put into the vintage fabric group at Flickr and on my own Flickr page so go check them out. Lots of inspiration there!

Shop Update

Here's another pincushion being added to the shop, it's Bed of Roses in pinks and brown. Available at Bella Dia Designs.

Vintage Swap!

This sounds like fun: Toni from Creative Ma has started a Vintage Swap! The idea is really simple; just fill up an 8x10 manila envelope with vintage goodies and send it to your assigned partner. The more the merrier so sign-up here now :D (sign-ups close at the end of August)

Self-Portrait, kind of

I haven't been involved with Self-Portrait Tuesday, but this is a picture of how I feel. Just put this little guy going up at a 90 degree angle and that's me. I'm feeling overwhelmed lately, well most of the time. I just bounce from pile to pile, from "Mom can you take me..." (my kids) to "Cas, come take a look out here..." (my parents) to laundry to meal making to car washing to weeding to birthday prep to pet feeding to vacuuming to sewing.... just like a pinball machine. We're getting in a few river and lake trips but even when I'm doing that I'm thinking "hurry up and relax!" and making lists of everything I need to do. I know I'm not the only one that feels this way and it will pass and get better (I hope) but right now I'm a little snail with a big, big pack on my back.
BTW... The illustration is by Mr. Leo Lionni, one of my favorites, from his story The Biggest House in the World

New Pincushions!

Well, it's finally happened! I put up some new pincushions in the shop :) My eyes are sore today. I've noticed that I need to wear my reading glasses more and more lately. I'd like to put it off to eye strain but I have a feeling that it's my age showing.

For lack of a better name, I call this one Baubles. The little puffs are covered in opalescent seed beads.

This is Middle Earth. I had a lot of fun with this style. You can see a close-up of the embroidery on the side in the shop.

This is a variation on the Rings one I did before. The color is so pretty, kind of a dusty pale red, I call it watermelon.

Here is another Bed of Roses but in a yellow version.

Middle Earth version 2. The embroidery around the side are the tree roots. Again, there's a close-up of the stitching in the shop.

Rings version with a variety of different colored dots.

Now, go shop! Bella Dia Designs