Carmel-by-the-Sea

Hello, my friends!

It’s a cold, rainy & blustery day here in the Monterey Bay area…they’re even predicting we could get SNOW at sea level this weekend…are you kidding me?!

No projects to share with you today, but I wanted to take you along with me on our family trip we took on Monday to beautiful Carmel-by-the-Sea…

Since the girls were out of school that day, we decided to take one of our favorite drives to the coast…just 30 minutes away from home…

We arrive at Ocean Avenue, right off the Pacific Coast Highway in Carmel--a beautiful avenue--often photographed…

…seen on vintage postcards…

…even the subject of a Thomas Kinkade painting…(Carmel has actually inspired at least four of his paintings!)

You can find the most charming shops and restaurants here…

The Tuck Box…a quaint English tearoom-type of restaurant…

…and The Hog’s Breath Inn…owned by Clint Eastwood.  Did you know that Mr. Eastwood was the mayor of Carmel at one time?

This was one of my very favorite places to spend the day when my daughters were young…

…wandering the streets in this beautiful little village with our double stroller and older daughter in-hand…

…leisurely window-shopping with my little ones…

At the very end of the avenue, we find this…

It was gray and chilly that day…so not much color in either water or sky…but it was still sparkly and beautiful…

Sarah immediately climbed up on this semi-fallen cypress to survey the scene…

…such a beautiful, weather-beaten tree…

 

Sarah & Annie posing with their Daddy…

This is what happens when the girls are tired of their mother taking pictures of them!

And off to our right…the back view of the fabulous & famous Pebble Beach Golf Course…

 

Perspective is a fun thing, isn’t it?!

Time to leave the beach…how about a driving tour of the town and some of it’s lovely homes? (MY favorites, anyway!)

More photos, less words for a minute here…

I’ve always been in love with the Storybook or Fairytale style of houses popular in the 1920’s and ‘30’s…and there are so many beautiful examples to be seen in Carmel!

Around 1902, Carmel became a gathering place for artists and writers…so many things to inspire here…

Carmel-by-the-Sea is unique for another reason…here the houses have names, not numbers…

…a beautiful turn in the road…you can see why the name of the town is Carmel-by-the-Sea…

Carmel also has the distinction of being home to one of the most beautiful of the old Spanish Missions on the Mission Trail…

Built in 1770…such a lovely, peaceful spot…

Well, that’s it for today…Hope you enjoyed our daytrip to beautiful Carmel-by-the-Sea…thanks for coming along with us!

See you soon with something new.

Julie

(My personal photos are watermarked with my name.  All others were found on the internet.)

LiveJournal Tags: Carmel-by-the-Sea,Storybook Houses,Carmel Mission

Breathing Life into the Past…

Hello, my friends! 

Another beautiful day…hope things are thawing out a bit for my friends in the middle of the country!

Just one thing to share with you today…another project I made for the fabulous Vintage Street Market for CHA last month.

This time, a birthday card for your best girlfriend...I LOVE the new "Dimestore Vogue" Paper Sheets & Tags kit--so much vintage fun to play with!

I loved using the pattern side of the paper sheet for the background of my card...just perfect!

The aqua foil sheet is just dreamy...love the color, love the shine...and it gives such an added texture and fun to your projects!  Here, I used a large scallop punch on the foil, then embellished the scalloped pieces with Platinum Stickles--just a bit more pop!

I love the vintage ladies on the paper sheets--so perfect to cut out and layer onto your projects...and this button card from the tag sheet is perfect for your sentiment.  Here I just made my own computer-generated wording using a vintage-style typewriter font--"Remember...age is just a number!", it says...

I used the "Linen" Tinted Tape on the corners of the button card--love the added texture and "aging" it gives the card...

...a bit of the "Pink Sorbet" Baker's Twine knotted onto the button card for a bit of texture...

For a border at the bottom of the card, I cut out the vintage yardstick from the paper sheet--love how it finishes it off perfectly!

How about a little more vintage style from the ‘50’s?

Here we have my mom, Karen…third from the left…along with a bunch of her girlfriends…

Mom again…far left…with another group of friends…

…and here she is again, in a beautiful dress she made herself—a deep burgundy color—with her handsome, young date, Clayn…later my handsome, young father!

Just look at that beautiful rosette…

Mom’s waist was so TINY at this time…and I’m very proud  to say that I actually was able to put this dress on & zip it up…once…before I was married…but I DID it!

See—proof!  (I actually had to search really hard to find this last night!)  Here’s me in that same dress—about 1986—a little shorter on me than it was on Mom!  And with me is my younger sister, Becky, in another of Mom’s beautiful homemade dresses…

Now…what do you say we breathe a little life into the past?

My beautiful, youngest daughter, Annie…wearing that very same dress just last night…

Isn’t she adorable?! 

When I went for my birthday visit to Mom’s house, she sent me home with some treasures…one of them was this dress…held up pretty well, didn’t it?!

And the beautiful rosette…still just as lovely as the day Mom made it--over 50 years ago…

Three generations in one dress…not bad, huh?!

The dress now hangs in Annie’s closet.  She has happily volunteered to be it’s newest careful keeper…she will take pictures of her daughter wearing it one day, she says…

See what life you can breathe into your past today…can’t wait to see what you find!

Julie

LiveJournal Tags: Vintage Street Market,Dimestore Vogue,Karen Ostlund Smith,Clayn Riggs Smith,Annie Grace Campbell

X’s and O’s…

Hello, my friends!

Another wonderful weekend…rainy, but wonderful!

First of all, I’d like to thank you all for helping me to welcome my friend Barb to her new shop, Varinia Rose…and I’m so happy to announce the winner of my Domestic Goddess Giveaway—Ashley of “1942 Charm”!

Congratulations, Ashley!  Please email me your address to avintagechic2@yahoo.com and I’ll get everything out to you right away!

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Just one project to share with you today, but one with lots of meaning in it for me…

My grandmother, Velda’s, birthday was just a couple of days ago.  She was such a beautiful and vibrant part of my life…and still feels very much a part of my life today.

I love thinking of her on her birthday…all the things I loved to do with her…all the things she taught me….

My first embroidery, crocheting and knitting lessons were by her side…

…washing the dishes together, learning how to clean properly, how to be a lady…going through family heirlooms, telling me her stories…

…supporting and encouraging me in my years of piano lessons, schoolwork, and…everything!

Even on my wedding day, she was there by my side…giving me her love, her support…and the twinkle in her eyes that let me know she approved of my choice and was happy…

Every year, I could count on a sweet card from her (and my Grandad!)…usually with a check inside to get myself “a little something”…but my favorite part? 

All the “x’s and o’s” that I knew would be at the bottom of the card…an “xo” for each year of my life…

…accompanied always by her phrase, “Love you the mostest!” 

She did this up till the year she died…each year the xoxoxoxoxo’s got a little shakier…but ever more precious…and were always carefully counted out and present on the card.

Such a tender tradition…one that my mother carries on…

…I will do the same.

A new page for my heritage scrapbook made yesterday…

 

This beautiful portrait shows Velda as a young woman…recently married and a new mother around 1940…so much excitement in her eyes…so much life ahead of her…

I always think of Velda…Grammie, as we called her…when I see or smell violets.  Her grandmother, Polly May, gave her gifts of violets each year for her birthday…once in a crystal basket…

…so, a few “sugared” violets created with this sweet, old-fashioned gift in mind…

…a pretty vintage needle packet from Crafty Secrets’ “Sew Nice” Creative Scraps to represent the things she taught me…

…along with a little cut-out and popped-up image of Velda when she as about  1 1/2 years old in 1917…

A little tuft of soft, old netting, dyed with purple & blue Glimmer Mist to mimic a violet’s shades and tucked just behind Velda’s portrait…

…and, of course…an “X” and an “O” made of vintage mother-of-pearl buttons in honor of her sweet tradition…

A few months after she passed away, I woke in the middle of the night with thoughts and images of “x’s and o’s” in long lines in my head… 

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

I lay there wondering why, and then I suddenly remembered that it was Velda’s birthday…and it struck me that it was an “I love you” message from my grandmother…just for me…

I quietly whispered “I love you”, and went back to sleep…

Another loving gift from my mother this last Christmas…a little remembrance given to young girl Velda from a childhood friend…carefully kept (as she kept everything), all these years in the original gold box it was given in…

…a soft, silky pink handkerchief rosebud…never removed…on this beautiful Art Deco-style card from about 1925…thank-you, Mom!

A sweet and lovely gift made for One World One Heart received yesterday from the beautiful Cindy Adkins of “Whimsical Musings”…

…thank-you so much, Cindy, for your generosity, friendship and inspiring creativity!

Well, that’s it for me today!  Hope your day is beautiful and filled with every wonderful thing…

Julie  xoxoxo

LiveJournal Tags: Crafty Secrets,Velda Stapley Ostlund,violets