Vintage Charm Party: Grandma Scrapbook Made With Love

 Happy Wednesday Friends! And welcome to this month of sunshine, flowers and all the promise of summer to come. I hope you're already sipping some lemonade or sweet tea and easing into the lazy days mindset. 

In getting ready for summer's goodness Ruby got her haircut and looked so cute with her little bumblebees. But going to the salon takes a lot out of a girl...so a nap immediately followed. Pretty adorable isn't she?

And speaking of adorable and summer...I need to get the rest of my flower pots planted so I can use this new sleepy fairy and gate I found when out treasure hunting. Any excuse to dig in the dirt some more works for me. It's definitely a favorite past time!

But on to the main reason I'm posting today and that is to share this sweet album I just finished for my Bestie Mrs. C. She became a grandma for the first time recently with her granddaughter, Thea. So I wanted to make a little something special for her with such a big milestone. 

She loves paper ephemera kinds of things too and so I thought how about going old school and making her a scrapbooked brag book. I know everything is on our phone nowadays. But I thought how lovely it might be to have a small decorated album that can be a keepsake too. It's something where she can easily slide new photos in and out of the page's protective sleeves as Thea grows and changes. And then once she has favorites she can stick those baby photos in to keep and it will be a keepsake. 

This is the cover and the spine with sweet little gold flowers on them:

I found a pack of sweet floral papers and used them, along with some precious baby related stickers. Here are pages if you'd like to see them... along with some sweet details highlighted bigger for you. The first page will have a little white box like the one I edited on the pic to give you an idea. It will include Thea's name, birthdate and weight & size. That's the last detail I need to do. I had a few pics on my phone Mrs. C sent me, so I printed them up with my Canon mini printer and stuck them on for her.

Then for the final page I put this cute Mary Engelbreit print on it with a few more stickers. 

All of our schedules have been so busy, but Mrs C. and I are getting together for lunch soon and I'll surprise her with it. There is talk that I may get to see and snuggle up sweet Thea myself soon! Ooohh I can't wait 😍 The next best thing to having my own grandbaby one day💗

Even though scrapbooks can be considered vintage in today's world - I still love holding tangible memories and creating something out of my imagination in that way. So today I thought I'd share this vintage charm with the Vintage Charm Party held by the lovely blogs My Thrift Store Addiction  and Our Hopeful Home.

Vintage Charm Party: French Inspired Vintage Spring Decoration

Good morning Friends ☀️

I hope you've been having a splendid week so far. I've been treasuring the time with my Annie and we went and spent time with my Mom and step Dad yesterday. It was so nice. 

I thought today I'd pop in (while she's still sleeping) to share a little craft I did recently. I wanted to make a little something for Spring/Summer. I had an old frame sitting empty and that gave me the initial inspiration to create something I could put in there. 

I started rifling through the treasures I have in my craft room. And I found a vintage pin I really liked. When I go to antique stores (a favorite past time) - I often look at the old jewelry, the pottery, the linens/doilies, and the old paper things like cards etc. As a scrapbooking enthusiast I love paper ephemera. 

The old pin is a floral one and even though it was missing a few gems in some of the flowers...I just thought it gave it more charm. I pinned it to the old doily piece I found. So I went through my scrapbooking papers for a backdrop. I glued the doily piece to the paper after I cut and measured it to fit the frame.  I also looked through some vintage French inspired papers & tags. I loved this French lady so I adhered her to the top corner. 

And since I was giving it French flair, I felt like it needed a French quote. So I found this one by Victor Hugo who wrote Les Miserables. 

I put it all together in the frame and took the glass out. 

And it now lives on our front foyer table next to a vintage Hull piece of pottery. 

This is our front foyer, however I recently changed the rug out (this one was really old). And we're going to be changing out the light fixture pretty soon for something a little more updated. So stay tuned for a the full reveal in the future on that. :) 

I love that it only took me minutes to complete this little project and I now have a one of a kind decoration from things I sourced in my own home. 

Do you like to be craftsy sometimes? And do you like vintage things, or more modern? I think I'll forever be a vintage girlie - as my daughter calls my style: Grandmacore. Lol 

I'm sharing this with the blogs Our Hopeful Home and My Thrift Store Addiction for Vintage Charm Party Wednesday. Feel free to join along!

Blessings

xoxo

Easy Peanut Butter Pie

 

Hello Friends! 

The other day I made this really yummy peanut butter pie and thought I would share the recipe. Plus, I like having recipes that are keepers on here so I can reference them again. I put them under my recipes tab above.

It was a lovely day outside on Matt's day off and we ran errands and went for a nice long walk. But we also did some grilling and it felt like a little taste of summer. It was great! And we topped it off with a piece of the this refrigerator peanut butter pie. I had made it earlier in the day, when Matt was doing yard work, and then put it in the fridge to chill. It couldn't have been easier because I had picked up a store bought graham cracker crust. It would be extra delish in a homemade one....but store bought worked for me that night. ;) There is something about chilled pies that feel old fashioned or vintage to me. I have recipes for some vintage icebox pies I'd like to try this summer too. 

It's a creamy dreamy pie and I definitely recommend holding onto this recipe. I think I found it on pinterest a while back and I had jotted down the ingredients. So once you have your crust, here are the next steps and ingredients:

INGREDIENTS

1 graham cracker pie crust

1 c. creamy peanut butter

8 ounce brick of cream cheese, softened

1 c. powdered sugar

1 container cool whip, thawed (8 ounce)

DIRECTIONS

In a large bowl mix together peanut butter, cream cheese, and powdered sugar with a hand mixer. Mix until well blended and very creamy. Fold in cool whip, mixing in until incorporated well and peanut butter mixture is creamy again. Pour into crust and chill until ready to serve. 

I then added a drizzle of chocolate syrup and crushed some honey roasted peanuts I had on top to garnish. Matt LIVES for pb and asked this be on regular rotation this summer. Lol It got a huge thumbs up from both of my kiddos and some of Annie's friends too. 

Enjoy! 😋 

I'm also sharing this at Cecilia and Kathleen's Vintage Charm Party you can find here.

A Sweet Spring Cross Stitch

 

Hi Friends!

Today I thought I'd share this adorable cross stitch I gave to my Dad and step Mom when Annie & I went to visit them over her Spring break recently. I hadn't cross-stitched in ages. It took a while to get back in the the rhythm of it. And it was a small kit too. I may finally have to admit I need to get some cheaters glasses for my eyes. 😂 

But I had this kit for ages and had never worked on it. I found it back in March and decided last minute to give it a go before our trip. Once it was done I knew I wanted to present it on a larger scale than the little hoop that came with the kit. So I backed it with a piece of cardboard and hot glued the edges of fabric to it to create this circle shape. I then found this vintage looking frame - which I loved. And I liked that it could stand up on a table. I took the glass out of it and then placed a piece of scrapbook paper as a matting to back the piece. I tried several different colors and soft patterns, but Annie & I both liked pink with it best and the swirls reminded us of sheep swirls like in their fur - to go with the little sheep in the cross stitch. I then glued the cross-stitched piece to the matting. I bubble wrapped it and packed it away in my suitcase. My step Mom really loved it and added to her centerpiece she created on her dining table. I forgot to take a pic of that though....just enjoyed the moment of giving. 💝 

It was a fun piece to work on and helped me keep thinking Spring through our continued crummy weather. I love that it's not perfect and you can tell it was homemade with love, and kind of has a vintage feel to it.  It has inspired me to want to work on other cross-stitch or embroidery. However, right now I've been doing diamond painting. Lol Lots of fun! I guess I just love staying busy creatively when - I'm motivated that is.  😉 

I'm sharing this with Cecelia at My Thrift Store Addiction for Vintage Charm Party.

Spring Thoughts Craft with a Vintage Touch

 

SPRING THOUGHTS ☀️ 

I have often loved sharing a recipe or craft post on Thursdays. I haven't shared a crafting post in ages so I thought I would share this one today. Since I'm still looking at snow outside, not to mention more in the forecast (please hold me while I weep silently) I thought I would bring more warmth and Spring/Summer vibes indoors with this little craft I completed. 

I have been going down the cross stitch wormhole lately, and I haven't done as much scrapbooking in a while. I have a spare room that needs to be cleaned out as some of my daughter's old things are in there (she changed bedrooms in our home). The closet especially needs to be dealt with in there. I have my scrapbooking work desk located there now - but I plan to put my materials and tools in the closet next to the desk to have it as a fully functional work space. 

However, I still have a lot of my scrapbooking papers, stickers and some tools handy yet so I gathered some things and put this picture together to display.  

As many of you friends know from following here, I love vintage things. I have a fun collection of vintage pottery, linens, seasonal things, etc But also some vintage jewelry....specifically pins. I just have a thing for them. Not as much to wear, although that's fun too. But more so to use in crafting. If you click on the "scraptastic saturday" word prompt in the right hand column you can read back to several posts showing my work with vintage pins in the past. 

The other day I came across this sweet vintage bicycle pin I had picked up a few years ago in an antique store.  It inspired me to create this piece. I cleaned up an old frame and took out the glass. I then went through scrapbook papers to see what would give me the feeling I wanted for this sweet scene. 

I found this deep blue paper and it had the red swirl to it - which I like - as if bits of a sunset starting to form. I liked the neutral gold tone of this geometric paper as a grounding place for the sweet sticker tree to live. And the cute cloud sticker in the sky makes me smile. Before I assembled everything I pinned the bike to the blue paper where I wanted the bike to sit on the ground right under the tree. I picture that someone was biking on the beautiful bright day and then rested their bicycle in the shade under the tree to walk down the hill to take pictures of the upcoming sunset. 

But that's just my imagination. ;) 

I hope this little piece sparks some of your own.

Think Spring Friends! 🌳 🚲 🌸 

I'm sharing this with my friend Cecilia and Vintage Charm Party