Every Little Breeze Seems to Whisper Louise

Hi everyone!

Now that we are expecting a second daughter come this May, I've been looking through some old family pictures in an effort to find a good timeless name for our new little one. :)

My mom found these pictures of my Great Grandmother Louise who died when I was still quite young but to this day I remember her as someone I loved very much.











I remember she had a coo-coo clock that hung on her living room wall and I just loved it! (Still want to get one of those!) She also had these three ceramic cats on her coffee table. They were all orange, in different poses with green jeweled eyes. I would play with them whenever we went over to her house.

I wish I had known her when I was older. There are so many things I would love ask her! But at least I have these pictures...

Going Bananas, Fifties Style

Hi everyone!

Wow, no post since June - yikes! lol Well, no worries I bring you sweet things in apology. :D During one of my vintage stops over the Summer I found this little gem. Actually it's not so little, this thing weighs a ton.

(Notice the grease pencil price, wasn't that sweet of someone?)

I was first attracted to it because of the great 1950s illustrations, like this one:

But once I looked at the Table of Contents, I realized just how "encyclopedic" this cookbook was:

There are many, many great recipes in this book but today I'm going to share the "Gold Nugget Cake" recipe with you.


Gold Nugget Cake

2 cups sifted flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 sour milk or buttermilk
1 cup mashed bananas (2 to 3)
1/2 cup shortening
2 eggs, well beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 bananas, sliced

Sift flour, baking powder, soda and salt together. Add milk to mashed bananas. Cream shortening with sugar until fluffy. Add eggs and beat well. Add sifted dry ingredients and milk mixture alternately in small amounts, beating well after each addition. Stir in flavoring.

Pour into greased pans and bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes. Cool. Put layers together with Banana Frosting and sliced bananas. Spread frosting over top and sides of cake and garnish with sliced bananas. Makes 2 8-inch layers.

Banana Frosting

1/2 cup mashed banana (1 large banana)
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
1/4 cup butter
1 pound (3 1/2 cups) confectioner's sugar, sifted

Mix banana and lemon juice together. Cream butter with 1 cup sugar, then add banana and enough of the remaining sugar to make mixture thick enough to spread.

If anyone tries this recipe, I'd love to know what you think! Do you like to cook from vintage cookbooks?

Of Ponies and Things...

Hey y'all!

Check out what I found the other day in my thrifty travels:

A little bit of Pyrex and a swank looking coffee pot but the most interesting thing is the one to the left: another one of those choppers! For those of you keeping count (why wouldn't you after all?) I now have three of these choppers I found in three different shops in three different colors...I smell a collection coming on! :P

And then, while traversing my basement which is dark and creepy and my husband refuses to go down into (picture me doing an Indiana Jones type cave exploration filled with giant bugs and poison darts that shoot from the walls), I found my My Little Ponies from the 1980s!!!

I've still got my carrying case, 7 ponies, 2 baby ponies, a baby pony buggy and various brushes and accessory what nots. (They all got a bath last night complete with conditioning hair treatment. I figured I owed them.) PLUS I found my Strawberry Shortcake dolls! Oh snap, I forgot to take a picture of those...hang on a sec...

Talk amongst yourselves!

Okay, I'm back! Here they are:

So they are nasty and filthy from being the basement over 20 years (I bought the house I grew up in a few years ago) and I'm not sure why Strawberry Shortcake is topless but there you are! I would assume the rest of their accessories are around here somewhere. I know I've got Raspberry Tart's pet monkey...hmmm... (and where the heck is Blueberry Muffin? That's her pet mouse Cheesecake there right? So I would had to have had her as well, yes?)

Ah well, that's for another day, another excavation I suppose. I can't believe I'm in my thirties and I'm already "vintage". *shudder* Wait, I love vintage! Nevermind, you can call me vintage. :P

Okay, I'm rambling at this point so I better stop while I still have readers...

Have a great weekend! :D

Etiquette for the Working Girl

And now, time for...

"Everyday Etiquette"

This week's etiquette lesson comes to us from the chapter entitled:

Let's join our lesson, already in progress...

I am a personal secretary for a major executive of my firm. When my phone rings should I say, "Miss Brown speaking" or should I say, "Mr. Carstair's office, Miss Brown speaking" or just "Mr. Carstair's office." -M.J.B. Flemington, New Jersey

You say "Mr. Carstair's office," and add, if you wish, "Miss Brown speaking."

-Hey Miss Brown, you just missed 5 phone calls while writing this letter asking how you should answer the phone. You're fired.

-Horshack would never have this problem: "Hello, Mr. Carstair-r-r's office!"

And that concludes another lesson in "Everyday Etiquette". Please tune in next week when we will learn what our calling cards should read when we're divorced and the ex dies. dum dum DUM!

**Questions and Answers from "Everday Etiquette: Answers to Today's Etiquette Questions" by Amy Vanderbilt, 1952-1956. Snark responses from "Maggi", 2010**

**Please note, all snark implied is just that, snarkiness. Please answer all phones correctly or we will descend into chaos...**

Ebay, Schmebay Strikes Back

Hey y'all!

First of all, I have to thank you for your support and sweet comments on my last post about the Ebay Dress of Disappointment. I'm happy to report that the story has a happy ending! Huzzah! :D

The seller responded to my e-mail, fortunately she was super cool about everything. She offered me a full refund and a shipping label to return the dress. Quite frankly, I wanted to keep the dress since I felt a lot of the problems were somewhat fixable so I counter offered to keep the dress in return for a partial refund. She agreed, I got part of my money back, bada bing bada boom (I'm saying that a lot lately...) and we're good. :)

I spent the morning washing and pressing the dress (it had that lovely Vintage Musk smell to it big time) and then mended the holes along the seams. (Go me!)

And here's what the fuss was all about:

As you can see, the measurements listed were off as well. I'm a little bit of a Chesty LaRue but no way the chest measurements were as big as what the listing said they were. No worries, I'm currently exercising and all that healthy what not so it should fit a little better soon. :)

The dress screams, "Ethel Mertz Lives!" I think. Lucy may be the icon but it's Ethel's wardrobe that I look for (and can halfway afford most of the time). lol Fun!

Thanks again for your advice and virtual shoulders to cry on, I so appreciate it!

Happy Friday everyone! Any fun vintage plans this weekend?

Ebay, Schmebay

Hey y'all!

Okay, so I count myself as a halfway decent vintage shopper. I don't (well I try not to) shop stupid outside of my budget and most of time I stick to the "Second Time Mine" rule where if something is still at the store next time I go and I can afford it, it's mine.

Anyhoo, all this to say that the other day I bid on a 50s dress on Ebay when I shouldn't have...I mean we had the money but I didn't need to be spending it, know what I mean? So I prayed and prayed that someone would outbid me, of course no one did and the dress was mine. Blerg. (I got it for a good price but still...)

But no worries, I paid for it right after winning it, apologized to the husband and learned my lesson of "No Bidding on Ebay If You Don't Need to be Spending Money, Stupid". So the dress arrives today and I felt like I was living a page from 1950's Atomic Ranch House's Ebay book (bad chapter, not the awesome pink appliances good one). Let's see if I can explain this in a way that makes sense and doesn't take up 10 pages...

Okay so I don't buy from Ebay often. I know it's like a great source for cheap vintage stuff but all told I've probably bought 5 things on Ebay during my years of being signed up over there. No particular reason, I just don't. I also don't dig confrontation although since getting older I've gotten better about that. But at any rate, whenever I've had a problem with Ebay or Etsy or wherever, I calmly and sweetly contact the person, get it dealt with, move on.

SO ANYWAY - This dress I bought was listed as having a couple of rust stains (which were pointed out in the listing) and no holes - otherwise fine condition. I get the dress today and the Priority envelope it had been sent in was almost all the way opened. (The tissue paper they wrapped the dress in got stuck to the sticky on the envelope so it never closed.) How in the world this dress got to me without damage or coming out of that envelope, I've no idea.

But the dress is fine so whatever. Then looking at the dress, I discover that there are indeed holes in the dress, specifically 3 where the seams are coming apart. But I figure, well I can sew that up. So I very kindly e-mail the seller to let them know that if they use those envelopes again, they may need to be taped just in case and the ad said no holes but I found some in the seaming.

Okay fine, e-mail sent - very sweetly I might add. Then as I was getting ready to launder the dress, I find an actual hole in the skirt which got me thinking that the seller didn't really look the dress over very well since I found this hole and the others pretty quickly and the ad said the dress was "free of holes". So I took a picture of that as well (I had sent a picture of the other holes for the first e-mail) and sent a second e-mail. (Plus, I realized later that the bust size was also misrepresented but at that point, whatever - that's the least of my problems here).

That was this morning and now I'm just waiting on a response from the seller. I'm not mad or anything actually, I'm just not sure what to expect since I'm not a frequent ebay-er nor immediate yeller at people for stuff. lol I'm also not sure why I'm blogging about it either except that I feel like in this virtual vintage world we live in, I guess I need a little hug and an "everything will work out". LOL Especially since I already feel like a moron for buying it in the first place...stupid poetic justice...

Any thoughts or opinions from the Ebay Masters out there?

But so this post isn't a total loss, here's a picture of some cups I found at a thrift store a month or so back:

AND on a super happy fun note, Vintage Christine from I'm Not Old, I'm Vintage is having a 100 Followers Giveaway so go check that out! :D

I hope you're having a great day! :)

Kitchen Kollection

Hey y'all!

Just wanted to share a few new finds with you on this fine Saturday...

I found another chopper! This one is burgundy-ish and has the plastic thingie-do at the bottom to protect the glass:

My mom gave me this steamer out of her collection:

She also gave me this Trav-L-Bar she found a while back:



*Speaking of collections, my mom has the best collection of hats. I've got to remember to take pictures of them to show you.* I found this syrup...uh...container? Pitcher? I'm drawing a complete blank on what this is called and I'm too lazy to Google whatever. :P Anyhoo, it's heavy duty glass and metal, this thing is going to last forever.

I looooooove this popper! It looks brand new, it has a little instruction booklet and the power cord looks like it's never even been plugged in:

Of course part of the reason I bought it is for the groovy picture on the front:

What can I say? I'm a pushover for illustrations. :P So that's it for now! I have been wanting to do an outfit post but the weather has been yuck lately so since I've started vlogging, I may just do a video instead. :D

Have a great weekend y'all! Do you have any vintage type plans?