GeorgiaPeachez

Back in Time

I left today on a business trip and ended up in 1956.

Grab the Coppertone and meet me down on the beach.

I'm in Wildwood, NJ and it is filled with funky, kitschy seaside motels.  I have entered a time warp and I am back in the 50's or 60's and early 70's.

Didn't every seaside resort town have a motel called the Jolly Roger! Can't forget the pirate.

I love the neon seahorse.

Look at the graphics on the sign at the bottom here at the Fleur de Lis.

The above ground power lines really add to that old fashioned charm.

I love the aqua and peach colors on this one.  The fake palm trees are perfect!

This is the Cape Cod Inn. �I'm sure that back in the day this sign actually rotated.

Hey, go grab of a bag of White Castle and we can cruise Ocean Blvd.

American Classics - Vintage Luggage

Modern day luggage has many conveniences, ball bearing wheels and extension handles for ease of use.  But there is something appealing about vintage portage and luggage styles.

My husband just brought home from his mother's estate a set of vintage Halliburton luggage cases.  They originally belonged to his grandmother and they bear engraved plates with her name and Oklahoma address.

The Zero Halliburton website gives us short historical background of the origin of these cases.

The aluminum travel and business case story begins in 1938 when Earle P. Halliburton, a globetrotting businessman, commissioned a team of aircraft engineers to design an aluminum case that could endure his constant and rough travel. These aluminum cases became renowned as Halliburton cases.

In 1946, independent of any relationship with Halliburton, a metal fabrication company called Zierold Company changed its name to Zero Corporation.

In 1952, Mr. Halliburton sold his travel case division to the recently created Zero Corporation, officially ending any Halliburton Company's involvement in the making of aluminum cases. The new division was renamed Zero Halliburton.

My husband's vintage cases are Halliburtons, they predate the acquisition of the company by the Zero Corporation.

I love these cases and I look forward to future trips traveling in style with my belongings inside.

I've always loved vintage cases and I have another set that I use whenever I travel by car. 

These cases are vintage Wheary luggage.  The train case was a yard sale purchase many years ago and I have carried it faithfully on many trips.  It was in very good condition when I purchased it but it now shows signs of a well traveled case.  I found the matching suitcase on eBay.  I use it for all my overnight business trips. 

I love the interior of these cases.  They are lined with a rayon satin that has little W's woven in as the pattern.  The train case has a removable tray. 

The Wheary Luggage Company was in Racine, Wisconsin and made fine luggage and wardrobe trunks in the 30's, 40's and 50's. 

I get a lot of compliments from strangers when ever I am registering at hotels on my travels. 

Show Me Your Form

Today is the day you can head on over to Tiffany's blog and find links to all the bloggers that are participating in the Show Me Your Form party.  Everyone will be sharing pictures of there dress forms.  Little ones, big ones, altered, gussied up or dusty and aged to perfection.

I've shared my beautiful dress form before, but I love to show her off and I'll take any excuse to do so.

This is Coco and she is enjoying the garden today.  This gorgeous lady is the creation of the fabulous Janet over at Shabbyfufu.  Janet made her several years ago and still embellishes dress forms today.  Her style has evolved and I would say they have gotten more Shabbyfufulicious.

I love, love, love this girl because she is covered in one of the most coveted vintage barkcloth patterns every, Glencourt Roses.  Pink velveteen and vintage lace make her just puuuurfect.

Here are a couple of tabletop dress forms that I had fun covering with old patterns, some lace, ruffles and vintage buttons.

I hope you enjoyed my dress forms and I am looking forward to seeing what every one else has in their sewing room, boudoir or in their garden! 

Do You Like Buttons?

Are you nodding up and down, or did you just belt out HELL YEAH!

Maybe you should be a Button Floozie.

Overwhelmed in a Good Way

I have been showered with generosity this week, and all from blog friends.  Individuals that I have never even met, but know only through their wonderful blogs.  There is a lot of it going around too, I read about it on others blogs all the time.  Let me share with you what others have so generously shared with me.

Monica has a blog, MandCo where she writes about design and gardening and her house.  Monica and her husband have two Rotties, Zina and Hector.  That is quite a houseful.  I can't imagine having two of those gentle giants roaming around, my little terrier is only 18 lbs.   She's all terrier though and would probably kick a Rottie butt. 

I won a give away that Monica was hosting, a surprise give away.  Monica said she likes to give surprise gifts, so it was a complete mystery.  Oh, and did I mention that she lives in Norway!  This large, heavy box arrived and I couldn't believe the treasures inside.

This is a stack of Norwegian design magazines.  I don't speak a lick of norwegian but the pictures speak for themselves.  I am so going to enjoy perusing these on the patio.

These earrings are vintage David Andersen enamel.  They are delicate little leaves.   Monica says vintage Norwegian enamel jewelry is getting harder to come by and hunted these down just for me.  

The earrings came in a box with this beautiful stone bead bracelet.

The fabric is from the Tilda collection by Tone Finnanger.  She has written a few craft books as well.  You can see her book collection here.  I really love these fabrics, aqua and red are one of my favorite color combos.

Did you just fall out of your chair?  Can you believe this!  This is a crystal obelisk from the floral fantasy collection by the Swedish designer Mats Jonasson.  The flower is carved into the crystal from the back side.  It is just stunning.   The package that all this arrived in looked as if it had been in a football practice so I was amazed when I pulled this beauty out of it. 

Monica is on holiday right now in Sicily.  I had the good fortune to visit Sicily about 5 years ago and it was quite a memorable vacation.  My husband has managed several amphitheaters here in the states, so we made it a point to visit every amphitheater in Sicily, of which there are many.  Some complete ruins and others still in use today.  Great memories of that trip!

Susan has a great blog, The T-Cozy.  Susan was just on a wonderful holiday in Martha's Vineyard and her pictures from that trip will make you want to head over there pronto!  She recently blogged about painted terracotta pots that she has made, including instructions on making your own.  I left her a comment and mentioned how I especially admired the one with the sea shell design.  Today the post man left another big box on my step and inside was that beautiful pot, handpainted by Susan!

I was just at the garden center this morning and picked up this pretty pink double impatient so I am going to pot it up right away and give this a special place on my porch. 

Are you just dying of envy yet?  Wait, there's more, yup.

It's Christmas in July over at the Cottage Style Street Team.  Mary at Snowflakes on Eyelashes, another fun blog, had a give away to promote the event.  Well, I'm just rolling in give away karma and look at the beautiful ornaments that she sent me.  Mary has more lovelies like these in her etsyshop.  I love these bells.

I love them so much I ordered a couple for my christmas tree. 

I am truly overwhelmed today by all the blog generosity going on out there.  I think what I need to do now is pay it forward.  So I'm going to work on that little project.  I'll let you know in my next post.  yup.  

I'm going to go mix myself a G&T, take it out to the patio and read about norwegian design and ponder it. :->

Big Flea Treasures

It was definitely a good day!

 

It was a GRAND Big Flea

Awesome!  Wow!  Fun!  That was the Big Flea in Chantilly, Virginia this weekend.  Over 600 vendors in two buildings. 

I drove up from Hampton on Friday to visit with Beth and our grand plan was to attend the Washington, DC area BIG FLEA on Saturday.

We were there right when it opened and we made a mad dash to the booth of Truffle Pigs, our absolute fav!  I found some wonderful things in that booth and so did Beth. 

Just look at that expression!  Beth is so excited about all the fabulous vintage sewing items and beautiful creations that this booth is stuffed with.

This was an especially good Big Flea, lots of textiles, buttons, trims, vintage christmas and jewelry.  All the things that we were searching for.

Lots of other interesting items too.  Bullet bra anyone?

I thought this daisy painted lunch box was so sweet!

I hadn't seen this vendor at the Big Flea before, stacks and stacks of vintage LV.  I took this picture for my sister, she will love this!  See the train case on the table on the corner.  $1900, oh yeah. 

What a great use for a vintage quilt!

We have many friends that sell at the Big Flea.  This is Beth's friend Stephanie.  She had a fabulous booth filled with her collage creations.  Very nice!!

Here I am with Sue of Vintage Rescue Squad.  We met through our blogs and this was our first time meeting up in person.  Sue had a great booth too filled with her treasures collecting at yard and estate sales, or junking and thrifting.

I had to leave immediately following the Big Flea and head home to Hampton.  Out of town guests were awaiting my return and today we are busy showing them around town.  Everyone is taking a quick nap to recover before dinner so I grabbed a minute to share these pictures.  As soon as I can I will photograph the wonderful treasures that I brought home and share them.

Last but not least here is a great picture of Beth and I taken early morning before heading out to shop. 

We had a great time.  Shopping for treasures is always fun, but it is really special when it's time spent with someone near and dear.

Favorites & Favorites

My friend Jodi who is the most awesome hairdresser ever, loves to garden like I do.  Today she updated my coif and we happily chatted about plants and more plants.  She asked me what my favorite plants in my garden are. 

Hard to say, I have so many favorites.  But ranking pretty high on the list is my umbrella pine.

I also have a love affair with standards or topiaries.

I have tended this sweet myrtle standard for over 10 years.  On year a huge chunk of it died and for a couple of years after that until it recovered and filled in again in was known as the death star.

New to the garden this year is this rosemary standard with 3 balls of branches.  Rosemary is a great plant for training into a standard, as is sweet myrtle.

We lost a large tree in our yard just a few weeks ago.  It just up and kicked the bucket.  It sat in a corner of my yard behind a piece of brick serpentine fence.  It shaded the entire corner.  Underneath it on top of the fence I have five gorgeous concrete planters that were full with impatients.  Well, now that corner is in full sun, no shade in sight.  So I pulled out the impatients and replanted them with zebra grass and pentas, both of which love full sun.  I'm hoping the height of the zebra grass will give a little privacy until we can get a new tree planted.  A BIG tree.

Planted in front of this brick wall/fence is another of my favorite perennials, bear's breech.

My garden is one of my favorite places to be, especially early in the morning before it gets hot.  If you enjoy gardens, pop over to see Brenda sometime.  She blogs about her beautiful garden often and always includes wonderful pictures like this:

Doesn't that bench look like a wonderful place to sit and enjoy her pretty pond!

Well, something else that is an absolute favorite is going to visit my BFF Beth up in Falls Church, VA.  I'm headed that way on Friday because we are going together to the BIG FLEA this weekend!  Woooohoooo!

I've got my Junk Posse T-Shirt all ready packed to go.  I consider myself the Mid-Atlantic chapter President and if you want to join in check out Cheryl's blog for all the info.  While you are over there it's an absolute must to check out REFUELED, the online magazine about everything crusty and cool for which she is the Features Editor and contributor.

Beth and I are hoping to find some awesome treasures, something that we can use in our creations and for inspirations. 

But I have to tell you, no one scores more prolifically than Niki when she goes to the flea markets in and around Bath, England.  Just go check out her latest flea bag scores and drool.  While she is out finding vintage ribbons, velvets, porcelain, millinery etc. at the sales around here we have something called hillbilly (redneck) windchimes.

originally uploaded by Nika 2000s

So wrong!

Oldies but Goodies

The weather was absolutely perfect last night for a family night out to NTelos Pavillion in Portsmouth, VA.

The venue sits right on the Portsmouth Harbor.

The concert was a trip down memory lane.  The Alarm, The Fixx and English Beat.  Daughter #2 was less than enthusiastic about attending.

It was fun, good music, beautiful setting, fabulous weather.    

Simply Sublime Bags

That's the name of my new favorite book by Jodi Kahn.  I saw a feature in a recent magazine about her bags and I was so intrigued I ran right over to Half.com to purchase a copy of it.  It came just a few days later and I've really been enjoying it.

I love the designs and original ideas in this book.  Jodi uses all kinds of materials to create her bags including shower curtains, a Twister game mat and lots of packaging tape that she uses to "laminate" materials with.

She's really inspired me to think out of the box.

Isn't this coin purse cute!

I LUV this one, made from a bubble mailing envelope and dog leash.  Too clever!

I've got a never used vintage shower curtain that I've been saving and now I know just what to do with it.  Oh yeah.