Super Cute!

I still haven't gotten back into the swing of things packing wise, but the contractor is coming tomorrow to do a run through on the current house of all the things we need to fix. That'll be a fun list I am sure... Once we have that list we'll sketch out the overall timeline for getting everything done including the overall plan for packing/staging. I am dying in anticipation of getting thing moving forward  (literally), and I am trying hard not to get ahead of myself thinking about what the new house could be like. It'd be nice if I could just twinkle my nose like Samantha and everything was done, course then I'd have less to blog about so I guess I'll just stick it out and entertain the masses... =)

In the meantime, I've been super good about shopping, and I haven't bought hardly a thing! I did allow myself to buy this super cute hair comb this past weekend while my sister was here (does this count as a fascinator or does it have to have feathers to be one??). We made the rounds including going up to Georgetown to visit a friend of mine and eat lunch up there and while we were there she took us to a consignment store that apparently used to have a whole backroom of vintage clothing. Unfortunately all they had vintage now is some aprons and a slew of hats. I couldn't resist this little number as it was super cute, super cheap and from Gimbels! How fun is that. I think I'll wear it on my up coming birthday.

Gimbels got me thinking about Christmas, my absolute favorite holiday other than Flag Day when I certain sister of mine arrived. Although I love Christmas, it's not in that every-day-is-like-Christmas-decorating way, I just love the smell and sparkle of it more than any other holiday. The food and decorations are a close second though to the excuse to sing Christmas carols at any moment. My husband and I have an agreement that between Thanksgiving and New Years I can sing as many carols as I want, but I am not allowed a single peep after New Years Day. Sigh... I do love to decorate, but this year I have a conundrum. I've put all my packed boxes thus far in the spot where my tree goes... So I guess I have to make some changes to get a real staging area for my boxes. Christmas is also the perfect excuse for creating tablescapes and no boxes are in the way for that endeavor! Here's the past couple of Christmas tablescapes. I have this year's all planned out already so I better get it started before I pack it all away! Stay tuned.

Snowglobe/Snowman Christmas - 2010
Love the excuse to buy net Christmas Tablecloths!

Poinsetta/Gold Glitter Tree Christmas - 2009

Collectorator Game Night 101

Well, I think I've officially entered into a new exciting era of life! Maybe it's because I am about to have one of those milestone birthdays (do not want to talk about that!), or maybe it's because I am on the brink of moving and it's becoming real as we are starting to plan out the early stages. Ultimately, though,  I think it's because we had an official game night the other night for the first time in a really long time and there are more such nights in our future! CollectoratorOne and I used to have infamously fun game nights but after boyfriends and friends came and went we were down to just two of us who love to play games. Not that playing games with just us two is no fun (trying to beat CollectoratorOne at any game is fun enough to make it last a lifetime), but games turn into a party when you have three or even four at the table. We recently lucked into finding our new third, a recent transplant to our fair city who I think may love games just as much as us (not to mention shoes.... you know you want to give me those shoes!!!!), and my sister visiting for said milestone birthday gave us a lucky fourth!  So of course I couldn't resist planning out a game night this week!

So what do you need to throw a Collectorator Game Night of your own? Funny you ask... Snacks (always good, and I forgot about that one!), party ware (would have been nice if I had remembered the snacks AND if it hadn't all been packed way!) Champagne (it is requisite and I remembered that), but really you just need one lovely hyphenated word... Skip-Bo!

Oh Skip-Bo, how do I love thee? Is it your velvety red box with the divided built in tray? Is it your sailboat-backed cards that seem to make no sense of why the sailboats are there? Or is it 30 plus year old memories of playing it with your grandmother... probably the latter although the sailboats on the back of the cards are pretty nifty. I don't know officially when I learned to play, but I remember playing it all the time when I was a kid with my great grandmother (whom we called mom), my grandmother and my auntie.  Later in life, when I met CollectoratorOne we discovered that we had the same Skip-Bo upbringing. How weird is that especially given we grew up on opposite poles of the united states (me in Texas and her in Illinois), and it was a game made in Texas! So you can only guess what ensued next. At the time though, I only had the new version of the game. And I tell you right now if you have that version from Uno, throw it out now and buy yourself the official 1967 version. You might pay a little more, but it's worth it as the new version does not have the right number of cards!

Because of our obsession we researched all we could about the game and found out it was produced by Skip and Hazel Bowman in Brownfield, TX in 1967, so you see where the Skip and Bo come from now! I don't know the reason for the sailboats other than maybe he liked to sail?  It's a super fun game modeled after Spite and Malice consisting of blocking, getting on a roll, and revenge. Of course CollectoratorOne beat us all at it the other night!  We also played another favorite game that we hadn't played in a really long time because you have to have three players at least. It's a German card game of bean bartering (yes beans) called Bohnanza. I won that one some how... =) Game night 1 of the new era is in the books! Let's schedule Game night 2!!!

Will You Believe More Sharkskin?

CollectoratorOne and I were out this past weekend for Phase I for the search for her wedding dress, and we went by a few places we hadn't been by in awhile to check their stock. There are still a few places in our fair city where you are guaranteed a good find, but you'll have to pay some $$ for it. One of our old favorites didn't fail to deliver and amazingly it wasn't expensive as we remember. Either they've come down in prices or having adult-jobs has made us realize that the prices weren't that bad after all. We didn't find the dress at the first stop, but we found a maybe dress, and I finally found a navy sweater.  I've been looking for a navy sweater small enough for me for so many years I can't even remember how many years it's been!

Then I came across this fab Dijon mustard yellow and blue sharkskin dress that was something so nifty I couldn't pass it up. We learned from the owner that it was brought in with a few other items by a lady who had some clothes made in Thailand while she was stationed with her husband during the war (Korean/Viet Nam??). He said all of the dresses she brought in were made with Thai silk. I always feel better about Collectoratoring when I know the backstory. 

Our second stop actually led to the DRESS for CollectoraorOne, but I am going to remain mute about it until it's been cleaned/altered for her as to not let it out there until it's time... BUT suffice to say it's a really stunningly beautiful dress, and she looked amazingly beautiful in it already and it hasn't even been altered! What made it better is we got it for a really good deal. Can't beat that.  I am so excited!!! I already had my dress for the wedding, which also I am not going to post for awhile, not because it's secret, but because it really needs to be pressed as it was wadded up in a barrel for a long while.... 

I also tried to get my hands on a really super cute plaid playsuit, but I was priced out of it pretty quickly. I should always be leery of things I want that don't have price tags on it! But given that it was just as much as the wedding dress (how is that even possible??) I knew it wasn't coming home with me...Later I learned the owner wanted to sell it on etsy so look out for a super cute red plaid playsuit on there soon!!! I could have shown you how cute the playsuit was, but I have to admit that I failed on my first chance for using my new phone on a Collectorating adventure. Sigh... Oh well, I'll get used to having that technology for the taking sooner than later. 

Sharkskin and Velvet

Hey y’all sorry I disappeared! It’s been super busy at the CollectoratorToo camp. First and foremost I broke my phone which caused all sorts of problems in and of itself, but I entered into the modern age and got a super smart phone. This phone has a PhD whereas my other phone had probably dropped out of elementary school! What I love about it most is I can blog from anywhere, post fun pics on the road because  I have a real camera on the phone now, and do just about anything I want to do when I want to do it. I am left wondering why I did not do this sooner.

I also got sucked up into the baseball playoff/World Series vortex. I am not a big sports fan at all, but I am a loyal fan to the Texas Longhorns and Texas Rangers.  See the Rangers were in the World Series this year and last year, which is a huge miracle if you grew up with them like I did (literally down the street). Because it was something I may only see once or twice (now) in my lifetime, like a chance to see a comet, I had to tune in. Never mind the fact that we lost, it was worth the pain of loss to see the experience. Baseball is one of those sports though I really do like in general. Something about it is still so old school and vintage America. I love that they have not modernized it too much other than the crazy ballparks. If only people would still dress up to go to games. You look at baseball crowd pictures back in the 1940s and they have suits and day dresses on. Heck yeah. Most people just seem to have lost the desire to look put together at all in public anymore…

Anyway, I digress. We also have had some our friends from overseas visit so we had a party. It was challenging in a fun way to figure out how to have a party with all my party-ware packed away, but I managed  through it although it wasn’t up to my usual par. We even played Skip-Bo as the party wound down (here’s my Skip-Bo card case by the way in all it's red velvet glory, I’ll write a whole blog on Skip-Bo soon because it totally deserves its own blog). Playing Skip-Bo made it close to my favorite kind of party. As I said before I always long to have the Dick Van Dyke style party where it breaks into a mini variety show or games ensue so this was pretty close!

Even with all this going on, I did manage to make it back to the flea market in town and once again my husband had better luck than me. No wonder he keeps agreeing to go with me to this flea market! We got this awesome sharkskin coat for his stage outfits for $3.  Course the lady also had this lambs wool wrap and muff I wanted, but it was $60. Hello. Not fair. In any case, we bought the jacket and the next day I found the tie to go along with it. He’s lucky he has me to design his outfits for his shows!! 

I’m back though now and I'll back to packing… more soon!

Playsuits, Jarts, and Badminton... Oh My!

Playsuits, or "onesies for adults" as CollectoratorOne calls them  (ha!!) are a very utilitarian clothing staple that has unfortunately gone by the way side. Yes, we still have shorts and tops, but do they often include a matching overskirt or wrap that you can don so you can go just about anywhere comfortably? Nothing against shorts, I have my fair share of cute shorts, but you are stuck being casual without the overskirt or wrap. See, with a playsuit with an overdress/wrap, I could take a walk around the lake in the morning, brunch with a friend on her veranda, go by the grocery store to pick up some food for the early evening lawn party, prepare and serve the food, and then off comes the wrap, and I am ready for a game of Jarts or Badminton just like that! Tell me another outfit you could do all that in?

CollectoratorOne officially endorses playsuits as the most comfortable thing to cook in as well so we should all give that a try! Of course, some playsuitss, like the ones pictured here from CollectoratorOne's collection, are more akin to one piece bathing suits so probably not the best thing to go grocery shopping in, BUT I think they'd still get the husband stamp of approval for cooking in! CollectoratorOne and I have vowed that as soon as we have grass again to play lawn games in that we'll play Jarts and Badminton often in our playsuits. Unfortunately, I don't own any playsuits (amazingly enough if you've seen my closet) so I an going have to make my own so i can join in the lawn game fun!

I have been collecting vintage playsuit patterns for awhile like my favorite one pictured here, and I found this nautical fabric that I think is just a big enough piece to make it. It's been a long while since I sewed anything, mostly due to lack of time, and excuse, after excuse, after excuse. I should probably concentrate on packing up things in my free time instead of creating more things to pack, but if I start working on the pattern now maybe I'll actually finish it by the time the grass grows back! I don't have any coordinating fabric to make the wrap though which means I'll have to buy more fabric! yay! I told myself if I made something I could buy more fabric so that should be extra motivation to get started! Stay tuned!

Cowboys and Indians at the Flea Market

It is a very rare day that my husband braves the collectorating road with me, but last Sunday was one of those rare days. We had been having a leisurely breakfast at one of Austin's  oldest diners (Nighthawk), which is near by one of Austin's most underused market areas. It would be a perfect place for daily farmer's market. I don't know why we have to wait until one day a week to go to a nearby farmer's market when my mom in the Dallas Fort Worth suburb area has two daily markets nearby! Anyway I digress... once a month they use the parking lot of the venue for a collectible flea market. It's a mixture of typical flea markety type stuff with some good mid century collectibles mixed in. On top of that it's small. I thought it might be a perfect no-stress, low attention span collectorating event we could enjoy together. He likes shopping, but just in bursts, not all day affairs like CollectoratorOne and I are prone to. In any case, I casually mentioned it getting no response and went on with breakfast. To my surprise after breakfast he pulled into the parking area! Score one for me! Well my winning went by the wayside fast because we walked away mostly with stuff for him. Mostly tie bars and cuff links. We found the mother lode for cheap which was exactly what he needed. I almost bought a couple of things but thought to myself do I really want to pack this.... so I resisted. What we couldn't walk away from tho was this awesome 1950 set of wall art for a little boy's room. Now I'll preface this with we do not have kids, unless you count the pets whom do not have their own room other than they seem to take over our room... But it was such an awesome set the little boy inside my adult husband had to have it for his man cave. Plus it was $5 for the set! Neat, huh? Admittedly, it's a little funny up there surrounded by pictures of Joe Strummer, Buddy Holly and David Johansen but it works somehow...

Turn Out the Lights - The Party-Ware is Over

Oh thank goodness... I was getting a little tired of packing party-ware. Mostly because it was reminding me I need to throw more parties! There's one more little set of bowls that technically could be party-ware, but I am going to throw it in the kitchen-ware category instead or leave it for staging! whew!

The last box of party-ware I packed was the miscellaneous party-ware box. This box contains the rest of the bowls I inherited from my grandmother and my Auntie. Because I got so little from them, I am hard pressed to get rid of any of them even though they are a totally random mismatched set of bowls that I forget to use. The fun pieces in this box though are the wacky Karoff plastic leaf nut sever that is really more of a conversational piece than functional party-ware. Basically, you push the top and voila the leaves open to share their nutty goodness! The other interesting pieces that remained were the monkey pod wood pineapple bowls and pineapple toothpick/napkin server. I know I have too much stuff because I totally forgot to get these out for CollectoratorOne's Hawaiian themed birthday party last year. That's what you get when you don't have enough space and things are stuffed in every available and sometimes illogical storage space. oh well. next time.

I also packed up my cheese ball server. Yes,  have a separate dish for a cheese ball. I suppose you could also put a butter mold in there or some other round food stuff like a small wheel of brie cheese with chutney (mmmm!)  but I like to think of it as a cheese ball server. I like making cheese balls as it's great leftover party food to snack on later. My absolute favorite snacks are leftover party food. I could eat for days on that.  I haven't quite entered into the realm of making party food just to have it around, but I am not putting it past me. I use my aunt's cheese ball recipe kicked up a notch for my husband's Louisiana spicy food taste. Thought I'd share it with you since all of this talk about party-ware makes me want to serve some up. Course that'll have to wait as I've packed it all away...

CollectoratorToo's Cheese Ball

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened

1/8 teaspoon minced garlic

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

½ teaspoon hot pepper sauce (I used Louisiana hot sauce)

4 ounces shredded Sharp Cheddar cheese  

Measure out 1/3 cup pecan halves (then chop them up)

1 teaspoon dried parsley

In an electric food processor or blender, combine cream cheese, garlic, Worcestershire sauce and hot pepper sauce. Pulse until well blended. Add Cheddar cheese and pulse until the Cheddar is fine, but still visible. Shape the mixture into balls or logs (I find it easier to put the sticky glob into plastic wrap first then shape it).  Whether you put it in plastic before or after you shape it into a ball make sure it’s eventually wrapped in plastic and then place in the freezer for about 5-10 minutes. During this time, chop up the pecans and mix in the parsley. Put pecan mixture into a shallow bowl or plate. Remove cheese ball from freezer and roll in the pecan mixture, pressing the pecans a little into the ball. Rewrap in plastic and store for an hour or so before serving. You can freeze it as well at this point if you needed to.

I'm ready to move on now to the top of my hutch now which contains my most of my bar-ware glasses and a variety of other nifty star/snowflake-laden pieces that are non-bar related. Basically if it is black, gold or both, has stars or star like objects on it, it lives in the top of the hutch.