A joyful May

May Day is coming soon.  I have fond childhood memories of leaving baskets of flowers on doorsteps and dancing around the maypole with my pretty ribbon.   I still love May Day.  Spring following winter is a wonderful and joyous thing.

I found this lovely little illustration from a 1911 children's book entitled Fun and Thought for Little Folk.  It reminded me of my childhood observance of May Day.  While there are many wonderful traditions surrounding May Day involving flowers, song and dance, it does not seem to commonly be observed anymore.  I think our modern May Days ought to involve a few more flowers and ribbons, at the very least.

 

May Song

(It is traditional, and comes in many versions, but this is how I sing it.)

We have been rambling all of the night
And the best part of this day,
And we are returning here back again,
And we've brought you a garland gay.

A bunch of May we bear about
And here at the door it stands.
It is nothing but a sprout, but it's well budded out.
It's the work of God's own hand.

For the life of a man is but a span
He's cut down like the grass
For he's like unto the green leaf of a tree

For as long as life shall last.

And now our song is almost done

We can no longer stay.

God bless us all, both great and small

And we wish you a joyful May.

Quite busy

I've been quite busy recently with finishing school, falling in love with a sweet, gorgeous foreign boy, getting engaged and setting up housekeeping with my dear.  I intend to revisit this blog as I have time.

I'd initially intended to keep a wedding blog but I really want to attempt to pat attention to this one again, if I can help it.  There may be occasional future posts about wedding related things.

My wedding will be vintage themed, with black and various shades of white and cream as the colors.  Vintage milk glass and postcards will be involved, as well as well as generous amounts of lace.  Oh, and lots of mushroom doves nested here there and everywhere.

 

Papered notebook

I had some vintage from a children's book papers laying around so I decided to pretty up a notebook for class. I painted it with gesso and placed the papers over it, adding some vintage lace and some sort of child like flowers drawn in colored pencil.

I like how it turned out, however, I should have used a brush and not my fingers for the gesso, as it turned out a little lumpy.

Christmas

It was a lovely day at my mother's with all seven of my little nieces and nephews and their parents. Children make Christmas so much more lively.
I wrapped my gifts in tea dyed tissue paper with bits of old sheet music and vintage, yellowed lace. It was difficult to use the delicate tissue paper, but the result was very pretty.
My culinary contribution was the Swedish rice. It's a traditional pudding our family makes by cooking rice in milk for a seemingly endless amount of time. The result is lovely, light and fluffy. It's served topped with a lovely, bright dollop of tart lingonberries.
In spite of all the hassle and difficulty of Christmas, it is lovely in the end. I think the important parts have more to do with joy and family.

( Oh, and the mulled wine recipe I tried this year was fabulous:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Mulled-Wine-230571 )

Thrifted pretties: electric lamps

I discovered an electrified oil lamp in one of my local thrift stores. It is on my little nightstand, now, with a velvet posy beside it and a black crocheted doily underneath.

Intrigued by the concept of electrified oil lamps, I looked into their manufacture. You can, apparently, buy kits to make an electric lamp out of an old oil one. The electric component just screws on to the top.

I think it's a wonderful idea, and looks charmingly old fashioned. Now I'm on the lookout for a pretty pair of oil lamps to make into electric lamps for my living room.

A little note on seasons and preparations

All Hallow's eve has passed with cute little lady pumpkins with stars on their cheeks, chocolate, and bits of lovely black lace and tulle. I'm beginning to plan Christmas preparations. I think they will entails some velvet roses, as always, but I'm not sure what else.

Now begins the season of making sweets. Lefse, fruitcake, plum pudding, all sorts of lovely thing can go into Christmas preparations. Only lefse and a dish called Swedish rice are considered essential in my family. My mother and I have a merry little holiday cooking session every year. One of us rolls the lefse out into neat rounds, and the other puts it on the griddle and tries to make sure it cooks evenly.

The leaves turned to bright brilliant colors and have fallen off almost entirely. We've had two little snowstorms that felled the last of the flowers and stripped the trees bare of leaves, and sometimes branches. Now we have bare branches against a sunny blue sky. Soon we will be deeply into winter.

Decorating: my frilly bathroom project

I've been slowly redecorating my bathroom. So far it is developing a theme of shades of pink and blue and a tendency to have fleur de lys on everything.

I purchased pink and blue towels and mats, as well as a pink glass toothbrush holder and soap dispenser. I looked for something readily available for wall art and found some pictures I had taken of the spring flowers blooming outside of Notre Dame. They were lovely and pink against the blue sky. The frames I found were of silver brushed metal with little fleur de lys at the corners.

This is my most recent addition.


I had a very difficult time finding a curtain in the proper colors so I decided to pretty up the old one. I found the fleur de lys shower curtain hooks at Ross for about $4 and bought two spools of ribbon on sale for $1. It turned out to be much cheaper than buying a new shower curtain and I think it turned out to be quite lovely and sweet.

I've already begun my next project, which is to pretty up the mirror. I purchased a vintage lace window valance and tea dyed it to make the color more similar to the shower curtain and give it a pretty antiqued look. I intend to gather it up into a pretty silver button in the center (I know I have some lovely Art Nouveau lady buttons stashed away someplace.) and perhaps add beaded dangles. Then I'll string it up over the mirror with blue ribbon and secure it on either side with a bow . . . Hopefully.