Summer Decorating with Vintage

 I love to decorate around the house with vintage items. I change the decorations for each season/holiday. Here are some of my summer decorations.

I collect old planters. I put this Uncle Sam planter out for the 4th of July every year. Here it is filled with vintage flags.

Something my husband and I will always buy if affordable are vintage fans. We love them and use them throughout the house in the summer. Since we don't have air conditioning, these vintage fans really come in handy. Some of the fans are strictly for display, like this one. I recently found this small-sized fan at a garage sale. I love the name of it - Zero. I think it is cute sitting out for summer. The colors are great too.

 

This metal toy lawn mower was just purchased last Saturday at a yard sale. I have always loved vintage toys for some reason. I love to use old toys and children's furniture in my displays. The lawn mower is on my front porch.

Another thing I decorate with is vintage household items in their original packaging. You can find things like this at estate sales.  I found both the package of plastic forks and the pack of Ice Cream Sticks at estate sales. I especially like it when the packages have the original prices. It is neat to see how much stuff cost 40 or 50 years ago. I just sit things like this out on my china cupboard or in my kitchen and they add interest.

I also like to decorate with vintage linens. I found this amazing embroidered linen doily at a yard sale years ago. Since I have two daughters that are obsessed with anything mermaid, I had to have it. I always thought it would look cute made into a pillow or just sitting as a doily on the top of a little girl's dresser.

I also like keeping vintage books. This is an old book from 1960 discarded from a local elementary school.

Since my kids don't seem to know too much about American History - which I discovered when I asked them why we celebrate the 4th of July - I made Hannah sit and read some of this book.

This summer I joined a CSA in my community. CSA stands for Community Sponsored Agriculture. Here is my weekly share of eggs - sitting in Pyrex. I am always using my Pyrex bowls in the kitchen no matter what the season. I even change which bowls I use to match the colors of the particular season or holiday I am celebrating. That is how crazy I am for Pyrex.

I love the freckles on the eggs!

Here's wishing you a happy 4th of July and fun summer days ahead!
KayteeJane

Vintage Seed Packets

After a two-year hiatus the vintage seed packet/seed catalog collection is back out on display! When I first looked at it I thought it was too busy - but it has since grown on me and I love it!

 

This is one of my favorite collections. It just makes me happy!

KayteeJane

Summer

Some of my summer display.

I recently bought this black shelf at a garage sale for $3. I decided to try it out on the mantle to get more display space. I like it. Vintage swim caps on top. Ignore my hands with the camera in the photo - oops.

Shell boxes

Novelty planters - Uncle Sam & a top hat

Shell Box - Read about this HERE

Added some red touches, star cookie cutters & a vintage textbook to the milk glass display.

Soda Pop Bottles

KayteeJane

Strawberries

Seeing that it is strawberry picking season I thought I would share some of my favorite vintage strawberry collectibles. I have always been drawn to strawberry prints and red and white.

Hazel Atlas Milk Glass Strawberry Jam Jar - This was also made in an apple. (Of course I own that too!)  My mom had one of these when I was growing up and she actually served jelly out of it on the table.

Strawberry motif vintage table cloth.

Strawberry apron. Not sure how functional this one is :) - but it is super cute. Sheer material with embroidered strawberries.

 

Tin bread box. It is a little banged up and rusty but I love it anyway. We use this on our kitchen counter for loaves of bread.

I am including these too. Wouldn't these be great to serve sliced strawberries? Top pic is a Pyrex hostess set, bottom pic is a pink plastic melamine/melmac set.

I love vintage berries!
KayteeJane

Iced Coffee

Recently on a trip to Kmart I spotted these plastic mason jar drinking glasses for sale.

Of course I had to have one. It was $9.99. I'm so glad I bought one because since then I've been back to Kmart a few times and haven't seen any left. I have a love/hate relationship with Kmart. Sometimes you go there and think "I don't know how these stores stay in business" - they are that bad. But other times I go there and see all kinds of neat things that I've never seen at other "box" stores.  The drinking glasses are double insulated with a plastic straw. The lid is metal. They are made by Aladdin. I have seen mason jar drinking glasses made of clear plastic for sale at Walmart. Also by Aladdin. That version has a plastic lid in vibrant colors like orange, pink or teal. They are cute too. I happen to prefer the blue ones myself because they remind me of the vintage blue ball jars.

One of my favorite drinks in the summer is Iced Coffee. I have bought some lately at both Dunkin' Donuts and McDonalds and was disappointed in the taste. I decided to try making my own. Another benefit is it is much cheaper - and more convenient to do it yourself.

I'm sure there are tons of recipes for making iced coffee available on Pinterest and the internet. Here is my version.

To make my recipe I used a French Press coffee maker. I found mine at a yard sale. They sell them at Target. They aren't very expensive so if you don't already own one it is worth the investment. We also use ours when we go camping to make coffee by the camp fire.
 

(You will want to make this the night before the day you will drink it because it needs to sit in the refrigerator for 12 hours or more).

1. Scoop 5 or 6 Tablespoons of your favorite coffee into the bottom of the press. Pick a nice dark roast. Adjust amount according to your taste.

2. Add water to the grounds. Fill up to the top. (leave about an inch of space at the top for the lid).

3. Mix the water and grounds with a spoon.

4. Put the press in the refrigerator and let sit overnight.

That is all.

5. The next day when you are ready to drink your coffee, use the plunger/press part of the french press to push the grounds to the bottom of the carafe and trap them there. I am using a Bodum brand coffee press - which is a quality brand (available at Target). It trapped all of the grounds and I didn't find any floating in my drink.

6. Pour black coffee into a glass.

7. Add milk or cream and your sweetener. I sweetened mine with sugar but you could add flavored syrup instead. (I didn't have any syrup on hand so that is why I went with granulated sugar.)

8. Mix with a spoon.

9. Add ice and enjoy. Simple as that.

The entire carafe of coffee gave me three full glasses of iced coffee in one day.

If you try this for yourself let me know how you liked it!

KayteeJane

Berry Picking

We went blueberry picking this past weekend. Here are the girls in the fields doing the picking.

This is something I like to do at least once a summer. I usually only get around to doing it once, but would do it more often if I lived closer to this farm. There is nothing like the taste and freshness of hand-picked berries. Plus, the cost is so much better when you pick yourself - so you can get a lot more berries for your money.

We came home with 5 quarts of large berries. This is the bag after we snacked and made a batch of blueberry muffins.

On the Fourth of July I decided to make blueberry pies to enjoy at our picnic later that night. The girls helped also - each one making a mini pie for themself.

I added a buttery crumb topping to the pies instead of a second crust.

Here is what they looked like after baking. The color of the cooked blueberries is such a beautiful purple/red with juice oozing out all over! A cookie sheet underneath is a must.

The pie tasted delicious. It was a lot of work to make, but so worth it in the end result. The taste of the hand-picked berries is so different from the berries you buy at the grocery store. They are full of flavor - very tart yet sweet too. The homemade crust and topping was also delicious. All recipes came from Martha Stewart if you are interested - Basic Pie Crust & Fruit Pie Crumb Topping. I would recommend these recipes and would make them again.

KayteeJane