I mentioned in a previous post about waking up in the middle of the night with the word "crafternoon" bouncing around in that space that is supposed to hold my brain. So nothing doing but figure out a way to use it which has lead to this Sunday's Crafternoon in the Bay City General Store. All of the tools, toys, bits, bobs, gee-gaws, flotsam and jetsam has been relocated from my studio to the general store. Eleven ladies are coming to spend the afternoon creating, gabbing and eating. Does it get any better than that? It does when everyone gets a gift just for showing up. The above canvas tote has been made for everyone and filled with crafty supplies.
Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Disposable Society

I mentioned earlier how I find it sad to find someone's cherished memories being sold at an auction, flea market or yard sale. Didn't anyone in the family want to keep the memories? Is everyone gone? I have family pictures of people I have no clue as to who they are or where they are but they are mine and I am keeping them. I have my Aunt's 50 years of travel photos of people I don't even know and places I don't recognize but they are safely tucked away. And believe me I could use the space for something else but I just can't find it in my heart to dispose of them. That being said, my PIC (partner in crime) and I got lost on our way home from an estate sate and as luck would have it this unfortunate act led us right past a junk store. And when I say junk I really mean junk - piles of it still in boxes, trash bags, with no rhyme or reason to its' organization. Nothing doing but we dig right in and in the middle of all this chaos what do I find but this beautiful "Holy Bonds of Matrimony" certificate between Mr. Columbus R. Smith and Miss Josephine Porter dated May 4, 1874. There are other pages of the births of their children and the marriages of their children. I think these may be pages from an old family Bible. Of course being addicted to this kind of ephemera I knew it was going home with me I just didn't know what it was going to cost me - oh I'd have to charge you 50 cents for that the proprietor said. It now has a good home and I thought I would share with all of you. Anyone know a Columbus Smith?
There were other hidden treasures uncovered in this junk store but I'll save them for another post. I'll just say we filled my SUV for $21!!!!!

Letters of Friendship

Just want to extend a special thank you to those of you who stopped by my blog yesterday during the Soul Journal Valentine's Day blog party. There was a question about why the two lovers who wrote the postcards were apart. Apparently they lived in two different towns a few miles apart, and in the 1900s even a few miles might as well have been a thousand. It also appears there may have been more than one suitor of Miss Mallye.........I'll have to let you know in another post. My real world beckons from the laundry room. But before we leave Miss Mallye's world, there is something I find very interesting about these postcards, besides the fact that they are not very private, they wrote on the fronts of the cards as well trying to squeeze in as much love and affection as possible. Why not just write a letter? Was the postage too dear? Would that have been improper to put one's thoughts into a letter that maybe a nosy Ma-Ma could not read? Guess I'll never know for sure but it sure is fun to speculate. Stay tuned for more adventures of Miss Mallye and her suitor.

The Art of Love Letters

Greetings and Salutations from the Bay City General Store!

This is my first blog party and I'm here without a chaperone so I will try and be on my best behavior. Events of the week interfered with my original plan to have something of "knock your socks off" quality to put on display for the blogworld to see. So I did the next best thing - I combined two passions of mine - antique postcards and ephemera. The letter writing pages are from Hill's Manual of Social and Business Forms. There is guidance on when and how love letters are to be written so as to preserve the lady's dignity. Too bad we can't transfer some of this guidance to today's teens and their use of text messaging and camera phones. As I mentioned earlier I love antique postcards and buy them at auctions every chance I get. It always makes me a little sad to see someone's cherished memories laying in a box discarded like yesterday's news. This antique postcard from the early 1900s was purchased with 200 others in an old dusty shoebox and upon closer examination they revealed the most wonderful courtship and love story carried out through the US mail. When I bought them I didn't realize they were all to and from and the same people - when I put them in chronological order the love story began to unfold. The story culminated in a marriage and so I have both sides of the love story - his and hers. Don't you just love it when something like that happens? I have pictured these two lovers in my mind and my ultimate goal is to bring them to life through an altered book. Perhaps some day I can host a blog party and share the story of Mallye and Mr. Kelley. However, in keeping with the times of their day, you will have to come properly chaperoned.
Hope everyone shares the day with someone you love and loves you! I am. XOXOXO

The Elements are getting me down...

OK, I do not profess to be very computer savvy. I can do the basics and so far that has been good enough to do what I want to do. When I wanted to produce my own brochures I learned how to do desk top publishing. Now I want to do digital collages so everyone says to get Photoshop Elements and it is a piece of cake. Saying that is like giving someone directions and saying "you can't miss it." Kiss of death! I bought Elements, I bought Somerset Studios Digital Studio, I have tons of photos, graphics, and vintage ephemera. I pride myself on being able to follow directions............but this Elements stuff might as well be written in Greek.......layers, brushes, magic tools..............arrrrrrrrrrrrrrghhhhhhhhhh! Just when I was about to give up I stumbled into this blog. Don't know how I got there but she has some wonderful graphics and she does really neat stuff with them besides just store them in a file somewhere. So I am encouraged to give this Photoshop Elements stuff another whirl and besides all that she's having a Valentine's Day Blog Party and I signed up. No gain in just tiptoeing around the edges, might as well jump all the way in.
Hope you'll stop by and leave a comment sometime.

Why is it always the middle of the night...

when I get my best ideas, or what seem like good ideas at the time? I woke up the other night thinking about having a "Crafternoon" at the Bay City General Store. I thought that was a very clever play on words, so clever in fact, I am wondering if I dreamed it or if I saw it somewhere else. Whichever it is I'm having one - a Crafternoon, that is. On Sunday, February 22nd from 1 pm to 5 pm. Hosted by the Bay City Babes Rescue Society - that's us up above. We "rescue Granny's silver, buttons and lace and make pretty things for you and your place." We're bringing out all the tools (or toys as some might suggest), all the supplies and goodies - buttons, lace, trim, ephemera, scissors, rubber stamps, papers, glues, punches..........if we don't have it, you don't need it. We're serving refreshments, having giveaways, door prizes, a free gift for everyone and for only $20. Sounds like a great way to combat cabin fever. See we're right in the middle of the worst ice storm to ever hit this part of the country in forever. Some people are still without power and water. So shake off the winter blues and come gab, munch and craft at the Bay City General Store.
Hope to see you there.

Treasures from Tennessee

Nashville Flea Market

Before Mama Nature interrupted this program to bring us Ice Storm 2009 Part Deux, I was talking about our trip to the Nashville Flea Market. Day 2 took us to Franklin, TN and a wonderful antique mall located in an old former ice house. Just the kind of mall we all like - nooks and crannies, lots of little rooms and treasures hidden around every corner. And around one of those corners I found it - a beautiful oak rolltop desk in my price range. In the trailer it went, followed by a copper fish weathervane (perfect for our Ohio River store), an old sewing chest filled with lots of old sewing notions and there was still room for a vintage suitcase. You can never have too many of those. This stuff joined all the treasures from the flea market - sack of cork-lined bottle caps, two gravy boats, a sack of old hardware, and a fixer-upper dentist cabinet. Our journey home took us off the interstate (we really detest interstates) and onto the blue highways where the real America lives. A stop in an antique store located in an old livery stable brought us to an old shabby oak mantle - in the trailer it went. 40 Norman Rockwell plates were calling our name so in they went too. Two metal card file cabinets later and we were back on the blue highway. Our last stop of the day was an antique mall located in an old elementary school -a two story Marx metal dollhouse, a set of vintage flash cards and two old documents boxes joined the group in the trailer. Now if we had stayed on the interstate we would have missed all that.
That's the news from the Bay City General Store.
Come see us!

Mama Nature is telling us something...

We must have done something to really honk Mama Nature off. She dropped buckets of ice on us for a couple of days and we are just now digging out. And we are way more fortunate than others in our region that are still without power, heat, water - all the comforts to which we have become accustomed. Kentucky was really slammed in this ice storm. We went a few days with no TV, no internet, no newspaper, no radio, and no mail. You talk about feeling isolated when we are so used to the constant bombardment of information from all directions. Even our cellphones wouldn't work because of the ice build-up on the cell towers. That I didn't miss, not one bit. It was gratifying to hear stories of grandparents, parents and kids of all ages coming together to play board games, cards, or charades and totally unplugging for a few days. Maybe we need more of that..........maybe that is Mama Nature's message. Maybe we should listen, but we'd have to put our Ipods down first.

That's the news from the Bay City General Store Daily Ledger!

When you thaw out come and see us!