Some indulgent reminiscing at a half century milestone and the April giveaway winner
family, give away
My Silver Bella friend, Jessi, is asking us to remember our child hood toys today. There is a lack of photos of myold toys, but that didn’t slow down my reminiscing. Her topic brought up lots of happy memories for me.
One of the best toys I had was this teeter totter. I’m sure that in today’s age it wouldn’t get past safety codes. We were always smashing and pinching our fingers under the rails of this thing.
(I’m the one on the left)
When neighbors weren’t around to balance it, I’d tip the thing on its side and pretend it was a pirate ship or a castle.
Another love was bags full of little plastic horsies. I could play with those for hours. I’d paint them too, because I loved to change them all to have white manes and tails.
When I came across a photo of my husband with a toy horse from his child hood, I had to frame it to display with a picture of me with my toy horses.
On the same shelf, I set out a photo of our "real" horses, Scooty and Fairybelle.
When I was little, I had severe asthma and couldn’t own the pets I desperately wanted. I made up for it with piles of stuffed animals and a vivid imagination.
After "outgrowing" my allergies, I made the most of having lots of pets, and loved filling up this big old falling down barn on our property. (it has since fallen down)
You can see Faiybelle to the right of the barn in this painting I did.
Remember saying this?
"Starlight, star bright, first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight"
My wish, every single time I looked up at the stars was to have a pony. I loved to crane my neck and look out of the back window of the car (pre-car seat days!) waiting for that first star of the night to show itself so I could wish for my horse.
Finally, as an adult, my wish came true. I had Scooty, the Shetland. He was a baby when I got him, and followed me around the yard like a puppy. (of course, the horse I wished for had wings, but Scooty didn’t)
As much as I loved my Barbies and dolls, when I look back at my childhood, the strongest memories are of wishing for a pet, and pretending my toys were alive and could love me back as much as I loved them.
I’ve collected some of these thoughts and memories about my childhood and made a little scrapbook about myself to read with Sugarwings.
I put in lots of pop ups with pictures underneath, and little snippets of stories about my wishes and hopes as a little girl so I can share them with my own little girl as she grows.
And now here I am, turning 50. I can remember making those wishes on a star, and the feelings that went with it, as if those longings and dreams are as real today as they were nearly a half a century ago.
Thanks, Amy Wald for the sparkling card!
And thanks, Jessi, for this subject. It was a timely one for me. Birthday milestones are a good time to look back and remember the child that is still inside.
I hope to never lose the imagination that I had back then, when I’d paint a plastic horse and see myself riding it across the skies with its beautiful white tail flying behind us. And when I’d tip over a teeter totter and it would become a castle where I was the princess.
Happy May Day everyone! My birthday (which I am sure you are so tired of hearing about) is May 5th and I will have a special gift to go out then. All comments count toward that as well as toward my regular monthly drawing.
And who wins for the April Drawing?
And what is the prize?
she gets a choice of one of these prizes:
1- a pair of earrings made by me, with vintage pieces
2- a May Day tussie mussie
3- a Birds and Bonnets Vintage Workshop images tag
4- a Cottage Collage Kit with vintage wallpaper and millinery flowers
I have added more millinery flowers to my etsy shop, since I had such a good response for the ones I listed yesterday (5 bundles sold in an hour or so!)
Thanks so much for supporting my Etsy shop and for taking the time to visit me here in blogworld.
Sunshine! Wow, I had almost forgotten what it felt like. What a long and rough winter we’ve had. I don’t think it is quite done with us yet, but I am taking advantage of today’s nice weather and planting some pansies.
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So many people were asking me about the mural I did on my baby B-I-L, Randy’s, floor, that I thought I would post more photos.
Randy’s craft room was painted in stages. One night, years ago, we started painting family and friends on his wall as fairies.
Like this frog chatting with a dragonfly while holding a champagne glass.
Hope to see you there!
My studio is semi- cleaned up and the tables are set for our family Easter dinner tomorrow.
And over at 
