No Pattern Required

Spring is here! Flowers are blooming!  Thankfully, here in Michigan are experiencing some great weather right now, which is causing all of my spring flowers to shoot up and bloom.  Sadly, some of that warmth and sparkle of spring are lost during the night, so it is time to cut some flowers for display in the house to save them from the cold.

And that would give you a great excuse to trot out all your mid-century vases, like these super cute aqua starburst vases from seaglassvintage! They would look amazing with daffodils in them.

And don’t forget this awesome pink splatter vase from Etsy seller SarahAnntiques. Love it!

 What?  You don’t have a whole cabinet full of vases?  Well, make sure you check out my Etsy treasury here! It is chock full of mid-century flower-holding goodness.  And if you are like me and you already have that whole cabinet beyond full, just take a little looky anyway.  Just for fun.

I really like mid-century vintage and reproduction lamps.  Well…maybe like isn’t strong enough. I love them!  Tom will attest to that.  I have had to be physically pulled away from lamps in the past that I wanted. Sometimes I even try to grab them at the last minute hugging them to my chest and saying things like, “I never get anything I want” and “What if I just carry it around for a while?”  Yes, a pretty lamp has the power to make me THAT crazy.

If I saw this set of blue lamps from TheRelicTrail, I am pretty sure I would throw such a fit over them. Blue ceramic lamps with gold highlights and pink shades. Pink!  Ummm…yeah, over here.  Just put them right here, please.

P.S. These are reasonable $88 for the pair. THE PAIR!!  I could maybe do better thrifting, but I am darn sure they wouldn’t have pink shades. Pink!

Ahem.

Moving on, moderntoretro is obviously trying to kill me with the coolness of this amazing swirly pendant light.  I mean really, a teardrop shaped pendant with gold swirly accents that has light hole detailing?  That isn’t even fair. Come on.

Ok, I can only comment on the coolness of this next lamp from LiseVintageLighting after I get my heart rate under control.  Seriously. Deep breaths. Whew.

Check out that flippin’ shade!  Holy mother of god, I adore it.  And the tripod effect of the base mirrored in the three-tiered shade? Design genius. You know how people buy sweaters and shirts for their little dogs? I would bring home this lamp and love it so much I would buy sweaters for it. But that would probably ruin the design. And be a fire hazard.

Okay, this lamp from avintagerevolution is pretty in pink, but I mostly am just dying over that house!!!  Look at it! What a great photo backdrop. It must be in Florida.  I would love to see pictures of the inside of that place.

I am just on a roll with the three-tiered shades, today.  I can’t tell if this lamp from smalltownsusan is gaudy or awesome.  I think this is one of those things that you have to see in person, and if you buy it pair it with a chair that isn’t too crazy.  But man, if you could pull this off it would be fantastic.

Whew, I am tired from all that excitement. I might need to go thrifting to revive myself….

It is slushy and cold here today, and I found myself staring out the window in my office for quite a while at a little flock of sparrows playing in a pine tree.  They are all fluffy now because it is freezing outside and really cute, and they made me think of spring.  So, here are some birds for you to inspire some spring thoughts!

An adorable cartoon birdie apron from callmejasper.  I just LOVE this pattern.

Brass birds fly across a mid-century sun in this cute wall sculpture from VintageModernDesign.

No Mid-Century bird list would be complete without a flamingo or two.  Here we have two that make one cool vase from mysweetiepiepie.

And more wall art from bythewayside, a great set of gravel art pictures. Love those owls!

Thanks so much to Alex for sending in these pictures of the Pin-up cupcake toppers shaking their thing at her New Year’s Eve Party!

Didn’t they turn out great?  And Alex’s choice of the plastic sticks over wooden ones was a nice touch, I think!

Love the vintage serving plates!

Wow, those cupcakes look amazing!  This isn’t helping my diet at all.

Thanks for the great pictures, Alex.  And if anyone else needs some of these lovelies for their next party, email me at nopatternrequired at hotmail.com!

I have to admit, I am a sucker for an awesome vintage cookbook, no matter if the recipes inside are good or gag-inducing. Check out some of these awesome cookbooks on Etsy right now!

Cook like a 1930′s Movie Star with this great cookbook from collectiblekitchen.

Get a great deal on this set of 4 books for $4 from REdesignkc.  I really want to get my grubby mitts on that Knox cookbook…

Here is another Knox cookbook from goodlookin’, and it looks the originator of the Mid-Century Menu!  Each step of gelatin making is photographed.  Oh! I want it!

Here is a vintage Calumet cookbook from OldVintageCookbooks.  I thought this was a good pick for two reasons. One is that I LOVE my Calumet cookbook, and most of the recipes in it are used by the stars of Food Network’s (without crediting Calumet), from brownies to gingerbread to waffles.  Everything I have made out of it tastes great.  The second reason is because of the shelf-edging on the front of the book.  Look at it!  It’s adorable!

Or, you could starve yourself thin with this 1950′s diet book for teenage girls from Ry-Crisp, also sold by OldVintageCookbooks. Sheesh.

Creepy.

Even though I am not a big fan of the outdoors, (or “nature”) I must admit that I have found myself a little crazy for deer and bird figurines lately.  Here is just a sample of the great dear images of deer for sale right now!

Here are some super cute atomic offerings right now on Etsy!  I adore that razor!

Sorry this is going to be a short post, but I am finishing packing up a great set of Housewife Cupcake Toppers and then I have to get these babies off to the post office!  This order was huge, 80 of them!  At the time I spoke to the client I must not of been thinking because when she asked me if that was too many, I said, “Heck no, it will be fun!”

Well, it was almost too much “fun” all at once!

But I had a good time making them, and I also got to trot out a few new designs I have been working on.  You can see some of these on the left, which I think are especially cool.

I think they turned out pretty well, and I am excited to get some pictures back from the client. And now, I am off to finish my order! 

Happy Monday, all!  I am excited about today for two reasons.  One is that today should be the day I get my fixed computer back, which I am longing for like my fattest cat longs for canned food. Which is a lot.  The other thing is that Reader Sara from AZ is visiting me today at my house!  She came to score some local Mid-Century cabinets and decided to drop by for a visit.  Hooray!

So, this is going to be a short post, because I should be cleaning for her arrival.  I try not to pimp my Etsy store overly much on this site, but I just got these great photos from Kristin at the Meringue Bake Shop, and I just had to share.

These cupcakes were ordered for a bridal shower, and I provided the toppers!  Pretty nice, huh?  I love the photos they took.  They are really spectacular.

In any case, these toppers were a custom order for Kristin and were based off of the Happy Homemaker cupcake topper, which is about 3 inches.  The ones above ended up being 2 inches, and worked great on the mini cupcakes. 

Thanks a lot, Kristin, for the photos!

Just a quick post from Tom’s computer while mine is still in the shop.  A super cool (pun intended) selection of vintage ice buckets!

This great gray bucket is from patcheyeboxer, and is really cool glittery plastic.  Love the color!

This sweet bucket is a giant owl! From seller TheLovely’s and truly a unique bucket. 

From seller austinmodern, a fabulous teak ice bucket.  Love that color!