Treasure Chest find No.2

Last week I showed you some of the contents of my hope chest .

Thanks for the suggestions as to how to put my tea towel collection to good use.

Well this week I thought I would show you a REAL treasure......

The hand crocheted bedspread made by my maternal grandmother for my parents bed...... 

 

I knew it was tucked away but have never had it out to use because I never thought it would fit.....

You see my parents bed was unique.....

It was  double sized, brass and stood about 1metre high to the mattress. Now those measurements are a guess ...I was trying to picture myself as a child and remembering we could never climb up it was so high.

It always ensured that they never had little people climb into bed in the wee hours of the morning.

It also had the most awesome storage space underneath.

Mum was always the talk of her friends as to how much she had stored underneath the bed.....we even knew as kids that there was some cool stuff tucked away that sometimes we got to check out.

Visitors would catch a glimpse of mum and dad's bed through a slightly open door and be fascinated and end up having a  closer look......lucky for mum she was a stickler for making the bed and having a tidy room.

...and she had an awesomely talented mum who made this incredible spread.  

 So as I am exploring the contents of my hope chest I thought it time to trial it on our bed...being a queen and nowhere as high as my parents I am excited to see that it fits almost perfectly. There is just one small repair that needs doing but apart from that it is in perfect condition.

I think that it is at least 35 years old, so to me priceless.

Now just to convince my sweet that it does look really cool...I think I am winning!

Treasure chest find No.1 here 

14 today

Happy Birthday Meg

14 today

 and

 the world at your feet ahead. 

We love you heaps. 

xxx

Monday

 

 

 

 

 

How was your Monday?

Did it have anything fun or was it all work?

If you had popped by my place you could have helped me do the dishes in preparation for tomorrow....

I would have shown you my op shop finds that I picked up at  $2 Monday Madness  .

You could have joined me and my sweet for a coffee before he headed off to the dentist.

Or maybe you could have helped me source "hearts" for the theme this week.

Then there was the rice that needed colouring to go with the hearts.

We did have a little rain to make our very hot day even more humid.

There was homework to be done this afternoon , a little washing , the grocery shopping and the ordering of this week's fresh fruit and veggies.

In between making sure the sweet was doing Ok after his visit to the dentist.

And if you had stuck around till nearly bedtime you could have had a lesson about the sun and  rotating earth.

So another week has begun.

One thing left to do....watch a little "revenge".

Sunday stills

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A weekend of trying to stay cool and occupied 

A weekend of early birthday celebrations

A weekend of handy dedicated dads

A weekend to help prepare for a scorcher of a week ahead.

Happy weekend to you.

Joining in with " Weekly stills"    

6/52 Back to school

My 52 weeks project

Joining in at Jodi's  

Things I am Loving

This week.......

.....The home delivery of fresh fruit and vegetables to our doorstep

......An op shop find 

......Lots of cups of peppermint tea and my kindle as a distraction to the forced fasting for a procedure

.....  Some quick and simple birthday invitations made up.

......My beginning exploration of treasures

.....New chairs to help with comfortable study.

....A most wonderful husband who has waited on me and shown huge empathy this week.

Have a lovely weekend.

Joining in with other lovelies over here.    

My Creative Space

 

 

 

I have been away from my machine for weeks now due to the busyness of the summer.

So to reacquaint myself  I thought a little school sewing was in order.

Nothing to hard or required much thinking.

New pencil cases instead of those cheap things that only last half the year

The kids chose their own fabric.... which then up the ownership value of them

It's the little things that make me feel like a real mumma....maybe because it is something 

my mum would have done for me at the same age.  

You can find others creative spaces here.

Check out the Show and Tell here too.

Growing Lemonade

 My husband is the green thumb in our family..

 

He has lovingly nurtured our Lemonade tree

 The weeks leading up to us being away we were just trying to coax the flower buds to stay on....and now....

 my hubby says not too get too excited yet.....

Oooh I can just almost taste what they will be like.....  

Treasure Chest finds

Back during January , I was part of a school holiday programme that my church ran for a week.....the theme was treasure (pirates)

We were gathering props when I suddenly remembered in the back of my walk in wardrobe I had my "glory box", "hope chest" or whatever you may know it as.......

It was the perfect pirates treasure chest ...and so it got hauled out....emptied and used for the week.

So now because I really need to repack it and tuck it back away I thought I might show you some of the treasure that I have buried inside of it....  

My paternal grandparents gave me the chest when I was a young teen, for the purpose of storing and collecting all things that would set me up for living as a married woman one day or maybe even a single one at that....

My grand mother took great delight in gifting me for birthdays and Christmas' all manner of goodies.....towels, linen, crockery.....the idea caught on and soon I had other family members feeling that these were appropriate gifts too.....and so my hope chest filled.

By the time I married at 20 1/2 years old all the contributions, along with the things I had saved and bought myself were the  little bits of treasure that helped to begin our humble first home.

 Over time I have used alot of the treasures and have replaced them with other sentimental items from this journey of life....

when we moved into this  home 14 years ago ..we never quite found the right spot to have the chest out on display...it takes up quite a bit of space....

Over time it has found it's home in the back of the wardrobe.....very rarely opened... in fact probably never in the 14 years......

Until now...I didn't have the time a few weeks ago to be too sentimental but....now I really need to rehouse it and thought I would take some time to carefully see what I had tucked away and any stories attached to the treasures....

so firstly this pile of brand new, pure Irish linen tea towels....

 They are crisp and new...smelling of camphor....collected by family...mostly nan and some from my parents of places they traveled....

They are true Australiana... vintage???

Maybe...... to me they seem old ....they would be at least 25 years old..... 

Sorry for the unironed appearance....I can't bring myself to iron them just yet and take away that stiff new linen feel.....

What to do with them and the other twelve just like them from iconic places around our country...not sure...maybe they need to be out being used  rather than stuck away in the treasure box.....

Any suggestions?

I'll share more of my treasures next week if you'll indulge me.

Back to school 2013

Well, they went off today....WITH smiles......

No too many changes expected this year which made the little guy a little easier about heading off.....

 

I can't believe the summer holidays are over already and another year is beginning....

have you any new plans for the new year?