I have quite a soft spot for vintage party goodies. Right now I'm working on a bunch of Happy Birthday Girls and thought it was the perfect time to rummage through a big bag of party things that my mom had so thoughtfully picked up for me a garage sale. I think it was 1 or2 years ago now that she gave me the big bag full of party things. I was visiting from Boston and she presented it to me. We through it and looked at everything and oohed and ahhed. I couldn't bring it back with me to Boston for some reason that time and so I stored it in her basement. I few weeks ago a remembered it and went and got it. Looking through it again was just like the first time...full or mystery and surprise. I'll reveal the surprise to you now...starting with some super sweet candle holders. I love the ones in the package all lined up.
Lots of pretty vintage baskets and nut cups. I don't know if I can use all of those cups, but I think I might try!
Laurie from Magpie Ethel collects vintage birthday candle packages, and somehow now I found that I have a collection too. I think I want to put them all in a shadow box frame and hang them on the wall, along with other party goodies, like the boxes of candle holders and some cake picks.
April showers bring May flowers...which need lots of watering, even if from tiny cans!
A variety of cake toppers and picks...
Cool party utensils, gift wrapping ribbon with the foil bands (10 cents each!) and a little paper lantern.
Picks picks picks! I have almost all of Happy Birthday, but missing the "d". I guess I'll have to make an odd ball d to complete the set.
April showers require lots of parasols!
These I think are my favorite of the bunch...little Easter gift tags of a chick and one bunny...the black parts are flocked.
And this was the crown jewel of the lot... Everything you need to build a circus cake! 
Super cool right? The sample cake says "Merry Christmas" on it...I don't know...maybe it's just me, but I think it gives off more of a birthday vibe, don't you think?
Look at what we did yesterday! My Dad called us at 8:00 yesterday morning and said "Wanna work on your garden today?" 
Imagine me in that ditch also digging. lol. Who needs the gym? We had a couple of problematic wet spots around the driveway, including where we wanted to park (but couldn't) and on a part of the lawn that we frequently drive over to get to the basement to load or unload things. We live on a hill...but there's another even higher spot above us where the school built a baseball field. Every time it rains, the water runs off the field, and down in a little stream through our yard and across the driveway, and through more yard, eroding the soil along the way. In time, we might even find ourselves having a little creek bed with cattails and fish and frogs! Right across the driveway! As whimsical as that sounds, it's not what we wanted...hence the tile line! We'll have a little drain (that my dad made by stacking two old big truck tire rims - reduce, reuse, recycle, right?) that the water should flow into (we still need to get a grate) and then travel through the pipe which extends through the yard a little ways and then dump into my future flower garden where the little grove of locust trees live. 
One of my dad's pay loaders helped us tremendously! But my dad didn't let me drive it. :( I suppose it's just as well...I don't think I've driven one since I was a teenager. 
And this is my garden! Well...the beginnings of it at least. There was a meadow sort of thing with a bunch of small sapling trees and brush. More meadow and saplings still surround it on the backside, which is nice. A layer of manure from dad's cows lays just on top of the ground. Hopefully this week we'll till it all under and put the posts in for the fence. It's a large garden that I probably won't fill this year, but wanted to leave room to grow. The two trees in front will anchor it to the landscape...it kinda bugs me to see vegetable gardens just floating in the middle of a yard...although that full sun is good for the plants. I don't think my trees will provide much shade over the garden, even as they grow. They're the tall skinny kind with narrow canopies. 
My dad cut down a couple of dead trees that were leaning over on the edge of woods, threatening to fall. One of them uprooted last fall during Hurricane Irene and then I planted daffodil bulbs under the roots. My dad had to carefully go around the little plants (with one unopened blossom so far!) as they are my one and only flower on the whole property so far!
Normal looking desk right? But there is something a bit out of place....
Paige dug out a bunch of ribbon and wedged herself deep inside this little cubby. So silly!
I'm not always good at doing things on time...like posting Easter things before Easter. But it's never too late for a tour, right? :)
I think the kitchen fireplace is my favorite of the three in the house. It's made of slate (abundant in this area), painted to look like marble. The faux of 100 years ago. I decorated it with some antique frames and jars and cloches displaying a couple of antique beekeeping artifacts that my dad gave me for Christmas.
To "spring" it up a bit I added all of my cotton chicks and bunny and a few chenille chicks and ducklings. My mom left a broken painted egg here for me to try and glue back together (in the first photo). Next year I'll have to show you her collection of eggs that she made in the 80's and early 90's...they're unbelievable!
On Saturday I went down the street to get some things at the little grocery store in town and stopped at a single table yard sale. I picked up this string of bunny lights for 50 cents...love it!
I love displaying things in the dining room and it's the space I reserved to show off my more pastel and light colored things, since the room is light and airy and Ben already thinks of it as a bit too girly.
The top of my china cabinet is an ever changing platform for goodies that need to be kept at a safe distance from the kitties. My collection of old and new pieces co-habitat lovely together. 
There are many places to decorate, but this year I kept it simple...
A single little egg holder in the center of the table displays part of my meager egg collection.
I made two Humpty Dumpty's and a colorful marbled egg this year.
My mom gave these old marbled eggs to me on Saturday when she came over to decorate eggs (we weren't very productive, lol). I think my brother and I may have made these when we were kids. I love the uniqueness of them.
Just a few little springtime additions to the book shelves....
I filled a little basket with the rest of my chenille chick collection. The two pom pom bunnies were made by my mom a few years ago (made from Jennifer Murphy's directions), and given to me in my Easter basket. She made the little chick and bunny they are holding out of wool.
Even our catch-all front hall table got a few long earred additions.
This fireplace, like the one in the kitchen, is also slate, but this time painted to look like wood. It seems that it would be easier to make a mantle from real wood than from stone...but I won't complain! I love the unique effect.
Since our front hall is dark with very dark paneling and woodwork, I chose decorations for this mantel that were dark and old or old looking. The large chocolate plaster bunny was another "Mom" creation that I gleefully discovered in my Easter basket quite a few Easters ago (we don't do Easter baskets anymore...sniff, sniff). The smaller one was store bought. I love the vintage pom pom bunnies...Mamma and baby.
My sister found that nest on my driveway and I put some blown out quail eggs inside. The egg on the left is a wax candle and looks very very old. The tiny white blob next to it is the better half of an empty bird egg that my mom spotted on our Saturday walk across the street.
I love that cast iron Easter basket with glass egg inside. It's so small but is really heavy. I bit of an oxymoron. It's not old, but it is fantastic! That black vase (which is very old), a year-round staple for this mantel, is even more heavy. Heavy enough that you might grunt when you pick it up. It has a cork wedged tight into the top. I wonder what's inside? I've never dared to try and uncork it...
The living room got some Easter touches too. I've got a bit of a natural history thing going on right now on the side table...but the giant Easter egg lightens the mood of it.
The entertainment center holds my ceramic bunny and duck collection.
The colorful collection...
...and the neutral collection.
The downstairs bathroom even got some Easter added to it. 
Happy Easter everyone!
There aren't tons of flowers in bloom in our area yet, but I did manage to find a teensy daffodil, some interesting white woodsy flowers, and violets!
We trekked down a little hidden trail that was an offshoot of the main trail and found this old bridge ruin. You can't really see in the photo, but there's a goose sitting (on a nest?) on top!
I snooped in the water for a bit and found a type of water snail I've never seen around here before.
And one of my favorite springtime activities....lifting up old logs to see who's living underneath. One worm, a pill bug, and a brown spider under this one! I used to spend hours looking under logs in the spring when I was kid. The ultimate rare find? A salamander! No salamanders today though. :)
