A little truth and beauty...

Sometimes we just need a little something to take the edge off a rough day, or make us forget about the oppressive late summer heat. The past week has been particularly warm, and today will be another one to get through, so I'm starting my day with thoughts of things more pleasant...

An early spring....

Well, the groundhog didn't see his shadow yesterday, so we are promised an early spring. As cold as it is this morning, though, I feel doubt niggling at that promise. That being said, I am readying for longer days (and hopefully warmer ones), and find myself drawn to the lovely colors of the millinery flowers, shown here in corsage boxes, one of my favorite things...

I spent a good deal of my day yesterday carefully packaging up the Victorian Valentines that are now in the store. These beautiful old expressions of love and endearment are a miracle to me...pieces of paper and tissue that are well over a hundred years old, still intact and lovely. I enjoyed looking at each and every one of them, as well as the more whimsical Whitneys from the 20s and 30s. I count among my favorites these fold out Valentines with little paper hinges. Each layers sets out in front of the last, framing vignettes of amorati and bowers of blooms within...

Gale stopped by and we looked at the signatures and messages scrawled within, some in careful script, others in juvenile hand, and she remarked on how it was if you didn't get as many cards as you had hoped. We wondered if in the day it was the equivalent of not being "friended" on FaceBook. I guess for all the time that has passed since these lovely mementos changed hands, things are not so different after all...

Tuesday's day trip...

Check out this old ruin we found looming over us on our way to our last stop today. What a day we had, starting with an hours long rummage through my friend Dawn's garage piled with boxes of lace, ribbons, and trims, plus some lovely old stock millinery florals. After that, it was off to a little haunt of mine. I hadn't been there in at least two years, but it was still tucked in amongst the other storefronts...

This is the old stuff I am really interested in. Dede and I dove into these stacks of old boxes, and then decided we should proceed in an orderly fashion, and started taking them down in stacks and going through each one...

This was a lucky find...some beautiful old double faced satin ribbons that my friend Lilia found languishing in a corner. There was a couple of bolts of satin backed velvet in there, too...

These captured my heart and I had to bring a few home with me. Their delicate, cup-shaped blooms were so sweet, and the combination of the pink and teal was so very fetching...

Dede found this box of old velvet leaves and we both snatched up some of those....

My little pile, growing and growing....

...and my little box rapidly filling up...

Here's Lilia, writing me up on the old invoice pad with carbon paper...some things don't change much.

And her granddaughter, such a little angel, who was our official helper this afternoon!

I promised Lilia it won't be so long before I come visit her again. She has promised to go in her garage and bring me a box of old forget-me-nots for the next visit!