Melony's Whimsy Daisy!

a book I didn't know about...and a pink dress

One of my favorite books, as a girl, was Little Women. Pure sweetness, tragedy, and love were on each and every page. Being the oldest of four girls in the family, I was very familiar with the emotional ups and downs of my own little tribe of "little women."

My Maw-Maw made each of us four girls a rag doll to represent one of the little women. My doll was Meg and I still have her to this day. I also read any Louisa May Alcott book I could get my hands on. I still have a few Alcott books displayed in my home. My sisters and I went to see the movie "Little Women" when the newest version came out some years ago and had a night out on the town with our Mother.

 

Last week I came upon this book at a garage sale and bought it purely for its beautiful dust jacket. I loved the name of the book and the colors are so pretty.

(I'm participating in Pink Saturday at Beverly's today. Go see lots of links to pink!)

 
If you judge a book by its cover, this one says...romance, history, intrigue, innocence, dancing, fashion, and genteel conversation. Then, I opened up the book and lo, and a behold...look at the author!

 
This is one of her books I don't think I ever knew about! I'm excited, except now I will look for the original version as this is the abridged version compiled for children. Some excited young artist decided to begin a masterpiece on the inside of the book by coloring in the illustrations.

 
Until I track down my mystery Louisa May Alcott book, I listed this dress in my Etsy Shop.   It has that same sweet Rose in Bloom sort of feel as the book. Isn't it dreamy? It reminds me of the brand Gunne Sax that was so popular in the 1970's. Oh how I loved those dresses when I was a teen. I don't believe I ever owned one as they were out of my budget!  
I can just imagine a teenager asking her mother to buy a beautiful Gunne Sax dress for a special occasion, and a mama looking at the price tag and putting her foot down, "No way honey, I can make that dress and for a lot less money!" This particular dress is made by a very good seamstress that added all sorts of details to make it special.

 
Hope your Tuesday is full of Roses in Bloom!

Linking up with this fun vintage blog: 

The Story of the Vintage Sky Blue Dress Tossed with Roses

A quick little post of a yummy 1970's vintage dress I discovered at a wonderful local Catholic Church Sale. It is on sale now in my Whimsy Daisy Etsy Shop!

 

It is so sweet and innocent.

I could love sheets in this print.

Or wallpaper.

Or a big overstuffed chair.

 
This dress is special and not off the rack. I like to imagine a cutesy Mrs. Brady Bunch-type mom purchasing her fabric from Sew-Fro and carefully cutting it out from a Simplicity pattern. With great care she sewed it on her new avocado green Singer sewing machine she received for Christmas.

 
She was making it for her daughter to wear to be inducted into the National Honor Society. It was a proud moment for her as a mother, as she had always been an average B student in her school days. It was going to be a very special evening indeed!

 
She put the finishing touches on the dress and proudly presented it to her daughter. Her daughter's face fell and she sobbed, "Oh Mother. I can't wear that! All the other girl's have store bought dresses from Sears!" Daughter then burst into tears and ran from the room. Cutesy-Mrs.-Brady-type-mom sat down in the midst of her pattern pieces and fabric scraps and wept.

 

 
Years later Mother and Daughter laughed over this memory. Daughter hugged now-wrinkled-cutesy-Mrs.-Brady-type as they looked at her pictures from the night of The  National Honor Society Banquet of 1972. She said, "Oh Mother, everybody else had store bought dresses from Sears and I wore the most beautiful dress in the world!"

Okay...so I get a little carried away with the imagined history of the vintage clothing I purchase.

 

 

 

You have been MOUSED!

This is another true-from-my-life story on how two very different people manage to live together and even laugh!

My husband, Bob and I went on a shopping extravaganza to our small town "mall" (Family Dollar) for something really boring like dog food or detergent. I was delighted to discover some charming garden personalities that stole my heart. I just thought they were so cute, and decided I had to have a couple. Then, after rethinking it and being blown away by the adorableness of them, I decided I would purchase the entire six pack of creatures. After all, it was the Family Dollar and these "garden personalities" were not a huge investment. I envisioned the way I could fru-fru them up a bit, maybe paint a few polka-dots, add some glitz, hot glue some ribbon embellishments. The possibilities were endless.

 

With great excitement I met Bob at the check out counter with three of these precious couples. Bob was not so thrilled with the six pack of garden mice. I thought I would never hear the end of it. I described in detail how I could bejewel the girl mouse's dress with my Marie Osmond Glitz Gun, and add some Martha Stewart glitter to the mister's gnome hat. I assured Bob once I had these rodents "glammed" up a bit I could sell them online, double our money, and he would regret the grief he was dishing out. Bob stubbornly remained blind to the vision I cast. So, as the days went by, I decided to try to win him over. How could anybody resist the faces of these creatures?

I began to sit them in unexpected places at random times...perhaps in his recliner, or by his toothpaste in the morning, and it usually got a laugh.

 

Then, he began to do the same with me.

 

It was sort of a silly way to say, "You have been moused! I'm thinking of you and wanted to make you smile."

 

This past Sunday, Bob brought Mrs. Mouse to church and sat her in a chair for Small Group time! It made me laugh. We got to thinking how much fun we had with this silliness and decided to continue on with our class. We would start "mousing" the members of our Sunday School Class. It is just a little something fun to do in a life that is often full of bills, illnesses, and other stresses.

 

We have told our friends...at some time in the future...it may be a year from now...when you least expect it....you may get moused! If you get moused, you need to take a quick picture of where you got moused and I will post it. Then, they need to find another member in the class to mouse!  They can leave a little note, if they choose, to let them know by whom they were moused. Or it can be an anonymous mousing. This is to let our friends know in Small Group  we care about them and wanted to make them smile. (We also said NO breaking and entering as we all want to remain friends!)  Eventually, hopefully everybody will be able to say...

 

I wanted to pass this on to you, as maybe you might want to adapt something like this in your family, workplace, or church. Sometimes life gets so serious, it is good to have a good laugh!