Where does the time go....and thoughts.

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Dear Readers and Friends...

First, sad news, I have to acknowledge Dear Mary from Home is Where the Boat Is...who sadly, passed away. We will ALL miss her.

When I started this blog, it was Mary that showed me what excellence, creativity and good nature meant in a Blog. She inspired me to try....but, I've never excelled the way she did. Mary shared so many wonderful ideas with her followers. I had many exchanges with her over the years, her photos, her flowers, recipes and her love for the holidays. The sweet puppies, the chairs by the lake, the boat rides, her joyful Skellies!

Bless you sweet Mary and your family,  you will be missed now and forever in our blog world.

Second, I've been missing from posting...I'm healthy and fine, but I'm opening an antique booth in the best Antique Mall in Northern Illinois this month.

Volo Antique Malls are located in Volo, Illinois, just a quick jaunt from my home. I have decided to downsize all my treasures which have taken over our home, closets, garage and basement. 

YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU...and I'm still dealing with inheritance of my own familys' stuff. My kids don't want it all..and those things without memories or family connections are leaving! 

I do have all my Etsy stock, and I've all but closed my Etsy shop (Etsy's fees and their weighted advertising-your paying for your own promoting ended it for me) after 13 years.

 I will also be selling on Ebay, hopefully in November,  a doll /miniatures shop for all my creative bits and all the excess of my doll  'hobby'.  

I'll definitely be doing miniature florals, ...

Vintage dolls, refreshed, and redressed in NEW clothes.

I love fixing up and redoing vintage dolls.  And I have lots of excess furniture, and bits and pieces perfect for doll playing, collecting or just display...stay tuned.

Meanwhile nothing is getting done in our home...I pulled out photos from early on in my blog years. 2015...to 2018

and I'm posting a few very old fall photos here....

This pumpkin was from a few years back....

Our garden was drowned this year...and we did have a humungous crops of bugs, weeds and withered plants, drowned by our record rains. All my Illinois gardening experience has been based on Drought conditions... but the heat and wet, has been a new experience and our clay ground wasn't helpful at all.

Yesterday I filled three huge garbage cans of garden waste, not suitable for composting because of mold, disease, bugs and rot.

We have moss growing on everything, rocks, wood, even on the aluminum of the greenhouse.

I'll have to BUY pumpkins???? this was actually from 2016?

Halloween is just weeks away...

In the past, these were all home grown...not this year!

We will put SOMETHING UP...depends on when we move into the Mall, sometime mid month.

Here's just a few Fall inspirations...

from the archives...

And our kitchen...

Enjoy!

A 78 year old, very busy here...pricing, sorting, angsting...stay tuned and I'll share more, soooooooon, (I promise!)

Thanks always for visiting.

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All the opinions and photographs in this blog are my own, I have not been paid or reimbursed in anyway for my opinions or posts. Please do not use photos without linking back to this blog without my permission. Thank you for your cooperation, Sandi Magle

 

Water Themed Art

 Life is a bit crazy this week, I'm going to my 60th high school reunion. Golly, does the time really fly that fast.

So, artwork has been limited as temps have finally made working outside doable. 

I only made on Mather class this week, Paper Explorations. Collage was the media, and the theme was Under Water Landscape. Well, I dashed into my collage papers and grabbed the cover to our local library newsletter, and it was a huge Octopuss, as well as a bunch of painted, stenciled and alcohol ink papers. And, bits of colored tissue papers. 

I think I spent more time picking papers than doing this project. My sandy bottom is stenciled papers, a rock from a magazing page, the blue under the sea type balls are from a photo of mine at the Botanic Garden. 

For collage fodder, I go through my old photos duplicate them, edit the duplicate, blow up, colorize, shrink or enhance and then print for collage use.

Hardest part was cutting out the Octopus. He was turquoise and black, so I added a bit of alcohol inks after the Modge Podge dried when I glued him down. 

Most of the seaweeds are either torn tissue or printed papers.

The bubbles are actually, white alcohol ink dropped on wet water colors papers or wet acrylic washes.

I enhanced here and there with some acrylic and alcohol pens on top of the modge podge which acts as a sealer.

Final treatment was a bit of spray and wipe alcohol inks to equalize the colors a bit.

And more details with mettalic pens. Totally a fun project titled, "Into the Deep".

My other project this week was a painting for a donation to a raffle for our reunion.

My hometown is on Lake Michigan on the west side of the lake, so the sunrises can be spectacular.  I used a combination of my photos, my cousin's and another friend's to come up with this acrylic harbor painting.

Here is a real sunrise from our east window the other morning.

Unaltered, this was spectacular.  Below a bit later by 10 minutes or so.

The darker sky went for Copen blue to Turqouise, then to a rich Ultramarine blue...but the lights and red/oranges were fantastic.

The sealer was still drying on the finished painting, and the photo's light source caught the lower half of the painting with glare. So it is a bit washed out (and already packed for transportation). For sealing, I use the shiny side of freezer paper under pieces. It comes wider than wax paper for bigger works and nothing sticks to it.

A bit of detail from 

my finished Acrylic painting 12"x 24"  

titled, "Morning Warning" 9/10/2026

SWMagle

I Hope You have Wonderful 

Sunrises, Sunsets and 

ART FUN!

Thanks always for visiting.

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All the opinions and photographs in this blog are my own, I have not been paid or reimbursed in anyway for my opinions or posts. Please do not use photos without linking back to this blog without my permission. Thank you for your cooperation, Sandi Magle

Searching through old Photos, Memories and Immigrations.

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My goal has been to get through the MOUNTAIN of bins, boxes, plastic bags, envelopes, photo boxes full of five generations of photos my family never bothered to label or sort. 

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I think this is my dad and his sisters, circa 1935-ish in the middle of the Depression and a big Wisconsin snow.

They were compulsive photo takers/and so far many are multiples. 

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Great Grandparents in early 1890's, Denmark.

Some are formal photos...this is an engagement/wedding photo.

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We also have photos of my husband's Bohemian Czech family, this is from the 1880s who came to Wisconsin in the 1850's.(centerfront and right) the rest are their six grown children.

Hubby has tons of relatives and photos.

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1910-11 in Denmark. They all came to Wisconsin, several times, a long story.

My great-grandparents' came from Lithuania and Denmark

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Farm outside Lokken Denmark.

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Early 1890's. Everyone here stayed in Denmark.

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So, I have photos from there-pre1890's, and from every trip they took back.

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My mom on a steamer to Denmark 1929 (she was 7)

My parent's photo stash isn't any better.

My Dad took a brownie camera to WWII and boot camp, he was stationed in New Guinea, Philipines, Borneo, and finally Australia with a Portable Medical Corps, the precursor to M.A.S.H. units.

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Dad is 3rd from left.

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So I have all those from the war, unlabeled. I can trace his units movements from Army records...this could be Luzon, Philipines, or Borneo, or New Guinea. The surgical hospital followed the action.

 I have business photos of: telephone operators,

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1943 Long Distance Operators, from an old photocopy?

no source My mom worked with these ladies, in 1941-2.

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My Dad had a service station and an Omar bakery truck,

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our family's fish market, opening in1922

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1964 Local Kringle Festival at the fish market. My grandmother in costume.

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My Mom--1964, a 'Fisker' woman...! 

I also have photos in restaurants, and of dairy trucks, and fishing boats. 

More than that, every birthday and holiday.

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Mother's Day 1955 my grandmother made all these dresses for my cousins.

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Easter 1956--yes, that is a turquoise/navy Hudson vehicle.

EVERY HOLIDAY,

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My 11th birthday (on right) with the cousins at the kid's table, my poor cousin center was 14...how humiliating! I was 5 foot 5-135# with size 10 feet. I was an Amazon in 5th grade.

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Every Anniversary (25th for my Grandparents)1955

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about 1984 for another family Birthday at the local Dania Hall. 

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Grandparent's 25th Anniversary formal party with music--1955

and ALL the

graduations, confirmations, baptisms and a few funerals. 

Yes, photos of people in their coffins, sent home to the 'old country' and the same coming back. I'll spare you those. 

Some bring back pleasant memories and some sad...

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1962

My 14th birthday and my first pair of heels, stockings and lipstick.

Some are just silly...

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 Hot dates---prom dates the day after...sorry Mic and Bob! 1966.
Some are just silly 

,,,and some are inspiring. 

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How about the 'we should have...,' photos? 

My dad spied an early box 'camper' at a vacation expo in the 1950's. So he decided to make a pull-behind trailer with a tent on it. Always a handyman, he built one of his own design in 1954-5. I remember it consisted of a 4'x8 foot plywood box, with a two fold-out doors, 2'x8' that were the lid---which became bunks, with some nifty side supports. My bed was another board supported between the two crosswise on a separate piece of plywood, 

2'x4' I was only 7. 

Dad bragged it was made from only 3 pieces of plywood.

An old smelly canvas tent was supported by a center pole, with the bottom cut out..and tied around everything. It all just worked.

We were quite the hit of the campground with our little gray trailer  and moldy tent.

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Here is the first camping trip---on St.Germaine Lake in N.Wisconsin for two whole weeks in 1955, I think. We were plagued by rain, but we were off the ground and dry! 

We had to put all the food and coolers in the car at night (bears and raccoons) and their 'little' paw prints were all over the tables each morning. 

However,

my mom was a person who had to do everything correctly. 

We had cloth tablecloths and napkins--a double dishpan for a sink, a folding (cardboard and wood) card-table for the kitchen. 

The fire supported a huge kettle of hot-water for all her ceramic dishes. She even brought a dish-rack to drain them. Long story short---her professional set-up was health conscious, however the soapy hot water softened the table top which was supporting the legs. It caved on the uneven ground. All the dishes collapsed into a heap of shards. She was horrified--with all the broken crockery on the ground. A passing fellow camper stood and watched. 

His comment---"I betcha, it's the first time camping?" 

A large portion of our meager vacation funds went to a set of Melmac dishes(my mother hated them), purchased new in town just for camping.

This whole story came from looking at that one photograph....! 

And there are thousands, more to move on to!

My dad always said he 'shoulda' patented the trailer design. 

Now, we have online files/photo applications and sorting systems at our finger tips...blogging has helped at least record some of these photos and their history.

Well, what have you found in 

your familys' photos?

Thanks always for visiting.

Linking to these wonderful blog parties:

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All the opinions and photographs in this blog are my own, I have not been paid or reimbursed in anyway for my opinions or posts. Please do not use photos without linking back to this blog without my permission. Thank you for your cooperation, Sandi Magle