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Our home is full of antiques (enameled fish poacher makes a great space saver planter)...or 'old' stuff.
I named my blog, "Old,New,Green,Redo",but I should have followed my mom's favorite saying.
We are children of parents brought up during the Depression. They were young adults during wartime; facing stress, shortages and pitching in for the good of all.
Their generation knew how to stretch a dollar.
My mom would say,"Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without." I heard this so many times during my young life, it actually 'sings' a little ditty in my head.
I remember material for my first prom dress was bought from grocery savings. We had a lot of casseroles made from chicken necks and half a pound of hamburger.
I seldom buy anything new and often replace broken or chipped anything by buying the same thing at a thrift store. Why? Mostly because household items made 50 years ago...don't wear out! You seriously have to break something to throw it away! Thrift stores aren't just thrifty, we are saving the planet by reusing items, instead of clogging landfills. A GREEN thing to do. I'm sure Corning Ware would still be solid tossed in a landfill in a 1000 years...buried in tons of garbage.
Yes, that is 1968 Corning Ware, from the time of our wedding.
I utilize many OLD items for storage or display. Not just because they are vintage or antique, but because they are practical. Years ago, when my mom-in-law called me and asked, "Do you want the stash of Blue Mason jars?", she had always used for canning. I SAID YES!!!
I keep staples in LARGE blue Mason jars with rubbers and zinc lids. A 1/2 gallon jar holds a large box/bag of pasta. Quarts hold beans, rice, peas! I use them in the refrigerator for nuts, buttermilk mix, flax seed. Smaller pint jars are great for herbs, sugar cubes, marshmallows, lentils, baking soda, and smaller beans/peas.
I have labels on the back side, when the jar is empty--I easily add it to my grocery list.
My grandmother's pickling crock is used for pickles in Fall and hides goodies the rest of the time.
After going through and breaking two sets of everyday dishes in our early married life forty-some years ago. I began to just collect dishes in anything blue and white. Mix and match...this and that.
I do have red Wachtersbach luncheon plates I found for 99 cents each for Fall and Winter to liven up my table.
I love these egg cups (my mom's)...1950's Blue Willow...and we use them.
This morning I'm making Pumpkin Oatmeal-raisin-pecan Muffins with roasted pumpkin from our freezer. My granny's coffee pot makes a great vase. The tablecloth is all cotton, reversible,
bleach-able and vintage.
Our fourth-generation family wicker fills our screened in porch. Cushions were recovered with vintage (spotted) tablecloths (I cut around the spots)---homemade piping was made for all of one fabric, backs were made from a Waverly
discontinued fabric found cheap.
Our sofas in the living room are almost thirty years old...and really need to be replaced. But uncertain times means, we will wait---and we will make it do.
A vintage cotton tablecloth ($6) was perfect for the settee on the porch. Only things new here--are the wastebasket, and magazine holder---handmade by myself and my dad. The pillows are covered in ticking or plaid towels. The rocker cushions are from from tablecloths.
I've always redone and made do with used furniture. Here I took a $5 table and used it in my shop for ten years. When I brought it home, we reinforced it with a nice deep shelf.
I love that it is really long and I painted it a neutral tone to match some chairs we had. It's in our nautical/fishing themed family room. The Grand girl gets to play with the doll house (1950's)
on top when she visits.
I use a piece of vinyl upholstery on the table top---so she can play hard and she does because the animals living in the house are very busy and raucous!
Our pillows were all made from souvenir dishtowels of my grandparents and gifts. The sectional is in dark denim...and we love it, and it takes a real beating!
An end table in the family room is the 1919 trunk my grandmother packed her belongings in when she came to America. I'm sure she had to do without, if everything she owned was in there.
We have a vegetable garden and can or freeze all our produce.
Corn relish is a favorite, made from a windfall of sweet corn from my sister-in-law last fall.
We eat healthy, fresh and from scratch most of the time.
Pickle relish was another large batch this year, we did as a family. And it is so much better than the glow-in-the dark green relish here in Chicago...what do they use to make it florescent???
I've posted lots on our tomatoes, a wonderful source of vitamin C.
Blanching tomatoes!
Nothing is better than homemade, like spaghetti, or lasagna with home canned tomatoes and zucchini.
I have no idea how old that funnel is. The old one fits much better than the new plastic ones...! We can so much stuff, we needed two for keeping up filling jars.
SIGH!
Remember when the weather was the worst thing we complained about?
We've planted more indoor seed starts for the garden. It's still very cold here in Chicagoland. I've seen snow flurries and white stuff 4 times last week, so everything still has to be in the house.
Our new greenhouse gets nice and warm during the day, but nights have been below freezing. The above photo is from May, last year. I hope we don't have to wait that long for everything to go into the greenhouse this year. Our tomatoes, peppers and broccoli need to be transplanted now to big cups. (Notice the reuse of beverage containers) All the shelving was reused from the old greenhouse as was much of the wood framing as well as the metal framing from the failed greenhouse.
We started 24 pots of Caladiums and 5 huge Elephant Ears, as well as Coleus shown above.We have lots of shade in the yard, and hubby went a bit extravagant in purchasing some bulbs.
But, I will use them for gifts for friends this summer.
IF we ever get to visit anyone again.
In talking with friends many are housecleaning,
projecting, crafting, and organizing in our uncertain time.
HOW are you,
USING UP,
WEARING OUT,
MAKING DO,
OR DOING WITHOUT?
**IF you wonder why I don't advertise---I think encouraging people to buy new trends causes rampant consumerism-usually of imported goods, and the latest trends end up in landfills.
Mostly, ADS are annoying!
Thank you for any and all comments.
Finally I am able to reply to comments by using Chrome. So all you Mac users who have upgraded to Catalina---this might help the glitches on Safari and Blogger!
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