National Square Dance Day

I just picked up 12 copies of "Sets in Order" the official Magazine of Square Dancing from the 1960s for 25¢ each at a thrift...Just in time for National Square Dance Day!

The act of square dancing completely confuses me, but really I am into the awesome outfits...bonus points for matching couple assembles!
For your viewing pleasure I scanned some of the fashion ads and features!

"Dancing Duds"  Love it!  I would love to see that 84 page FREE catalog!

Matching Fam outfits!!!!  I don't think I could talk PB into wearing that dress.

Ranchwear can even make Grandpa here look dashing!
Look at the young filly he caught himself!

Another fun feature in the magazines is "Ladies on the Square".  It is usually a fashion crafting section for gussying up your look.  This page shows the basics to make a cape...which should obviously match your fluffy dress!


When Mr. Husband and I went to see Loretta Lynn in concert a few years back, I made us matching western square dance inspired outfits, as seen below:



We don't square dance unfortunately. So for now, I'll just have to settle with putting together outfits and let people think we are always on the way to a barn dance.  First on the agenda will involve a matching set consisting of purse, cape, and a pair of embellished pantaloons !

Whirl away and a half sashay!
over to my previous post celebrating National Square Dance Day:
Square Dance Cake

Make Your Own Head Day

😏It's National Make your Own Head Day!😏
along with being Thanksgiving!
  Make a mashed potato head doll with gravy hair or carve a leftover pumpkin pie.  It's an odd 'holiday' and I love it!

I came across this article in 'Household' magazine October 1952 and thought it would work for today.  Make your own head..more beautiful!

What a difference!  It's like a prison booking pic on the left and a Hollywood starlet on the right!



Before: Lady Nosferatu
After: PTA President




This gal went from "Don't talk to me till I've had my 5th cup of coffee" to getting back from an all expenses paid and pampered 5 week vacation to Rivendell.



I don't see much of a difference.  I do know not to cross her.  B*tches be crazy.




Before, Irma was just the homely girl next door, always a bridemaid never a bride, taking refuge in a box of chocolate Turtles candies.  After, she is the blue ribbon winner at the local 4H pickling contest and has a standing Tuesday night date with Jeffery who works down at the candied pecan plant.
She's set!

For a couple of past "MYOHD" posts, head to the links below:

Make Your Own Head Electrified! 2016
Tape up Your Own Head 2018

Thanksgiving Decor Reveal!

Join me for a Grand Thanksgiving Home Tour!
I am super stoked with how it all came together.  As you have seen in the previous posts I have been really studying on what Thanksgiving decor is to me and then how I can reflect it in my own home. 

I wanted the decor to be simple to place, not overly fussy, easy and small to pack up, and make use of items I already had for the most part.
I'll break down each image in those terms and where I found stuff.

🦃In the Living Room🦃

The above image is the record cabinet in the living room.  The tablecloth I bought new several years ago from of all places, walsmart!  I am still a bit stunned they had such a beautiful MCM styled fabric tablecloth of this kind, it's more Target-esque to me.  Everything else (other than the turkey darling and the fall foliage) I already had and bought over the years from thrift stores/ flea market.   The 'Gourmet' November 1947 magazine has a rare find at the flea market last year for 3 bucks. The cover is fantastic but the inside is drab and dull.

In the living room on top of a display cabinet is this simple vignette. Everything seen here was from thrift stores or mother nature.  I happened to find the vintage wall plaques this year mixed in with the fall decor at the thrift store!  

I love me some precious squirrels!  In my mind they work as fall decor and since I have a small collection I placed them out for display.

This is the main wall right above the green shelf in the living room.
Mr. Husband Sir got me these precious melted popcorn Pilgrims last year for Christmas.  I made the hanging pom pom corn stalks. 

 I did buy this vintage tissue paper turkey with cornstalks on ebay for this season, but only paid 11 bucks for them.

Another tissue paper turkey (ebay 7 bucks).  The tissue paper turkeys are my highlight focal details and I knew I was wasn't going to find any at thrift stores.

For one set of the shelves on the green rack in the living room I printed out vintage Thanksgiving turkey ads.

One last ebay purchase (12 bucks).  My little precious vintage scarecrow.  His name is Clem, as in Clementine, because his precious little noggin reminds me of the citrus fruit!
I made a bunch of mini haystacks out of pinestraw and filled the green shelf with them.

This small little cutie I have had for a bit.  He came from an estate sale for 50 ¢.  The black pumpkins are from Halloween.

Inside one of our display cabinets I decided to give it a baking/cooking theme.  Everything in here I already had.

🦃In the Dining Room🦃

The sideboard.
I hung our wood oversized eating utensils on the wall since Thanksgiving's focus is a big meal!
I already had this tissue paper turkey named Herman from several years ago.  I got him at a thrift store.  All of the mini pumpkins and fake foliage came from thrift stores.

This is a great piece!  It's a metal template used for newspaper printing from 1965.  I found it at the flea market for 3 bucks last year.

On top of the china cabinet.
A couple of honeycomb pumpkins, fake foliage, and plastic corns.  All from thrift stores over the years.

The dining room table centerpiece.  I found the bakelite lazy susan at a thrift store recently.  The plastic nuts and foliage I have had.  The squirrel salt and pepper shakers were a gift from Mr. Husband.  The little saucer under them is the start of my collecting up cute vintage Fall dishes.  I bought 3 of these at an estate sale for 75 ¢ .  Right now I am using them as coasters.  The table cloth was an estate sale find last year.
Another fun thing I incorporated into the decor was a bunch of my vintage doilies.  I kept a stack of them because they 'spark joy' only they don't work in well with the scheme of our normal decor of MCM. They are granny style though and that works with Thanksgiving decor!

This array into Thanksgiving decorating has really given me something to think about. I do still have a few more ideas for future Fall decor but nothing too exacerbating.
When I think about it in comparison to Halloween and Christmas decorating I shutter.  Those two holidays, while I love the items we have, it is just so overwhelming dealing with them, storing them, packing them, and all the over the top decorating effort I put into it.
The simple decorating I did for Thanksgiving looks perfect and not overwhelming.
I would like to be able to apply this same feel to those holidays.  I am sure I could do simpler decorating but the real answer would be to simplify how many items I have.  I...just...can't...do..it.
I'll have to hope for strength in the new year and revisit that later!
Ironically, for the good part of the month of December I am highlighting all the new Christmas stuff I picked up this year and it's a doozy, lots of fantastic stuff.

In the mean time, I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving and don't choke on any neck bones!

If you are in need of some Thanksgiving leftovers, check out these two past dishes:

Charlie Brown Thanksgiving

Turkey Day with the Clampetts

Thanksgiving Entrance

The front door entrance looked bare after taking down the Halloween decor.  Since I was already doing up the interior in full Thanksgiving decor mode I decided to extend it to the front exterior as well!



The porch spider got a little pilgrim hat

The plant shelf is bedecked in mother nature I scrounged from the neighbors yard debris pile.  Also found a nice place for my wood squirrel planter!

To round out the opposite side of the door I tossed some pine needles, pine cones, and branches in an old canning pot that I use to dye fabric in.

I made a Thanksgiving dinner themed wreath for the door!

I am really happy with how it all turned out.  Especially since most of it was free or I already had on hand. 

Thanksgiving Wreath

 I love to make me some wreaths!
Since I am so into my Thanksgiving Fall decorating on the inside I decided to extend it to the front door as well.







It is a basic wreath form that I started by wrapping with burlap ribbon.  I then hot glued some bits of brown gingham contact paper (got at an estate sale) and orange rick rack.  The images are from some of my vintage magazines that I scanned.  I mod podged them on to thick card board and then hot glued to the wreath.  The proud cook image is glued onto a mini aluminum pie pan.  The final bits are the vintage plastic turkey picks, which I bought on ebay.

Here are the images I used, feel free to incorporate them into your Thanksgiving decor!

From Household Magazine October 1952

From Better Homes and Gardens Magazine November 1956

Turkey Darling

This was my most favorite Thanksgiving craft I made this year!
A darling little dumpling of a turkey!

I based him after a set of vintage spun cotton headed turkey cuties I saw on ebay (seen below).  They were more than I wanted to pay (30 bucks) and I figured I could make them myself.




I have been collecting up satin Christmas ornaments through the year for some future crafting so I already had the body bits.  The tail feathers were going to be the problem.  The original turkey's tails were made from crepe paper but large sheets of the paper are not available.  Well, maybe you can buy it online but it's going to be more than I would want to pay for it, so therefore it's "not available" to me.  I tried to use party streamers but they were too small.  I knew what would be perfect, even more than the original idea of crepe paper, but it hasn't been made (as far as I know) since the 1990s.  That twisted paper coil rope stuff:

And oh my gosh!  I happened to hit a stash of it at an estate sale for 3 bucks total!

And when you thought that little turkey dumpling couldn't get any cuter....



I made him a pilgrim hat!

Macy's Parade Marathon!

v

Well, a marathon of watching the same image on pause, but it's such a cute image that it works for me!

For our TV coozie(-ish) cover for Thanksgiving I decide it would only be appropriate to have an image from a Macy's Day parade of yesteryear displayed!

I printed it at the library for free and attached it to a couple of wreath hooks from the dollar tree that I spray painted black so it would blend in.  The coozie can then be removed when we want to watch Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving special on DVD.

The table covering with the scarecrows is actually a vintage full length apron that my grandmother made for me.  The vintage planter I just got recently at an estate sale for free.  The fall foliage was 50¢ at a thrift store.

{For a bit more parade floats see my Pinterest board: Gobble, Gobble: Macy's Parade}

Pom Pom Indian Corn

Here's a fun retro kind of craft...and perfect for some cheap kitschy Thanksgiving decor!
Pom Pom Indian Corn!

 I have come across several photos where other people have made these but never any instructions.  So I put together a short and brief How-To. These instructions are to make the smaller sets flanking the larger corn husk.  To make the larger one in the center use a whole paper lunch bag and make your pom poms a bit bigger.

Supplies: 

brown small lunch bags

raffia (mine was from a hula skirt from dollar tree)

jute twine

hot glue

scissors

yarn in fall colors (side note: found at walsmart: Caron Simply Soft yarn, Sunset Autumn color, which was fantastic because it has all the right colors dyed through out the yarn, you could also use single colors of yellow, brown, rust and mix together)

Start by making yourself a bunch of pom poms and by a bunch I mean 6. I didn't photo this step because I figured everyone knew how to make pom poms.  I am sure someone else more clever than I has a video on how to but here is the jest.  I make mine by cutting out a small square of cardboard, wrapping a bunch of yarn around it, slipping it off the cardboard, and then tying it off with a small length of yarn.  Next snip all the loops open and trim and fluff up the pom pom.  Now back to the main project:

To make the husks start by cutting a brown paper lunch bag in half:

Next open up the bag, crumbled it, flatten it and open it again, as shown on right:



Tie off the top with jute twine, and start shaping the edges and rounding it out:


Roll the cut edges inward some and pinch bottom to a point.  Hot glue where necessary.


Hot glue your pom poms inside husk:

 Add raffia:



To finish off, add streamers of raffia in varying lengths and top with a bow to hide any bulkiness, Couple your corns together for a nice shaggy corn swag!: