Dahlia Bud Opening: Day 2

My first year with dahlias is just starting to happen. I took this photo a few minutes ago on Sunday morning after an overnight rain. This is day two of my first bud beginning to open.

The plant is taller than my old boxwood and still growing. I was given a box full of tubers and planted them all not knowing whether or not they were viable and with no idea of the color. I think most of them came up but the heights are all different. I will be sure to pull them up before the first killing frost and store them over the winter. I will keep posting this particular bud as it opens more each day. See yesterday's post on Instagram for day one in the opening process. xo

Moving Bathtub in Switzerland

Click to view: This is the most bizarre thing I have seen in a long time, maybe forever.

It is a moving bathtub on a rail, like a railroad car, that goes outside overlooking a backyard. I was going to try to copy it but it's better viewed in the link above. So very strange😱

45 Zero Waste Hacks to Delight You

Are you hooked yet? 

I adore both of these, 

especially the Injure Bread Men! 

Here is the link to see 43 more things people out there are doing to recycle castoffs into upcycled things with a second life. 

Article found on Bored Panda 

Enjoy, and you're welcome. 

Waste not, Want not.

xo

Mother Goose Nursery Rhyme with Music

Another scanned page from an old book. I think it would have made music lessons more enjoyable for children. My mother was forced to take piano lessons and she disliked them immensely, so much so she couldn't play a note later in life. 🎹 

I was never able to read music and I've heard that part of the brain is also where learning a foreign language is located. I was never good with those either. I woke up to a nice cool morning in the low 60s and it felt wonderful. xo

18th Century Dog Collar Inscription

Too tired to post tonight so here is an old illustrated quote I made back in 2011. I have always been interested in antique dog collars and I love the comical inscription on this 18thC one worn by a dog presented to the Prince of Wales by Alexander Pope. I copied the dog from my Royal Book of Crests and added the text.

I AM HIS HIGHNESS' DOG AT KEW,

PRAY TELL ME, SIR, WHOSE DOG ARE YOU?

See the old post here. 

xo

Hanging Out The Clothes

An illustration from one of my old picture books for children. I love the flowering trees used as clothesline posts. Notice the high brick wall to "hide" the laundry, especially the undergarments. Randolph Caldecott was the illustrator.

See all of my old posts about this illustrator and MANY more examples of his delightful artwork. I love each and every one and you will too. Enjoy. xo

Bookplate Etching: A Miniature Work of Art

I have blogged about this bookplate from a 1931 gardening book in the past, as well as on an Instagram post shown below. The small shell beside the bookplate shows its actual size. I have more than one book with this bookplate and the one I scanned above did not have the wrinkles in the left margin. I experimented with the scanner on my new printer over the weekend and the scan above shows all the detail in this bookplate. So many bookplates are miniature works of art that are worthy of being enlarged. The engraver was Banks B. Gordon. He was hired by the Etchcraft Company to engrave the steel or copper plate for printing a design that had already been drawn by an artist. I'm not sure whether he was an artist himself and could do custom work directly with the end user of the bookplate.

The book collector with more than one bookplate design to paste in her books was C. A. Maude Eden. See another one I have blogged about with a poem about her love of books, birds, and flowers. xo

1736 Child's Tombstone Returned to Newbury Massachusetts Graveyard

This stolen tombstone for two year old Abigail Chase has been returned to Newbury, Massachusetts, settled in 1635. An astute auctioneer in Bucks County Pennsylvania is responsible for the recovery of this looted hand-carved folk art grave marker. This article speaks to the diphtheria epidemic that raged through colonial New England for five years between 1735 and 1740 taking out 22 of every 1000 people, mostly children. At the same time, scarlet fever advanced from the south, the two plagues eventually meeting in Essex County in the autumn of 1735. The Museum of Old Newbury is planning a ceremony later this summer when the recovered stone is unveiled at the Old Bridge Street Cemetery to celebrate long-lost Abigail’s memory. 

Read the entire article in the link below. 

https://www.antiquesandthearts.com/pook-pook-reunites-puritan-family/