Happy Halloween!

My beautiful new antique

I love old things! I love silver, too. Hate gold. And I love fairies. So it was love at first sight when I happened upon this:

I think it was earlier this year, maybe in the spring. This particular one wasn’t for sale, but my interest was piqued. I must’ve googled it then, and learned you could find them on eBay. So I searched every once in a while, and even kept some in my “watched items” list, so I could find out how much they went for. Their condition really varied, and I was only interested in the ones with clean, intact mirrors, powder sifter, and original powder puffs. Some had one puff, very few had both. I bid on, and lost, the one I REALLY wanted this summer. It was the best I’d seen so far. I think the maximum I was willing to spend was $40… it went for $45. I was LIVID. So angry with myself. Some time passed, and I’d almost given up.

Then I won this!!! It is so amazing in person, I can’t even describe it. Tiny, yet heavy, and so old (it’s 83 years old!). I freakin’ love it! My original plan was to actually use it, replacing the rouge with one of those new magnetic makeup tins, but I don’t think I can bring myself to use it. It’s too precious.

Djer-Kiss was a brand of toiletries – perfumes, powders, and such, manufactured by Kerkoff of Paris through the 1920’s. The front side of the mirror is normal, and the back side magnifies. But it actually seems like the front side makes you look smaller! It’s weird and cool at the same time. Tee hee! And the back side magnifies ever so slightly… you don’t end up looking scary huge, like you do with other magnifying mirrors! Agh, I can’t express how much I love this thing. SO glad I finally got one.

Now… onto antique pencils! Thanks A LOT, angry chicken. Now I’m on the lookout for something like this:

*Image from ebay.com

Here we go again.

Out-of-this-world little girls’ Halloween costume!

Did you see Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette”? Did you love it? At least the dresses? Yes? Well, then you will fall off your chair when you see this Marie-Thérèse gown. It is RIDICULOUS.

Little sister wants to be a princess for Halloween, so she’s going to wear her birthday costume from last year. Provided it still fits, of course. And unless we’re lucky enough to receive this gown! Ohh, my heart aches. Breathtaking.

My Budding Artist

My son started drawing this summer… he’d scribble here & there before then, but he actually, out of nowhere, started drawing. It might’ve been my influence (well, whose else could it be?), but he out of the blue said, “Happy face”, then drew a circle, eyes, nose, and mouth. And he said everything aloud, in that order. I might’ve drawn a happy face for him a few times before then, but nothing consistent. The thing that kills me though, is the expressions on his faces. They are the most expressive toddler “happy faces” I’ve ever seen. Granted, that’s not saying much! But just let me boast! Every face he draws has a distinct look, and it just floored me when he started. It was just too cool.

I’m pretty sure this was his first “face with legs”:

He’s such a cutie patootie.

Brrr!

I cannot believe it’s October. Coming up is my sister’s birthday, then Halloween, then Thanksgiving, little sister’s birthday, and then Christmas! And the year’s over! I hate that. Every Fall, it seems like time snowballs downhill even faster than normal. It was actually cold today. Well, just a bit. It did feel like it was getting cooler towards the end of September, but then we got this crazy heat wave that lasted about a week. I actually had to turn the air on, and I don’t normally like to do that. Anyway, I’m glad it’s getting cooler. I prefer wearing cool weather clothes to hot weather clothes. I don’t like feeling exposed! Can’t wait to start wearing my new boots with dresses and skirts and tights.

Totally unrelated:

I made banana bread and Martha’s quinoa muffins yesterday, but tried to make them healthier by substituting a little wheat flour for the white. I didn’t make the ratio 50/50, more like 75 white/25 wheat. I didn’t have dark brown sugar, which both recipes called for, so I just used regular brown sugar. And, I didn’t have quite enough banana. Ughh. So, all these things combined, left me with a not-as-yummy-as-usual banana bread, and some pretty health-food tasting muffins. Not “pretty” as in nice-looking, but as in “rather”. Did that make any sense? Anyway, I thought the cinnamon I added to the muffin batter would help them taste nicer, as several reviewers of the recipe suggested, but they still tasted funky. I wonder if I didn’t rinse the quinoa enough? I’d better find out how many rinses it takes to get rid of the saponin before I attempt these again. My little ones actually like them, so I will keep trying. After all, quinoa is a “super grain”, and my little guy needs all the help he can get. He’s so skinny! I do worry so about his nutrition. Little sister, not so much. She looks like she’ll be taking after Dad (tee hee!).