March Madness and Some Recent Junk Finds

It's March! Wait, it's almost April? Where has the time gone? In Kentucky, March Madness is usually associated with University of Kentucky basketball, but for me it's always about the big spring musical I am involved in, getting the yard and home prepared for spring, two birthdays, and trying to celebrate a little Saint Patrick's Day too! Things have finally settled down here long enough for me to get a blog post up today. I am the musical director for a large performing arts center in our town and every March is hectic. Our big spring musical always falls around St. Patrick's Day and it takes me at least a week to recover from the hectic schedule and to get back into blogging, decorating and junking. Last year I had a very similar post to this one when we did The Wizard Of Oz, which I am proud to say, ended up being nominated for seven national performing arts awards of which we won three! Well, now it's all over and I can take a breather, so today I am going to be showing you some highlights from my St. Patrick's Day/Grease weekend and also some of my favorite junk finds from this weekend.

The most I really had time for was a quick display on our mantel and a few small additions of green around the house. Because I am of Scottish heritage by birth and my husband is also of Scottish-Irish descent, we collect a lot of Celtic-inspired treasures, so in the past few years I stopped buying cutesy St. Patrick's Day decorations and started using what we already had, which is my favorite way to decorate anyway. I did our mantel up using some of these items. Unfortunately in the mayhem I just had time to snap a few blurry iphone pictures and didn't even get a whole mantel pic. That's how busy things were that weekend!

This Claddgah door knocker was found at an estate sale just a few days before St. Patrick's day. Lucky me!

Here is my great, great grandfather's journal. Absolutely amazing stuff in here! I acutally found this on St. Patrick's day while looking for something completely non-related. How's that for luck?

Last year I found this vintage Beistle die-cut leprechaun. I haven't looked it up but I would think this guy is pretty hard to come by. He really shows up well on the front door. Actually he is kind of creepy, but leprechauns are bit creepy when you think about it, so it's all good.

And what is March without lucky shamrocks? I love them, and they grow well for me outside from May til October. I plant them in my celtic knot planter with Irish moss and it's very magical. For now they are in sitting down in a silverplate bowl on the bar in our kitchen. I'm getting excited about gardening, and seeing these shamrocks everyday reminds me that it won't be too much longer.

 GREASE is the word...

This year's musical was Grease and it turned out fantastic! I was NOT a pink lady, just a wannabe! I am the musical director, so I teach all the songs and direct the music for the production, sing from off-stage, help with costuming and set, as well co-direct artistically. It's a lot of fun.

All of our cast were amazing this year. Our Rizzo was phenomenal. She is going on to major in musical theater and we all expect great things in her future. Her voice is pure BROADWAY!

            And here I am with Sandra Dee!This little gal is one of my private vocal and piano students for four years and she is like a little sister to me too. When she was in 5th grade she could sing Adele like nobody's business, and at age 14 she was able to land the lead role in this musical and she was amazing. I am so proud of her! Don't be surprised if you see her on American Idol one of these days!

                                            And we had some pretty cool T-Birds too!

I love doing plays and productions but with  my health issues it's hard to do much else during the last few weeks before opening, so my home and blogging took a back seat. Somehow this year I even managed to get a new boutique space opened during all the chaos. I have recouperated well, which makes me feel confident that my Lyme disease treatments are helping somewhat. Thank you to all of you who have been following and have commented that you are thinking of me and praying. Please continue. Although I look happy and "normal" in these pictures, it really is a struggle. But, I truly am on my way to recovery! For me, music, junking, blogging and decorating are the best medicine for the emotional aspects of chronic illness. Bring  on the junk!

This weekend I got back to junking and had some St. Patrick's Day luck leftover from the previous weekend! I found some gorgeous jewelry and antique postcards, some of which I will be listing in my Junky Chic Boutique etsy shop.  Here are some of my favorite finds:

Oh how I love ALL of these. I already have a few vintage Easter postcards so I'm going to list of couple of these in the shop and keep a few for myself. It's going to be hard to decide which ones to let go. You can also see a bit of the sweet, vintage dogwood earrings I found this weekend. They are in the little teal McCoy basket with the cutest little tiny eggs.

I also got some non-holiday postcards. This one is by far my favorite. Lovely artwork and an except from a poem by the famous Scottish poet, Robert Burns (My Luve Is Like A Red, Red Rose). This poem has also been set to music and I have used it many times as a teaching tool with my beginning choir classes, so that makes this postcard really special to me as it will always be a reminder of my days as a high school choral director.

Here's a lot of vintage jewelry which really seems to be what keeps coming my way these days. Or maybe I seek it out. I just can't resist it.

More awesome flea market finds. Cameo love/obsession. Vintage hardware love/obsession. Vintage postcard love/obsession. Vintage pin love/obsession. Vintage anything that is white and metal or iron and rusty-even if I have no clue what it is love/obsession You get the idea! Of course you do. You all  have your own junk passions too.

This sweet little pin from the 1920's-30's but it will be listed in Junky Chic Boutique later today before I end up hoarding keeping it too. It's so "period" looking, fantastic. Okay I am stopping now before I talk myself into pinning it on some lace somewhere around the house.

My birthday is March 31, and on the day I was born the newspaper horoscope said, "If your child is born today he/she will have lots of luck!" That has turned out to be true, but sometimes I must admit I wish the author would have specified, "good luck!" But overall, I must say I am very lucky indeed. So to end this post, I would have to say that  my favorite little treasure from the weekend would have to be his vintage horseshoe pin. As I say, I am a lucky junker! Junking is just really getting started with the warmer weather. Hope this find is a sign of things to come for the next few months.



Thanks for stopping by today! I'll be back soon with some spring and Easter highlights and some of my recent projects.

Happy Spring!

Amber

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