Happy Halloween

This is my darling daughter...(see..told you I loved costumes!)

cathi

When a photo is like a piece of art...........

When I was a little girl, my mother would make our family travel from Chicago once a year to St. Joseph, Missouri to visit an elderly lady named Millie. Now, Millie was no relation really to my mother, but since all my mom's family was gone..this woman filled in, like an elderly aunt. And my mother loved her.

Now Millie had no children...and her home was FILLED with antiques...I was not to touch ANYTHING..which was always hard when I went to visit her. So I was made to sit very carefully on the couch in her living room....while Millie told stories and poured us tea and spent special time with mom. (My brother and dad were always back at the hotel..)

In her beautiful living room, there hung a large portrait of Millie as a young ingenue. She had a beautiful dress on (much like this photograph) and I would look at it for what seemed like hours...behaving in this very beautiful...but delicate home. As years went by..I always came back to see Millie's portrait...and the last time I saw her, she retold the story of her "coming out party" and the gown she wore.

After Millie died, the portrait was given to the historical society...but I never forgot that fashion

Then, the other day...I found this photo....it is simply beautiful in person..and although the woman was much older than Millie in the painting..the style was just like the one that I had memorized so long ago.......

Although this is not a painting the photography on this is so soft and so beautiful..it is like an art piece......

wow...I love old images..................


Cathi

Gazing into a pond....

Lately I have been finding some awesome photos....
soo many that are almost HURTING to let them go...............

this one is EXCEPTIONAL!...
1920s...incredible costume...design...really wonderful...
(and for sale this week on ebay!)

....anyway...this photo kind of reminds me of when my kids were going to be brownies...I of course was a brownie leader and my girls were SO excited when it was their turn to be brownies..

anyhow..there was this ceremony where we put this mirror on the floor...decorated it of course..and then took the girls and turned them around...and we all said:

"Twist me and turn me and show me the elf:

I looked in the pond and I saw.......

MYSELF"


Then we would pin the brownie pin on them..and they were to become brownies...full of good deeds and loads of fun meetings...


so...every time..i look at this photo, i keep thinking of this song...

ok.....this is NOTHING like this photo(she HARDLY looks like a brownie...)...but hey.............all photos provoke memories ..eh???

Have a great week!!
cathi

to be a fairy princess....

Did you ever want to be a fairy princess for Halloween?

On Halloween, when I was a little girl, every year in our town we would have a costume contest and there were prizes!...so all the children came out for it.... Each year I would dream for weeks of winning the prize. But my mother couldn't sew.. so each year at the last minute she would pull out an old clown costume she bought somewhere and MADE me wear it. I had to wear it EVERY YEAR and I hated clowns and I never won....

I would look at the other children that would win and wish i had fancy costumes like them... and I would dream that one day I would get a special costume......and maybe i would be a fairy princess...but i would be the most beautiful fairy princess ever........

So, of course...when I had girls...I vowed I would make them costumes that they would win 1st place..no matter what!

Each year, my costumes were elaborate...i would spend a fortune at the fabric stores just to make something no one else would have..
and of course i would have to design my own costumes...taking apart patterns so that over the years my kids were everything from
egyptians to japanese, from cabbage patch kids to money ladies, there was even a year i made them all shoes...you name it... every costume was so over the top...i was competing year after year to win the prize....

only there were no costume contests ....so there were no prizes...

Finally one year, my kids could tell by the gleam in my eye that halloween would soon be there and the annual trip to the fabric store would begin....
and they all ganged up on me....and said...

MOM ! CANT WE JUST BE FAIRY PRINCESSES
JUST NORMAL FAIRY PRINCESSES
PLEASE!

CANT WE PLEASE GO TO A STORE AND BUY A COSTUME!! AND JUST BE FAIRY PRINCESSES?

well of course i did go to a store...and bought dresses...and added a lot of trim...and a bit more sparkle..........well...you know....they still had to be the BEST most BEAUTIFUL fairy princesses every....


~I came upon this photo the other day...
(it is even better in person one of my favorites!)

and I remembered Halloweens of years ago.....and every girls inner dream......to be a fairy princess.....

happy october...
cathi

Navigating around Ebay these days

Lately there have been a lot of changes in Ebay. I have discussed this last year in a number of posts and have been very involved with other sellers trying to get our voices heard...and some things ebay really listened to us in...yeah!...(they are stilllll Changing!!)

so now there are some new changes that as buyers it is important to know:

As you probably know- there has been a BEST MATCH component to finding items at auction.
instead of NEWLY LISTED or ENDING SOONEST, the default goes immediately to BEST MATCH.

This is because the company wants us and wants you to BUY IT NOW.
so BUY IT NOW items are higher in the best match...except when the auctions are almost over.

now for me, I usually list lower prices in my auctions then i do for buy it now. (if you want a deal...the auctions are really the way to go!) I like auctions...and i like the fun they are..and when there are things that I want to buy.... if they are at a "buy it now"..i may never FIND it..let alone BUY it...so I am an auction girl all the way.
(unless it is a book or something)

so I ALWAYS go to the pull down screen that says Best match and change it to NEWLY LISTED. then i see all the new things that have been listed in my section...
then I change it to ENDING SOONEST...and i see what is about to end on auction...
Now, I collect information from ballet from the 1920s and am always hunting thru auctions for things on this subject (as well as gifts for others and so on)

So the news is that the BEST MATCH feature will soon be even more modified...and you will see MOSTLY buy it now in the best match setting. As sellers, we just got this news the other day. so I wanted you all to know how to work with this feature.

The reason is Ebay is changing..and trying to find it's way...with a new CEO and loads of losses in its company...Ebay is trying to understand the marketplace..(that and I dont think that the current CEO of Ebay knows anything about auctions!!)

BUT...I still think that Ebay is the BEST place to find unique and unusual things...but it is changing and I wanted you all to know about some of these changes...

ah well...happy photo hunting...
just wanted to pass this information on to you...
another day for more ebay discussion...
time to look for those old ballet magazines!!

cathi