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I'm not a Southern Beauty,
I'm not an Eastern rose;
I'm just a lil' Western Gal
With freckles on her nose.


Wednesday, June 30

Butterfly Fairy

A butterfly fairy plays two flutes to welcome summer and charm her friends the dragonflies in this copyright-free altered vintage image.

There was another, naked cherub-type creature creeping along the branch, but I Photoshopped it into oblivion. Hmph! He looked like a painted-in afterthought of some sort.

And the winner of the lil' typewriter key scrapbooking item is...baggaraggs! Sorry I took them out of the package to scan, then promptly lost the package...but none are missing...

Right-click to save.


Tuesday, June 29

Last of the Typewriter Key Clip Art and Giveaway

After today's comments I'll draw fer the winner of the lil' typewriter letter glue-ons from today's comments and yesterday's. I don't "pick out" a winner, I just put all names in a bowl and have my son or husband draw. It gets me very nervous to draw the names myself. See yesterday's post fer a picture. Of course, international bloggie frens always welcome to enter.

Here are the virtual versions, T thru Z and an ampersand (&).

Right-click to save.


Monday, June 28

N thru S Typewriter Initials Clip Art

Slog slog slog through the alphabet. 

Here is what you are trying to win.

Oh, you didn't know it was giveaway? Well, you do now.

Lil' glue-on letters for scrapbooking and notes and such. They look rather suspiciously like my creations, don't you think? It's actually the other way around: I saw these, was transfixed by them, recreated them somewhat using my graphics program, and then ran back to get them fer the giveaway. There are quite a few of each letter in each lil' stack.

Any comment enters yer dear lil' donkey self.




Sunday, June 27

Typewriter Key Clip Art I thru M

At least we're to the middle of the alphabet. This could drag on considerably if I don't get the lead out.

At the store, watermelons are down to $3.77 fer the lil' round ones. But they were sickly looking thangs, all wrinkled and yellowish.

Right-click to save.




Saturday, June 26

E thru H Typewriter Key Clip Art

Here are the letters E thru H. See yesterday for the first 4 letters of the alphabet.

DO NOT USE THESE LETTERS TO SPELL BAD WORDS, donkey frens!

Just teasin' you there.

I think we are mighty lucky to have no diacritical marks in English. Those are those lil' symbols settin' atop some of the letters. The French language has that very cute "housetop" one, and German has the darling umlaut, Spanish and Portugese have slanty things going every which way, so forth and so on. It just makes languages so much harder to have them, in my lazy opinion. Fer example, in Spanish, there's papa and there's papá. You have to be careful or you'll write "I love my potato" instead of "I love my dad." In my case, I definitely love potatoes, but you can see how it could get confusing.

Right-click to save.



Friday, June 25

Typewriter ABCs and Repulsive Cards

Having slaved over manual and then electric typewriters, I dearly love our modern systems of writing. But I do miss the typewriter keys themselves. I have noticed them being incorporated into necklaces and other jewelry.

I might fly into a rant; the new summer cards by Hallmark are out. MISERABLE graphics, m'dears! Just dreadul. And the sentiments are even worse than the soccer-mom graphics, with the word BOOBIES featured constantly and spoiled-brat offspring's "cute sayings" on every other card. UGH. The punch line of many of the cards seems to be "Dang, girl, your boobs!" DON'T EVEN ASK, frens. DON'T EVEN ASK WHY. It's all I can do not to DROP THE CARDS OH-SO-ACCIDENTALLY and STEP on them.

Free Vintage-Style Typewriter Keys

Here are the first few letters, done typewriter key style. Perhaps in honor of the real keyboard I should have begun with QWER. I saw some similar images in the scrapbooking aisle at Michael's.

Right-click to save.




Thursday, June 24

Meowy Fourth of July



Well donkey frens, I will share something with you: Don't ever eat a cheese danish that has been settin' in a cold stove fer two days, especially when it's 102 outside. To do so is to invite a long bout of unmentionable problems. On the up-side, it's a way to lose weight and develop a real aversion to anything resembling a pastry.

Here we have a painting of an outing of kitties in a boat, viewing fireworks. Fireworks over water sure are pretty. Regular-click to enlarge, right-click to save on yer own computer.


Wednesday, June 23

Lemons and Limes

Lemonade, lemonade.
Made in the shade
And stirred with a spade.
Good enough for any old maid.

Remember when Amanda Wingfield quotes that in A Glass Menagerie? Of course you do! Such things crowd out useful information, such as phone numbers and HTML commands and how to find the volume of a cylinder. My poor head is stuffed with bits and pieces of books.

The grocery store has had both lemonade and limeade in cartons for sale for 99 cents. This is the real stuff, not the colored water. Usually, it's much spendier. I think they're trying that old trick of gettin' us hooked on it and then hiking the price back sky-high.
I like to put maraschino cherries in mine, despite hearing that such cherries are toxic. I don't care!

Once, in physics class, another student who was long on looks and a bit short on physics (except fer the fact that part of her anatomy seemed quite immune to gravity) brought in some maraschino cherries and showed the class and professor how she could tie a knot in the cherry stem with her tongue. Two people got A's in the class. Foolishly, I studied fer mine. Should have learned the cherry stunt.

You'd think yer about to get a graphic featuring either cherries or lemonade. Well, yer not. Yer gettin' some bathing beauties. The wretches prolly got all A's in their classes, too.

Right-click to save.


Tuesday, June 22

More Blog Future Musing and A Froggie Fer the Bloggie

I was so busy readin' everyone's comments from yesterday's post that I almost fergot to upload today's. A lot of insightful comments were posted, donkey frens.

I would like to clarify my post a bit. I'm not saying blogging ought to end, or that it's not a worthy endeavor, or that anyone is doing it fer anything but their own reasons. I'm saying I feel a vibe that it's changing more into micro-blogging fer most -- Facebook and Twitter. Those who stick with long-form blogging will likely carve a considerable niche fer themselves. But my vibe says, "Most don't care, the wind has changed fer them."

But the most popular folks on FB and Twitter will likely see it lead them back to a blog again. Then blogs will wane again. Round and round and round we go.

I'm just very restless, myself, lately. Sometimes when I think of my bloggie, I just want to spit.

Free Image Fer Blogs

Real frogs don't spit but our horny toads out here do. Spit blood out their eyes. I love 'em. 

Here's a free image created from a vintage illustration and colored. Right-click to save.


Monday, June 21

The Nature and Ultimate Decline of Blogging?



Hi donkey frens! If you've followed this blog for any length of time, or any of my older blogs, you know I am prone to thinking I can feel various "vibes." This vibe-catching leads me to believe personal blogging as we know it may be in a decline.

I do not have a Facebook account and don't intend to get one. I was using Twitter, and then began to feel uncomfortable with how much time and attention it was taking. This led me to re-examine how I feel about the whole online experience: Is it just (1) frivolous and ultimately empty, (2) a true way to connect, or (3) something in the middle?

Humans are not known for moderation. I think online lives ping-pong back and forth between choices 1 and 2, above. Choice 3 tends to be left out, in part because of the very nature of online interaction. You snooze, you lose. You miss a post, or stop tweeting for a few days, or don't update your status or stop replying on forum threads, and you are quite quickly forgotten.

I am not faulting this behavior: it's a lot like having a neighbor you get along with, but they move...or a roommate who moves...or frens up at your summer vacation area who stop coming to their cabin in the summer...when the commonality is removed, the relationship is discontinued. It cannot stand without the structure that was an intrinsic part of it. It's a "shipboard" friendship. That's neither good nor bad; it just is.

So it may be with the online world and the blogging world. If someone in effect "moves away" by dropping out of view, it guts the connection. It's not like you can just walk next door and see how your neighbor is doing, or give a quick call on the cell, or know that you will run into them at the grocery store at the summer place. They are simply gone from your sphere. And if they return, the feeling of community, of friendship, must be rebuilt. If they repeatedly appear and disappear, self-interest might dictate that it's not all that safe to try to maintain a link with them.

Blogging takes considerable devotion. Some people are happy with using what I regard as shortcuts to a feeling of community -- participating in this or that "theme" or "meme" or other structured posting schedule about a particular subject. But that builds numbers, not community. If someone runs out of vintage redos or new dishes or the like, they don't participate, and they won't be a part of the group any longer, either.

But that might not be as negative as it seems. If someone is looking for a very light way to interact, it would not be upsetting to "drop out" of a loosely knit community. But some folks out in the bloggie world are quite lonely and quite isolated in life, and I do worry about them. People aren't known for altruism. If someone can't "keep up" by offering what others want, they get left behind, many times. They offer up their lil' crumb of interaction, and it isn't even noticed. Sometimes it's even sneered at. Not too many angels in the bloggie world, just as there aren't in the real world. When we happen across one, we are grateful. 

My point, long in coming, is that it's easier to feel you are part of a community through these newer means of interaction -- Twitter, Facebook -- than to do so through the blog world. I don't think it's any truer a connection, or less of a connection. It's an easier connection, and people tend to like easy. I think we will see fewer and fewer "personal" blogs -- blogs meant to just be like a coffee klatch sort of thing.

The bar has been set higher and higher and higher in terms of immediacy, too, and blogs lag on that. A post a day isn't immediate enough. It's rush, rush, rush, this is NOW, five seconds ago is passe. The beast must be fed, constantly! Just as people are uninterested in reading news that happened even 3 days ago, they are uninterested in the flotsam and jetsom of previous posts. Some blogs have valuable archives; most don't. It's not their nature. Websites tend to be more "storage" areas for valuable content.

Enter Twitter. One way around it is to put Twitter on yer bloggie, or have a Tumblr blog, which is basically yer Twitter feed in a nice form. But then yer back at the beginning of the puzzle again: Too much time and effort on something ultimately ephemeral?


So here's a Big Hilda - by artist Duane Bryers - fer a cheerful end to an overly long post. Dig her flour sack 2-piece -- I'd pay good money fer one, only I'm not sure flour came in the size of sack I'd need:


Sunday, June 20

Big Hilda Napping -- for Now

I think I love the Big Hildas best when there's some mischief afoot. Her sidekick is about to be in the doghouse, I do believe.

Hilda is the creation of artist Duane Bryers, also known for his propaganda paintings in WWII. His depictions of the Axis leaders did much to strengthen resolve among the American people. I think his paintings of Big Hilda could have done much to strengthen morale among the troops! Alas, he did not begin the Hildas until after the war. Hilda painted on the nose of a bomber would have been a real sight.


Saturday, June 19

Big Hilda in Tears!

Now here we have quite a different view of Hilda than Duane Bryer's usual depictions.

It looks to me that she went down Memory Lane and has come across a packet of old love letters tied up with ribbon. Those corn squeezins in the lil' jug to the front prolly ain't helping her mood.

I don't know if I'm glad or sad that I threw all of mine out, once I discovered various men's perfidy.

Right-click to save. Regular-click to get a larger image to load.


Friday, June 18

When In Doubt, Put Up A Hilda

I was pleased to find this Big Hilda, having not seen it before. 

Found it on a Russian website. Be careful, frens, when going to those sites. Very tricky tricky sites. Have yer sidearm ready and yer firewall in place.

Right-click to save. Regular click to get a larger image to load. Why do the pounds look so nice on Hilda and so very lardy on me? Big Hilda is the creation of artist Duane Bryers.


Thursday, June 17

Vrrrrrptt! Bzzzzz! Bzzzzz! V-V-V-V-Vruuummmpppp

Banner Haus News and Musings

I know these Americana graphics are pretty boring fer my international bloggie frens...bear with me...it could be worse, I could have vuvuzela horns playing on my blog or something  like that...!!! I understand these little plastic horns are horrible?


Hmmm...here we go...a link...GRACIOUS, they are annoying!!! Elephants with stomachaches! Kinda fun, tho...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpXN8BvGp_o&NR=1


Right-click to save...







Wednesday, June 16

Spittin' Seeds and Trying to Beat the Heat

Banner Haus News and Musings

I think quite a few donkey frens are on vacation...busy...working...outside in their gardens...cooling off in the pool, etc.

That gives me enough privacy to eat watermelon the way it ought to be eaten! On the other side of yer monitor, someone is eating a piece of ice-cold watermelon! Finally broke down and got a quarter-melon!

Here's Big Hilda, by artist Duane Bryers, to show how it's done:






Tuesday, June 15

Mysterious Squeaks, and Sew Vintage Clipart

Banner Haus News and Musings

My son called me out onto the back porch last night "to listen to a noise."

It was a very strange squeaking, and seemed to be coming from either the chimney or the attic just above.

"Squeak...squeak...squeeeaaaak...sqk..." very light and sweet, almost like lil' kittens, newborns.

I don't know if we have rat babies, squirrel babies, bat babies, or just what. The cats are mighty interested, but the area is well away from their reach.

Days of Yore Sewing Image

Fer someone who put down the embroidery needle years ago, I sure am posting a lot of sewing-related art. Mayhap the days of needing to sew are coming again?


Monday, June 14

Not A Fish Tale

Banner Haus News and Musings

Well, ol' Fatty Catfish did die. He was seven. That's not old for a catfish. I think he might have pined away. I had been meaning to get some more glass shrimp to put in there for company, but didn't get around to it, mainly because our fish store closed down. 

The guy who ran the fish store was really something else. When I meet someone who is very passionate about something and very sure of himself, I can't help but be mighty impressed. This guy was very brusque and abrupt, not to mention extremely large (not heavy, but LARGE) with totally wild hair and beard, wearing ancient huraches and dangerously worn cutoffs, but his eyes would light up when talking about the various fish and about the benefits of having mats of green hairy algae in the tanks. He would get so enthused about the benefits of algae (while glaring at the customers) that he'd drool copiously, but he never turned a hair about it. He really, really loved fish and algae mats.

I like to fish, but I fish with no bait, hook, nor string, just a pole. I haven't ever caught anything yet.

Vintage Sewing Clip Art

Here we have a lil' graphic taken from an old pattern. 
I like the mustardy color of the background.


Sunday, June 13

My Poor Catfish

Banner Haus News and Musings

I'm sad because I think I've accidentally killed my pet catfish. I've had him for years.

We had hail yesterday and I thought it would be fun fer the fish if I were to float a few hail balls in the water with him, kind of cool him off since it gets hot in the house and catfish like cool water best.

Well, I put quite a few in there, and next thing I know, he is swimming funny. Then a few hours later he was floating on his side, and didn't eat, and now is about dead, and if I had any guts whatsoever I think I'd put him out of his misery. Instead I keep walking around wringing my hands and feeling awful about it. WHY did I think the hail balls would be good fer him? I think they poisoned him. 

Vintage Gal Clipart

Here is a homemade clip art graphic using an image from the 1950s. 

A lot of bloggie frens would like more comments on their bloggies. I am divided about comments. On the one hand, I don't like to feel that I exert pressure on people to comment. And I don't like my greediness fer 'em, either. On the other hand, I am insatiably curious and interested in what others have to say.

Do you see the background on the graphic? When I was a child, the kitchen table was that exact pink, with lil' glittery-like designs on it, in white and turquoise, that same exact way, lil' balls and dots and stars. 

We felt it was "too old fashioned" at some point and out it went. What I would not give to have that table now! I have been more than my share of foolish in this life.






Saturday, June 12

Commentitis

Banner Haus News and Musings

Do you have to sleep on yer side or stomach, as I must? If I sleep on my back, it never fails: Sleep paralysis, or a terrible nightmare. My son is the same way. 

Sleep paralysis is pretty scary. Yer awake, but can't move. It's a big motivator to remember not to sleep on yer back, but danged if I don't sometimes end up that way anyways and spend about 10 minutes trying to scream or move. 

Our old dogs seemingly have nightmares, too. They whimper and even howl and we go nudge 'em to wake 'em up a bit. Then they settle down.

Vintage Unhappy Ladies

Here we have two ladies; a photograph and a painting. Both are distressed, because they don't run their anti-viral software often enough and don't have Malwarebytes downloaded nor CrapCleaner, and people can't easily leave comments on their bloggies. They think it's their bloggie content, but they're wrong. It's a nasty virus. It's the blog equivalent of having yer dress tucked into yer pantyhose in back. No one will tell them outright: YER BLOGGIE HAS A VIRUS. So they just suffer quietly.

These graphics enlarge if you click them. Someone must have been clicking on me lately, because I'm gettin' pretty large meself.


 

Friday, June 11

The Sunflower Queen, and Drying Flowers

Banner Haus News and Musings

Donkey frens, don't fergit, if you want to press the flowers that are beginning to bloom, for cards and suchlike projects, just use an old phone book and put them in there. If you live in a lil' town, you might have to put a dictionary or a brick or somesuch on it. But if you live in a big city, just put the flowers in the second half of it and the weight of the first will dry them fine. Or just use an old book, the musty-smellin' kind that would just end up in the dump otherwise.

Don't fergit to dry a lot of leaves and stems, too. They're really useful when yer arranging a picture. I'm mentioning drying flowers because I picked up an old phone book and a shower of dried petals came sifting out.

Vintage Image of a Sunflower Queen

This gal looks like she spent considerable time making herself a lovely Sunflower Queen outfit. She's copyright-free and free fer the clicking.

I will admit I would dearly love to have a fancy outfit fer parades and things of that nature. But dull ol' Midland doesn't have occasions fer fancy costumes. I wanted to make a hoop-skirted Gingerbread Queen outfit, and a sparkling Ice Lady one, too. I wonder why I am thinking of wintery thangs with it being over a hundred outside.



Thursday, June 10

Lovesick Fairy Clipart

Banner Haus News and Musings

Too hot to muse about much.

Yesterday I was setting up various flower photographs and carefully posing my model, but she kept flying away home before I could get a good picture of her.

Yes, a ladybug turned out to be camera shy and I didn't want to keep handling her, fearing it would damage or tire Her Polkadot Majesty.

Vintage Image of A Pretty Fairy

Here we have another fairy for anyone collecting them. She doesn't seem interested in poker, but she has been doing the "He loves me, he loves me not" pluck-a-rama on that poor daisy.

Right-click to save. Regular-click to get it to load a larger image first.


Wednesday, June 9

Necklace Winner and Mail Karma

Banner Haus News and Musings

I won't talk about male karma, dearies. That would be too depressing (apologies to all males). But mail karma is another thing entirely.

I knew this would happen. A necklace winner from what is, to me, a foreign country. Of course, to them, it is NOT a foreign country. It is their own country, subject to their own usual karma concerning the mail.

A Canadian won. Yes. Calm yerselves, frens!

It's not the expense of mailing to Canada, mind you. It costs no more than to mail here, due to the lightweight nature of the alleged prize. It's the horror of waiting weeks to see if the prize ever got there. You see, the competition between the U.S. and our Good Neighbor to the North is rarely expressed by the cordial folks on both sides of that border. However, it affects the MAIL, causing mail from either country to ACT OUT THE HIDDEN COMPETITION, and become very sulky and refuse to be sorted in a timely manner. 

WORSE, sometimes a letter going to or from Canada will purposefully, out of the billions of letters to pass through a machine that year, will PURPOSEFULLY, I say, jam itself up into an accordion-like piece of Mail Origami and cause all sorts of delays. I know that once, when I was innocently attempting to mail some earbobs to Canada, the letter threw itself into a dark corner of the post office in a futile attempt to stay out of Canada, just out of spite! I spotted it writing "Flammable -Dangerous- Poisonous-Liquid-Fragile-Verboten-Potentially Hazardous" on its dorsal surface with a broken crayon.
Oh, the winner? BERNIE, m'dear, YOU are the Winning Canadian. The necklace will look quite festive during all four days of your Canadian Summer.

Free Vintage Image of Some Sort!

Blogger never picks up my lil' posts anyway, so why be specific?

I thought this image of fairies engaged in some sort of poker game with very disgruntled koalas was downright strange. But it "spoke" to me. Or maybe it "spooked" me. I don't know. It gets bigger when clicked. I love playing poker.




Tuesday, June 8

Too Many Identities to Remember and A Sew-Sew Graphic

Banner Haus News and Musings

Well, I'll choose the necklace winner today and post it tomorrow, drawing from all the comments of today and the past 2 days. I am trying to get earrings and necklaces posted to my new Artfire shoppe BehindTheTimes. I have all of 2 things posted. Wah! 

I like Artfire better than Etsy because it doesn't require people to register in order to buy. 

I hate registering at site after site after site. I can't keep them straight. I can't remember my usernames, passwords, PINS, or any of it! All the geeks say, "Don't use the same user names!" but that means MORE to remember. Guess I'm spoiled, but can you imagine going into an actual store and they make you register before you can buy something?! Argh! I like to just hit that' ol' PayPal button and be done with it! Of course, the danger with that is that it's TOO easy to buy! My eyes are bigger than my bank account, so to speak.


 Vintage Image of Lil' Gals Sewing

It is hard to post with some kind of small gnat walking on my hair. GET OFF, bug!

Here we have the original version and an abbreviated version of some lil' gals busy sewing fer their dollies. I had a restored image of a sad-eyed dog ready to post, but it was just TOO sad, don't want to put a shadow on folks' hearts. We got enough trouble in this ol' world. The lower picture gets considerably bigger when regular-clicked.






Monday, June 7

Big-Eyed Kitties Say Howdy

Banner Haus News and Musings

SEE YESTERDAY'S POST ABOUT THE NECKLACE GIVEAWAY; LEAVE ANY COMMENT ON THAT POST OR THIS ONE TO ENTER.

Does anyone remember those paintings of big-eyed dogs, cats, and children that were popular in the 1960s, possibly into the very early 70s? I wanted to get the cat paintings, spending hours actually daydreaming about it, but the closest I got was cutting out the ad in the back of Ladies Home Journal and taping it inside a drawer. I had no idea those paintings were considered hideously kitschy. I found them very elegant.

Free Big-Eyed Kitty Clip Art

These vintage images are clearly the precursors to the those later groovy designs. Since finding this image, I have found two others featuring saucer-eyed felines. 


Sunday, June 6

Watermelon Fairy and A Giveaway Necklace

Banner Haus News and Musings

STILL HOTTER THAN BLAZES!

I was used to this sort of thing in Tucson. But West Texas ought not be as hot. 

I'm cheering myself up with a GIVEAWAY. A NECKLACE of sorts, what I call a "jumble" necklace, just one to wear for grins. It's brass with Lucite, Swarovski, and glass beads. Here it is:


It's prettier in person, frens, honest. Those lil' leaves are CHARTREUSE bordering on yeller. Leave ANY comment to enter yerself. The necklace is about 20 inches long. International bloggie frens always welcome to enter.

Free Watermelon Angel

Here we have a Watermelon Angel or Fairy. She is ready for summer, and is just another version of my regular clipart "feedsack angels." Right-click to save.