malinmaskros

I can´t help doing quizzes on the net, usually the answer doesn´t say much, but sometimes I stumble upon really good ones. I did this "Which old film star are you?", and actually recognize myself a lot!

You are an Ingrid -- "I am unique"

Ingrids have sensitive feelings and are warm and perceptive.

How to Get Along with Me

• * Give me plenty of compliments. They mean a lot to me.
• * Be a supportive friend or partner. Help me to learn to love and value myself.
• * Respect me for my special gifts of intuition and vision.
• * Though I don't always want to be cheered up when I'm feeling melancholy, I sometimes like to have someone lighten me up a little.
• * Don't tell me I'm too sensitive or that I'm overreacting!

What I Like About Being an Ingrid

• * my ability to find meaning in life and to experience feeling at a deep level
• * my ability to establish warm connections with people
• * admiring what is noble, truthful, and beautiful in life
• * my creativity, intuition, and sense of humor
• * being unique and being seen as unique by others
• * having aesthetic sensibilities
• * being able to easily pick up the feelings of people around me

What's Hard About Being an Ingrid

• * experiencing dark moods of emptiness and despair
• * feelings of self-hatred and shame; believing I don't deserve to be loved
• * feeling guilty when I disappoint people
• * feeling hurt or attacked when someone misundertands me
• * expecting too much from myself and life
• * fearing being abandoned
• * obsessing over resentments
• * longing for what I don't have

Ingrids as Children Often

• * have active imaginations: play creatively alone or organize playmates in original games
• * are very sensitive
• * feel that they don't fit in
• * believe they are missing something that other people have
• * attach themselves to idealized teachers, heroes, artists, etc.
• * become antiauthoritarian or rebellious when criticized or not understood
• * feel lonely or abandoned (perhaps as a result of a death or their parents' divorce)

Ingrids as Parents

• * help their children become who they really are
• * support their children's creativity and originality
• * are good at helping their children get in touch with their feelings
• * are sometimes overly critical or overly protective
• * are usually very good with children if not too self-absorbed

Who are you?

I organized a vintage housekeeping swap at the BrocanteHome forum, and yesterday I got my package. It was promisingly big and heavy when I picked it up, and the inside kept all of its promises.



Sasha/Domestic Goddes in Britain sent all of this great stuff: a rosy tea set, washing-up liquid (lemon and aloe vera), fabric softener (Christmas spice), rooibos tea, Carmex lip balm, dish cloths with pretty flowers, a heart shaped card/photo holder and a flowery screwdriver and tape measure. I had a crappy day yesterday, this package made it a lot better! Thanks, Sasha!

With small steps, I´m moving towards a different me. I bought a pile of pantyhose yesterday, and today I´m wearing a pair together with my lowest pair of heels - I need to work my way up, or my feet will kill me on my first day. I won the auction for the 50s glasses, I hope to recieve them next week, and if I don´t look like a complete fool in them, I´ll put new glass in them. I´m thinking about what I´m eating, but manage to gain weight, so I have to think about it even harder - I have some gorgeaus clothes I want to buy, and I can´t squeeze myself into them just yet. But the wonderful thing about the clothes, is that they come in plus-sizes, what more can a girl ask for?

but they have become really trendy on the net. And why shouldn´t they be? For one, they are practical, especially if you´re like me, and constantly spill food all over your clothes. Second, they can be a fashion statement, because pinnys these days come in all styles. And three - what kind of vintage housekeeper would you be without one?

So, this is what I want you to do: First, look in your linen closet, there may be one left from your mother or grandmother. Or go to the source itself - ask you mum, or (more likely to strike gold) your granny. If they threw their pinnys out in the 70s, you could 2) go out and buy one. Over at Tie one on, there´s lots of links to pinny-makers. Or if your the crafty kind, you should absolutely make one yourself. The simplest kind is just a fabric square with a waistband. Or you could go out and look for some inspiration:
The Apron Book: Making, Wearing, and Sharing a Bit of Cloth and Comfort
Free apron patterns fron Tie one on here and here.
Barbecue apron.
Vintage apron (40s).
9 vintage aprons. (Love the gingham girl!)

What do you think, is that enough to start you off? Otherwise, just google "free apron pattern", and you´ll get lots of hits!

I did some thrifting yesterday, I got myself an ironing board (which needs a new cover, and I need an iron to go with it - I ordered some rose scented linen water as well), some hankerchieves (very 50s, pastel coloured gingham, pretty pretty - and I wanted to find some hankies!), a pair of 50s glasses on an online auction. I also got some white fabric, and began sewing some teatowels with some 50s kittens, very nice, I hope they´ll end up! I saw and old (40s maybe?) teacup, which would be lovely for a vintage housekeeping swap I´m doing later this winter, but I don´t know if I dare to send it, or if it will arrive in pieces.

To those of you who are faithful readers (you do exist, don´t you?!), you might have noticed that the only consistent thing about my blog, is its inconsistency. I get an obsession (I started this blog as a knitting blog, then I got hooked on Japanese kawaii, and then... well, you just take a look at the archives and categories and see for yourself) and wherever it takes me, I follow. For now, it´s very much vintage, 40s and 50s and especially vintage housekeeping (it´s not the first time, you might notice), and I hope to stay here for a while, since I do enjoy it very much. My wish is to dress in said period clothing, but I have a hard time fitting into them, I have some skirt sewing in the back of my mind, though. And my new job is actually perfect for working on those high heel skills - I don´t need to be on my feet much, and if I carry them in my bag to and from work, the winter outside shouldn´t be a problem. I just placed a bid on a pair of 50s cat´s eyes glasses, I hope I win them, and that they suit me - wouldn´t they look great, kinda like my personal trading mark?
 
Personal trading marks are supposedly something one should have, I´ve read. Maybe your perfume, your bright red lipstick, the way you´re always writing with an old Fountain pen... Something that is distinctivly you, and whenever someone sees it somewhere else, they think of you. Perfume is really a thing like that, especially in our mother´s and grandmother´s generation - they always wore the same perfume, maybe changed to one a bit heavier for evening, and everytime you smelled that perfum, you thought of your mother. Myself, I have used doussins of different perfumes, some I´ve loved more than other, but no one that has become my trademark. I think it´s time to get rid of my current collection, to search for that one, I´m thinking someone a bit older, not that much used - I don´t want to smell my scent on someone else! Oh, and I´d love to be one of those who always wear heels and pantyhose, I love how you look much classier walking in heels, than I do in my usual flats.

I´ve ordered a pile of books, all about vintage housekeeping, I can´t wait to get them. And my Puppini Sisters CD´s! They would go so well with the new persona I´m trying to create (a persona quite far away from my normal, alternative self, but perhaps more suited for a 33-year-old woman, and not the 33-year-old teenager I now look like)! And a quick book recommendation - if you haven´t read Hester Browne´s books about The Little Lady Agency (Sensible Melissa Romney-Jones proclaims to her enamored American client, Jonathan Riley, "I like to think I'm a vintage girl. A proper 1950s woman's woman," to which Riley responds: "A proper 1950s man's woman." Crackling with Brit chick wit, Browne's first novel stars a spunky whirlwind in search of love and money. Melissa, after losing her job as a London estate agent, starts the Little Lady Agency to attend to the social needs of single men. This requires Melissa to don a blonde wig and become Honey Blennerhesket, a posh "Mary Poppins in silk stockings." Running the new agency leads to the successful channeling of her inner glamour goddess and romance with Jonathan, but then she wonders, does he love Honey or Melissa?) do grab one! I am only halfway through the first, but I´m loving it so far, and I´m loving Melissa/Honey - that´s the kind of woman I´m aiming for!

I´ve been reading the BrocanteHome Chronicles from post nr 1 these last few days, I´ve only read the first five or six months, but it´s enough for me to feel left out, why didn´t I discover them four years ago? There are so many fun things, that isn´t nomore, like the Vintage Housekeepers Circle
( Where as a member of the circle, you would...

• Create domestic bliss with our Vintage Housework rituals.
• Find time for the gentle art of puttering.
• Escape from chaos and learn how the Brocante Home-Makers Planner can change your life.
• Understand the peace of ritual and the blessing of a home that is truly authentically yours.
• Learn how to infuse your day with tiny joys and make your home sing with soul, history and happiness.
• Take delivery of beautiful hand tied letters and vintage care packages sent with love from BrocanteHome. )

which doesn´t exist anymore, the Gazette, the link directory (featuring

All About BrocanteHome.

A quick explanation of what BrocanteHome is all about and a link to a downloadable copy of The Vintage HouseKeepers Manifesto...

Alice About The House.

A place where dear little Alice, housewife extroadinaire, will root through her vintage housekeeping bibles and come up with the kind of old fashioned housekeeping tip's your Mother forgot to tell you...

The Childrens Encyclopedia. 

This area will feature articles taken from vintage childrens encyclopedias and will I hope eventually become a place where you can find good old fashioned inspiration for entertaining the kids...

The Comfort Drawer.

Here you will find all kind's of silly old fashioned stuff and nonsense designed to make you smile: this week, there is a hilarious knitting pattern, that I think you'll find, that even those of us who can't cast on, will find amusing...

The HouseKeepers Bookshelf.

The bookshelf will feature all those books, I, The Vintage HouseKeeper, couldn't live without, as well as links to the vintage housekeeping bibles of your dreams...

HouseKeeping Horoscopes.

Just for fun. But if you haven't met Madame Feather before, I promise you that before too long, you will wonder how you ever got through life without her...

Retro Recipes.

Scrumptiously, here you will find a whole collection of recipes, taken from any number of vintage sources, from Mrs Beeton to Woman's Own...

And finally, Vintage Site Of The Month...)... Just to name a few. And because I only discovered BrocanteHome a few months ago, I missed out of all of that fun. However (fingers crossed), Alison of BrocanteHome says she will start up the Gazette after New Year´s, so I´m hoping for that one. For now, I have to settle for the Chronicles and the Salon (aka the forum), and that´s not too bad either.

I went to the fabric store, for some snap buttons (I don´t even know if that´s a word...), and found old ones, from the 40s-50s sometimes, very lovely!

If you´ve kept your eyes open, you´ve noticed I have changed the name on my blog (same address, though!). Maskros is the Swedish word for dandelion, and since "dandelion malin" doesn´t have that ring to it, I went with "dandelion daisy". I aslo like how it sounds almost vintage, American post war-ish, you might say.

What else? Hmm, I´ve begun to get a grip on my bad back, I´ve gone to the doctor, today I was at the fyso-therapist, I´m doing a cat-scan next week - it´s time that I get a body of a 33-year-old, not a 83-year-old. The fyso-therapist did however say, that I looked smaller than my actual weight, so thank you very much!

This new obsession with vintage housekeeping has made the thought of housekeeping sound appealing - before, I just bought såpa (very traditional Swedish cleaning product, the dictionary translated it with "soft soap", I don´t know if it´s actually the same thing), and used it everywhere. Now I enjoy browsing the cleaning product isles at the store, and have bought several different products (I can´t wait to try them!). And I went totally crazy with soapes yesterday - I needed one, but went home with four, simply because I liked the packages. It´s good to have a well-stocked cleaning cupboard, though - the next time I run out of soap, I don´t need to fill the bottle with water, to make it last longer - I have soap for a few months now. And pretty soap it is!

I don´t like things lavender scented, but I like how delicious lavender scent sounds, so I´m giving it a fair try - I have bought some lavender scent for my linen closet, I have ordered some very luxurious cleaning products, all very lavender smelling - in the life I imagine myself living, there´s defiantely a spot open, that smells like lavender. It wouldn´t be much of an issue, if I liked the scent of roses, but I like that perhaps even less than lavender... And the spicy scents that I love, they don´t feel as vintage...

It was my sister´s birthday the other day, and I just bought the last things for her present, since I know she won´t be reading this, I can tell you - she´ll be getting some cocoa in a jar, some very yummy cookies, and a calendar with pelargoniums, very vintage-looking and pretty, I hope she will enjoy everything!

The five entrys in the Puttery Treats Challenge has been chosen, unfortunately I wasn´t one of those. But over at BrocanteHome, she says that more challenges will come, so there will be more oppertunities to win a fabulous gift box.

I´m feeling all vintage-y again, a lot thanks to Brocante Home and her vintage housekeeping, and the discovery of the wonderful Puppini Sisters (read my last post!). Thus, I turn to Google, and searched for some vintage patterns. The first one I found, was this great page, with among other things vintage embroidery patterns with nursery rhymes. They also had a "Task-a-day" Kitty-Cat towel set that was sooo cute - very 50s! If you want a lot of vintage transfers to look through, here´s your site! Vintage patterns of all kind on this cute DIY page. And since you´re already there - go try the Pussycat magazine, very fun, very nice! And what´s more vintage than aprons?!