I have been on a bit of a whirlwind the last 2 weeks some of it planned and some of it not. All of it good. I missed being here.

I wanted to start the week out with Favorite Finds. Who wants to wait till Friday! While in St. Louis for several days, I kept up the pace of the teenage life, six flags, staying up late, the zoo, etc… But everyday we passed by a large antique mall so finally on the last afternoon I left them swimming in the pool and went and spent 2 glorious hours antique shopping…. alone. I love going shopping at a new to me antique mall because everything IS new to me. I found lots of awesome things. Plus it was in Illinois, so it was just generally different than antique shopping in Alabama. A guy had a booth of bottles he had dug up himself. He had pictures on display of him digging them up. Way back when, they didn’t have trash pick up so they dug a large pit and threw away things in the hole. So he finds these and digs up the bottles. (On a side note they had some really nice items in the City Museum on display from items found in pits in St. Louis. I will include some of these pictures soon.) This guy had some unique bottles for sale and I enjoyed his pictures.

One of my favorite find were these two pictures.  I love the old frames and the colors. Do you ever come across an item and you just instantly KNOW those are coming home with you? Not, I’ll look around and may come back, but both in my arms and then I looked at the price. $12!! For both!!

They remind me of silhouettes. I love silhouettes, but not so much when I was in kindergarten. Everyone lined up to go into the dark room one at a time. I was really scared. I wouldn’t go. I refused to. That night my mom explained to me what they were doing and so the next day I went right in. Why didn’t I know what was going on? Did I nap through instructions?  I don’t know, but I’m pretty proud NOW that that I didn’t go. Mom, do you still have that big bobbed headed construction paper silhouette?

And just to educate ourselves a little and add to the useless but nonetheless interesting knowledge, the word silhouette comes from a French finance minister Etienne de Silhouetteln. In 1759 during the Seven Years War, he had to impose severe economic demands on the French people, especially the wealthy and so his name came to represent anything done or made cheaply and so these outline portraits, prior to photography were the cheapest way to record a person’s appearance. Prior to this they were called profiles or shades.

I have several silhouettes in my house now, one of Drew when he was two and one of Chad when he was about four both that someone hand cut by looking at their profile. I have  a few I’ve picked up at auctions and flea markets. The very old ones are quite pricey but I do love them but own none. 

Update July 26th: My mother and her friends came over for an art project I taught them and she had found and brought me my bobbed head kindergarten silhouette image that I referred to in my post above. I was so touched and then excited that she had it AND found it. I then recounted the story to her friends and mom told them how she had made me get my hair cut that short and how I hated it and I’ve never had it short since then. All true. This is a treasure indeed. Thanks mom.

Written on the back. My given name. I just turned 5.

Enjoy this week’s treasury items of Silhouettes. Have a great week. Katey

'Silhouettes' by mtncachers

This treasury is also available on my blog at http://www.lovethegiver.com Please come visit. Thanks

Treasury tool by StylishHome.