Gorgeous old cottages ... I love these.... obviously built probably in the 1800's .... they are in

Shaftesbury, England. Click to see the steep, windy street in full size.

A desktop wallpaper from the Bows and Beauties Collection at whimsydust.com

For a few more days everything is half price at whimsydust .... heaps of bargain prices for heaps of pretty things...Click on the image to see and save it full size.

Save the card by clicking on the image and seeing it full size...

The big Christmas half price sale at whimsydust.com

is over next week so check it out .. click on the image above ..

there's well over a gigabyte of pretty goodies for you ...

so cheap.. so chic ... and sweet.

:-))

Click on the cards to see them full size and save from there.

Click on this little girl to see her up close... interesting to see the gifts she is clutching ... she's looking more than happy and contented with her presents from Santa ... but what a difference today and back then. Now its all electronic stuff and high priced goodies the kids want. Shame ... I don't think half of them know what its all about other than to see who gets the most presents.

Reflections of the Past - the name of my blog.... :-) I am often thinking of my past back home in Australia... when I had my mum and my dad alive and well. Our lives were happy even though our means were meagre. I had no brothers and sisters ... so I had lots of beautiful and cherished pets to adore and play with. Times were so different then. Christmas would come and we'd go up into the bush and find a tree .. often not a pine because they were few and far between but it would be put in a tin bucket filled with water and decorated with the shiny things we had in the big box in the shed.
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Gifts were often wrapped in brown paper and I was lucky enough to get cherries and oranges in my christmas stocking. Cherries seemed to be the biggest thing at Christmas. There were certainly no gorgeous children's clothes like I now see here in the shops for little ones or teenagers. Lives were simpler and somewhat nicer ....... Christmas reminds me of those I loved back then and now ...... and yesterday as I put up my tree here in Canada I added a small photo of my darling Wilbur dog in amongst the decorations. I will miss him this year ......

A vintage desktop wallpaper for you .... click on the image to see and save it full size.

Christmas is fast approaching. Do you remember these little birds from years gone by. We had quite a few of them and I remember mum putting them onto the branches of our christmas trees when I was a little girl. They were shiny and bright and looked great. Clipped on with a metal peg like thing. I guess they still have them ...... but I've not seen any around. I love decorating our trees especially here in Canada when I can look out the window and see snow all around me. I'm going to do a pretty silver and white one this year.

Vintage glamour image .... I love all these pin up ladies. Save the card the original size by clicking on it .... hope you like it.

A birthday card for you .... to save and use ...

click on the image to save it full size..

Something yesterday reminded me of being back in Australia and a young girl and having my mum put the butter on a saucer and sit it near the fire ... so it would melt and she'd be able to put it on our sandwiches. I was talking about what we didn't have back then .. in the fifties and a microwave oven was one of them... so was margarine.... I guess that's why it became so popular because it was soft and more spreadable especially in the winter .... than butter was. :-)

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I remember not having a hair dryer .. and having to lean down in front of the fire or the heater to get my hair dry before I could go to school. And of course my lunch went into a brown paper bag ... there was no plastic wrap then either. Makes you wonder how we managed at all without the things we have now... but then again.... I sometimes think we were far better off. People took the time to say hello... you didn't have to lock your doors ... and things went by at a much slower pace.

Click to enlarge the desktop wallpaper ... hope you like it... Vibrant ... red and black... :-)

I shared this desktop wallpaper today in my new "Just From Jana" group... a pretty lady in amongst the flowers I painted when I was back in Australia. Click on it and save it from the original size. :-) Hope you like it... and you are invited to join my Yahoo group.

Click on the photo ... lots of vintage teapots... I love teapots.... :-)

Happy Halloween to everyone.

Watch out for those goblins and ghouls.

Stay safe and have fun.

As I reflect on the past it brings me back to Australia when I was a little girl. I was always afraid of the huntsmen spiders ... I and others call them tarantulas. They would scare me to bits and if I returned now I would still be scared of them. I wasn't scared of our snakes that would always be somewhere in the bush ... my cat brought one inside one day and it slithered under the door of the entry closet where we hung our coats and put our boots. It wasn't a big snake but it took me some time to get the junk out of the cupboard and finally get the snake out the front door.
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I remember one night when my then husband went to a lodge meeting. I was alone in the house and in the passageway there was a tarantula on the ceiling. I was so scared of it and couldn't remove it ... that I had to stay up that end of the house till he returned many hours later. And they would inevitably find their way into our cars. Urgh!!! just thinking about it gives me the heebee jeebies ....... lol....... but I do love my big imitation spider that I have put on the bush outside our window for Halloween. He's in a big cobweb and looks great.