A New Calendar Year

I'm not sure I've ever really bought myself a calendar. A planner, yes, but not a calendar. This year I bought one from Fifteen Eleven because I really loved the design but also, each page breaks off to form a postcard with a really pretty, hand-printed design for each month. Email me your address at laceygwalker@gmail.com or leave a comment and I'll send you one sometime this calender year!






By the way, I kinda meant to blog about this place when I first went there one day with Rachel. It's a cute little paper supply store in Old Town Alexandria with some really cute stuff. Here are a few pics from that day we went right after they opened. I've considered getting some hand-printed business cards done here or maybe taking a class.

New Old Things

Chelsea and I decided to go antiquing on one of her last days in the US. As usual I managed to find things that I don't technically need but WILL use and also as usual spent too much. Chelsea knew of The Emporium of Olde Towne in Gaithersburg, MD from going there with her parents as a kid.

I was really really surprised and impressed with how reasonable the prices are and Grace, the owner, was so happy to have us young kids in her store buying up some history. She told us that she wishes her grandchildren would appreciate her things and the importance of keeping antiques and vintage items in the family. They don't seem to agree with her. In any case we chatted about our travels (I bought several postcards of places I visited in Italy) and presented our cases for why the Italians are worse than the French and visa versa.

In any case here is a look at my treasures.


Blue vintage tin with yellow flowers - $6. This will make a nice cookie tin.


Vintage red and tan pint sized thermos - $12. Are these safe to use? Does anyone know?


Hazel Atlas glass jars with compass lids - $8 each. I LOVE these for storing beans, nuts and dried fruits.


Israeli made trivet- $8



Family postcards - $1 each


Black and white postcard of Italy - $2 each



Colored travel postcards - $2 each

That's it, just wanted to share!

Reuse: Recipe Books and Doodle Pads from Used Menus

So at the moment I work at a restaurant in old town Alexandria. It's a ten minute walk, it's not my dream job but it's flexible, they have their own farm and the people are nice. One thing that erks me a lot though is that we don't recycle. Not only that but we use heavy card-stock for our menus and then after one use for a banquet they get tossed. So - little pack rat that I am - I've been saving them and making something useful and pretty.


I cut the menus in half. Hole punch them twice and then tie them with ribbon that I have squirreled away from past projects. This book I made for Rachel before her Africa trip. I used a vintage postcard as the cover and glued the plastic sheet on so she could take the postcard out and read the back still.



They're rather simple and I may jazz up the design some. Make hardback covers maybe and sew them into it. But I also kinda like how simple they are. The other side of the paper of course is printed with menu items so only one side can be used for writing but you could certainly draw or paste clippings to the menu side. I figure, even if they get used for grovery store lists its better that then just throwing them away. BUT I do hope some will be used a long time. Like the one above that I plan to write all the Thanksgiving recipes in and give to my mom so she can remake our vegan feast in the future :)

Cherry Lemonade

Hello Blog Readers!

I know I have been MIA for a while but the works are demanding a lot of my time these days. Don't fret though, I have lots of fun stuff to share! This post features a recipe AND two of my newly acquired old treasures.

I may have mentioned before that Katie and I order a weekly produce box from Argancia. We get a bounty of fresh, local goodies every Sunday (except this Sunday because they shipped our box to someone else, grrrrr) which means lots of yummy food to be made! Last week we got these local Virginia cherries in the box and, unlike their slightly larger, plumper cousins the Bing, these cherries were a little less sweet than I had hoped.

Never to be daunted, I decided to make them into lemonade! If you've made lemonade from scratch before there really isn't much to it and adding the cherries is just one extra step. Make the lemonade the day before you go to the beach or have a cookout so it has lots of time to chill in the fridge.



Cherry Lemonade

3/4 cups sugar
1 cup fresh lemon juice (about 6 lemons)
1 full cup cherries
4 cups cold water

1. Put the sugar and a cup of water in a saucepan over low or medium heat. Stir it often. While you're doing this take your freshly washed cherries and pluck the stems out and then slit them in half. No need to pull them apart or pit them.
2. Plop your cherries in the pot with your dissolving sugar and stir the mixture until the sugar is dissolved and you have a simple syrup.
3. Strain the cherries out but reserve your syrup of course!
4. Combine the cold water, syrup and lemon juice in a pretty little pitcher and mix. Refrigerate until it's time to serve it.



The tea cup in the pictures was part of a house warming present from Pang, isn't it cute?! The small turquoise table cloth is something I bought yesterday at On a Whim in Leesburg. If you haven't been there you really really have to go. They have amazing stuff and I will be posting about some of the other goodies we saw there soon!

MB de Monvel

I have a little obsession with antique books. People hate to help me move. But it goes perfectly with one of my favorite places to hang out - book stores. Wonderbook in particular is awesome for their mix of antique as well as new books. Over the summer I bought this book - Nos Enfants (our children) because I just fell in love with the illustrations by MB de Monvel. If I were brave enough to devote large swatches of my skin to it, I would get a whole page of this tattooed somewhere. As it is, I'm considering one of the little girls and some birds. Maybe.







Love the back cover too.

Coast to Cote Week 30

Pang: I promise no more pottery/firing talk from this point on, but i couldn't help but choose this photo. I went back to the firing on the second night to try to get more shots and check out the pot luck (we all know I love food!). While stoking the fire on the first night, we didn't have to use too many precautions, but on the second night, on top of wearing gloves, when the fire reached it's highest temperature, we had to wear goggles (to protect our retinas), a face mask, and made sure our shirt/jackets were 100% cotton (if not, we risked catching on fire even if a little spark were to fly out). I got to help feed the fire and had to put on a cotton flannel shirt and felt an immense difference in the temperature of the fire. I felt like my face was going to melt off if I stood in front of the open kiln door any longer. When the fire is at this stage, the potteries in the kiln are almost at a liquid state (although they retain the shape). Joy's husband mentioned that if we were to poke a pot with a rod, it would go right through. They put out the fire around 1 am, but even with that, it takes four days for the pots to cure and become solid again. Tomorrow is the big unveiling where the kiln doors will be disassembled (they had to build it shut for the firing) and the pieces will be ready.

Lacey: This week on a lazy Saturday we went to Wonderbook in Frederick to rent some movies and peruse the books. I came across the children's book Nos Enfants by Anantole France. The book is sadly falling apart and was wrapped up in plastic but in fact, this is actually perfect because I have been looking for a falling apart book with awesome illustrations (this one was illustrated by MB de Monvel - who may just inspire another tattoo in the future because his little girl drawings are just my taste) because I would really loved to have framed storybook pages decorating my (future) apartment. These are especially perfect because they are in French and they are already literally detached from the spine. I have a really hard time bringing myself to rip or destroy a book - but if it's already falling apart its ok right? In any case I spent more than I usually would, but I'm super excited to see the finished product one day.

Les Bougeoirs

So recently I stumbled upon a new clothing/bric a brac shop in Limoges called J&M. The guy that owns the shop is Polish and speak great English and when Mariella and I came in and started gushing about the stuff he had he quickly struck up a conversation with us. A few days later I brought Alex and Anais back and fell upon these little candle holder and just had to have them.



The thing thats interesting is that in France there are not considered antiques. They really are just bric-a-brac and they cant be sold for much. I told the owner straight off that he should be doing business in America because he could get a lot more for this kind of stuff! I have my eye on a old fashioned French clock that you wind up with a key! Birthday present to myself?


And only 6 euros, what a steal!


Im bound to like anything in this color! I already have video ideas for when I get back of dark alleys and playing hide and seek by candle light! Cant wait to get home and film it!


This one was the second to catch my eye. I really couldnt decide between the two but since this one I felt was a little more masculine? (however masculine a candle holder can be), I decided to get this one for Ryan. That way I could buy both! I am absolutely prepared for him to tell me its not cool enough for him and then I can keep both :)

Shopping and Sightseeing on a Sunday

Sundays, as I may have already said, can be kinda dull in France. Almost everything is closed. The library, the mall, the bakeries, most of the cafes. I'm serious about things being closed.
So! I was ever so excited to stumble upon a flea market in the streets this past Sunday. Apparently it happens every 2nd sunday of every month and it's huge! It takes up like 5 different streets.
I got a little overly excited about the treat eating aspect of it and bought my churro bouquet a little to early and so I didn't take as many pictures as I would have liked to because I had a hand full of fried bread and sugar.
Here is what I did photograph though :)


Obviously I was very interested in these little beauties. I'm not sure what they were exactly though I think they were button covers. They had little prongs on the back that looked like you could open them, slip this over the button and then close the prongs around the back of the button. I waited around at this booth for a few minutes waiting for my chance to ask how much they were because they weren't market but some lady in front of me was talking the merchant's ear off and I had to hurry to see the rest of the booths because people were starting to pack up their things. Alas! Maybe they will still be there next time?



This made me laugh when I saw it because it's so tiny, and I think it was Pang who made the joke that she should send me an Easy-Bake oven since I don't have an oven to use at the school and I so do love to bake treats.



These made me think of Pang because she always buys flowers at the farmer's market. I almost bought some for myself but realized I had nothing to put them in.


Happy flower buyers

Then there were some things that are just kinda strange...or junk? Oddly presented I suppose we could say.







This is what I really came for though! I saw someone walking around with a cone of these and knew I had found my dinner for the night. For real. This was my dinner.



And this is what I came home with. I payed way to much for it but I just saw it and thought of putting a tiny picture of Hibou in it and wearing it on the collar of my winter coat or something like that and I had to have it. Now if only I had a tiny picture of Hibou handy.



Also today I went into the Cathedrale Saint Etienne which is in historic area (haha they have "historic areas" to cities that are older than America) of the city and is also where the flea market was.

Typical beautiful church with typical amazing stained glass.





I also popped into the Musee de la Resistance for an hour or so. It was a small museum all about the people of Limoges and France in general and their part in WWII and especially about their roll in the resistance. Interesting exhibit and not something we generally learn about in the states during our 5 consecutive years of the same history lesson on WWII.
If you don't speak or read French this will be a very quick museum to visit because all the signs are in French and of course the old newspapers and stuff too. Pretty interesting stuff. Like I didn't know that carrier pigeons were used during the war but apparently they were used by the hundreds.





All in all it was a pretty great day, especially because I thought it was going to be boring.

Old Smelly Books

Got some new old books! Yay! Ok...no one but me cares, but people I dont have anything to blog about currently and I leave for Seattle on wednesday so I felt I should write at least one more before I wow you with all the awesomeness of Katy, William and the West coast when I get back.


Lorna Doone is one of my favorite books, so when I saw this little mini version for $2.50, well shoot...I couldn't pass it up


Im suddenly realizing that its totally nerd of me to expose my love of Tarzan books...oh well


Same author of the Tarzan books (Edgar Rice Burroughs)


This one Im pretty excited about!


Alright now this one has a story behind it. This is a book that I have been given to borrow. So..about a year ago I get a customer at Kazu, this hipped out guy with super long hair and tanned skin comes in with his lady friend for dinner. Occasionally you will get a table (like this guy) who really really want to make a connection with you. In fact, I had an older couple come in last night and the man asked me my name right off the bat and then proceeded to call me by name the rest of the night and both he and his wife made very intense (but friendly) eye contact with me whenever I came to the table.
Anywho...this guy (geeze I dont even know his name) was like that. Very friendly, very intense personable eye-contact.
So Im doing my job, whatev..and we're busy, super busy, but he wants to talk, he wants to know my life story, so I stop and talk to them whenever Im at the table for something, all the while processing orders in my heard. At some point he and his friend are talking about the rising influence of women in the world and I just happen to be walking by and he stops me and asks "So what will you do when you rule the world?" (Im starting to get used to the fact that people say weird things to their waitress...remember my marriage proposal story?)
I ask him why he thinks I should even be in any position to rule the world. "Well, you are remarkably beautiful and you seem very intelligent." My face blossoms into a dramatic blush as usual and I glance desperately at his "lady friend" but she just smiles warmly at me. Ok...well thanks for the ego boost but dude its not that easy to rule the world based on those two traits you claim I have. And wouldn't you know it...this turns into a conversation about Hillary...vom. Then at some point he is asking about my views on the position of women today and boy he doesn't know what he's getting into ( i write much better than i speak) so I bumble along on one of my favorite topics (the way in which women are portrayed in antiquated lit and how and when they first made their move from the simpering, subordinate lasses to, what is now a tart and tired saying "independent women.") And I gab and gab and they nod and smile as Im talking about Blackmore and Radcliff and things I imagine they dont give a fig about.
But hey hey hey...my man (next time im going to get his name) and his lady friend come in friday night this week and he brings this book, PLUS! a Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell cd and says if I wana talk position of women this is the perfect fodder for a showdown. So a whole year after (we concluded its been a year because the first thing he said to me when I got to the table was "You cut your hair," and I said "Yup...went short last March.") he remembered our conversation and my obsession with old books (especially ones that have a "heroine") and he brought this book for me to borrow.


Here is a look inside the book