One thing that most people don’t know about me is that I absolutely love Vintage Dinnerware – well any kind of dinnerware, actually. While most people know I love vintage items, they don’t know that I have seven sets of dishes and have started collecting three more patterns (slowly).

After we updated our dining room last year, my mother said it looked like an antique shop –   I have some of my Grandmother’s antiques and my every growing collection of vintage glass and dishes.

There are been a lot of changes to the web building world in the last year, with lots of ups and downs.  One thing I realized is that my vintage sites stayed strong through it all.  In the summer I decided to expand my vintage sites and I was beyond thrilled to see there was a very good demand for a vintage dinnerware site!

I originally started this as a stand alone site, but decided that it really goes better on my Depression Glass Site – so I moved it over.   Even though it only has a few pages, I am really excited about it – because I adore the topic.  I’m relatively certain that I will be adding more pieces in my dining room because of the site!

I have a wonderful new “Smart Camera” I thought I’d break it in with some photos of my treasures!

 This is one of the vintage Ethan Allen bookcases in my breakfast room. On the top shelf are my Grandmother’s everyday dishes, Happy Times by Metlox Poppytrail.  (See pattern on eBay.)  It is displayed with verde green Old Williamsburg goblets by Imperial Glass. One thing I love about collecting vintage Imperial glass is that the colors across patterns is identical, so you can mix & match patterns.
Below the Happy Times is my very first set of dishes – Yorktowne by Pfaltzgraff. (See on eBay.) I picked it out in 1980 for my everyday dishes. The reason I chose it is because it had so many matching pieces.

Well, I retired my Yorktown from everday use about ten years ago and since have been using and collecting Franciscan Desert Rose Dinnerware.  Some of the pieces are pictured here on the left – it is also in my breakfast room.  The glassware is all vintage Imperial Glass in verde green – all are different patterns.

Desert Rose is the best selling dinnerware of all time.  When I started buying it, it was being made in England by Wedgwood and now it is made in China.  It didn’t take long to see that the pieces made in the USA from 1941 to 1984 were far superior to what is being made today, that I started adding vintage pieces to my collection.

From my china cabinet:  This is the china that I selected in 1980.  It is Kutani Crane by Wedgwood. (See on eBay.) I fell in love with it when I saw it in a Bridal magazine!  It was made from 1971 to 1998.  The crystal is by Royal Gallery, that I selected to go with it.  I have always loved those huge crystal goblets!

Well, I love Christmas & I love dishes – so of course I have Christmas Dinnerware – 2 sets, actually.

This is my Christmas China – Holiday by Lenox. (See on eBay – Amazon.) I collect red depression glass to use with my Christmas china.  This is Ruby Red Cape Cod by Imperial Glass.  I don’t ever seem to use these as much as I’d like to, we do use them almost every Christmas day.  I should use them more.  Lenox introduced this pattern in 1974 and it has been going strong ever since.


My everyday Christmas dishes are, of course, Spode Christmas Tree.  (See on eBay – Amazon.)These I definitely use.  Every Thanksgiving, I move the Desert Rose out of my cupboards and move in the Spode and we use them everyday until New Years.   I like to use the Red glass as well as emerald green.  I prefer it much more to a “matchy-matchy” look.  I also have some beautiful ruby red and emerald green glass serving bowls and platters that I have collected over the years.  I have been collecting this pattern for over 25 years and have received many wonderful pieces as gifts.


This was my Grandmother’s china. Is was made by Meito China and is marked “Occupied Japan” which means it was made between 1948 and 1952. The pattern name is Madrid.


This is by Syracuse China, the pattern name is Victoria.  (See on eBay.)  This was my Mother’s china pattern, when she and my father married in the late 1940s. The pattern was made from 1949 to 1970. Since the advent of eBay, she has added many pieces to her collection. I purchased this place setting, because I love the pattern. I plan to eventually add to it. It is displayed here with Imperial Glass in Cape Cod and Old Williamsburg in the Azalea color. I think it is a perfect match.


Finally is another place setting by Syracuse. The pattern name is Bracelet.  (See on eBay.)   It was also made from 1949 to 1970.  I searched for years for a simple and elegant pattern to add to my collection.  I was thrilled with the demitasse cup (pictured at the top) that I bought a place setting.  I plan to add more pieces – I just love it.  It is pictured with crystal Tiffany champagne flutes that were a gift from my college roomie when Charlie and I got married in 2007.


I’m looking forward to researching and learning more patterns and their histories. You can visit it here – Vintage Dinnerware.  It is a part of the Vintage Bliss Network.

I’ve always loved Christmas, especially Christmas Trees. When I was growing up in the 1960s, it was always a very special day when my brothers and I were allowed to get out the Christmas Tree lights and change out all the bulbs that no longer worked. (Yes, Christmas Trees had bulbs that screwed in back then.) It meant the beginning of the Christmas season in our home and that we would soon be getting our tree!

We always had a live tree. One year when I was a teenager, my mother got an artificial tree and we put it up and decorated it. The next day she took it down and went and got a live tree. I have always had a live tree as my “main” Christmas tree.

When I was in college, I read an article in the local newspaper about a lady who loved Christmas trees so much she put one in every room. Each tree had a different theme, including a tree with ornaments from all of the places she had visited. I was so inspired and knew than that my future plans included a tree in every room.

Through the years I gradually added more and more trees as I gradually had bigger dwellings. Last year was the all time high, we had 16 Christmas trees. I didn’t put them all up this year, I got a late start and only have 12 this year. I almost always vary what I put up and where from year to year.

Last year I took some very nice photos of my trees and thought I would share them with you.  The picture above is of our main tree in our family room.  It doesn’t have a “theme” – but contains ornaments collected over the years. I have an ornament from the 1950s that was once on my parent’s tree, ornaments my daughter bought home from a trip to Europe (I have taught her to get an ornament every where you visit when you are traveling!) and many, many others – they are all very special to me!

This picture to  is my Barbie Christmas tree.  I either have it in my office or bedroom.  Luckily my husband is very understanding of a sparkly pink girly tree!  In addition to Barbie Christmas Ornaments, I use pink lights and other sparkly, girly ornaments I have collected – shoes, pink poodles – even a tiara.

To the right is our front door. You can see the two small trees outside. The large tree in the window is in the dining room. It is our “angel tree” – it is decorated with angel ornaments, mostly in cream and gold. Here is a better picture:
You can also see the two small trees we have inside on either side of the front door.

Also in the dining room (on the other side), I have two matching trees decorated in burgundy and gold.  I just love my dining room – last year we redecorated it and now I have a beautiful place to display my Depression Glass and other glass and dishes that I have collected.

This is my Foyer Christmas Tree, looking into the Dining Room. It is decorated in silver and purple.

In addition to these, I always have a small tree in my kitchen with miniature ornaments I have collected over the years.  Last year we had a Santa Claus tree in the breakfast room, but we did some rearranging and don’t have the space for it this year.

I also have a snoopy tree this year in our office and we are really enjoying it and I have a really pretty and elegant gold tree in my guest bathroom.

I think I have maxed out on where I can have trees, but I will always continue to upgrade them and add new things every year.

Thank you for allowing me to share my home with you and I wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas filled with love and joy and laughter!  Here’s to a wonderful holiday and a happy, healthy and prosperous 2012!

The BEST SBI! promotion of the year – Good through December 25 at midnight, buy one-get one free!  The first site becomes active immediately – you have 9 months to activate the second site.  You can also give one site as a gift, or split the purchase with someone and each get a site for half-price.  This promotion generally only happens once a year.  Here is your chance for the best business building program available.

What is SBI!?  It is everything you need to build an online business – the instructions and all the tools.  It is designed so the average person with no computer experience can learn how to build a successful website that generates revenue.  There are many different methods you can use to earn money for your site and SBI teaches you about all of them, so you can decide what is the best for you.

They have a 10-day action guide that takes you step-by-step from deciding what to make your site about to how to make an income.   The coolest thing is you can build a website that earns you money on a topic you already know and love.  My most successful website is about Vintage Barbie dolls – something I collected for years.

My entire life I wanted to be able to work from home, self-employed, doing my own thing.  I searched for the solution for over 20 years.  When the internet and eBay came into the picture, I knew I could make money (and I did), but eBay is hard work and although you can make money, you aren’t building a buisness that will work for you.  Everyday you have to find stuff to sell, list, pack, ship, over and over and over again.  (If you’re interested, check out  Why SBI! is better than eBay)

Before SBI I sold Vintage Barbie Dolls and clothing on eBay – now instead of paying eBay, they pay me and I like that much better!  Also, I can not even touch my websites for weeks and they still earn money – it goes without saying that if you didn’t work eBay for two weeks you couldn’t make any money!

I give thanks for SiteBuildIt everyday.  It taught me how to get the freedom I’ve always wanted.  In less than three years I was able to walk away from a very well paying job and the first year after that I doubled what I had been making.  
(You can ready my story here – My Success Story – What a Long, Strange Trip it’s Been -
It is the same story that is featured here – Today is the first day of the rest of your life)

SBI! isn’t for everyone, but for many of us it has allowed us to make our dreams come true!  If you want to learn more, visit SBI! – Build An e-BUSINESS, or check them out on Facebook.

I’m excited to let you know about my latest project, Vintage Bliss Network.  Anyone who knows even a little bit about me, knows of my love for all things vintage!

It all started about 15 years ago.  My daughter discovered Barbie and I think I loved that Barbie more than she did.  I started researching Barbie and ended up on eBay and discovered the amazing world of Vintage Barbie.  I was hooked from my first purchase.

I lived in a large metropolitan area wt the time and I began to scour my local antique stores and flea markets for vintage Barbie items.  I never did find any Barbie items, ever.  But I discovered so many other treasures – depression glass, vintage jewelry and a myriad of other treasures.  I loved them all and had an insatiable desire to learn about them.  I was fascinated by why some things were considered so valuable and others were not.  I wanted to know about the items, when they were made, who made them, where were they sold…

Over the course of several years, I sold over 10,000 vintage Barbie items on eBay.  In 2006, when I decided to learn how to build websites, I wanted to build the ultimate, definitive Vintage Barbie site and I started Fashion Doll Guide.  It now has well over 1,000 pages and many, many more to go.

My second greatest love is glassware.   My mother has always loved and collected glass and I love it as well.  Glassware is a much bigger topic than Barbie, but I also wanted a vintage glassware website, focusing on Depression Glass, so I started SuzieMax Depression Glass in 2007.

I have played around with some other vintage themed sites and I finally decided to bite the bullet and get them all up and moving forward.  I have spent the last week working nonstop to move sites around, to reorganize and to get ready to move forward with them.  Finally, I organized them all into the Vintage Bliss Network - it is the hub, or the mother-ship for all of them.  As I move forward, I will be creating more smaller vintage sites.  There is an unfilled need online for well organized information about many vintage collectibles.

In addition to Fashion Doll  and SuzieMax Depression Glass, the network of sites also includes Vintage Bliss Vintage Dolls, Vintage Jewelry Guide, Vintage Cookie Jars and Vintage Perfume Bottles.   I had tried to combine all of these together, but I like having them separated much better as they are all small, but very well defined niches.

From a website building standpoint, I am using SiteBuildIt for my Barbie and Depression Glass sites.  I am using WordPress with the Thesis theme and the phpBay plugin for the smaller sites.

Those who know me, also know that I am as passionate about beauty, skincare, makeup and fashion as I am about vintage items.  So yes, there is a Beauty Network in the works.  Stay tuned…

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Last year I discovered the most wonderful sheets in the world! They are called microfleece and they are the softest, warmest, coziest things in the world.

Last fall I got a set for myself. I loved them – they are just so wonderful to snuggle into on a cool night. I would probably have never ordered them – but there were literally hundreds of positive reviews and raves about them, I had to try them.

I have never been a big fan of regular fleece sheets at all.  I was hoping they would be different.  They were – they are completely different than regular fleece.

I loved them so much, I told my BFF Lynn about them. She got some and loved them just as much.
I got my daughter Katie as set, she loves them.
I got the Christmas colors to use during the holidays.
I decided to get both my mother and mother-in-law some for Christmas. They both loved them. For months after, my mother would tell me how much she loved them whenever I talked to her.
Last year, I bought a total of 7 sets of sheets and 3 comforters.

When the weather got warmer, I sadly packed away my beloved sheets. For several months I have been waiting for the weather to get cooler and have been looking forward to getting them out & using them again. I had even been talking about looking forward to using them.

Finally it got cooler here. I woke up one morning and thought, “today, I am going to get my sheets down, wash them and put them on my bed”. I was really excited. Then I realized I don’t have any of my beloved sheets that will fit my bed! Last spring we upgraded to a king size bed and all my sheets are queen size. I was so disappointed and a little miffed with myself that I didn’t realize this before!

When I told Lynn about this, she told me they love their sheets so much, they have used them year round. Sounds like a good idea to me.

Luckily the comforters I bought still fit, because I did get King Size. The King and Queen sizes are the same price, so I went for the bigger one. It fit more like a bed spread on my queen-size bed, but even on the king size it has more coverage than the one we were using.

So, I ordered my sheets that day, got them about a week later and have been blissfully sleeping snuggled in the cozy, softness.

I got all of mine from Brylane Homes, I have seen them a few other places, but I don’t think you can beat the quality, price and selection anywhere else.  Check out the reviews of these on this site – over 1400 & most are growing.  One thing I read on the reviews is that some microfleece sheet brands have a big problem with lint.  These do not.  If you have someone on your gift list that is hard to buy for, I whole heartily recommend these.  Of course, you need to get yourself a set or two as well.

This is a great Abraham-Hicks conversation on the power of optimism and positive thinking. I have read many times from many different teachers about the one tenth of one percent – which is really incredible if you think about it!

“Do you know what percentage of the population it takes to FEEL optimistic before an upturn that serves the entire planet can begin to manifest? One tenth of one percent. One tenth of one percent, that might even be high. A fraction of the population has to FEEL optimism in spite of conditions before the paradigm shift occurs.
One tenth of one percent – now, most people that wouldn’t mean anything to them because they don’t know about vibrational reality to begin with. But if you could see it as we see it, with all this trouble putting all of this
asking over here in the vortex of creation and just a little bit of the population turning optimistically, which, all it would require is turning your televisions off and you’d be there. Then once the evidence starts happening, then people can point to the evidence.
And then so one tenth of one percent FEELING the optimism without justifiable reason is enough to begin the avalanche of justifiable reason that then the lazier thinkers can just observe, and then around it goes, and
the upswing happens.
And whoever it is that’s predicting these downturns and upturns and what the economical climates are, we PROMISE YOU, is benefiting by what they’ve convinced you to think.”
Abraham-Hicks 2/13/2010

As I was reading this quote, I realized that in our own lives it only takes one – each of us has complete control over our own experience with the power of our thoughts, emotions, expectations and beliefs.

It is literally as simple as this – Feeling good is good for you. Feeling bad is bad for you. Feeling good brings good life experiences, feeling bad brings bad life experiences. Literally. Really.

I think when we first start learning and understanding these teachings, many of us (including me) don’t really get that it is not some esoteric concept – that it is literal and it is simple.  If your life isn’t going exactly as you would like, it is because of something YOU are doing.  It’s not the economy, your parents, your boss, your spouse.  IT’S YOU!!  ALL of that will change when you change.

The greatest gift you can give yourself is to make peace internally with everything in your life – just let it go.  LET IT GO.

Here is my tip for letting it go.  We have been taught that it takes 68 seconds to “shift” or to give a thought power.  You are paying attention to your feelings, right?  When you realize you are thinking something that doesn’t feel good you want to shift to something that does feel good.  But if it is an active thought, you have probably thought it many times before, so it has some power to it and it isn’t so easy to shift gears.

What works for me is to interject a positive affirmation to interrupt the pattern.  For example, if I am thinking about a relationship that maybe isn’t making me feel so great, as soon as I realize what I am doing I can just start thinking over & over “I declare peace in this relationship”.  Keep thinking it until you feel you have shifted.  Usually within a minute or two you will start to feel better.

If you leave it right there and do that a few times, it will start to shift.  If you can walk it up the scale, even just a little bit, it will be even better.  Even if “this isn’t worthy of my attention” or “I have better things to think about” is better.  Maybe you can even get a “in the grand scheme of things, it really doesn’t matter” or even better.  The higher you can walk it up and feel good the better.

If you do this only once or twice a day, your life will begin to shift.  I promise.

I think the hardest thing in all of this is accepting responsibility for our own experience.  We have been taught the “blame game”.  It is never our fault, right?  As soon as you can accept that your experience is ALWAYS you responsibility, the sooner you can move toward the life of your dreams.  Just don’t beat yourself up over it, ok?  You didn’t know.  Now you do.

My Newest Adventure is called Pariam Labs and it truly is the adventure I never expected to take…

I have been perfectly happy building my websites, creating a life on my terms and making a very comfortable living from my home office. But as we all know, sometimes life has other plans for us.

I have a teenage daughter (who is about to turn 17 – ugh). Several years ago she had a very serious acne problem. I had tried everything I could think of and nothing was clearing it up. I knew part of the problem was non-compliance. At the same time I had also rekindled my interest in natural health and medicine and had been working on a project and researching quite a bit. I came across an idea for a natural acne treatment for my daughter and decided to try it. I ordered all of the ingredients & put it together. Much to my delight, within 3 days her acne was at least 75% cleared. Within a week or so it was almost all gone. This was after years of acne.

The treatment I created is a liquid & all she had to do was spray it on her face twice a day. Now that she is acne free, she just sprays it on every day or two and it prevents breakouts and blackheads.

I have been a Registered Nurse for over 25 years and at my very first job (as an Emergency RN), I was blessed to work with a doctor who taught me so much about natural medicine. He gave me a book on vitamins and taught me how to treat and prevent many health problems with vitamins and other natural products. My daughter has never had an antibiotic in her life – not a single dose. I attribute this to what he taught me.

Anyway, after my daughter’s success with my little concoction, I started using the product and it completely stopped the monthly breakouts I had been having my entire adult life. We also shared the product with our family and friends and they also had wonderful success.

My husband, Charlie, had the brilliant idea that we needed to sell it. I finally told him to sell it if he wanted to, I already had a successful business (my websites) and was not looking for another one. Well, as they say, the rest is history. You can read the complete story here – About Pariam Labs.

We named the product DeMistify Natural Acne Treatment and have created several variations of it to address other problems we had.  So today we have deMistify, Soothing Body Spray and Fungal Treatment Foam.

Although I went into this business almost kicking and screaming, it has been a wonderful learning adventure so far.  These little products are getting rave reviews and we have met some great people and are learning so much about this type of business.  I have been working on the website.  One thing for sure, if I was going to create a product to sell for the sake of selling products, it definitely would NOT be an acne product – talk about competition!  But we know we were blessed with a wonderful product that truly does help people, so we are working to spread the word.

Visit – Pariam Labs, Natural Acne Treatment

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Do you spend more time than is really good for you responding to the current conditions?

Which means you’re letting the current conditions train your vibration.
Think about what that means - if what is is what you focus on and what you focus on is what you practice and what you practice is the frequency that you offer and what you offer is what you get back….

Isn’t it sort of a cycle that you might want to consider breaking?

I’m looking at the thing that I don’t want and I’m getting more of it
So I’m looking at it and getting more of it…
So I’m looking at it and getting more of it…
I’m looking at it and getting more of it…

Is there something missing in the explanation?

“I see this thing I do not want and the more I look at it the more I get of it so I think I will look at it some more” 

And we say the thing that is missing is you have forgotten that
you get what you think about
you get what you feel about
you get what you practice yourself into vibrational accord with.

We know it’s much easier to keep thinking a thought you’ve been thinking.
We watch you.
We have offered blocks of thought to Esther for many, many years watching her find new words that match those blocks of thought
In order to help you, from the inside out, reorient yourself in this time/space reality because you become so accustomed to feeling the same way that you always felt when a certain condition or word or conversation is offered to you.

Abraham-Hicks

I just read this quote from Abraham-Hicks’s Vortex:

Trying less hard actually accomplishes more.

This is absolutely true.  I’m one of those laid-back easy going people and I know I drive some people crazy.  I don’t care.  At all.

I have always been pretty much that way, but through the years it has gotten more pronounced as I have grown. For the most part, I simply won’t do something that I am not inspired to do.

Is that because I am “spiritually advanced”?  No – it is because I LEARNED IT THE HARD WAY!!!  Unfortunately that seems to be how we learn just about everything – especially before we get “tuned in, tapped in and turned on” as Abraham used to say.

Now I try to do everything by my gut feelings and let inspiration lead me down my path.  It works pretty good.  It doesn’t work out so good for people that want me to do it NOW.

Not too long ago my 16 year old daughter asked me about this – she said that I always say go with your feelings – listen to your gut and your emotions.  She said she always gets it “wrong” when she tries to do that.  I explained to her that you have to learn what your gut sounds like.  I think for most of us, unfortunately, we have to have some of those “Ugh – I KNEW I shouldn’t have done that” moments!  But we can use those burnt fingers to teach us a lesson.  How did we know we shouldn’t have done that?  What kind of feeling was it?  Where did it come from? As many teachers teach us, as we start to honor and act on those feelings, they become easier and easier to distinguish.  Really, they do.

Sometimes you have to make a decision and you don’t have a gut feeling about it.  Try getting quiet and thinking about both options.  If it is a choice between two things, or courses of action, relax and mentally carry out both possible courses of action.  Notice how do they feel?  Does one feel better than the other?  Does one of them offer an easy “next logical step” from where you are?  Mentally carry them both out to their logical conclusion.  Do you like where they take you?  How does it feel?  Which one feels better?  Which one feels right?  If you don’t have a clear answer, don’t take action yet.  Wait.  Wait until you know what the answer is.  Let it come to you.  It will as soon as you get out of your own way.

I’m currently reading “This Thing Called You”, written by Ernest Holmes in 1948 and just came across this gem:

The thing that stands between you and the greater good is a thing of thought and nothing else. It is NOT reality that you must change, but your mental reaction to it.

Can the message be any clearer? If you think about it, we have been taught backwards & have been “doing it” backwards for eons.

We think cause & effect, right? But we think the cause is the effect and the effect is the cause.

For example, when something good happens to you, you feel happy. When something bad happens to you you feel angry, sad, depressed, or all of the above. We see the event as the cause and the emotion as the effect.

But there is a CAUSE to the event in the first place. The cause is the Law of Attraction responding to what you have been sending out – good, bad or indifferent, doesn’t matter.

I recently thought about the book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and reviewed the 7 habits. The first one is to be proactive. When I first read this book in the early 1990s, to me, being proactive meant to prevent problems before they happen. It involved taking preventive action now to avoid having to “fix” something in the future and it was very helpful to me.

Now I realize that it is even more important to be Proactive with our thoughts and emotions. See, if you didn’t have those negative thoughts & feelings, you wouldn’t have that bad thing happen to you. And when you respond negatively to a negative event, guess what? Yep, you’re just ordering up more of it from the Universe via the Law of Attraction.

When something – good or bad – happens in your reality, it is feedback from the Universe on where you have been vibrationally, emotionally. You can either continue to respond the same way and keep getting what you are getting, or you can be proactive and change your thoughts.

Here are three of my favorite quotes that relate to this:

•  ”Change your thinking, change your life”
• “If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you will keep getting what you have always gotten”
• “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Albert Einstein

It sounds so simple doesn’t it? Everyone makes it sound SO easy – oh just change your thoughts and be happy and everything will be rainbows & unicorns! It is simple, but it isn’t easy. It can take a while. It takes baby steps and it is kind of like peeling an onion, once you get one layer off, there is another layer.

The good news is that just a little bit of “positive thinking” and unconditional happiness will shift your life enough for you to see that it works. Then just keep working on it a little bit everyday and before you know it you will be living the life of your dreams!!

You can start right now by deciding to be happy.  Decide NOT to let outside events or people be the “cause” of your happiness or unhappiness.  Be proactive.  Don’t let outside people and events dictate your happiness. Practice unconditional happiness every day and your life will soar!