Heirloom Party

Marie from Emma Calls Me Mama is hosting an Heirloom Party today.

Yup, I've got some of those. I inherited my grandmother Hattie's china and my grandmother Mary's dining room table.

While I enjoy those big ticket items, I am most sentimental about some other smaller things. I have found that it's the ordinary things that mean the most. When my Grandma Mary died my Aunt Jean wanted one of her lipsticks. Revlon's Cherries in the Snow. That lipstick is an heirloom now.

Along those lines, this is one of my favorite heirlooms.


When I was young, maybe six or seven, my Grandma Hattie started asking relatives to "put their names on things." It was kind of creepy. Eventually all her stuff had someone's name on the bottom of it. It kind of scared me. She said she did it to prevent any problems later on. She also said she wouldn't know what things really meant something to us. Fortunately, she lived until I was in my twenties. At some point I talked to her about it and told her that what I really wanted more than anything was this cigar plate.

It hung on her dining room wall in the old house and I can remember thinking it was so beautiful and cool that someone made that. I also loved that she looked like an old fashioned china doll. I think it was hard to believe that my grandmother was once so small.

I (thankfully) don't know a single person who smokes cigars anymore which makes the labels all the more charming. I believe the plate is about a hundred years old. Now that's a craft with some staying power. All you Modge Podgers- you just never know!