A Day Filled With Pretties

We are in the process of packing up my grandparents' house and it is quite an ordeal. I've never been a part of cleaning and going through someone's (or in this case, two people's) lives. There is so much of everything, from little collections to a pantry filled with more than one extra....of everything.

Something I never appreciated (or maybe even noticed) when I was younger, was how pretty everything at my grandparents' house was. My Grandma Shirley loved decorating her home and as we boxed things up, I just loved all the pretties we found around the house.

I love my grandparents' china, given to them by my Grandma Shirley's parents, Syd and Jean. It is Royal Doulton china from Enland. (They were English.) The stemware was given to them by my Papa Don's parents, Pearl and Jacob.

One of the many collections on display in the house that we packed up was of hair receivers. These were used back in the day (Victorian times until about the 1950's) for locks of hair. As hair was combed daily, locks were placed in the receivers and saved to make ratts, which were balls of hair used to make the poofs you see in many Victorian hair-dos. If you would like to know more (and see pictures of these hair-dos), you can read about them here.

My grandmother had 80-90 of these from all over the world. This is just a small glimpse of the variations, keep in mind, taken on a cell phone camera.

My mom and Auntie Les are picking one or two out they like and then us grandkids get to pick out one we like before we sell the rest. I hope I get this one! It's my favorite.

In addition to the hair receivers, my grandmother collected teacups. Here is one of my favorites!

And now, to move along, away from all the pretty breakables to just things that made their house so pretty.

I just think the way she has everything positioned is perfect. It looks so charming. [Apologies for the poor photo quality.]

These are simple additions to the bathroom from Pier 1 (who knows how long ago) that give the bathroom that something extra.

The combination of precious baby dress with the wire heart hanger makes me smile every time I am in this room.

Okay, possibly probably out of place in this post, but I couldn't resist just loving this. Old school. 88 cups!

Despite all the emotions of cleaning out my grandparents' house, it was still quite delightful finding all the pretties from the life they lived.