I learned to sew from my mother who and made most of our clothes and all our doll clothes. She saved a piece of the cloth of everything she made for us and my sister and I are now cutting all those pieces into squares for a couple of quilts. We laugh ourselves to tears in the process. We were all in 4-H. We also sewed in home ec. Now, however, we would never be able to have machines at the middle school level due to parents' safety concerns, but the home ec teacher still teaches kids to sew by hand. They make stuffed animals and do cross stitch. I teach my 6th grade art students to weave, and we all make woven bags with twisted cord straps. That being said, things that we learned at home are no longer common. I am no longer amazed by how many kids don't know what their clothes are made out of, or have absolutely no idea how to thread a needle (that pointy thingy), they don't know yarn from string, they have never heard the word "stitch" and it is not unusual to have one not know how to tie a knot (velcro shoes you know). Before I started teaching I would have never imagined I'd have to demonstrate to my classes how to take the end of a piece of yarn and start rolling it into a ball, but now I do it all the time. Amazing. Bravo to you all who make stuff with your kids - I suspect you read to them to!

I agree: if you love it, hang it and enjoy it. trailrunner, we have an oil in the same, naive style as yours. Ours evokes the same happy feeling that I get when looking at your piece. In ours, there's a black family sitting on the front porch of their house. The bit of house you can see shows that it's sided with asbestos shingles. The family members are playing instruments, including a guitar, harmonica, and a washtub that's being struck with a wooden spoon. The family dog sits at the bottom of the steps, enjoying the concert. We were at a street fair, and a man was selling posters of his wife's oils, including one of this piece. I fell in love with it - so we went to their home, where we bought the original oil. Anyway, back to the OP - kahlanne, congrats on your haul! Isn't it great when you find art you love at great prices?

I have thoroughly enjoyed browsing all the photos and reading the stories of your collections here. Such beautiful pieces and wonderful, touching stories. To see most of mine, you'd think my home was full of antiques, which is far from the real deal, but these seem to be most of my most interesting non-art things. However, some of you have given me some ideas for things I could do in the future with things I have stored! This is a small collection of silver vases, albeit in need of some polish right now. My collection of miniature tea sets. This started with my aunt giving me her much-used Mickey Mouse set she had used back in the 30's as a child and a then-new set when I was about 8-years old (the blue and white delft set). The rest is a mix of old and new I picked up along the way as an adult. I also have a lot of old hankies that belonged to my grandmother and great-grandmother, and yes I use them at weddings and funerals. They made some of them, including the tatting on the edges. Gallery hallway of family photos (old and new) To honor our home states (Alabama and Ohio) I started looking for old maps of our states and regions. This is one of Alabama and of the Eastern US in our breakfast room. The next one is an Agricultural map of Ohio. I think I've posted enough. Thanks for viewing. BTW, those clocks are awesome! And I adore that mirror, and I can't say enough about that belly cast!

I am having the similar issues with this as well. I tend to draw and paint things that we think is funny or something we both like. I've been seeing so many nude paintings but with warm or cool colors that do not match skin tone and honestly I quite like them. I wanted to do a nude of my husband and I together to hang in our bedroom or our living room. The only thing is, I have a 4 year old sister and he has a 10 & 12 year old brother(12)/sister(10). I just don't want to be caught in the middle of having a birds & bees TYPE of talk with them. But at the same time, its natural and it won't be us doing anything, it will just be kind of a symbol of our raw naked love for each other and would be just embracing or sitting with each other (no faces....maybe). Idk I'm kind of on the fence.