Anniversary Giveaway!

(trumpet fanfare, please)

…Announcing the first ever Noir Girl giveaway…

…in honor of my 100 Day Anniversary!

Noir Girl has now been in existence for almost 100 days, all thanks to the many marvelous readers who frequent this blog.  I am so grateful to each and every one of you for all your kindness, camaraderie and friendship.  I truly enjoy reading and commenting on all your posts.  You inspire me, challenge my thinking and back up my gut reactions.  In a sentence: You guys are wonderful!  It’s so exciting to be a part of the blog community. So, I’ve been plotting how I could say thank you in a more tangible way, and I think I have a pretty good offer.

I made 5 handkerchief sachets that I am going to give away to five lucky readers in the coming weeks.

Fabrics (from left to right): Brown Tooled Suede, Indian Inspired Multicolored Brocade with Gold Overtones, Cream Cotton Calico with Yellow Flowers, Pink Floral Silk Charmeuse, Green Silk Brocade

Lining Fabrics (from left to right): Pink Crinkled Satin, Deep Purple Crinkled Satin, Gold Silk Brocade, Pink Taffeta, Green Silk Brocade

The fabrics for each one are listed above and they all have satin ribbon ties. The Pink Silk Charmeuse sachet is lined with the same pink taffeta from the Vogue Jacket project.  The rest are all fabrics from my stash.

If you’ve never heard of Handkerchief Sachets before, they are small fabric pockets usually made out of luxury fabrics used for keeping a lady’s delicate handkerchiefs safe.  I believe that some may have had lavender and other sweet smelling items hidden somewhere inside to freshen the hankies.  I have a vintage one that lives on my vanity (that’s my vanity above).  The allure for me about handkerchief sachets is the fact that many young women used theirs as hiding places for secret treasures.  I became fascinated with them after watching At Bertram’s Hotel (1987) with Joan Hickson as Miss Marple.  In this made for tv film, there is a scene where Miss Marple is showing her friend some recent purchases:

Miss Marple: Oh, and I also treated myself to a handkerchief sachet.

Lady Selina: Oh, how pretty!

MM: My old one had fallen to bits.  I’d had it ever since I was a girl.

LS: Oh the things I used to hide in my handkerchief sachet! Photographs, love letters, diaries…

MM: Oh, yes!  I once kept a valentine card in mine – for years.  Given me by a young man called Lionel Mattingly.

LS: Romance, Jane? What happened?

MM: Oh, nothing. Mother nipped it in the bud.

LS: You mean you never saw him again?

MM: Oh, indeed yes.  I came across him years later. And of course, Mother was absolutely right.

This can kind of give you an idea, anyway of the feeling I’m trying to tap into with my own versions of the Handkerchief Sachet.

On to the nitty gritty:  This is an open invitation for everyone to participate (International friends included! – don’t worry about the postage).  Feel free to enter if you’ve never commented before, whether you know me or not, or if you just found my blog today.  I want to hear from you!

How to win: Comment on this post and be sure to fill in an email address in the form, so I can contact you when you win. And, specify which sachet you like the best, and I’ll try to give you the one you like.

For the comments, let’s play a little game.  Let’s see if we can write a story, with each comment adding two or three words.  The first words are:

The cool breeze

Take it anywhere you want to go, but let’s refrain from profanities and objectionable content.  Keep it clean.  I’d love to get 100 words – one for each day my blog has been up. When I announce the winners, I’ll post the finished story and we’ll see how we did. :)

I will draw the winners from a vintage hat on April 1, 2009. On that day, I’ll do a post announcing the winners and email each one.

Good luck, my dears!

Anatomy of an Entertainment Center

Our friend Raquelle at Out of the Past issued a challenge to her fellow classic film lovers to give a tour of our entertainment centers to the bloggie world.  One common thread I’ve noticed so far is how we all watch so many films, and obviously spend quite a bit of time in front of our sets, but several of the responders (including myself) are not luxuriating in a huge, plasma flat screen set.  We’re making due with our ancient tellies and finding them completely adequate.

Well, enough of these musings – on to the tour! (btw-I’ll be referring to stuff as “ours” because none of this is actually mine – it belongs to our family.  I have a care taking relationship with all of it, though, so it’s sort of mine.)

Our tv is awfully old. Probably at least ten years.  It’s a Sony and actually it is flat screen.  I’ve tried find reasons to talk myself into getting a new one, but this one works just fine and has no intention of breaking anytime soon.  It lives in a cupboard which hides as much of its ugliness as possible.  (Have you ever noticed how ugly electronics are?   The person who makes electronics visually pleasing will make a fortune.)  Note on the left side – that’s my movie notebook.  On the right side are my Mom’s precious Julia Child DVDs.  They hold that place of honor because they are played a lot in our house. :)

Under the tv is a cupboard with doors that hides the satellite box, dvd/vcr players and part of my enormous, embarrassing collection of VHS tapes (image on the right of TV image).

Here’s a shot of the rest of my VHS collection.  I’m a notorious organizer, so my VHS collection is cataloged.  Each tape has a number, which is recorded in a notebook I keep by the tv.  I write down all the titles on this list, and have an alphabetical version on my computer.  These are my “films worth saving.”  This list has grown and grown and grown – to the point where I have 155 tapes in this library right now.  I think I’m going to adopt Raquelle and Jonas’ method of labeling the side of the box, instead of the front.  It would save tons of space!

My notebook – just a three ring binder that I covered in wallpaper so it would be worthy of what it was meant to hold.  It has my current copy of Now Playing, along with a smaller notebook where I write down each day’s movie recordings.  If I didn’t write it down, I’d never remember to set everything up.

These are my film catalog lists.  The handwritten one is arranged according to the number of the tape.  The typed one is each title arranged in alphabetical order.  Titles in green are Christmas films (a new feature I came up with this year!).  The red ones are films I have on more than one tape – duplicates.

Our DVD collection: it’s scattered around partly for lack of enough space in one area, partly for easy access.  Most of the collection is stored in the huge windowseat in our library. (Yup, we actually have a room in our house called “The Library” – we really do keep all of our books in this room, too.)  The rest of the DVDs are around the tv in smaller cupboards on the sides – organized by genre mostly.  British-made (Agatha Christie’s Poirot, Miss Marple (the ones from the 80s – not those new ones), Danger UXB, Upstairs, Downstairs and Pride & Prejudice, of course), Film Noir, General Classic (The Andy Griffith Show, The Avengers), etc.  You can see our much loved sets of Nero Wolfe DVDs on the shelf.  The show starring Timothy Hutton and Maury Chaykin was fabulous and so underrated!

This is such a fun idea.  Thanks for suggesting it, Raquelle!