Last Wednesday

I'm a little behind on my blogging. I apologize, but in my defense, I have been busy working on projects. This post is not about that though.

Last Wednesday, Mitzi and I hit the Goodwill bins. Didn't find much. At least not anything blogworthy. After that we went to another Goodwill. Found nothing there. We then headed over to Hippo Hardware for some electrical stuff and I spotted a cool vintage shopping cart which was holding a bunch of random stuff. I asked if it was for sale and the guy basically told me to name my price. I got a great deal on this sweet cart. Really I have no business buying any more as I have a ton of them (if you're new to my blog let me tell you that one of the many things I sell is vintage shopping carts with custom made fabric liners) and I have vowed that I wasn't going to buy any more. So much for that idea.

After going to HH we headed over to Stars Antique Mall where we met up with Karen, Paula and Laurie (Magpie Ethel). If you are not familiar with Laurie, go right now to her blog and say hi. She is the ultimate crafting queen in my book. After we all grabbed a bite to eat, she graciously invited us to have a tour of her home and studio.

Let me start off by saying that Laurie lives in a fabulous neighborhood full of awesome vintage homes and Laurie's home is no exception. Here we are posed in front of her house. (Karen is taking the picture.)
Laurie's home is jam packed full of incredible vintage finds and lovely hand crafted creations that are beautifully and artfully arranged. Her vintage home has so many wonderful nooks and crannies that are just perfect to house her many collections. I'm going to just shut up now and let my pictures do the talking. Hope you have your coffee as this is a long one.

Incredible, right? I just love everything about Laurie's home. I could move right in.

Thanks again, Laurie for inviting us into your Haven. It truly is so very charming and lovely.

On Thursday while running errands with my daughter, I stopped at an antique shop that I hadn't been to in a while. I was thrilled to find this adorable little doll dresser. It was a great price too. Now the dilemma. Do I keep or do I sell?

The projects I referred to at the beginning of this post are just some things I'm working on for Farm Chicks. It's still two months away, but feels like it is getting closer by the minute. By the time it gets here I'm sure you will be bored with me talking about it so much so I will try to limit my posts that have to do with FC. It will be hard as I am getting very excited about going and I have lots of great stuff that I will be taking with me.

Hope you are all having a wonderful Sunday and a very Happy Easter with your friends and family!

Another Road Trip

On Friday, the family and I headed over the mountain to the lovely town of Sisters, Oregon to see my husband's parents. We hadn't been over there since December so we really needed to get over for a visit. We couldn't have picked a lovelier weekend. The weather on Friday was a little crummy, but Saturday and Sunday totally made up for it.

While we were over there, my mother-in-law and I made a little trip over to Redmond to check out the "Just Between Us Girls" Spring Sale. I had never been to one of their sales and was curious to see what it was like. The sale was held on a farm out in the middle of the country. Snow covered mountains surrounding the several vendors booths and lovely, lovely blue sky.

I was so happy to see Julie. She was selling with her friend Marci. I also got to see Betty and her mother-in-law too but unfortunately didn't get a picture of them. I first met Betty at Joy's blog party.

I apologize for my not so great pictures. It was hard to get good ones with so many shadows.





My favorite booth had to be one that belonged to one of the organizers of the show, Lisa. I think this was actually her property. Her space was so charming. Lots of pink, lots of roses, right up my alley.


I was very good and only bought a few items. You can see them here. Oops! Sorry about the shadows.

Cute Italian floral wood plaques and metal hanging thingy from Julie, piece of ticking, fabric covered vanity organizer and cute hand towel.

I would highly recommend this show to anyone who likes shabby, garden, vintagy items. I think they have another one coming up this summer. You can check out Julie's blog for details.

The highlight of the weekend had to be spending time with my family. I have mentioned here in the past the fact that I can't get my kids (13 and 15) to pose for a picture together. On this trip however, they decided to go for a walk together and stole my camera to take a few pictures. When they came back and showed me the pictures, I couldn't have been happier. Here are just a few they took.

My daughter has just recently become interested in photography and my FIL was kind enough to give her all his old camera equipment. I told her if she becomes a famous photographer, she can support her old mom and dad. She didn't think that was the best idea.

Can't believe it's Wednesday already. We have had a couple wonderful days of weather, but I think the rain is coming again. Lots to do this week as usual. Painting outside won't be one of those things, but maybe some sewing projects. Have a great rest of the week!

Keepin it Real/New Projects

Awhile back, Sue was brave enough to show a picture of her garage. Since then I have been toying with the idea of showing you a picture of my garage. I'm kind of embarrassed as it's really awful. A giant mess, really.

Tracey talks about her favorite part of junking here. She, like me, loves the find. That is my absolute most favorite part. Don't get me wrong, I do love transforming my finds into something lovely, but, finding the thing in the first place is what really gets me excited. Unlike Tracey however, I don't bring those special items home and get busy transforming them right away. I sure wish I could/would. So, all those special items that just need a little something extra end up here.

Or here.

This room used to be a lovely sitting room (was supposed to be the formal dining room, but we are definitely not formal people) and free from clutter. Somewhere along the way it became the dumping ground for the stuff I bring home and can't fit into the garage. Usually it's smalls on route to Monticello or upcoming shows, but as you can see, I have some bigger furniture in here as well. And, like the garage, there is some great stuff in here, but most of it just needs some TLC.

My goal, and I have said this out loud to more than one person, is to make a better effort to find things that are ready to sell as is. The problem with that is my budget. Usually, those items cost more and I just don't have the funds to go to an estate sale and say, spend $500 on a bunch of furniture and other items that are ready to be tagged and taken to the mall. So, I look for the bargains and more often than not, they are usually things that need work. Repair, paint, fabric, sometimes all three. In a perfect world I would be more like Tracey and transform my finds before buying any more. But once again, the find is my favorite part. It's my therapy, my bliss.


My husband really is a saint to put up with all my mess. He will even help fix stuff from time to time if I ask real nice. Also important to note, I do work well under pressure and since my next show isn't until June (Farm Chicks) I haven't been as motivated to work on stuff as I would be if I had a show sometime sooner. I always think I have so much time, but when it comes down to the wire, I usually get the stuff I want to get done, done. Of course, that's not to say that if I had been more organized and more motivated, I could have gotten a whole lot more done.


That said, here are couple things I have transformed over the last week.

This is the little bed side table I showed in my last post. It got the creamy paint, shabby treatment and has already been taken to Monticello.

Recovered this little vanity bench. It already had the great creamy chippy paint that I love.

I've had this little cabinet door for several years just hanging out in the garage. I think I bought it with the intention of making it into a sign. Dug out some of my vintage wallpaper, added a little glass knob and voila, instant cute.


Another easy wallpaper project. Got this adorable display cabinet from Diane. It already had the cute black and white stripe paper with vintage receipts that you can see in the background, I just thought the rose paper was more me.

This little shelf I found at the auction and decided it needed to be prettier. It was already painted white so all I had to do was add the wallpaper.

This cabinet came home from the last Expo with me. I gave the whole thing a fresh coat of white paint and added the wallpaper to the side panels.

And finally, this little shelf was a find at the Value Village. It was brown and not too cute, so it got some white paint as well.

Well, that's it for now. I have a couple posts in the works including one about another little road trip I took with my family last weekend. We here in the PNW are experiencing the most lovely spring weather. I couldn't be happier. I even rode my pink cruiser to Home Depot today. What fun!

Monday Update

On Friday I headed over to Monticello, just like I said I would. So glad I did as I found a big mess there. That usually means that stuff sold which is always a good thing. In fact, several things were gone including stuff that had been there quite awhile so I was doing a little happy dance right there in my booth.

I did bring a few new (old) things to restock my booth. Here's just some of the stuff I brought in.

Wallpaper rolls

Vintage folding cottage style chair with needlepoint seat.

Cute cottage style light fixture

Vintage button packs

Sweet chippy metal shelf

and finally, a country blue book shelf

Didn't do a lot on Sat/Sun. Some laundry, read another book, etc. Today (Monday) was the kids first day back to school, so I thought I would celebrate by going to a few nearby thrift stores. Here's what I found.

Cute vintage solid wood bed side table, adorable pink vintage baby book, old letter organizer, green tackle box, lamp shade and the most adorable ladies shoes bookends.Here's a close up. They are a little dirty and at first I passed them up, but went back and got them. They are so sweet and I've never seen anything like them.

A good friend, who shall remain nameless, invited Isabel and I over to shop in her garage on Friday. We were so tickled to be invited to this "private sale." We both found several things including these:

Three pieces of art made with vintage ephemera, a piece of vintage lace, a cast iron key, little kitty, silver card case and fuzzy chenille bees. But, my favorite find has to be this lovely hand painted tray.

That's it for me for now. I have projects galore swimming around in my head and I really need to get focused and get something done. I did make a trip to Home Depot to buy sand paper, paint and some rollers. Now all I need are a few days of nice spring weather and I can get busy. Happy Monday y'all!

A Little Road Trip

As I mentioned on my last post, we were going to take a little road trip last weekend. Long story short, what was going to be a road trip to Boise to see my brother and sister in-law, turned out to be a trip to the Oregon Coast.

If you have been reading my blog awhile, you know that I love the beach. The weather at the coast was quite rainy, but we were able to get out, stroll on the beach, go shopping, hiking, during a few breaks in the weather. The best part was just getting to spend time with my family. Family bonding, if you will.

We stayed two days in a little cottage in Waldport. Very funky and vintage, with a wood burning fireplace of which we took full advantage. I even had time to read a whole book. One of my favorite authors, Adrianna Tigianni just put out a new novel called "Very Valentine." Some of you may remember The Big Stone Gap series. I loved it. Anyway, it was a wonderful read.

Unfortunately,I didn't take any pictures during our trip. Camera battery died/too lazy. But, thanks to the internet, here a few shots for your viewing pleasure.

Cape Cod Cottages, Walport, Oregon

Path from cottage to beach, imagine a clowdy gray sky and a lot of wet. I think I like this image better.

My family was nice enough to indulge me by stopping at several antique stores/malls we happened to find. Unfortunately the getting wasn't great. I only managed to find a few items. Actually, it was a blessing as once again, I'm extremely low on funds. Here's the loot.

lampshade frame, rhinestone bracelet, lace and pair of rhinestone earrings
My hubby did get one sneak attack picture before my battery died. This is my darling daughter and in the background, just above the hood on her jacket, you can just barely catch a glimpse of my adorable son. This picture was taken on our hike around Cape Perpetua.

Cape Perpetua, photo courtesy of the Internet. (Thanks Al Gore for inventing the Internet!)

I need to get over to Monticello soon to clean up my space. The good news is that I have sold a few items that had been there awhile. Now I have room to bring in more stuff. Hopefully if I get my act together I can head over tomorrow with a few things. Maybe hit a few sales/thrift stores along the way? The weather is suppose to be improving a bit. I hope so.

Thanks to all of you who left comments on my last post about my collections. It's fun to know so many of you share many of the same collections as me. I also want to note that Mitzi is right. I did neglect to mention my most favorite collection of all. My wonderfully fabulous friends and family. All the rhinestone brooches in the world could not replace how much they mean to me. I hope you all have truly amazing weekend.