Good news / Bad news

Well, I have some bad news and some good news.  Bad for ME.  GOOD for you.  The bad news first.  This is what the passenger side of my car now looks like:

It actually looks a lot WORSE in person.  You can’t really see how DEEP the dent is in the photo.  It’s deep enough that I can’t open that door anymore.  I’m fine.  My car, notsomuch!   Thanks to another driver in a parking lot who ‘saw me but thought I was going to let him to go by’, even though he had a STOP sign and I had the right of way.

Currently dealing with insurance and just waiting to hear what they decide.  Here’s the ‘back story’.  The ‘Cruiser’ is 15 years old and has served me well for the past 7 years.  I definitely ‘got my money’s worth’ out if it.  Because it’s got such a low resale value at this point, it was futile for me to have full coverage on it anymore; and most likely it is going to be deemed ‘totaled’.  And while I knew the day was coming, in the not too distant future, that I was going to have to replace it, I really can’t afford to do so just yet.  I was really hoping to get at least another year out of it.  It’s still driveable, but isn’t going to be worth squat as a trade in.  sigh.

So, what’s the GOOD news?
The good news is that because I need to drum up considerably more funds to replace my vehicle, I’m having a 50% off sale in my booths at Stars.

Look for these red and white ‘50% OFF’ coupons in both of my booths.  You have to have a coupon to get the discount.  The discount is good for everything you purchase from my booths, through May 31, 2019.  After that, I’ll be extending the sale ‘as needed’, until I have enough to replace the Cruiser.

You can also print a coupon directly from the Stars website.   The coupon on the site will look a little different than the ones I printed on my PC, but the offer is the same.

I was just in Stars yesterday, rearranging and restocking, so there is a huge variety and selection of goods awaiting your shopping, and SAVING, pleasure!  And IF there is something that you have seen in my booth in the past and always coveted, but don’t see there just now; feel free to ASK ME!  It might just be something that I pulled and took home when I changed out inventory.  I’ll be happy to take it back in for you; and even have them HOLD it ‘just for you’ at the front desk.

Time for pictures!

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As you can see, both booths are jam-packed with goods.  I will continue to bring in MORE stock every week.   I’ll be making more and resupplying the coupons too.  IF, for some reason you can’t locate a coupon while you are there; ask them to CALL ME, and I will give them a verbal okay for your 50% discount.

So, come and get it while the gettin’s are half off!!

Stars is open 7 days a week; 11am – 6pm.

Every Husband’s Nightmare Spring Show

The show opens tonight for preview, from 5-8pm with a $3.00 donation.  The rest of the week, admission is FREE.  Parking is always free.  Now that the old exhibition hall has been demolished, the show is in the Cloverleaf Building, at the back of the fair complex.  Tuesday – Friday hours are 10am-8pm.  Saturday. 10am – 5pm.

I delivered MANY boxes and bins and old suitcases filled with inventory!  Turning that, into this:

I brought mostly farmhouse rustic decor to the show this year.  Including lots of crates and trays made from upcycled old weathered fencing:

Decorative shutters and shadow boxes too.

My items will be very easy to find.  Most of my product is displayed on the tables directly to the left after you enter the building.

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I didn’t make the weathered wood potting benches, but they are pretty fabulous!  Great for indoor decor use or outdoor garden work!  Those dried hydrangea are from my garden.

I brought quite a bit of Paris chic decor too.

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The rest of the displays were still ‘in progress’ when I left, so I didn’t get pictures of the rest of it.  Lots of great spring home decor and Mother’s Day gifts, vintage, hand-made and upcycled goods.

Hippity – hoppity . . . Easter’s on it’s way!

We had an amazing break in our winter weather last week that made me SO ready for Spring!  Our winter weather arrived late (February!) but hit HARD; as did my cabin fever.  Putting out the Spring and Easter product in my booths at Stars has really got me in the mood for ‘play outside weather’.

Since I’ve got the beach decor in my big booth, I put the Spring/Easter product in my wall space.  (Pardon that red bucket in the left corner.  It’s an OLD building and occasionally the roof leaks.)

Some cute vintage chicks and bunnies.  Ostrich sized faux eggs covered with vintage buttons.   Milk glass is great for using with your spring decor!

Vintage bell jars with hand shredded vintage book page ‘grass’ and gold leaf eggs.

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Custom blend of pink and gold paper shred to go with the packaged gold leaf and pink little eggs in the pink basket on the right.  Turquoise glitter eggs too.

More unique eggs for your spring display.  These are covered with ‘Paris’ themed paper.

Hand stitched felt eggs, embellished with vintage buttons and baby rick rack.

Gallon size mercantile jars filled with moss, nests and eggs.  Smaller jars with straw and eggs.  Big vase with nest and eggs under black wire cloche.

Cute mini take out boxes in Spring colors are perfect for filling with sweets to give to your friends at Easter Brunch.  Decorative faux cupcakes.

Plenty of cake and cupcake stands.  These are so versatile for use in your seasonal tablescapes for adding height and dimension.

Upcycled journals.

Reproduction vintage style chicks from an estate sale.  I gave them lace crowns and nestled them into some cozy nests.

Hand painted faux eggs in turquoise ceramic pots and buckets.

LOTS of new frames, big and small, just stocked.

LOVE this reproduction Gothic arched window pane.  I’m still on the fence about selling it.  It just might come home with me on my next trip!

Vintage white shutter with handcrafted twiggy wreath.

Youth size white rocking chair.  Vintage wash bowl and pitcher.

One of a kind little upcycled suitcase end table with ‘hairpin’ metal legs.

Black occasional tables.  The bottom one is distressed oak, the top one with  the scalloped apron and curvy legs is a satin finish.  Will be removing all the darker furniture in the not too distant future; replacing it with lighter colors for Spring and Summer.

Not quite matching pair of vintage canning jar lamps.  The jars are the same size but different brands.  The shades are the same color, but slightly different shapes.  Each sold separately; $29.00.

Vintage jewelry box with seashell motif paper.

Assorted crates and carriers; perfect for use with your spring decor.

Stars is open seven days a week; 11am – 6pm.

 

“Happily Ever After” ~ New wall space display.

Sorry that it has taken me so long to get the new booth display posted.  Been dealing with a LOT of things all at once.  Finally feeling settled enough to get caught up on my blog.

The theme for May is “Happily Ever After”.  Wedding decor.  Mostly whites with touches of gold, silver, pale pink and blue.  LOTS of vintage milk glass.

Here are some of the major elements that might be a little hard to see once they are filled with displayed smalls.  Lots of shabby white tables and shelves.

Some of the hand crafted elements.  ‘Happily Ever After’ banners made using vintage sheet music and book pages.  Bride to be crowns.  Vintage paper feathers.  Hand stitched vintage lace and felt hearts.

Vintage shabby white candelabras and metal filigree lanterns.

Most of the small shelves can be wall hung OR set on a flat surface.

I couldn’t fit ALL the milk glass and cake stands in the wall booth.  Lots more to explore in my bigger booth.

As always, aqua and turquoise.  Vintage chenille spread and coverlet.  Little aqua stuffed hearts made from vintage chenille cutter spread.  Trugs with vintage wood legs as handles, and pretty dessert stands.

Front view of my big booth.

As much of what was leftover from last months booth display as I could fit, has been moved over to my bit booth.  Bird nests, jars of eggs and moss, jars of natural elements, bark, moss, dried flowers and pods.  Some of the burlap items.

And lots of the assorted galvanized stuff.  Including that cute 12 hole cubby shelf!!

Changing things up a bit

Not quite two weeks in, and I’ve already rearranged my new wall space.

This is how I had it set up originally.  I absolutely LOVE using a ladder, opened up and filled with product; but I really NEED to sell that ladder.  So I decided to re-work the space and lean the ladder, folded, against the wall; making it easier for someone to purchase.

This is how it looks after the rearrange.  I added the black metal table on the far left, and the vintage metal bar stool.  Everything else was just moved a little.

Side by side comparison.  To compensate for the loss of the vertical display space on the ladder, I hung a few things on the wall at the top of the space.

Galvanized cubby shelf and canisters.  Little metal ‘file basket’ set on its side with stack of grubby books and electric candle.

Close up of display on top of cubby shelf.  Those little baby food jars contain some moss and hand painted tiny faux bird eggs.

Wall space just above the cubby shelf, a wire basket hung on its side to function as a shelf.  Vintage repro tin tiles that I upcycled into memo boards, a bundle of grubby books and a couple of old whisk brooms in a small tin flower bucket on the ‘shelf’.  The little wash board ‘memo board’ has clothespins backed with magnets to hold memos.

A couple more baskets hung to use as shelves above the burlap curtains.

Perfectly grubby industrial style vintage metal stool.

I was HOPING to have enough room to open up this little step-ladder.  That didn’t happen, but I was able to move it closer to the front where it’s more visible and accessible to shoppers.

With the ladder folded up, it’s more difficult to display items on it.  This metal basket tucked into the ladder just perfectly!  Tight enough to not fall out, but loose enough to easily remove.  It was a perfect spot for some garden signs.  The rusty wire baskets I had, fit nicely in the two rungs below this.  Rolls of chicken wire filled one.

A trug on top of a trug.

Trying to make the various trugs more visible, moving them to the front edge of the space.

Here you can better see the other baskets on the ladder rungs.  Big rusty and metal urn, stacked with assorted other vintage buckets and baskets.

And a few new things in my big booth!

Adding some more Spring things

Out with the Easter decor and in with the Spring.  Here’s what’s new in my ‘big booth’ at Stars:

Jars of nests and eggs, jars of moss and bird cages.

This shabby white cubby is $68.oo, and includes the hardware for hanging it on the wall.

Making the most of every inch of display space; an old crate on top of the shelf gives me a little more room.  Shabby wood bird-cage and dessert stand with cloche top underneath the table that the shelf is sitting on.  More jars, big and small, of nests and eggs to the right.

Another little grouping on the back side of the table.

Very cool glass cake stand with extra deep lid.

Vintage, upcycled ‘breakfast in bed’ tray.

Tall glass cloches are perfect for showcasing childhood tap shoes and ballet slippers.

Moved a few things around in Sophie’s Annex.

Stop by for some spring decor inspiration for decorating and organizing.  LOTS of unique baskets, trays, containers and crates for making organization fun and pretty!

 

 

Sophie’s Annex Premier Display

Got my additional 2’x8′ wall space at Stars all set up yesterday.  It’s very difficult to take good pictures because of spatial limitations.  There is simply not enough room in that back aisle for me to step back far enough to take a good picture of the entire booth.

This is the little sign that I made explaining that there will be an entirely new theme displayed in the space every month.  This first display is kind of a mixture of farmhouse, galvanized stuff and garden-ish things.  May’s theme will be ‘Happily Ever After’.

This picture makes it look even smaller than it actually IS!  The purple border on the floor outlines my space; and the shutter door on the right hand side, which I put up to divide my space from the one next to me.  The big ladder is not a terribly effective use for this limited space, but it works so well with all the baskets et all.  The ladder IS for sale.

This is as far back as I can go to take a picture, but you get the idea.

This is what all is displayed on the ladder.

BIG jar filled with dried hydrangea (from my garden!) on galvanized metal tray.

Jar of assorted dried botanicals, another galvanized tray (I have three of them the same size) The metal bird-cage thingys on a pedestal are supposed to be for candles.  I put some mini glitter chandeliers in them.

Burlap curtains, valance and cafe.  I’ve had these curtains forEVER, but have never HUNG them to display them.  There are more of the curtains in bundles right beneath the hanging ones.

Hand crafted paper wreaths and small olive buckets with pale blue rims.  I also have some olive buckets with red rims.

Cloche with wood base is filled with three nests.  Glass jar is filled with assorted moss and bark, gathered from my yard.  I have LOTS more of the nest, egg and botanical items; just no room for them yet.  Will be adding more to my big booth after Easter; and as room becomes available in this space.

One of the several garden trugs available sitting atop a small grubby step-ladder.  Those are big burlap bags in the rusty basket under the ladder.

Another trug, vintage canning jars, that third square galvanized tray, a nest with eggs and a bird skeleton; stack of buckets behind the bird.  Under the trug is an old rolling mop bucket that I upcycled into a storage bucket with a padded seat.  The seat lifts off to store things inside.

Big olive bucket and awesome long narrow galvanized trough.  Burlap pillow cases in the shabby metal urn to the right.

There’s the aforementioned red rimmed olive buckets!  A cute little glass and galvanized house and electric grubby candle.  Three more garden trugs under all that, and an old tool tray on the right.

I’ve got LOTS of these rusty wire mesh baskets.  Galvanized storage box with blue lid inside.

Stack of buckets, vintage and upcycled.

Remember, this ALL GOES AWAY the end of April.

 

WHERE is Spring???

Ready for Spring!

I am SO ready for spring sunshine!  We had a couple of sunny ‘teaser days’ in January, and a gorgeous sunny and warm weekend last weekend . . . . the rest of the time . . .  rain . . . and MORE rain!  sigh.  Spring.  Spring.  Where art thou?

Although we haven’t had much in the way of spring weather thus far, I have been diligently working on new spring inventory; for my booth at Stars and the upcoming “Every Husband’s Nightmare Bazaar” in April.

Here’s a sneak peek at what I’ve been working on.

I’m really liking neutral tones this year.  And big jars of stuff.  Dried hydrangea, dried white pepper berries, assorted dried botanicals and assorted shells.

Jars of spools and balls of yarns and BIG vintage spools of neutral color yarns.

And nests with eggs . . . . this set of three eggs with wood base and cloche top will be sold as a set.

Natural moss, bark and twigs (from my yard!) in a vintage apothecary jar with a little nest.

Big mercantile jar with lid and three nests; being sold as a set.

It’s hard to tell from the pictures, but this jar also has three nests in it, each facing a different direction in the jar; moss on top of all the nests.

Small vintage bell jars with moss, nests, eggs and twigs.

Another ‘beach scape’ jar.  This jar is an old fish bowl.  This lid was from a big 2 gallon glass jar that I BROKE at my last show.  I decided to hang on to the lid, ‘just in case’ I came across another such jar when I’m out thrifting that was missing a lid.  Turned out, it fit this fish bowl perfectly.  The little sand castle was just a white plaster one that I covered with sand.

Just nests.  To give them a little ‘oomph’, I glued them to a big piece of bark.  Tied a little ‘nest’ tag onto some of them; added feathers to some.

More ‘just nests’.  These with super tiny speckled eggs.   See the comparison photo with the nest on bark for egg size.

Assorted vintage containers with various eggs and nests.  The eggs in the tallest jar are ‘chicken egg’ size.

More of what I call the ‘mercantile’ jars; this time with bigger nests and ‘chicken’ size eggs in them; ‘nest’ tags and vintage keys tied to the lids.

Finally ran out of nests and had to start just using the assorted mosses and excelsior that I had on hand for fluff.

Assorted vintage jars with moss and eggs.  I GLUED the eggs to the moss to prevent then from ‘disappearing’.

Using up whatever containers I happen to have on hand for the eggs and nests.  These metal candle stands were perfect ‘little nest’ size!  The darker nest is a ‘purchased pre-made’ nest; the other, a hand-made moss one.

I don’t remember where I got these cute little canning style jars, but they were perfect for a tuft of moss and three little eggs.

LOVE these little apothecary style jars.  They are TINY.   Barely big enough for 2 of the tiny eggs.

I don’t even know what the original use for these metal tins is?!?!  I used to always use them for grubby primitive candles and ‘fixins’.  had a few leftover from my primitive days and decided to put nests in them.  These pictures show a good size comparison of the small vs. chicken size eggs.

For those whom already have containers or cloches and just want to buy the nest, I did a few even without the added bark.  The larger white eggs in this picture are plastic eggs that came in the nests when i bought them.  The other eggs are ‘styrofoamish’ stuff that I hand painted.   All eggs are glued in place.

Close-ups of eggs.

I had a LOT of eggs to use up!  I had saved these glass baby food jars from buying baby food meat to make dog biscuits for my grand-puppy.  Spray painted the lids and printed up little ‘specimen #’ tags to glue onto the jars.  Placed one tiny egg and a pinch of moss in each one.

Will be taking some of this to Stars tomorrow.  MORE to Stars next week . . .  along with a BIG SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT.  And the rest to the spring show April 23rd.

 

Mixed Media Bird collages

I found these two wood Easter plaques at Goodwill, but they had come from Target’s Dollar spot.

I like the using ‘box type’ design for making collages.  The sides of these were already colors and designs that I liked and could work with!

I had some pretty new paper napkins with bird eggs on them that I was itchin’ to play with, so I decided on a bird theme for these two plaques.

A few layers of book pages, then the napkin, then a couple more book pages cut into ‘fancy shapes’, then a rectangle from a Chinese magazine and a bird illustration from a bird book.  A quote from a book and of COURSE, a crown!

What do you think of my new photo backdrop?

With all the warm and dry weather we’ve been having I got a few ‘personal’ painting projects done.  One of which was this shelf and the table it sits on.  This ‘shelf’ is actually 1/2 of an old coffee table that was once a display shelf in my booth at Stars.

These are the pictures from ‘back when’ I used them as display shelves in my booth.   I’m now using the half coffee table as  a shelf atop halr of a dining table that is in my ‘office’ (which should be the dining room!)

The lamp has always been in this spot.  I bought it to go with this collection of similarly shaped bottles; which used to be on a shelf in my living room.  I had hoped to figure out a way to display them all together in the living room; but I just couldn’t make it work.  So I settled for this set up; which I like just fine.

And the second collage; styled fairly similarly to the first one.

I extended the napkins over the edges, and they are sheer enough that the original side color and design show through.

This is really my FAVORITE part of them!  hehe

Since the pieces were rectangular in shape, I oriented them in different directions.

They are available for purchase in my booth at Stars.

Sometimes, your answer LITERALLY falls from the sky!

Remember my ‘Yard Debris Wreaths’ from a while back?

I had added the nests and birds ‘as a finishing touch’, but they STILL didn’t feel done.  But I had NO idea what else to do!!  Some of you suggested adding a tag; which I tried – and nixed.  They are so ‘organic’ that the tags looked out-of-place.

The one with the nest AND bird is hanging on my front door, and the one above on the shutter door to a cabinet in my living room.

EVERY time I looked at them, I think: “They STILL need something!”  But I don’t know WHAT!!  sigh.

Then, while I was out working in my yard last week, picking up pine cones from the grass, I came across ONE of the wispy tree twigs that I had used to make the twiggy wreaths a while back.  It was just ONE little branch, and I still have a whole basketful of them leftover in my garage, AND about 15 wreaths already made; so I was just going to toss it into my yard debris bin along withe the pine cones.

Then BAM!!! Major BRAINSTORM!! 

THIS (this little twig that I had in my hand) is exactly what the moss and bark wreaths need!!!!

It’s a very subtle added touch, but just that little ‘something more’ that they needed to feel ‘finished’.

The twigs show up much better in person.  So after I did the one on my front door with the branch I had just picked up in my yard; I went to my stash in the garage to find some to add to the other wreath.

I seriously LOVE these wreaths now!

And I kinda think I like the asymmetry of the second one MORE.

This is what I used to attach the twigs.  First I found the ‘spot’ that I wanted it to originate from and ‘punched a hole’ into the wreath with the point of my scissors.  I squeezed a fair amount of tacky glue into the hole and inserted the thick end of my branch.

Then I ‘played around’ a bit with positioning the wispy branch ends.  When I found the spot I wanted them to stay in, I used the floral pins (shown above) pushed in to hold them down.  It was a little tricky to find a spot that the pins would GO through, between the pieces of bark.  Then I just glued another little piece of moss on top of the pin to disguise it!

Do you agree with me that this was the perfect finishing touch for these wreaths?

Sometimes, your answer LITERALLY does, fall from the sky!