Busy, busy, busy!

Weekends are always crazy at our house and this one was no exception. With three kids and so many activities I'm always pressed for time for myself to go shopping and weekends usually make for the best pickin's. This weekend started with an early Saturday morning email from "Two Sister's" who have sales in one of their garages on Bever Ave. They had a sale Saturday morning so Bob and I hopped out of bed and ran into their sale. We scored a few fun finds and hit a few more garage sales in CR before heading back to Mount Vernon for another garage sale. That one was FUN!!! We found great primary color pyrex dishes, Fire-King mugs, Ironstone, a neat old Raggedy Ann game and an older Yahtzee game, fantastic glass light fixture covers, Christmas bulbs in faded silver, aqua blue and perfect shabby pink, a cool vintage typewriter and so much more. We loaded up at that one! I LOVE garage sales. I'll try to get some pictures of our finds on here soon.
Today we worked in our workshop cleaning, organizing and purging. I had some really fun stuff that was perfectly covered in grunge, cobwebs and dust that I'm hoping to do a Halloween display with on my front porch. There are two old mahogany chairs with lions heads and really old faux leather upholstery and they are perfectly covered in just the right amount of grunge to make them so Halloweeny... there's an awesome old cast iron legged bench with spider webs covered in dust, old quilts and coverlets... so many things that could be made into a wonderfully frightful display. I need my friend Barb's (simplyiowa.blogspot.com) help to make it look just right... hopefully she's reading this and wants to come and play. If I ever get it done, I'll be sure to share pictures. Wish me luck!

Vintage Viking CL19 Sewing Machine

I had a request from Michelle for a picture of the vintage Viking sewing machine that I got... Here you go

Fun finds all from one place

We were on our way to our son's football game in LaPorte City the other day and had made arrangements to pick up a washer and dryer that we purchased off craigslist. Well, we were going to be late for the game if we didn't hurry, but the washer and dryer were in Urbana and it just so happened that Urbana was having their city wide garage sales... needless to say, I was having issues with all of those signs and not so much time. I convinced Bob to follow a sign, trailer in tow, down a narrow street in Urbana... not much there but some quarter clothing finds for my pre-teen and a Hollister shirt for myself. I thought for sure that he would pass the next signs we saw and head for the game. I was right, but on the way back to 380 there was a house on the edge of town with a sign and a few promising looking things sitting in the driveway. I couldn't believe it, but he pulled the truck over to the side of the road and actually even got out with me to go check things out. I'm pretty sure he only had the intention of going with me to make sure I hurried my slow little rear end up. He found a few things that interested him and it bought me some time to sort through this womans bizarre assortment of "stuff". I ended up with a vintage Viking sewing machine, a set of 4 1950's era patio table legs, two sides of an old plastic toy rocking horse of sorts that will look really cool as each half mounted on the wall, a cement, lawn ornament hobby horse painted terrible colors with a bad glue job, but he looked lonely and cute. We perused and perused and kept hoping that she had unearthed more... then I saw it! An old tin of buttons with just enough of a tease on the top to make me snatch them up and get myself and the car all dirty because I simply HAD to look through them on the way to the game. There were some beauties! Here's a sampling...







Some of the other things that we found were these great glass "flame" shades and these fun fence finials...

I guess people really do look at my blog!

I had two different people in the shop today that had looked at my website and my blog. One was from Seattle and suggested that I put my address on my blog as she had to sort through my links and websites to find the address for the shop. She came and said she loved it. She said that she and her husband had put 1400 miles into this trip and had been in many, many shops. She said that mine was the best. I LOVE to hear that from people. It totally keeps me going when people like what I do. I thrive on it. I actually need it (so you can all feel free...)
The other lady wanted to see pictures of the new patio set that I put in yesterday. I told her I would put it on my blog and asked her if she knew how to get to my blog and she said "yes". WOW... people actually do check this out. Thanks to all of you so much - I'd love to hear from you. And to the lady who wanted to see the patio set... here you go...




I just had to include a picture of this sweet set of dishes I just got, too. They are absolutely adorable.

The fruits of my Labor Day labor...

I spent the afternoon playing in my framing room. I completed 10 projects and have several others ready to put together. I have hundreds of frames and hundreds of prints and I love putting them together. Last year we finally found a wall mount glass cutter to complete my framing tools. I get lost for hours in this room. It's 8:15pm and dinner is almost ready. I guess someone should have "found" me in there earlier. Sorry for the late dinner kids!

A few of my messes... I mean stashes...

I have LOTS of messes around my yard. I seem to keep things I shouldn't. They sit around and wait for me to get back to them. They are such patient messes.

I have piles of house trim...

I never got around to putting potted plants on this plant stand so it kindly found its own "plant"...

These are the porch posts that came off the house that we moved for my sister... and the steps that originally went to the basement of that house. What should I do with them? They are soooo cool!

This is part of my stash of old doors, windows, siding, lattice, shutters, etc...

I really should get these messes under control, but for today, I think they'll probably just stay where they are, patiently waiting...

My husband the hero!

Well... yesterday was a bit of a test for me at the shop. I had several groups of people in early, but almost all of them walked out empty handed. They all raved about how nice the store was, how organized, how clean, how well displayed, but nothing grabbed a hold of them and asked to be taken home. I was really frustrated and was having trouble trying to find something positive to focus on. The law of attraction is a powerful, powerful thing and I knew that my own attitude and energy was getting in the way. I texted my honey and told him the situation... guess what he said? "remember, it only takes one"... MY HERO! How right he was and usually is. A gal walked in my store and proceeded to remark that she was evidently born in the wrong era as all of the things in front of her were what really spoke to her. She's been in before and I love working with her... she gets it! She bought a wad and the energy shift was complete. We had an awesome afternoon and now I'm so excited to get to go to work again today. Come see me!

New chair at Polly's

Well, I'm headed off to play at the shop again today! I just got these two chairs back from the upholsterer and I think they turned out great! Both have Ralph Lauren fabric on them and they are both really comfy chairs, great for short people, like me! I took two more chairs down to get redone and have a couple more waiting in the wings. I love putting the fabrics together and trying new things. Then when I get them back I get to decorate at the shop around them. I think I'll likely move the smaller one back to "Pudgy's Cottage" (the room with the green and white checkerboard floor). I can change the bedding and maybe even the curtains and work with the wonderful colors in that fabric... soft greens, pinks and lavendar... yum, yum, yum. Better get a move on, lots to do! Hi ho, hi ho... until next time - Pol

How'd I do?

So... I bought this great spice set, but a bunch of the decals were gone, almost gone or not so great. I tried to duplicate the design as close as I could, but I didn't find the font for the lettering so I used something a little different, but still sort of vintage looking. How did I do? The photo shows a mix of decals, but I replaced all of them. I think they look pretty good.





I had a fun day playing at my store today. I set up this little display of a few of my favorite things to share with all of you. These are some of the sorts of things that make this chick tick...

I like vintage baby items, linens, kitchen items, vanity things, pretty plates, sets of dishes, and bedding items... among a million other things. My favorite displays in the shop to make are... setting tables and making beds. I had fun playing house today!