I need motivation!!!

I finally sold my fireplace mantle last week! February in Iowa has taken it's toll on my motivation. The mantle is the first significant piece I've sold this month... that's sort of typical of February, but not this bad. I finally have a blank wall that I can do something with. I've been bringing things into the shop, but nothing has been going out and that makes it really difficult for me to do my thing. I'm looking so forward to bringing up a big wardrobe out of the workshop tomorrow. I spent part of the day today trying to match some really old painting techniques on this wardrobe. It is missing its crown and Bob cut a new one and I tried to make it look better than it did without one. I still have a few more steps before it's finished... hopefully I can get it done quickly in the morning and Bob can haul it upstairs for me to play with. These are a couple of before pictures... I tried to make the crown match the mottled look on the door panels. I know it won't look perfect, but hopefully it will be a step in the right direction. I'll try to post a picture or two of the finished display when I get it done.

A few fun fotos from fabulous Polly Ann's...

A sweet little bunny sleeping peacefully in the children's area...


The coolest yellow floral painted kitchen set...


What a beautiful pitcher & bowl...

The things I love surrounding me...

I know, I know... I've been a bad blogger. Bob and I finally repainted the family room and kitchen area. We're going to start work on the front rooms today... our "formal" living and dining rooms. All this really means in that these are the rooms that we don't use very often... the rooms that get piled with stuff to keep it out of the way in our living space. I could fill hundreds of these rooms. Alas, today is cleaning day and that means tough work and decisions to be made about what to do with things. I have some wonderful things in those two rooms that just needs to find a home, but there is no room at the inn, so to speak, in this house... no real room at the shop right now either, which is why it all just continues to sit there. I have three shows coming up in March, so I'm hoping to get some of the items priced to take to the show. Then we can box them and put them in the trailer to "wait" for us to get to them some more. I'll try to snap a few "before" pictures before we start our little cleaning and painting project (that will likely grow into a very large and unfun cleaning and painting project before long). I'll share as we get a little further into it (that means when I need a break from cleaning and painting :0))

These are the "after" pictures of our family room. I redid my mantle after it sat empty after I cleared off the Christmas display. I decided to use some of my very favorite things. This display is a pretty good representation of "me"... Polly Ann Blythe is really just a little girl who likes to dream and wants to be creative, but finds it difficult to follow through on her intentions.

Hope you like the pictures.



Two of my very favorite painted plaques. I love the colors. The one that has the glare is of wonderful hollyhocks. By son collects chalk banks and this is one of my favorites from his collection. The little "made in Japan" doll speaks right to my heart and the little pointed feedsack ornament thingy is truly one of my very favorite things that I own. It embodies so many things that I love... all the colors and prints in the 1930's fabrics... the detail of the blanket stitching... the fact that someone took the time to make it and keep it all these years until it found a home with someone who loves it as much as its original creator. Then we have a little motto print... I love these things. The little dog is a pin cushion and is a representative member of a growing collection of pin cushions.



I bought this little house bookend/doorstop from my good friend Daryl. It ranks right up there with the little ornament thingy on the other side of the mantle. I WILL live in a little cottage like that one day. I'm going to have an arched doorway and the flowering vines climbing and the white picket fence and everything. I AM!!! The little cottage print tray is yet another representation of a bigger collection. I'm really into houses, I've discovered. My mother was in real estate and she, too, "collected" houses. I used to love to go to her open houses and critique each property. It was a nice common ground for us and now that she is gone I find myself missing that relationship. She always valued my opinions and often would call me when she was putting an ad in the paper for a certain property and needed my help with a description.
I love the little clown... he's a string holder and hangs from yet another, hand-made, crafty item, a pot holder holder. (I love saying that). The little girl with the bonnet hot pad needs a safety pin and she'll get hung up too... such a big chore, but I can't seem to get er dun! The pink feather tree is new, but is so very sweet and since pink and green are definately my most favorite combination EVER, I decided to put it up against the green ("Lettuce Alone" colored) walls. The little boy is wooden and an is a hat stand with a "pocket" in the back for a brush. He speaks to me too! You can also see another one of my cottage prints in the picture. That is the one that I bought at Barb's () fall sale. I LOVE it!



Maud Hallyer prints, cottage plates and plates with hollyhocks... what could be better. I love the thatched cottage roof on the bigger picture. Looking at that wall always makes me smile.



A close up of my "someday" retirement home...



My collection of matte McCoy pottery sitting atop my mother's kitchen cupboard, surrounding yet another cottage print. I love the subtleness of the colors of matte McCoy. One of the little shoes (the lavendar one) always sat on the back of my grandparents toilet... my grandma is 100 years old!



My husband collects R.A. Fox prints. For Christmas this year he bought me a "Fox" cottage print... the best of both worlds. Although the majority of his collection is in our bed & breakfast area in our lower level, we brought up a couple of garden prints to display with my new cottage print. I absolutely love the colors in these pictures against the green walls. Green goes with just about everything and makes me happy, to boot!



By the way... it was my husband's idea to paint. I am hosting my Bunco group this month and he, yes HE, decided that the house needed a bit of sprucing up before the big Bunco day... I wasn't going to argue. He's motivated and I'm determined to be there with the cattle prod to keep him going. He's a keeper, for sure!!!!

(Big sigh!!!)... what a week!

This picture is of nothing that pertains to this post, but I think posts are sometimes really boring without a picture... so here's a picture!

I sure haven't been a very good blogger these past few weeks. I saw a fun gal named Shirley, who follows my blog, at the Anamosa show today and she said she didn't expect to see me there, because she hadn't read about it on my blog. I can't believe I didn't get around to putting a post on about the show I was doing today! What an air-head I am!!! So, I did the show in Anamosa today. I have to be honest, I didn't put my best foot forward for this show. I've done it a few times in the past and had a lot of fun at it, but it was always just a convenient show to do... not one that I saw a lot of monetary potential in. Boy was that a stupid way for me to be thinking. The show was fantastic and there was a TON of traffic. I, on the other hand, was unprepared. I didn't bring anything great (other than the two wonderful pine tables my honey got ready for this show). I just took "stuff"... some fun stuff, but mostly just stuff. I've been really distracted this past week and simply didn't give it enough time or effort. I apologize to those of you that saw my "stuff" at the show. It looked cute and all, but it just wasn't what I should have done. My apologies to all who attended.
BUT... there was a good reason for my distraction, I assure you! I started a new book early last week. My sister loaned it to me and had told me little of nothing other than there was a tough part I would have to get through and that it was very much worth reading. Well... she was right! The name of the book is "The Shack" and it was INCREDIBLE to say the least. I was completely distracted by reading it and more often, contemplating it. I finished it Friday night and have continued mulling it all over in my mind ever since. I don't want to tell anyone anything about it other than what my sister told me. There is a tough part you have to get through and that it is a really great book. You all MUST read it!
So, that is my excuse for being a bad blogger this past week. I will do my best to be better this week! I have much to share, so stay tuned!

Fun was had by all!!!

Barb and I had a great time on our little {14 hour!} road trip yesterday. I told her that if she could survive a 12+ hour day with me, she could do just about anything. We found some fun things at a tag sale in Davenport... when they made announcements before the sale, the sale staff apologized for the condition of the house and said that they had at least upgraded it from "disgusting to EEEWWW!" They weren't kidding... it was EEEWWW!
We stopped at several antique shops and consignment stores and went to Coal Valley and then up to the new shop in Parkview called the Junk Asylum. We had a lot of fun there! You can check that out on Sharon from Sweet Repose's blog at {sweetrepose}

We had dinner in DeWitt and sweet Sarah joined us for a cocktail and took us on a wonderful tour of her home. She and Matt are so sweet and have so many wonderful treasures. I even recognized a few things she got from me. I walked in the door and the smell of Polly Anns' Signature Scent candles tickled my nose and brought a huge smile to my face. It makes all the difference to someone like me to know that someone appreciates something they purchased from me or my store. Thanks for loving my candles, Sarah!

It's off to another basketball game for me and mine tonight (hubby coaches my son's freshman ball team). Wish us luck!!! Go Mustangs!!!

Excited for a day trip with Barb!

I'm so excited! Tomorrow morning Barb {simplyiowa} is picking me up to head out for a little day trip... just the two of us. I am a lucky gal to get to have her all to myself for the day! I'll let you know what we find!

Valentine's Day is fast approaching...

I modified my red and jade-ite green Christmas cupboard display for Valentine's. Red is such a motivating color for me... always happy, always energizing. Between getting to play with my beloved pink things and this lively red display last week, I felt a new energy that I'm hoping will help push me through until spring. This week I'm making it a goal to weed through my vintage Valentine collection. I absolutely love the colors and sweet little characters that enliven the adorable valentines of the 1930's through the 1950's. There seems to be something about almost all of them that speaks to me enough that I just can't part with many of them. I'll try to pick out a few of my favorites to share with you this week... but there are so many favorites I may just have to pick some random ones to share.
I hope you enjoy the pictures...

Quotable plates...

I love making these plates. A fun way to take a plain little plate and make it something special.



"love"... "create"



"my favorite place is in your hug"



"you never really leave a place you love- you take a part of it with you, leaving a part of you behind"



"Love is not two people gazing at each other, but rather two people looking in the same direction."..."Grandma's are just antique little girls"



"There's no place like home"

My "tickled pink" pictures...

I promised pictures of my pink display... I had sooooo much fun playing with the pink stuff again. I need pink to keep me motivated. I love so many colors, but the dark colors of fall just don't make me sing. Pink and all the colors of spring make me so much happier and I have so much more fun playing with those colors. I seem to surround myself with pastels and primary colors.

Tickled PINK!

Phew! We had a wonderful holiday, but I am so glad to be getting things back to "normal" in my world. After Christmas the family spent three nights at a local hotel celebrating family and birthdays, swimming, lounging, hot tubbing, eating, drinking and playing euchre. We had so much fun. Then it was back to work for me. We had a fantastic Christmas season at the shop {thank you to all my customers reading this!} I spent the day on Thursday, New Year's Eve, "de-Christmas-izing" the shop. I sold a lot this year, but bought a lot, too so I had some serious work to do. Got 'er done and then went out for an amazing dinner at Granite City with my honey and our kids. I decided to open New Year's Day, yesterday. We haven't been open for New Year's Day for several years, but I wanted to get the shop spruced up for Saturday, so I decided to open as long as I was there working. People had to put up with my messes, but I had a wonderful group come in... a couple from Mount Vernon brought in some visiting friends from California. The young lady is a photographer and has two little ones, a girl and a boy, both toddlers, and she appreciates vintage children's things... she came to the right place. I think they had a good time. They made the day worth while by themselves, but we had other brave solds weathering the cold temperatures (today it was -15 when I took my husband and son to their basketball scrimmage... the car started, then died and I was needing the Jeep so I had to take them out early in the cold... aargh!!!) The day ended up fantastic and I got so much done at the shop. I think it looks great... got some Valentines Day decorating done and am SO INCREDIBLY HAPPY to be playing with pink things again!!! I even stopped a customer and told them just how happy I was to be doing a PINK display. I'll be good from here on out... I get to look forward to spring and working with the colors and textures I love. Fall and DARK are so hard for me... I don't do so well with that look. The shop feels HAPPY to me again and that makes all the differerence for me.
I'll try to get pictures posted tomorrow or Monday {kids go back to school on Monday and I'll have a much better shot}! Until then... HERE'S TO PINK! Cheers!