It's Not Hobby Lobby

I want to start off today's blog with a sincere thank you.  I can not express how much it means to us that our family and friends support us in this venture.  Nor can I thank enough those customers who come in and buy our lovingly purchased, cleaned, rehabbed and up-cycled pieces.  It reaffirms that we are doing something right.  That others see the life left in vintage items and will love and cherish them as much as we did when we picked them.  Bill and I don't buy anything that we wouldn't put in our home.  In fact it's a struggle to put our finished product into our jeep and bring it to the store... because we have soooo much of our hearts in these.  (It's also a struggle to get some of the items past my mother who will scoop much of what I grab up if I let her...  I've learned to show her small things only... because getting the larger things to California can be challenging.)

Every time something larger sells, I reconfigure the layout of the booth.  I find themes/vignettes and end up spending hours there instead of the 15 minutes I'd given self to add a few smalls and fluff it.  Today was one of those days.  We now have a travel corner.  Trunks, suitcases and valise's...  my love for these makes complete sense, since travel is what I do for a living.  I LOVE finding the old bag tags on pieces... our newest trunk has a Delta tag... I think the green trunk has an Eastern tag...  I know whatever tag that one has is a long gone airline... On our shelves in the main area of our booth we have an old medallion tag for Delta, along with airline shot glasses... and one of my favorites is the airplane slippers... check them out, they're right next to the blue enamel pitcher on the bench.  That's when the skies were much more luxurious for sure.

I also have a weakness for hand painted china.  I have zero talent in drawing and painting, thus I appreciate the efforts women put into these pieces long before I was born.  China painting was a 'respectable hobby' for women from 1880-1920.  Some painted pieces for fun, others to make pin money.  Some items were displayed and other items used, like the set of 6 individual salt cellars seen in the picture to the right.  I'm going to veer right off subject here for a moment... and talk about how much time these women took in setting the perfect table... today we tell the kids to grab a plate and a napkin and eat... then, you had your own salt cellar, cups and silver for each type of food or drink might be served... crystal and silver knife rests...  etc... we're losing this art in our age of computers and smart phones...

Returning to the subject... everything that could be painted was... tea strainers... jewelry boxes, hat pin holders, salt shakers, bells, and sugar shakers to name a few.  Each painstakingly done with exquisite perfection.  It's hard for me to pick and choose when I find a sale full of these beautiful pieces of art.

We do have some newer decorative bits... I kinda like fun fillers and couldn't resist the feather balls at an estate sale recently.  I tried to grab just a couple, and ended up with them all... along with some hand painted balls from Africa, that I threw in with my hand carved gourds from Kenya.  They called to me and I hope they'll call your name too...

I usually blog around a project, so I'll throw in a quick one for the piece I put in the booth today.  It was a drop leaf table but it was pretty banged up and had some broken pieces on the leaves.  My husband and I both thought the legs were sexy though so we grabbed it from a friend.  We had planned to attach it to a door for a hall tree but as we got it apart we both agreed that it needed to just be reinvented into a hall table.  All the wood on the table is original.  My very talented hubby took the three pieces from the table top and grabbed the one piece still in good condition.  He cut it down to fit the legs attached it to the top and re stained the entire piece.  One of it's side drawers was missing a knob so we put on vintage looking glass knobs.  The piece came out gorgeous!!!  It's perfect for your foyer or den... or even possibly as a small desk in a teenagers room for their laptop.

I'll end this as I started this with a thank you again...  from our house to yours... happy junking and safe summer travels...

Salisbury Cathedral pitcher

Is it Love or is it Rust? Both Make Us Giddy...

I read this line in a British magazine... "Our job is to make a piece fit for a purpose.  We are rescuing it from the bonfire and putting it back into people's homes where they will stroke, love, use and polish it for years to come"...  I read this and thought... EXACTLY.  Up-cycling saves wood, metals, furniture and other medias from either being burned or tossed into landfill.

Our planet has finite space.  The majority of society is all about the newest fad.  We can't afford to fill the planet with yesterdays fad.  How do you make these pieces new again?

Antique shopping works best when you aren't looking for anything specific.  You find something you love and you buy it.  It'll work in your home because you love it.  If you're like me, and you buy for both home and a store, you can take chances on items that you believe can be loved by others.  I'm very much a Victorian woman living in a modern world.  I'll take chances on some mid century items because I like the lines.  For example I can't pass up a 50's step stool... and we currently have a cabinet that is screaming to be a bar...  wait til we get to that piece, you're going to LOVE it... I'll blog it's up-cycle.

One of my favorite rehabs we've finished this year was on a pair of folding 50's Cosco chairs.  We went to an estate sale a few months ago that was being run by some people we adore and they mentioned that they hadn't gone into the garage attic yet.  Of course, I immediately turned to my patient and loving husband with a "Honey???" and he grabbed a ladder... The attic proved to be a gold mine of rust.  When he handed me down these two chairs the junk queen in me got giddy.  These are the types of items we love to get our hands on because most people would put them top down into their garbage bin for Monday's pick up.  Additionally, we'd just finished a project with a vintage typewriter desk and we both knew it was going to be the perfect vignette for our booth when finished.

They were carefully taken apart, sanded and primed.  Then we ran out to grab the fabric for the base.  This is one of those projects that you have instant gratification with EVERY step you take.  The deconstruction to the reconstruction.  You can see the pieces slowly come back to life.  I love how they look now... they can fit into almost any place... a sun room... a child's dorm...  your office... around a bistro table in your breakfast nook.  They are comfortable and timeless... and as stated earlier... FOLDING... you can store them in your closet and take them out for guests... :)

Since I mentioned the vignette... I thought I'd do an honorable mention for the vintage typewriter desk.  This is the second one we've overhauled.  The first I bought because I loved the lines and knew it had potential... the second I bought because I loved the idea of what another person had done and knew that my husband would work with that idea and make it even more fabulous.  He did, and it sold the first weekend we put it i the store... So I put the original piece in his work space and said "Next please"...  The table has been painted black and a barn wood top attached.  It's modern and masculine.  Perfect for a corner table in a living room or office.  Put books on it like we did here or a globe and a light...  We love how the whole look evolved and think that you will too...

Of course you can find these pieces at the Queen of Hearts in Alpharetta.  We hope to see you there soon...  For now it's time for me to run off and get some more fabric for a large wood throne we are working on.  Look for that blog in the future!!!

I Like Long Romantic Walks To the Paint Aisle

My husband and I seem to go to Lowes as often, if not more than, we go to get groceries.  I head straight for the garden department to look for whatever perennial has been deep discounted for the week... (it's an addiction I tell you... but our garden looks beautiful because of it...) Bill, on the other hand, goes straight to the tools area to feed his addictions... and we end up meeting in the painting aisle to figure out what color our current projects need to be...  We always hit the "oops" area in the paint aisle... because these little gems can be mixed and made into just the right colors for small projects at little to no expense...

This week we're working on a few projects... a new hall tree that will be made from a small table with gorgeous legs but one portion of the top was a mess... He's cut it down and will attach to the last door we used for the entrance to our wedding last year...  I can't WAIT to show you this project.  It's already turning out to be utterly stunning.

We've also started the transformation of an old chair.  June is going to be a crazy month so we probably wont finish it til July... but it already looks so much better after removing all of the previous disastrous makeovers.  It'll either be painted white, grey or black.. we're still debating the color... we'll head for the remnant section at Joann's to decide upholstery material... and then settle on the color... I think I know where it's going, but the material could completely change the direction... I'll try to blog it when we finish that project...

In between the bigger projects I finally got my man to work on all the cute framed pictures we had that needed a wee bit of love and makeup on their frames to bring them back to life.  Frames are such a personal preference don't you think?  I walk down my hallway, look at all the family pictures and while the frames aren't uniform, you can see the type I've chosen over the years to be totally similar in style... So when you're junking and you find a piece of art that speaks to you, what do you do?  Find a new frame?  Upcycle the old frame?  Build a frame?  All of the above???

Let me tell you a little secret about myself.  I am obsessed with fat little birdies... I love vintage bird prints... bird paintings... bird flower frogs... they just make me... happy... so when I'm out junking with the hub and I see a bunch of little birds that make my heart sing... I just sneak them into the pile and hope he won't notice his stack of growing projects...  very rarely do I love the frames they are in... or the condition they are in...  when he see's them he's like "Really?"

"Mmm hmm.. this one just needs a wee bit of stain... and this one just needs to be rewired in back..." (insert loving smile and peck on the cheek)

...and he'll stop the discussion (with a roll of his eyes) knowing it's going to be more than that in work for him... because after growing up working in a frame shop, he's a perfectionist on how they can be released to the public after touching his hands... so he'll just smile... and hope I didn't notice the 5 clamps that he put in the pile... (I know his obsessions too... he'll tell you he can never have enough clamps)... and I'll pretend to not notice and we both leave the sale giddy.

So yesterday in our work area, we had a framed Jesus lithograph that had a chippy piece he wasn't happy with, two small bird prints that were way too silver leafed, an oval bird print that's frame looked like it had been through one too many earthquakes, and a fat little bird painting that's frame was too boring for words... My hub was working in the garage and I just started taking apart the frames knowing if I did he'd guide me to do what he could stand me doing... and then he'd finish the rest with a Mudgie stamp of approval... I pushed the limits of his patience with a request to build a frame and fix the dented chippy frames... but hey, all projects have places where you have to take a break... stains need to dry etc... so these are easy fillers... and I'm sticking to that story...

We both agreed to make the paint the same for all the frames for the bird prints in stock... they'll look uniform when we hang them in our booth... he painted them a color that had worked for a print we sold last week... and we both looked at them and said... "No"... and came up with another color we liked better.  It's funny how that works... it should have been fine but it just wasn't... I love this blue grayish/pink mix... subtle and can fit in your children's rooms, bathrooms, sun rooms, and kitchens...

Saving the best for last though.... remember that fat bird painting... I pointed out to Bill that I hated the frame for it... and with all the "scrap" barn wood we had in the garage there had to be enough for him to build a frame that would just look lovely with the branch in the picture... and while he was trying to talk me out of that idea I started to (hold your breath ladies, this is the dangerous part) walk over to his wood piles and grab different pieces I liked that might just work for this 'quick' project... to save his wood and his carefully organized stacks... he moved me back with a kiss and quickly grabbed a piece that would work... (with a if I'd please just get out of my work space, thank you and why don't you go prime that frame righhhhhttttt outside there...)  It was totally worth his exasperation with me... this little birdie is singing beautifully in his new frame... don't you agree???

 

All these gorgeous prints, along with a few other new goodies will be delivered to our booth tomorrow at the Queen of Hearts in Alpharetta... Come out and see us soon!

Where you invest your love you invest your life...

I'm a smart woman... and I know when I've been told something versus hearing a "suggestion"... I learned years ago that when a queen wants something you listen.  Now my husband knows when I want something... he listens... it rolls down hill that way... :)  So... when it was suggested that a lighter color paint would look better in our booth... I looked at my husband and said "lets get paint... next Tuesday work for you???"  Neither of us blinked an eye.  We both knew it was true.  We just hadn't had time to repaint our booth when we moved in... February and March were busy months for us... and May just happened to be the perfect month for us to receive this "suggestion".

We spent the entire day today getting rid of the dark green that I actually liked but didn't go with our true antiques...  and changed our booth to a rich creamy color that would bring out the wood tones of the furniture we love to rehab. It totally brightened our space and made our pieces pop.  We're both excited with the finished product... and got lots of rave reviews from customers and the staff...  we'll take that immediate positive feedback and say... thank you to all...

Speaking of rehab... if you subscribe to either our Facebook page or our Instagram... we totally brought back to life two Cosco chairs and a vintage typewriter stand... We put these in our booth last week and I was planning on blogging about it this week... but the stand sold this weekend... before I could blink... I'm excited to say we've got a second typewriter stand that I immediately told my husband to get to work on asap... if the chairs stay in the booth long enough for that stand to be placed in... I'll do my best to blog about them then...  but I digress...

We've added a bunch of bird prints to our booth this week too... We love these vintage prints... they scream Spring... like the birds in our garden do when we are in it... music to our ears...  I love fat birdies... I have them all over my house... especially flower frogs, but that should be another blog... there's something about birds that just make me smile and my heart sing.

Now... I've saved the best for last... the unveiling... here's our booth... today as we left it... no longer dark and green... but crisp and clean and creamy lovely... proving again... that it's always right to listen to a queen... thanks Stacey... I  have always trusted your instinct in this industry.  xoxo

This little light of mine...

I knew when I wrote the last blog that it would be a part one of two... there is an abundance of ideas on decorating with vintage glass.  The last blog I focused on garden decor... this one will focus on interior and lighting.  Again, all of these photos were ideas found on pinterest... it really is a great site to get inspiration to decorate outside of the box...

Small bottles can be used everywhere in vignettes in your home... singular or in a grouping,,,  I love this setting with votive candles on a mirror... it's romantic and down home country... and it's easy for anyone to do.  Put a few on your windowsill in your bathroom or kitchen... the light catches the colors of the bottles and the flowers just say "this place is loved"...

If you have one of those weird built in small openings in your home... in some homes these are in kitchens or bathrooms... in other, much older homes you'll find them where we used to have phone alcoves in our houses... when you had to run to a wall to answer your phone and couldn't go any further than the length of the handset cord...  virtually no one other than me now a days has one of these phones hanging in their homes... so what do you do if you have that wall space?  Find a grouping of similar colored small bottles and brighten the area up.

If you're a candle lover and the first idea above wasn't eclectic enough for you, what about this transformation of insulators.  What a cool idea is that?  Place them upside down on a piece of stained reclaimed wood and instant candelabra.  Add to the base pine in the winter and fresh greens in the spring...  I could see Easter eggs among the greenery too...  Or if you just want a splash of color in a room you can take a vintage board, paint it your favorite color, and then attach an insulator to it upside down.  Instant votive or tea light (less mess) holder!

If you're looking for electric ideas, check out these ball jars converted into pendant lights.  Love this idea!!!  Or even more out of the box... the pendant light insulators!!!  Would look fabulous over a bar or pool table.  If you're looking for just the right single light sconces for your head board how about using a vintage insulator in your favorite color?  It's all about having something in your home that the rest of the world doesn't.  Use a vintage door for a head board... or ship-lap.... add two of these beauties and you'll have a space that is warm and charming.

I'm going to point out one more cool idea I found when I was searching for up-cycle ideas...  A coat rack made out of vintage wood and insulators.  If I had a mud room I'd TOTALLY do this!  Or maybe in a childs room with the colorful insulators...

For now, it's late.  I wish you all a lovely work week.  Come see us soon at the Queen of Hearts in Alpharetta!

All Life is an Experiment - the More Experiments You Make the Better

It's been a wee bit since we've written or updated our booth... Both of us have been out of the country more than we've been in the country... Bill had a gig in Panama that I took the kids to join him on during Spring Break... and then I followed that rapidly with a trip to Cyprus to visit a friends sister for Easter.  While I love my day job it's time to get back to our love of junking and up-cycling...

Today's blog is going to combine two of my passions... gardening and junking... I went searching on pinterest (a dangerous thing to do) for ideas to use insulators, vintage bottles and mason jars in vignettes and found a TON of cute ideas for the garden that I want to share with y'all.

The first idea that I absolutely love, and would have fun searching within the Queen of Hearts for all the cute bottles and crystals to make these cute garden mobiles and charms... what a perfect way to dress up a pergola, a garden arch or above a table on your sun porch!!!  For the piece with the drift wood... I'd totally find small jars that had large enough openings for all the sea glass I collect when I travel.  All of these would also look good in a bathroom in your beach-side condo or lakefront property...

When I searched for ideas for ball jars... I have an obsession with blue mason/ball jars....  I just love the colors... fill them with misc everyday items... your change in your pocket (and bring to the bank when full)... put dried roses and make a display (thanks Peti)... or use for garden parties as vases...  I did find a mobile to make out of these beautiful jars... and I'll share it with you because it's share worthy... however it hurts my heart to see one cut... so... if you find one with a chip on the bottom that you want to up-cycle maybe???  :)

My last bit of garden finds for vintage glass was with vintage insulators...  check out the brilliant ways these beauties were re-purposed!!!  Some as simple as putting on sticks to add height and color to your garden... or tie a ribbon around an insulator to hang it upside down to make a makeshift vase to welcome guests into your garden party... a simply sweet way to dress up your gate...  and for those more crafty... who want a bit more light in their gardens for parties... you can make chandeliers or single pendant candle holders (if you're worried about flames or wind, you can pop in the battery operated candles)... I love these ideas and totally would have used them for our outdoor wedding a year ago.

We have all of these items in our booth (there's a large box of insulators under the display in this picture) on Broad Street in Queen of Hearts Alpharetta... and I know there are a few other vendors who have additional supplies... come explore and find other items to add a little sparkle to your garden this spring...

I'll end this lil inspirational blog with a happy anniversary to my partner in crime, in life, in junking... who gets me like no one else... and who goes above and beyond for me and my children every day.  I love you baby...

Heather & Bill Crowell 4/23/16