Off to Ohio

We made the spontaneous decision today to jump in the car tomorrow and head for Ohio for the long weekend. Country road (or tollroad, as the case may be) take me home!

I thought I'd leave you with a few pictures I took last summer in Ohio, of a sheep farm just down the road from my Grandma's house. The baby lambs were too cute to resist, so we pulled over. They were more than eager to have their picture taken...

Oops... Maybe a little too eager! My husband started exclaiming, and I lowered my camera to see little sheep babies swarming around his ankles, with more popping through the open fence weave faster than he could scoop them up and drop them back in. Time to go!

Hope you all have a wonderful and refreshing Labor Day weekend!

This Just Listed...

A few of my favorite new finds from this weekend, just listed in my etsy shop...



Vintage Collapsible Wire Laundry Basket on Wheels

One fabulous folding wire laundry cart. Be still my heart. This is one of those things that I won't mind if it has to sit in my house for a while!



3 Small Vintage Pillows with Redwork Embroidery

3 miniature hand-stitched old pillows, embroidered with red initials. I think they would make adorable pincushions.



Huge Antique Tea Leaf Ironstone 16" Platter

An oversized ironstone platter with a simple tea leaf design. This pattern reminds me of fall, and it would be beautiful forThanksgiving - you could fit a lot of turkey on this platter!


Vintage Wire Cloche

And finally, a quirky little wire cloche. It's incredibly crooked, but just as cute as can be.   

Ta-Da!

My quilt top is finished!

I have the quilt top "sandwiched" with the batting and backing fabric and secured with safety pins so that I can begin the daunting task of hand quilting. I considered machine quilting it, but I just can't bring my traditional, perfectionistic, antique-loving self to do it, at least on this quilt. So I am savoring this "ta-da" moment, because I have a feeling it's going to be a long while before I reach another one...

Here's a close-up of the beginning stages of the quilting. So far it has been a rather painful learning process. Literally painful. Quilting needles are sharp, and I am, well, clumsy. And S-L-O-W. After close to two hours of whiny quilting last night, I was seriously considering other options. Options like, "these safety pins don't look that bad, do they?" and "maybe I could pay my Grandma to do this for me."

But this morning, I'm feeling more positive. I am taking to heart the mantra of my dad, in those gentle yet oft-spoken words from my childhood: "Buck up, kid."  

So my sewing box is out, and the couch will be out of commission for a while, pressed into duty as a quilting frame. I'll keep you updated, and sooner or later I'll have another "ta-da" for you. Probably later, rather than sooner. :)

Handmade Mirrored Sconce

This mirrored candle sconce was sort of a make-do project (hint: there's duct tape involved). I've recently been eyeing those beautiful round antique mirror candle sconces, made up of a mosaic of little mirror pieces...

Like these from a House Beautiful magazine...

Or this one, currently for sale here on etsy...

But, avoiding all temptaion (at least for now), I made my own for around $11.00.  Granted, it's not quite the same, but I still think it's simple, beautiful, and charming.

I found the vintage concave mirror at an antique mall for $5.00. It was an old handmade lamp reflector and it has a nice wavy, slightly darkened mirrored metal surface that reflects light (and a bit of my bookcases on the opposite wall) beautifully.

Then I picked up a simple tin candle holder that was meant to hang over a cupboard door (like a towel hook hangs over a bathroom door) for around $6.00 at a gift shop, and I was able to bend the hanger flat so I could attach it to the back of the reflector. And yes, when I say "attach" I mean "duct tape".  The wonders never cease!

Another Market Find

This old white spice drawer cabinet was my other great find at the Vintage and Artisan Market last weekend. 

It was staring at me all day, sitting on a table directly across from my booth. I meandered over to look at it twice, but there was no price on it. Sad... that is not one of my favorite parts of shopping at an antique show or flea market. I don't like having to ask for prices. And nice antique spice cabinets are often over $100, so I told myself it was probably for the best. Oh well, back to my booth...

But it just kept staring at me, with those cute little drawers and old white paint...

So by my third trip over near the end of the day (anyone watching could tell that I was practically stalking this little cupboard), I finally asked the nice man how much it was. And then? I promptly ran back to my booth to get a $20 bill from my cash box to buy it... and I got change back. That's my kind of deal!

It's going to hang up on the wall there, between the windows in my kitchen. I've been looking for something to put there, and this little guy will be perfect.

And just to show you that I don't buy everything I want... there was this great little old trestle table that I could've bought for a song from the same man, but I had let it go, for lack of room. Oh well, maybe next time!

My Farmhouse Cupboard

What is more quintessentially "country" than a rustic painted cupboard filled with simple white ironstone, blue and white quilts, and fresh sunflowers?

Until a few days ago, this antique open-shelf cupboard was in my bedroom, laden down with books and magazines. 

It worked great, but the colorful jumble of reading material wasn't doing this gorgeous farmhouse antique any favors.

Ahhhh... much better!

I was thrilled when I realized that I could move it to the livingroom. In a small home with lots of furniture, I don't get to rearrange big pieces that often (things are where they are because that's where they fit!), so a full-fledged furniture switcheroo makes me giddy with excitement. This old cupboard nestled so perfectly underneath my wall shelf full of ironstone, and the blue interior works beautifully with the rest of the living and dining room color scheme.

As a side effect, there's now a bit of extra room to display more ironstone... Oh, darn!

The antique blue and white quilt was one of the things I bought at the Vintage and Artisan Market last Saturday. You'd think maybe since I am learning to make quilts myself that I would be less inclined to buy them... but nope, it's just the opposite!

I have a new appreciation for the work that goes into making one of these babies, and I notice them when I'm out antiquing now more than ever. I love the tattered edges, puckered stitching (all done by hand), and traditional patterns of these early quilts. And at just $35, I couldn't pass this one up.

The fresh sunflowers are locally grown by The Green Horse Co., and were an end-of-the-market-day gift from Annette, the lovely sunflower lady of Lincoln, who was just as sweet and sunny as her flowers.

They add the perfect cheerful summer touch to my farmhouse cupboard.

Have a happy weekend!

Vintage and Artisan Market Recap

Welcome to the Vintage and Artisan Market! It turned out to be a lovely event with a dozen antique and vintage vendors (including me!) set up outside in the tree-surrounded parking lot, with plenty of hot sun, dappled shade, and excited shoppers.

Here's my booth! We had lots of room to set up, which was great. I would've loved to have brought a few more larger pieces to help with the display, but with our tiny little car we already had to make 2 trips to get everything there.

It was fun getting to talk to customers and other vendors, and I even met several women who told me they read my blog. Thanks so much for coming out! That's me, in the white t-shirt, talking to Barb from Thoughtful Images Ink, before the market opened. It's the only picture we got of me in my booth (which was fine by me because it was a hot and sweaty day!) but I got lots of great pictures of what you really want to see...

The goods! 

I don't know about you, but I love looking at pictures of displays at antique shows and flea markets, and I can never find enough of them, so I was sure to take a lot. Enjoy!

There were rusty wire garden baskets, chippy yellow chairs, a cast iron chandelier, a shabby white wall shelf...

The chairs were the only furniture I was able to bring, and luckily they sold pretty early in the day so we didn't have to find a way to fit them back in the car.

There was a vintage time card rack...

Lots of wooden boxes and crates...

Old spools of thread and charming garden tools...

White ironstone in all shapes and sizes...

Beautiful blue and white china...

Vintage glass bottles and domes, seed packets, and garden accents...

Woven baskets, vintage books...

Wire baskets and silver-plated bowls...

Vintage muffin tins...

And, of course, a little bit of soap...

Thanks for joining me! Don't worry... I brought along LOADS of stuff, and a lot of the pictures here were taken towards the end of the day, so much of what you see above will be for sale in my etsy store soon!

I have been wanting to share these pictures with you sooner, but threatening storm clouds had begun to roll in as everyone was packing up their displays that evening, and my husband and I made it home and safely in the back door mere seconds before the sky let loose a thunderstorm that knocked out our internet service for the better part of 5 days... But we're back in business now, and I have lots of work to catch up on!

Next time I'll share a couple great finds that I bought for myself at the show :)