Last week I mentioned that I found a few great deals when I went Junquing. So I thought I'd show them to you. They are part of my newest collection; Vintage Frames. Not sure whether I will leave them gold, or paint them shabby white...we'll see. For now, I'm leaving them as is and trying to find the perfect place for them. The large one is about 4 feet high and was a steal at $8 at the thrift shop. The next largest one is absolutely beautiful. It's very ornate and distressed perfectly.
The other two smaller frames I bought while in Portland. I will be removing the paintings, I just haven't gotten around to it yet.
It's funny because these are the kinds of frames that back in the day I would have had no interest in as I found the look much to ornate and 'pretty'. (Just like Grandma's house!) My how time changes our tastes and views on things, LOL!
I've been appreciating all the thoughtful comments that have been left on my blog lately. Thank you so much.
Do you ever feel like this whole world of blogs is a bit like the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland? You can follow links from one blog to another, to another, to a store, to an editor, to a ??? It's magic. So much inspiration, eye candy and pretties that make the heart skip a beat and tempt the pocket book.
Today I wanted to share with you a few of my recent discoveries while going down the rabbit hole of the blog world.
You may remember when I did the contest on my blog that Dawn was the winner. As any good hostess would do, I always try to visit the blogs of people who comment on my blog, so off I went to visit Dawn's site. While there, I followed a link to the incredibly talented Chez Fifi's blog. She is a stylist who works with many of my favorite magazines. I know that several people have linked to her recently, but if you haven't visited her site yet, take my advice and head right on over. It's over-the-top beautiful. I think it would be such a blast to shop with her some day, she has quite the eye. Now, remember what I said about that rabbit hole? Well, at Fifi's I followed a link to a fabulous store The Cat's Meow. This is a fabulous shabby chic store based in Florida. They are currently moving their store and are clearing out some of their inventory. I was absolutely thrilled to buy a Rachel Ashwell Shabby Chic Duvet from the store for 50% off. I was so excited to find it and it's just gorgeous, it's the one pictured above. I had it delivered to the hotel I stayed at in Portland so that I didn't have to pay duty on it bringing it home (I stayed in the states long enough to be able to bring $250 home duty free - Yippee!) If you are also a fan of the Shabby Chic line, the store has one more duvet and sham set for sale and it's about 67% off. I actually have the sheets in the same pattern as this duvet and they are beautiful. This is an absolute bargain. The pattern is Sugar Plum and it's on this page: scroll down a bit. If you no longer see it, then it's probably sold as they do update the site regularly.
I have two other sites I wanted to share with you. One is the blog of mixed media artist Sandra Evertson. Sandra is an accomplished artist and she posts some beautiful photos on her blog. The other is called One Woman's Cottage Life this is the online journal of a lady who is renovating her home. It's a wonderful peek into the challenges, struggles and triumphs of renovation. I found it a great read.
It's been a crazy week. Rick and I returned from Portland on Tuesday (a week ago) and have spent much of the past week visiting with family as my Grandpa and his wife came out from Ontario to visit. My Grandma passed away about five years ago and Grandpa remarried in January while I was working at CHA Winter. So far, only my parents had met his new wife, so it was a treat for all of us to finally meet her. She was as sweet and lovely as could be. We spent a lot of time as an extended family enjoying meeting her and sharing with each other.
Knowing that so many readers of my blog visit because of our shared love of paper crafting, I wanted to share the highlight of my Portland trip with you. In this industry there are so many wonderful women who I've met through our shared love of crafting and it's a wonderful perk that every so often through my travels I'm able to touch base with those paper crafting friends. I always love going to Portland on business as it means that I'll get to visit with my friend Sally. This time as Rick was along with me, Sally and I opted to try the 'meeting of the husbands'. You know the story, you've got a girlfriend and at some point you decide that the guys should get together too, all the while you're just hoping that your mates will get along as well as you do?!! Well this was our situation. Crossing our fingers that the men would like each other as much as we do. I'm pleased to report that it was a great success. By the end of the evening we had laughed and enjoyed each other so much. It was wonderful. We started the night by visiting Sally's new studio which is divinely beautiful and oh-so-shabby, then checking out an antique store and Anthropology which were just down the street. Finally we headed to Chart House Restaurant, a super yummy restaurant with divine views overlooking the city. I received a very touching piece of art from Sally when we met. She gave me the original piece for one of her fairies. The appropriately named 'Scrap Fairy'. It's approximately 5 x 5 inches. If you'd like to purchase the charm version of this piece, you can do so here. (just scroll down a tiny bit)
Here in Portland with Rick and I just wanted to take a moment to say...
That the concert on Friday was SO incredible. Loved it...love, love, LOVED it. If you're a fan of Josh's music, I'd definitely recommend seeing him if he plays a concert near you. He was in top vocal form, and was really funny (which I hadn't expected). I also was left shaking my head. Why, oh why, did I think that I didn't love his new album as much as his others? I enjoyed all the songs from the new album that he preformed at the concert, so I put int the CD during our drive to Portland yesterday and I don't know what it is about it that lead me say initially that I didn't think it was awesome. 'Cause it's wonderful.
Yesterday I met my girlfriend who had received my box with the dress-form and picked it up from her. The box was too big to fit in my car, so I had to unpack it to take the mannequin apart to fit. As I removed it from the box, I noticed that it looked like the neck had ripped a bit, but the form was all wrapped, and I didn't want to unpack it until I got home as it needed to be protected in my trunk. Well, after spending an hour or two in the local antique stores(I'll share my treasures from that shopping trip next week!), I headed home. Once I started to unwrap it, I began to realize just how much damage had been sustained in transit. Almost the whole neck/shoulder area has ripped out....not even the seams letting go...the fabric is ripped/torn and I don't see how it can be repaired. (The tears in the bust were there when I bought it, I figured I could darn them and was fine with that amount of flaws, but there was nothing what so ever wrong with the neck). I've called the shipping company, but I'm getting the severe run-around and I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm not going to see them pony up the money even though I paid for insurance on the box. My theory? The box itself was in pristine condition, so it wasn't crushed or anything. I think that it wasn't kept upright, and had been laid on its side, upside down and every which way which made the bodice section keep sliding on the center pole. Then, each time it was placed correctly, it would slide back to the correct position, jerking to a stop....sigh. My first time buying an antique that was large enough that I had to ship it and it's wrecked. My mom, trying to bring some levity into the situation (bless her heart), joked that obviously I was not meant to have a Christmas gift last year (2006). Rick had bought me a charm bracelet from Sally Jean's trunk show, but Sally moved homes and the bracelet was lost. Then he said he would buy me a dress form, and when I finally found one that was in my price range, it gets wrecked in shipping....I guess I was a bad girl last year, lol! I'll keep you appraised as to how things work out with the shipping company, but I'm not holding my breath.
No doubt that within a few hours I will no longer be thinking about my dress form as Rick, myself and my folks are heading to the Josh Groban concert in Vancouver tonight. Really excited about it. I love Josh's voice, so it will be a treat. I believe that this concert is to promote his last album which I liked, but didn't love, so I really hope he showcases a lot of his older material too ;-)
Tomorrow morning Rick and I head to Portland for a show with our rep group. We went last year and had a blast. Loved meeting so many store owners and showing Rick a peek into my job. We'll also hit my two favorite Portland antique stores, go to Rick's favorite restaurant and meet some friends for dinner. Yummy!
For those ladies who took my local class on Wednesday and who've popped by to visit my blog, thanks for coming to class, it was fun, and welcome to my blog!
In honor of tonight's concert, I leave you with one of my favorite Josh Groban songs from his new album!
Does anyone ever get in the mood to clean? I mean seriously clean. I'm talking de-cluttering, major elbow grease cleaning? I've been in that kind of mood for the past week. I've been craving clean uncluttered space. This is pretty major for me. I am a perpetual pack rat, who has the hardest time throwing things out. This is one reason Rick and I are such a great team. He has no such trouble and helps balance me out. I shudder to think what a house with two pack-rats like me would look like, lol! At any rate, I've been trying to clean my studio (which is pretty much always messy) and my upstairs living area. I'm slowly but surely making progress. We also tackled our front yard this weekend. In addition to weeding. mowing etc., we transplanted a tree from our back yard to front yard. It looks great and we are so happy with it. The card at the right is one that I made last weekend. It uses a pre-made card base and a few Amuse rubber stamps.
a class this Wednesday evening at Precious Memories. This is a limited seating class, as of Friday, there were still 4 seats available. So snap them up, if you're interested in joining me! The class is called "All About Me". Here's the description: Rich and Regal colors combined with classic styling are the hallmark of this fun class. Using one of the popular Melissa Frances Open-Up Albums, we'll be creating a super cute, heart shaped “all about me” mini album. Come and join me for an evening of laughs and creativity!
Space is limited for this Special Event Class! Call 604.530.2917 to Register!
OK, I so can't believe that the first person guessed right! Yes Dawn, I did find an old dress form which I ecstatically bought and am having shipped home. (well, technically it's being shipped to a friend's house in Washington and I will zip over the border to get it from her next week sometime.) I'm so excited as I have wanted one for a long, long time. It's beautiful, with a stained (ie, very old looking) muslin body, and a metal cage skirt. It's beautiful! Once I get it home, I'll take photos and post them here. So Dawn, please email me using the link under my photo to give me your address and I'll get a packet out to you next week.
Gotta run now as Rick and I are cashing in about $80 worth of change at the bank and having an early dinner out before heading to a football game tonight. Hopefully this game is better than the last one we went to ;-) Have a wonderful weekend everyone!
Back home after a super quick trip to the LA area. Our fabulous company rep had a mini trade shows for her stores and so I was sent to host make and takes and write orders. I always love meeting stores, I was only sad that the time I was able to spend with each group of store owners was so short. However, all in all it was a wonderful day and highly worthwhile. I was even able to meet some other Canadian gals who work for two other Canadian companies. Who knew it would take going to California to meet! (Hi Kelly!)
For those of you curious as to whether my chandelier was still at the antique store waiting for me....I'm sad to report that it wasn't. However, I found something else that I've been salivating after for many years. But I've never found one at a reasonable price. I'd take a photo to show it to you, but it's so large that I had to ship it home. I thought it might be fun to play a little game....put your guess of what large, antique item I might have bought, and I will send a prize pack with about $50 worth of scrapbooking goodies to whoever posts the correct answer first. If no one guesses it, I'll post a hint tomorrow.
Last night Rick and I went to one of the most boring football games ever. OK, that might be an exaggeration, lol, but it was seriously bad. We almost left at half time,but stuck it out, only to get more of the same unexciting and disappointing play in the second half. Oh well, I guess it's too much to hope that every game will be exciting ;-)
Today I'm wrapping up things for a business trip that I leave for on Sunday. I'll be in California for 2 days for a rep sales show. I'm flying a few hours earlier than I really need to so that I can check in at an antique store that I visited when I was in town for CHA Winter. I've been kicking myself ever since coming home that I didn't buy a vintage chandelier that I saw at one of the antique stores Melissa and I went to. So I'm sending out good thoughts that it will still be there and if it is, I'm planning on buying it. I'm hopeful, but not too optimistic, as Southern California is the heart of Shabby Chic country. I'm crossing my fingers, toes and everything else!!
In closing here's two more cards I made last weekend. These cards use Cat's life Press Stamps. These stamps are darling - love the head scarf on the one gal. Too cute for words. Enjoy.
