Vintage Market

What a gift Saturday morning turned out to be! For one, sunshine! Oh my. It has been raining buckets here all month.

(OK, this summer I am getting new glasses - I have been wearing these ones for over eight years - geesh!)

 

Early Saturday, met up with two dear vintage friends and we went to market.... These fun vintage & craft markets are popping up all over the place!  Love them - so many women entrepreneurs - putting together fantastic booths.  And every market I go to is packed !  Something so homey about them!

Some fantastic, one of a kind items were purchased.  I found some lovely milkglass and pyrex pieces for my kitchen. I was really happy with my finds.....

My baking drawers is filled with vintage fair and thrift store finds!  Really, a small price to pay for a lot of charm.

Oh, and by 4pm this afternoon, the rain returned big time!  So still a wet June here in the Fraser Valley.

New drapes and cushion covers

A recent trip to IKEA with my daughter, Ms. Freshface, led me to these really cute draperies!  Love at first sight.  I bought three sets plus some really cute fabric to recover all the cushions in our livingroom.

This navy checkered fabric was a bargain! Sturdy cotton, 59 inches wide and on sale!

The window in our livingroom is really big so two set of panels sewn together give ample fullness. The fabric is a beautiful 56% linen / 44% cotton. 

One set in our study.

One and a half yards was enough fabric to cover 4 cushions plus some nice scraps!

Vintage Market

What a lovely way to spend a Saturday afternoon!  Touring the Christmas Fieldstone Vintage Market plus a coffee date with a friend. I scored this beautiful old oak rocker, plus these vintage kitchen items.   Love the vendors - they are all so friendly; and the prices for all of their 'one of a kind' wares are sooo reasonable.

I would have taken photos while I was at the market, but I had my daughters little doggie tucked inside my coat. She loved the outdoor market and all the attention -but I wasn't able to reach into my bag for the camera all that easily.  

And now it is the next day, and I still wished I had purchased more!  Ah well, next time.

Fieldstone Vintage Market

Oh I do hope this become an annual event!  Spent Saturday morning with two dear friends  at the first Fieldstone Vintage Market.  It was wonderful.  And it reminded me that whenever I go wandering the world (albeit via the internet) looking for  my  heart's desire  that I really need only look in my own hometown!     (... a quote from the Wizard of Oz, I think)...

Just a few of my treasures!  My market bag was brimming with great finds.

Happy Autumn everyone.

Shades of What's to Come -2011

 Summer is waning when the hydrangeas start to turn color.  It is no secret that August is bittersweet to me. Especially this summer, as our beautiful summer weather really began at the beginning of August.   

 And, as I have said in past, this month should be my favourite month of the season, maybe even the year - it is my birthday month, my daughter's, my dear Dad's and my god-mother's as well. But no, I always start to feel sad once I flip the calendar to August.   It signals the coming end of summer, and in this beautiful, green but rainy valley I start dreaming of summer in January.  I wish summer could last six months long and they would be all June & July!  That is when summer is in full swing.  My favourite time.

I pout at the end of each summer, but here is one tradition that makes it a bit sweeter. At the end of season, usually in September I cut a nice selection of hydrangeas that have already started to turn color -  meaning that they will dry nicely.  The bunch below are all mop-heads - all originally blue but now turning green, grey and some even a nice mauve-grey.

I plan to refill one of my favourite baskets.  The basket shown here is at least thirty years old! Purchased in the early 1980's in Vancouver's Chinatown. I love this basket. Wicker baskets are a great investment -  always useful, alot more attractive than a plastic tote for storing household items, and don't be afraid to give them a wash! Mild soap and water, a good rinse with a hose... let them dry in the sun if you can and lastly, give your basket a good wipe down with some lemon oil polish.  Your basket will look like new!

See, here is the same basket - left - circa 1985, in our son Ryan's room - filled with stuffed animals.

Here is my favourite basket, all freshly filled with this year's crop of dried hydrangeas. This is an early fall tradition. It helps me 'cross over' from summer into fall a little.  And while I love fresh flowers better than dried ones - this arrangement is very pretty. It does help take the sting out of the end of August.

word clouds

I have discovered www.tagxedo.com....   & have been making word clouds. This is my friend Vicki's word cloud... love it!

French General & the alphabet

 Fabric arrived in the mail today, finally!  That postal strike really made me wait an extra long time for this parcel. But I am very happy with this fabric. It is from the fabric line called "French General". 

I didn't really appreciate the vibe from these prints at first, but I am smitten with them now!  The order was a total of five yards; enough for cushion covers, some table runners & maybe a kitchen window panel. The graphics are so crisp.

 

 I've become very interested lately in graphic design & typography. It seems a whole new world has opened up for me and I see everything in a slightly different way.  Labels, signs, design graphics have all become more interesting.  The picture above is a custom  order from Sweetwater  "hometown series"- the picture is just a proof, which still requires a bit of editing but when finished it will be a great print on the wall of our dining area.  So fun to add your own personal names & places.

More alphabet influences.....I have been playing with our 'Christmas' letters.... you know those country looking blocks that spell out "Merry Christmas" "Peace" Believe" & "Joy"... well I pulled them from the cupboard to try spelling 'summer' words. I came up with a few, but I have never been a good scrabble player. I am trying to come up with more; actually I really like the idea of 'spelling' words and might just buy more letters to work with.

So fabric, blocks, graphics & the alphabet.... Somehow this path will lead me back to quilting and sewing... but I am enjoying the wander....Have a great weekend all.

Saturday morning & dishes

Over a month ago, hub took me to Langley and bought me a china hutch I had been admiring. I had been wanting to stack my dishes in it for awhile, this morning was finally the day to arrange them. I have a large collection of "Petite Fleur" by Villeroy & Boch.  I love them and have been collecting over the years. As well, I have dishes from my mom's house, her 'Old Country Rose' set.

My mother became very ill over a year ago and it was necessary for her to move to a nursing home for continual care; and so we  packed up most of her personal belongings to be stored.  Her 'Old Country Rose' dishes were a source of pride . Her china was only used for special occasions, always hand-washed, and remind me of Christmas or Easter, & especially my mother whenever I see this pattern.

I wrapped each piece and packed them with great care when her home was sold last year. I tried to entice each of my sisters to 'adopt' this china, but no one would take them.  The boxes filled with my mom's china have sat in my laundry room for more than a year.

So, this morning I decided to set up my china hutch...

What a fun task... Saturday morning, fresh-brewed coffee to enjoy while I re-arrange my china hutch!  But I kept thinking about my mom's dishes downstairs in bubble wrap.... 

So I brought up all six boxes and unwrapped each item.  

There are a lot a great memories wrapped up with those 'Old Country Rose' dishes.

I must admit it is a very lovely pattern, very dainty, very pretty. And it feels good having them  in a place of their own.

Outer Order adds to Inner Calm

Working on house projects... & enjoying putting finishing touches on our 'library' (aka our old dining-room, kid's computer room) but hub & I now realize that we need more shelving - as there are lots more books to shelve yet.  I enjoy sorting through the books we stored away - never to be given away - like Goosebumps & The Babysitter's Club chapter books. Volumes of memories... However there are a couple of very messy closets that I have pledged to clean out this coming month so further puttering with our book collections will have to wait! 

But this afternoon I am savoring our library books collected over the years.

Productive week

Booked a week off from work to work on some house projects.  The project list is long. What can I say?  I always envision getting more accomplished than I can, but it was a productive week.

Didn't really think I would get through my long list, not in one week, just the same it is fun to look back at our progress.

First, the process of elimination of the paint colour - there were three contenders; our final choice was nothing too wild this time around (Benjamin Moore "Old Prairie"), actually the most neutral color choice in decades.

  Then always a favourite part of the job, taking the room apart. Love doing that!  It is probably because we have lived in the same house so long (25 years) and this is close to simulating that 'new house' feel. You know, the empty rooms that echo when you talk, & blank walls waiting for you to make your move.

Hub is a good sport about my re-decorating bug, mostly. Motorhead fans aren't normally occupied with decorating ideas.  He never really sees the need, but is great about moving furniture from floor to floor of the house. My grand plan always unfolds while in progress - I begin with a notion and then let it take us wherever it goes.

So this week, we had a notion to go to IKEA - always good for ideas. We really enjoy seeing the young couples and families shopping for home stuff.  I really liked these Jennylund chairs, especially the one hub is sitting in - but he wasn't as enchanted as I was.

I really liked these Jennylund chairs, especially the one hub is sitting in - but he wasn't as enchanted as I was.

  Our big IKEA purchase this week were these Vallvik shelves - however we managed to fill them up very quickly, (shhhh!) we really should've bought at least another two sections. There are still boxes of books & all our CD's that we aren't ready to part with yet.....Oh well, next time.

We did stop by my favourite furniture store in Langley and hub bought this beautiful hutch for all of my dishes.