Vintage Sweets

"Hi, My Name is Beth and I'm a Packrat"

I'm ashamed to admit this but...... My beautiful screen porch had become a depository for anything I didn't know what to do with. It was beginning to look like one of those porches you drive by and wonder if the owners actually know what's in there. Well almost, but I knew if I didn't clean it out soon it would continue to get worse and then it would be. It took me 1-1/2 days to clean and purge. First I took everything out of the room and put it in the front yard.  I took out all of the windows and screens and washed them. I washed walls, vacuumed, washed dishes, linens and cleaned all of the furniture before putting it back in the room. I have quite a few items I will be taking to my next show, and I even loaded 2 boxes with garage sale stuff. I finished about an hour ago and my room looks wonderful!

Here are a couple of before photos:

 

After:

 

My Disney Vacation!

Well I've been home a week and I finally have time to post some pictures of our Walt Disney World vacation. Florida in June was extremely HOT. We decided to go to Disney because this year they are offering special admission prices to members of the military and retired military. So Don got a complimentary 5 day pass and mine was 99.00 for a companion pass. We stayed at "Shades of Green" a military hotel on Disney property. Here is the view out our window

The hotel is situated right in the middle of the Disney Golf Courses, Palm, Magnolia and Oak Trail.

Don and statue of Mickey at the hotel.

 

 Main Street Mayor and Fire Chief

Sonny Eclipse at the Starlight Cafe in Magic Kingdom

Afternoon Parade down mainstreet

 

I realized that most of my pictures are from Magic Kingdom, we did go to all of the parks but apparently I took most of the photos at MK.

Just Back From Vacation!

After 2 incredibly long hot days of driving, I'm home from Birmingham and Florida(Disney).

 I know I promised more photos of my painting with the wire frame done in Deryn's portion of the workshop but our hotel did not have free wireless and when I thought about signing up I was too tired from a long day at Disney or hurrying to get around in the morning to get to Disney. So I came home to 160 e-mails that I am attemping to work my way through. In the meantime here are some photos from my last day in Birmingham. I only took the 2 day class and then headed down to Walt Disney World for a week.

Deryn and I

Andi and her painting

 

Joyce taking a break

 

Amy and her painting

After class on Saturday we walked over to a little french bistro and had a wonderful meal. My husband joined us for dinner. Aunt Cath and Don

Andi and Kathy

Kathy and Karen

Mingled Elements

What a wonderful time Don and I are having in Birmingham. The first night we were here I went to my friend Joyce's for dinner with several other of our friends from the Diva group who are all in town taking classes with DJ Petitt and Deryn Mentock. My classes started yesterday with DJ and painting a face here are several pictures of my girl in stages of completion.

Painting is finished and we are ready to start the next portion of the class, a wire frame.

DJ showing us how to shade .

More pictures from Deryn's class will come tomorrow.

Our Trip Starts here......................Michigan

A beautiful day to begin our long awaited adventure. We are headed to Milwaukee, Wisconsin and the "Bead and Button Show". We left Muskegon, MI via the Lake Express Ferry on Friday.

Sue, Carlie and Myself.

After we arrived there we got and taxi and headed ti the Hyatt Rengency to check in. after checking in we went over to the marketplace to shop for a couple of hours and to plan our attack for the next day.   Carlie and Sue showing off some of their purchases during our lunch break.

We shopped and shopped and shopped some more............... we shopped so much we tired out the young one.

We made many purchases on Saturday here are a few. Sue's Beads

My Beads below

A fun time was had by all...................    

For Those of You That Wondered

In my last post I told about my wonderful purchase of which I could only fit part of in my Trailblazer. Well here is a picture of my awesome, favorite purchase of the summer so far........

Yes it's a beautiful Iron Bed! I could only get the rails and footboard in the SUV, a friend of my Dad's took the headboard home for me and I got it the middle of last week. Then to move all of the furniture in Tommy's room out. Don told me to wait to set up the iron bed but I did it Saturday before heading out to set up at the antique show. We took the furniture that was in there to the antique show this weekend (It didn't sell)

This furniture , that was in Tommy's room, I got several years ago at an estate sale, it was made by West Michigan Furniture co. in Holland, MI. I loved this set but have always wanted an iron bed so when I saw it I whipped out the checkbook!

While I was setting up at the show I took a break to walk around and found an olive green antiqued nightstand. The price was right so I bought it and some new glass knobs and painted it white after work last night. I'm not sure about the blue knobs but I'm pleased with the overall results.

The little green stand I bought last year and just loved the chippy paint and the look of it . I knew that I would eventually have a spot for it and now I do. I also bought a cool shelf last year that I plan to hang in there. The room is a work in progress.

In My Glory!

Yesterday I paid the early buyer fee and shopped the Memorial Day Flea Market at Burley Park. We arrived up there about 2 hours after they statred letting vendors in. It takes almost 2 hours for all of the trucks,trailers and cars to get in after they open the gates. It's a first come first serve flea market, no advance reservations. There are always deals to be found and many dealers shop this market. I sometimes sell here when I'm looking to get rid of stuff that has been in my booth, but I would rather shop this market.

My first purchase of the day were these cool leather clog like shoes, they have long lace ties with a buckle on the end.

Of course I continued to find more cool things

A box of dolly parts

a very old glass perfume bottle, it has a small hairline crack so I got it for a song.

A vintage scrapbook cover only

inside of cover

a silver spoon with the name  "Lilla" engraved in the bowl.

Picket fence, short picket sections,album with many cabinet cards,flint glass apothecary jar, mint tin, brass pin, table with turned legs,honeycomb s&p shakers, little leather locking box, sewing box with pink satin lining.

close-up of hardware on leather box above, and interior of sewing box below

It was a wonderful day and I was truly in my glory all day. I made one more rather large purchase and I am so excited about this but.... I only have half of it home so I will post pictures when i get it. It was too big for the Trailblazer so a friend of my Dad's brought it home for me. I hope to pick it up tonight from him with our truck. Moral of the story, we should have taken the truck to the flea market. There was another piece I would have gotten if I had. 

I Was Late..........

but with good reason! Yesterday, Saturday my good friend Joanne hostessed a play day with a fellow Diva and friend who came up from Georgia, Karen Owen. Well I was supposed to be at Joanne's house at 11:00 and I got a little sidetracked and arrived more like 12:30. But I had a good reason, it was a sale with 30 haywagon's full of stuff, plus a few other sales on the way back home. We left home at 8:00 am hit 2 sales in town and then headed west to this annual sale in farm country. I bought a few things to keep and a few to sell, but really hit paydirt on the way back from Allegan. At 3 different sales I found the best things.

I now own a set of silverplate flatware, It is just beautiful! When I got married 25 years ago I just registered for stainless Oneida flatware and have always wanted silverplate. I got the set above for 25.00

The chair and brass napkin rings were 2 of my finds at the sales on the way home, everything else in this picture was purchased at the wagonload farm sale.

The cover of this book is pictured in the top photo. It is dated 1881 and is German, it is falling apart but the price was right and I will scan the pages so I can use them over and over again.

After finishing with sales and arriving back home I loaded my food and headed over to Joanne's for a day  of fun.

Karen, Jeanne, and Marie pondering what to do next.

Karen and Joanne, Joanne is explaining paperdoll supplies and getting us started.

Jeanne, Marie, Joanne, and Catherine. 

and Nellie.

Today I went to the Flea Market, pictures tomorrow.............................. 

My Favorite Flea Market

Well Monday is the first Burley Park of the year! I live for this first market, everyone brings out their winter stashes and bargains are to be found. Last year on Memorial Day I found these things

Then on Labor Day I got these things at the same market

So on Sunday we will pay the early entry fee(otherwise we would go on Monday and pay the 3.00) and shop while the vendors set up and hopefully find some terrific bargains. I will be sure to post pictures of my finds at this wonderful Flea Market.

Here is a picture of my little stinker and his favorite summer spot.

Of course Lucky is being good and laying under the table. Reggie on the other hand is being his usual acrobatic self.

In Progress.........

Well it's been awhile since my last post. I've been getting ready for the garage sale we had this past weekend. It was a interesting day on Saturday, it started out 65 degrees, then it rained and progressively got colder to about 50, then the wind picked up (we had gusts up to 35 mph all afternoon). Despite all of the bad weather the day's take was 1380.00 to split among 5 families. Sunday it was a little better, no rain, less wind and about 10 degrees warmer and we made another 649.00. My over all take was just about 500.00 just enough to buy new tires.

During my garage sale preparations I have been working on a few art projects. The first is a painting, it still needs to be finished as a matter of fact I think I will be painting over the face.I bought the book "Taking Flight" by Kelly Rae Roberts it is an awesome book. It has really made me think about the whole artistic process and following my bliss.

I love to paint and the last time I painted a person with a face was probably in junior high. I helped do a mural on the wall of the school, and I painted Eleanor Roosevelt. This was alot of fun but I need practice with people and faces.

The other projuct I have been working on is a cameo necklace. I purchased the cameo pin in March at an Antique show and have been wanting to make a necklace with it. So in the evenings I work a little at a time and now I'm trying to decide where to go with this. 

I learned how to make the charm keeper in a class taught by Deryn Mentock. If you ever have the chance to take a class with her I highly recommend it. I learned so much in the 2 day class I took. She is also one of the design team for the new blog Objects and Elements  it's Susan Lenart Kazmer's new blog. I can't wait to see what happens there.