spring cleaning, one room at a time...

Ahhhhhh, it feels so good to have a day to do a 

thorough cleaning, and relax in a clean room.

Those cement legs on my makeshift door table may be my favorite thing in the whole room.

Well, except maybe my little collection of vintage bottles in that beautifully aged toolbox!

Oliver is as happy as the rest of us to have the windows open and let the fresh air inside,

and see how cozy Captain is as he ponders the meaning of life?  

In the photo with Captain, you can see that the sofa covers are on because, well... dogs.

I took them off as I cleaned the room, and sprinkled the sofas with our 

carpet freshener, because, well... dogs.

I left it on for a little while as I did other cleaning, and then vacuumed it up,

The sofas smell so much fresher, they just make the room feel like spring is in the house!

Now that I have one room in the house cleaned, :)

I'm  eager to get outside in the sunshine and put the patio back together.

This photo is from last summer, and I can't wait to get out there

to relax with the family.

Just in case you are thinking that my days are spent

just sprinkling lavender carpet freshener around my house, 

I thought I would give you a peek at one of my 

latest assemblage necklaces.  

you know, because, well, baubles...  :)

Happy Spring!

love,

t.xoxo

show time...

Hello everyone!

I thought I'd give you a little snippet

of what I've been up to, and that revolves 

mainly around shows and markets.

 Show time is fun time for me,

I love "playing house" in the booth!

'shopping' my house and barn for display pieces,

and then finding awesome fill in pieces at fleas and yard sales.

like this urn...

I've had the table for awhile and painted it last year for the house, 

but it just made it's way out of the barn to do shows this summer.

Because I am thinking right now about long I have had some of these

pieces, I even shocked myself when I remembered that I

found this table about 23 years ago!

I just painted it for the first time this year.

the beauty of taking it to shows, is that it is two pieces.

I love those legs!!!

The china cabinet I have had for almost as long.

I traded my brother and his wife for it

when I stenciled on the walls of their dining room in their first home!

best decoration in the whole booth...

My 15 year old daughter Hannah telling our shoppers about the benefits

of using our natural products!

I just sit back and beam when I listen to her talk to everyone.

I am fortunate to be able to say that this

is a family affair.  When our 10 year old Max is with us,

he gets right out in front and does the same thing!

When Danielle and John are home for a visit they pitch in and 

Cameron has been helping at markets and

Duane does the weekend shows with us after making

phone calls all morning!

love. love. love.

The displays do take a beating though and this girl was looking pretty rough,

let's say more rough than the shabby look I love.

What's a girl to do?

why, paint her with chalkboard paint of course!

She came in quite handy for displaying earrings.

I grabbed the old door at the last minute hoping for

a better way to display the repurposed necklaces...

it's going to be a permanent fixture from now on. 

I am constantly on the hunt for pieces to display my jewelry.

I could keep adding things from around here to bring

with us, but then where in the car and truck would I put them?

I do have to make room for the staff!

:)

Like I said,

I love "playing house" when we set up our booth.

Fluffing and then fluffing some more.

Next time I might think about adding

a chair to take a break in once in a while,

so that my back wasn't hurting today.

(back to the chiropractor I go.)

Thank goodness that Duane and Cameron 

really do all of the heavy lifting these days,

I couldn't bring any of these pieces without them!

love. love. love.

I hope that you are having a lovely summer.

Take in an art show if you have any near by...

the inspiration out there is endless!

Thank you everyone for your visits. I know that 

there are so many blogs to follow and that I am not here

nearly as often as I used to be, so I really

appreciate your stopping by for a visit and your comments!

love,

t.xoxoxoox

next post I will share more of what I've been creating to take to the shows.

here's a peek...

chalkboard love...

yes. you. are.

love,

Theresa

xoxoxooxoxo

around the house for Christmas...

I hope that you all had a beautiful Christmas,

ours was very special, filled with lots of family time,

laughter, love, good food, games,

mixed with

the flu.

not once,

but three different times and not just for one person in the family,

but many of us in varying degrees of flu fun, during the time when

we would have been preparing for the big day.

I thought I was on the verge of being ready early when I went

clipping greens around town with my friend Julie.

We now have a tradition started where we play what I like to refer to as

"City Workers"

and go around to abandoned buildings and clip greens from bushes and trees.

We are also not above doing a little curb clean-up and taking 

branches from the side of the road that have been thrown out by our

very generous citizens!

I got enough for all of the urns,

and little spots around the yard.

So the porches were decorated and I thought,

surely the inside will be a cinch...

did I mention

the flu?

three times?

I know that I have said how much I love all of the inspiration on Pinterest,

and the chalkboard creativity is no exception.

I love me some chalkboards!

A good friend of mine, Val, gave me this super heavy duty sandwich board

because she knew that I would find something to do with it.

I painted it with chalkboard paint and used it for the last of the shows that we did.

When I was putzing on the porches I made it up for the

side porch...

and then the rain came, and washed the message away.

lather, rinse, repeat.

It hasn't been put back outside though...

did I mention 

the flu?

three times?

Not just one of us,

but multiple people, even those that showed up from out of state 

to play with us over the holidays got 

the flu.

I did get one box upstairs days before, and that was our beloved

Nativity given to us by my parents years ago.

See the new insert in our mantle?  I had a brainstorm one day

and took it from the small mantle that is up in our bedroom, as it 

really never got used up there and brought it down for the dining room,

I love it here!

this was our advent calender last year, stapled to the chalkboard.

This year I wrapped it around a burlap bulletin board and used the chalkboard

for another Pinterest inspired message...

gotta love Pinterest!

The one bottle brush tree that I saved for us, it 

hangs on the bathroom door.

Hannah painted this St. Nick years ago,

(maybe 4?)

I love it, she did such a great job!

 It also decorates another bathroom door.

Smallest bathroom ever with 3 doorways!

On to the kitchen...

I took the same St. Nick class as Hannah and did this one,

it is on the industrial shelving in the kitchen.

The column and bird cage are sitting on the barn door counter 

and the star got a bit of a make over with the beautiful 

round picture placed in the center.

I have kept this mercury glass bird on the shelf of my work room

for a few years now, knowing that it would be used for 

something special,

it loves its new home!

I think that she is exquisite and will be gracing my kitchen long

past Christmas!

The most loved decoration is of course the people I love...

Dad giving Max a chess lesson...

and then later taking on one of his much earlier students.

The game has been out and played by different opponents everyday now.

p.s. same day, different flannel!  My man loves this ratty old shirt!

We waited for Danielle to get home to cut down a tree, so that her and her boyfriend, Justin,

could get it with us, but then they got sick too so just a couple of days before

Christmas Duane and a couple of the kids went alone to pick out a

tree that was already cut. We almost never do that but you learn to roll with the punches.

I think they did a wonderful job, finding just the right tree for the space!

The tree never got past the lights part of decorating, but we all decided that 

we were okay with that!  I was on the couch not feeling very well at all, 

and said that I could direct them to the boxes down in the basement, but

the simplicity of the lights won hands down.

At first I thought, REALLY?  but when I thought long and hard on it,

(for about 5 seconds)

I completely agreed...

simple is good.

We did make sure to have special messages on every chalkboard,

and I am so glad that we did!

I mean how can you take a good duck face, new hat and jammie picture

without a beautiful backdrop?

:)

So there you have it,

our Christmas was almost comical at a certain level

and compared to Christmas Vacation. 

I told my friends that if a backwards cousin driving

an RV pulls into my driveway, and a squirrel jumps out of our enormous tree,

  I would start looking for the hidden cameras!

Never happened,

as it turns out,

having the flu so much was all we needed to learn to roll with the punches.

I will end this with how it began...

we had a magical Christmas filled with lots of  family time,

laughter, love, good food, games 

and most of all the knowledge that we are

blessed beyond belief.

I wish the same for you.

love,

Theresa 

xoxoxooxoxoxo

last one,

I think we started a new tradition around here too.

No more fancy stockings for us,

we are going to be using the real deal from now on!

yup, you guessed it we didn't go searching for the stockings either.

a little of this, a little of that...

Let's start with this...

Last week I helped my good friend Julie put together a 50th birthday party for her husband, Tom.

She had so many great ideas for the decorations, the food and the entertainment so it was

an easy job!  This guy, Tod Parkhouse,  the caricature artist was a big hit,  

the guests, young and old alike were lined up for him to draw a silly picture of them.

Here he is drawing one of Max and Hannah

How adorable is that!!!  

GAAAAAAAAA!

It cracks me up every time I look at it!

Duane and I had ours drawn too, but nobody to take a photo of it happening,

Thank goodness for small favors!

Julie hired great local band to play on her beautiful wrap around porch

 while the guests relaxed on the  front lawn

visiting with friends in their lawn chairs.

Also a big hit!

(one day I need to take you on a tour of her gorgeous home)

I am so bummed that I didn't have more time to take some photos of the

decorations with my camera before the guests arrived.

 (I did take a few with Julies before I went

home to get mine but that doesn't help me show them to you now!)

anyway...

I made these chalkboard tags out of precut wood from the craft store

and them we used my new favorite tool, the chalkboard paint pen

to write on everything.

If you haven't gotten one for yourself yet and you love chalkboards as much

as I do, you must head to your nearest craft store

WITH COUPON IN HAND

cuz they aint cheap and I couldn't find any single pens,

you have to buy the set for $12.00

but go get yourself some,

I promise you won't be sorry!

I was able to use the 50% coupon though so I did my famous

Happy Dance as I walked out the door!

We also wrapped some vintage ice buckets with a strip of burlap and topped

them with huge burlap fluffy flowers and filled them with hosta leaves.

Julie also bought plain white paper napkins and stamped the corner

with cool vintage looking stamps.

Plus everything was in galvanized buckets or tool boxes.

She had so many wonderful details that I wish I could show you right now.

anyway...

now, here's some of that...

We have added some really colorful lavender sachets to the mix of 

our laundry provisions

and they are a big hit at the market!

All vintage materials, curtains, tablecloths,sheets, a pillow case or two,

and some mens dress shirts because Danielle said we needed something for the men.

She was so right!

and finally...

Oliver has decided that this large wash basin

is his favorite new hang out.

As I took this picture I had to laugh because we 

recently watched Jim Gaffigan, Mr. Universe,

and he talks about how we are becoming obsessed with taking

pictures of everything.  One of his lines is 'The cat is sleeping,

I should take a picture of him'

...and tweet it.

Seriously though, could you help but take a picture

of what we like to call,

"kitty in a bowl"?

I didn't think so.

Happy Saturday,

make it special!

love,

Theresa

xoxoxxo

around the house...

Soooo, maybe spring really is here?

The sunshine we are getting is wonderful, and it has given me to push that I

needed to do some spring cleaning...

(and what's cleaning really, if you're not moving things around?)

I finally brought in the players bench that I bought 2 years ago.

It's way longer than the table but when we need it in a pinch, we move

the chairs to the other side and pull it up to the table.

(I love it so much that I may just need to find a bigger table!)

but honestly, the room is too small for that so I will just

have to keep it against the wall for now.

chalkboard love and the daffodil's that Hannah and Max have picked for me!

Of course, in my favorite new vase!  

I can't wait until the rest of the flowers bloom and they

bring in some peonies for these jars!

It seems time to put these away for now,

they feel too dark for all of the sunshine that's coming through the windows today.

I have been putting off raking the leaves from the gardens,

but this sunshine and 80 degree temps. has me rethinking that!

I'm just hoping that in typical Michigan fashion,

we don't get anymore snow!

Hope you are enjoying the same kind of sunshine that I am! 

love,

Theresa

xoxoxoxo

linking to:

 Transformation Thursday

Vintage Inspiration Friday

chalkboard love...

I'm still going through the photos that I took at the show and can't 

wait to share them with you!

In the meantime I had so much fun making

vignettes at the show that as I have

been putting things away I can't resist doing a little redecorating...

Jill, the show's creator, cut a couple of  branches from her crab apple tree for 

me to take home for some gorgeous fall decorating.

Thank you for everything Jill!

 after moving the dresser into the living room and putting it in front of the 

chalkboard, this little spot was too bare.  I like the bench in place of the 

dresser so much better.  Above it is one of my favorite pictures, 

The colors are extremely dark, but I just love that about it.

So, while I gather my thoughts,

(which is code for I am mentally exhausted)

I will finish cleaning the messes that I made around the house

before the show, and then share pictures of all of the fun we had at the show.

I even met a blog buddy!

fun! fun! fun!

see you soon!

love,

Theresa xoxo