I hope you’ll join me on my never-ending search for beautiful pieces, with history, for your home. Find my curated treasures, in Booth #154, at the Antique Trove, in Roseville, CA. ~ Barbara
Greetings dear friends!, How was your weekend? Wonderful, I hope! Are you the kind of person who loves a weekend filled with adventure, friendly people, creative exposure and kettle corn? Yep, I am! Every town, worth living in, has an antique fair. I don’t know why it took me so long to discover ours, downtown on the second Sunday each month. It’s an absolute blast! Today was no exception. Let me show you my winner of “Most Clever Use Of A Cookie Sheet” Award. You want a stainless steel table top? Will you settle for aluminum? Actually, it’s very cute!…
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This morning, the girls were on the road, at 7:15 a.m.! While cutting into my beauty sleep, it was all for a good cause! Searching for tomorrow’s treasures, that’s what we do! Today’s loot includes pillow fabric, that makes me happy, including what I think you’d call a toile. Very frenchy! Next to the vintage khaki stripe, these two could get work together! This blue and white stripe is from a French feather bed. It came complete with lingering feathers, and a trip to the beloved laundromat. I also found a great chess board, and a couple of frames, to…
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I used to see women digging through piles of linens and lace at estate sales. I never could understand what the attraction was. But now, I think I know! My mother was the consummate entertainer. Every dinner party included linen napkins that she carefully washed and ironed. In the early years, she would always include a table cloth on her table, for a dinner party. In the later years, she substituted beautiful placemats instead. While I always use cloth napkins for a dinner party, I never use tablecloths, because I hate covering up the wood grain of the table. I…
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While several of my blog friends have had the big national magazines feature their homes, I was thrilled to have “” “About Arden” magazine here, this morning, to do a feature article about our home. About Arden is a great local, monthly magazine, I always enjoy reading. You would have thought the queen was coming to visit, as Mr. Winderful and I were cleaning and primping every crevice, this past weekend! It was a good chance to get some little projects wrapped up that had been on the back burner for a while. I had been wanting to get rid…
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If you haven’t had the chance to meet her, this is the perfect opportunity! Karen, or Karena as she’s becoming known, (sounds much more exotic, don’t you think?), is passionate about the arts! That may be an understatement. As an artist herself, as well as a supporter and promoter of other artists, Karen writes Art by Karena. I’ll let her tell the story…. Barbara, thank you so much for including me in your series of Eight Things You Might Not Know…. 1. I grew up here in the Kansas City area as the eldest of eight, yes eight children! I…
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Greetings! It has been a busy and productive weekend! There were flea markets and yard sales out the yazoo and I only hit a handful of them. Mr. Wonderful scored double points this morning, when he took me to a stellar sale! It’s where I found “The Deal of the Week”! I really shouldn’t show her to you without being completely dressed, but here she is… She’s a big girl, about 3′ high and I can’t wait to see what she looks like decked out with a shade! $3.00! That’s right, three dollars! I don’t know if I have a…
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Hello there! What a day! I was so excited about yesterday’s monogrammed pillow creation, that I got to thinking about all the different fabric options that I could use to make soft, feminine, dare I say “shabby chic” pillow covers. I think I’ve unleashed a sleeping giant! Watch out! As I was combing the treasures at this morning’s flea market, I found old fabric, like you see all over the place at these markets. I brought home several pieces, including a pillow case that feels as though it has been washed a thousand times, that I used for tonight’s project.…
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Oh my gosh! Wait ’til you see this! Last week, when I was going to mass produce beautiful custom painted tea towels, that turned into a craft-disaster, the project went bust and I was left with 13 plain, white cotton (Wall Mart flour sack) tea towels. Well…drum roll please…tonight I turned two of those $1 towels, plus a vintage monogrammed hand towel into a gorgeous pillow! I had been in a crafter’s slump after the tea towel incident, but now, I’m dancing the Mashed Potato! (You remember that one? No?) It’s a pocket pillow, that anyone can make, with a…
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There must be some serious organizing happening in Blogland! I just saw that Kathysue, at Good Life of Design, had a very in-depth closet organization tutorial Thursday. I admire her organizational skills, but have not gotten to that level of perfection, yet! There’s still hope! Now, normally (yeah, sure!) I don’t let things get quite this bad. I hadn’t really unpacked properly last month and things just got stuffed, here and there. So I decided to share with you the down-and-dirty-closet-organization-tutorial-by-Barbara! It’s nothing more than making piles and folding. Oh, there’s also the “gotta-go” pile. Mr. Wonderful is stressing a…
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Goal setting. Just writing the words can be a little scary. What if I don’t reach my goals? What if I share them with you and don’t reach them? Will I then be the public idiot, the “pie in the sky” dreamer, or a woman who still had a few dreams left in her? I vote to be the woman who never stops dreaming. Not dreaming would be like asking me to stop learning or to always drive the same route, never taking a side road; never trying green curry, just because it’s green. You get my drift. I’m not…
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