Celebrating!

This is my 100th post and 1st giveaway!

photo credit Cape Cod Rambling Rose

Last weekend was my shop open house.  What made it so delightful were my friends, who came out in force!  One friend is someone I knew in California when my kids were little.  She's here for a temporary job and I love it that she took her lunch hour to come visit the shop.

Another friend brought her children and they were an additional delight!  Her daughter tried on a whole bunch of my vintage hats.  Her 5 year old son did also.  Then my friend and I had to join in the fun! 

  We all looked mahvalous.  

photo credit Cape Cod Rambling Rose

The kids each picked out a vintage ornament for their tree.  Yessss -- handing off the vintage tradition to the next generation.  

photo credit Cape Cod Rambling Rose

 

Louise, who is so busy with 4 kids, her husband's shop and her creative endeavors, showed up to ooh and ah!  Even tho there are lots of breakables in the shop, I really enjoy kids coming in -- well behaved & interesting kids anyway.  So I was glad Louise brought her 2 youngest.  They are sweeties!  I have used some of her beautiful photos for this post.  She is documenting Cape Cod this holiday, drop over and see her blog Cape Cod Rambling Rose. 

New friends also visited.  A couple with an antique shop up the road who have welcomed me into the 6A community of antique shops came by on Sunday.  Their daughters visited on Saturday.  One daughter, Lee is an amazing photographer.  Click here to see her website.  

 

photo credit Lee Sutton Photography

She's purchased some things from my shop for props and we have a mutual admiration society.  She loves my shop, I love her photos!  

 

 

photo credit Cape Cod Rambling Rose

Two women who had never been in the shop before came in.  We hit it off right away.  I love making new friends, so I hope I get to see these ladies again.  Maybe they like to go out to lunch?   

 

So to celebrate both 100 and friendship, I am having a giveaway.  I will pick a comment and send this little basket & other treasures from my studio & shop.  Leave a comment before December 24th, telling me what you celebrate and treasure in your life! 

Holiday Decor

As I was getting ready for my shop open house, I looked around to see what I could use to decorate.  Most everyone has things especially for the holidays -- either purchased or handed down.   But what if you don't?  I came up with some fun "everyday" items to re-purpose for holiday displays.

I also came up with different ways to use vintage decorations.  With the shop, my purpose is sales, but I thought the ideas could be used in a person's home as well.

Find books with  red or green covers.

Add decorative ribbon in a coordinating design.
Millinery flowers or greenery would also be nice.

A plaid umbrella, plaid hatbox & round hatbox with red top.

I tied a ribbon around the plaid hatbox and opened the umbrella.  

Instant holiday colors.

Whiting & Davis Mesh Evening Bags.

Think of your pretty bags, the ones you never use, what with the kids and the economy.  If your bags are not as glittery as these, tie a pretty bow around one.

Stemware with small glass ornaments.

I got these glasses at auction.

They were part of a box lot.  Most of the matched sets have sold and I have these left. Usually they look like orphans, but with red ornaments they look pretty good.  Adding red shred and a pretty ribbon would jazz them up further!

An alternative to hanging ornaments on a tree.
 The look so pretty against the big window!

The shop doesn't have space for a large tree and I wanted to display all these wonderful vintage ornaments.  I strung a garland made of wire between a couple cup hooks and viola!  These ornaments are lightweight, if you have heavier ones just make sure you use wire that will support them.

 

Vintage ornaments on a silver tray. 

These remind me of my grandma, my shop inspiration.

Lightbulb Parfait.

These came in another box lot of Christmas pretties.

Added to orphan stemware, they look good enough to eat!

However you decorate this season, I hope you have fun and use things that really mean something to you.

2 Little Shops, 2 Much Fun!

My friend and neighbor Amy Mason has a wonderful shop across the street from me.  Sometimes it's just knowing she's over there, open, that gets me to open my shop when I might really rather be going out to lunch and reading a book!

Tomorrow we are having open houses at our shops.  She designed a great e-card, the gist of which you can see here.

My card

Designed by Amy at Stony Brook Design

(the back has all the pertinent info)

Amy's business card
She designs the cutest greeting cards too.
I love visiting her shop, it's bright, cheery and full of color.
Plus she does killer displays!

Adding a bit of sparkle to the blues.

A couple hours away from Pink Saturday!

Holiday gift tags

I couldn't resist the white embossing powder, it's called "winter wonderland" and has a little bit of sparkle to it!

A Very Vintage Christmas

Hmmm . . .
I didn't realize it has been a month since my last post.  I am getting very close to my 100th post!  Since I want to do something special for that, I put off posting, then I got out of the habit, and here we are almost December!

I signed up for Cristina's Ephemera Swap.  I met Cristina and her mom, Catherine at Silver Bella 2009.  What wonderful ladies.  They were one of the highlights of SB for me! 

 

Advertisements from Better Homes & Gardens  December 1954.

All the ads I sent for this swap had some kind of Christmas theme. 

 

I had to keep this for myself!

No idea what kind of collage this will end up in, but I couldn't resist a line like "You belong on your Christmas list!"

 

Scallop circles from wrapping paper inherited from my grandma!

 I love those scallop punches!

I know I have a problem with hoarding collage-able paper.   So I decided to send more than the required number of pieces for this swap.  I added both 2" & 3" scallop circles.  Also pages from an 1877 book.  The heading on each page is "Great and Memorable Events,"  which pretty much sums up holidays for me.

The packets wrapped up.

I can't wait to see all the wonderful vintage paper.

This swap really got me into the Christmas mood.

Here's a preview of how

I'm decorating the shop for an open house next weekend.

Also I think this is what Cristina has put on her wish list!

Shop Blues

A group of friends on a Girl's Weekend came into the shop today.

They are celebrating their 50th birthdays.


I loved their energy and how often then would call to each other about how cute this was or how wonderful that was.  The shop is all my taste, so it felt quite validating!

 They picked out interesting items, like this fabric.
And had ideas of how and where it could be used.

My favorite customers are the ones who like the shop.

I do love to make sales, but honestly I am equally happy when I have an appreciative person, even if they don't buy a thing.

So in my usual California enthusiasm (which I know is not really appreciated in New England), I blurted out how delighted I was to have them in the shop and liking so many of my things. It went over like a lead balloon!  I felt like an idiot the moment the words were out of my mouth.    

So to make myself feel better I decided to make my "blues" into a photographic essay and  share it with you!  And it has worked!  Enjoy the pretties and thanks for listening!

For today's Pink Saturday posts go over to Bev's blog.

Full Circle Magic

Last June I went to a concert -- it was a combo late birthday & anniversary gift.  It was an amazing night and I hardly know where to start!

So maybe I'll just start at the beginning.
With photos from last June.

In 1970 James Taylor and Carole King played The Troubador in Los Angeles.  And I was there.

Carole King was the opening act, and James Taylor's pianist.

She played a set, singing new songs from Tapestry

 (which had not been released yet), and Motown hits like

Up on The Roof and Natural Woman.  

 James Taylor played a set, which included songs from the

Apple album -- Something in the Way She Moves --

 and his second album, Sweet Baby James.  

 

Together they sang You've Got a Friend.   JT has said little did he know that when he sang that song at The Troubador, he would be singing it every concert for the next 40 years.

Good thing it's such a wonderful song!  

 When it came time for the encore, James looked up at the balcony, said, "Hey Joni, you want to join us for this?"  And Joni Mitchell came down to add harmonies on You Can Close Your Eyes.

I went with my sister and her boyfriend and between the two of us we have a pretty perfect recollection of the night.  We sat at a table front row center.  We bought our required 2 drinks/sodas each and we were in heaven.

Nancy and I have never had a best-friends relationship and it's been strained in recent years, so it was really nice to talk to her about this and remember a time when we were hanging out together.  She has a lovely voice and I am lucky if I sing on key.  But sometime during her freshman year at UCLA, we sang You've Got A Friend together in harmony and we sounded good!   

  Jump ahead to 2007.  The Troubador is celebrating 50 years and James Taylor and Carole King get together to play there again.   Apparently they liked it so much, they set up the Carole King & James Taylor Troubador Reunion tour for 2010.  I got tickets to see them in Boston.  My sister got tickets to see them at The Hollywood Bowl.  She took my brother, who was s'posed to go in '70 but missed it due to flu.  I took my husband, who I didn't know in 1970.

The concert I saw at the The Troubador was the beginning.  It is a very small club.  Carole King was known in song-writing circles, but not as a singer.  It was one of her first gigs.  She wasn't flamboyant, but boy what a voice!  James Taylor had only recorded two albums. He was amazing and I already loved all his songs.

 

40 years later they are icons and luckily the concert I saw at the Boston Garden is not the end.  She still has an amazing voice, and is much less shy on stage!  He has recorded 25 albums.  They are still two of my favorite performers.  I knew all the songs.  It felt wonderful to be there, and whole and like a part of me I haven't accessed in a very long time was singing in my head -- on key.

Home By Another Way

I've been thinking about my blog a lot lately.

  

I want to find the right balance.

I want it to be pretty, and I also want it to be honest.

Is it honest if I don't share all that is going on with me at the time?  Do I need to explain the history, give the back-story that gets me to what I am writing about?  Does the back-story help people get close to me, or not? Sometimes I wonder . . .

Part of my history & back-story, anyway.  

I started blogging after discovering Artful Blogging magazine. The issue I bought had Heather's Pretty Petals blog.  It inspired me and really touched a chord.  That led to reading other amazing blogs; attending Silver Bella; making art & taking photos I'm proud of.

A month after I started blogging, Heather hosted  "A pretty little Christmas" blog party of Christmas decorations.  I joined in.

 

  My post was beautiful, but terribly ironic.

I didn't decorate for Christmas that year, I wasn't doing very well emotionally and all I could manage were close-ups of pretty things.  The bigger picture was a mess!

 

Suzanne did a post about blogging close-up and the messy bigger picture.  She wrote, (and I wish I had written it), " . . . every time I show you a close up of my life, just remember…that there is a bigger picture…and it’s far from perfect!"

When I started blogging, I was still healing from some painful emotional losses.  Some days getting out of bed was a real accomplishment. So there were things in my life I didn't write about.  And since then there have been other things I didn't want to write about.

Life is so much better for me these days.  I will probably never write about the things that were so painful.  But just writing this post has helped me to sort out what it means to be authentic. I don't have to tell all to be honest, and I don't have to explain every little thing to be authentic.