Allegan this Sunday August 29!

Fall is in the air and we are loving it! It's been a little cooler here in Michigan and we have found our "heat lost" energy. So here is a little peak at what we have been working on  for the upcoming Allegan Antiques Show at the Fairgrounds Dan & doors have a relationship that goes back a long way, from restoring his own old houses to expert restoration of others as a business, to building furniture out of old doors and now the deconstruction of old door panels for the above signs.

I have been creating again with recycled tee shirts for more of these cozy scarves. There are lots to choose from!

We'll also have some cool vintage industrial along as well as Halloween.

It's going to be a BEAUTIFUL weekend, can't wait to see all of you!

A Wonderful Busy Creative Time

I am sorry that I haven't blogged much recently, but thanks to Dan for also keeping you all up to date. I wanted to share one more image from the last show that we did in Petoskey. We were so blessed that weekend with family, friends, great sales, even greater customers and weather. This darling gal was so happy with her vintage button necklace purchase that she just had to wear it right then! It looked so cute on her too. She was so pretty in orange, the new "hot" color!

Dan & I took an extra day to enjoy northern Michigan before heading back to Grand Rapids. We stopped at this picturesque farm on Camp Dagget Road for the north's BEST sweet corn. Johnecheck Farms. We now have lots of it in our freezer so we can still have that taste of summer in the winter.

We also tooled over to Harbor Springs to hit some of our favorite antique shops, this was in L'Esprit, such an inspiration!

We then took one of my favorite summer drives along the north shore of Little Traverse Bay from Harbor Springs. It is truly one of the most beautiful summer communities ever. The large elegant historic cottages go on for miles. A treat for us old house people!

As soon as we got back to the city I started in on this project for Tom & Kathy VanDaff of Greencrest Manor in Battle Creek. I made a set of 4 of these little cushions for this antique Woodard child size chairs. Kathy had this darling vintage floral fabric for me to work with, it was so sweet.

greencrestmanor.com    is a wonderful historic French Normandy style house that they have lovingly restored and is now a B & B - one of the top 10 in the country. They were getting ready for a special wedding the day I delivered the chair cushions so I snapped some pictures that I thought you might like to see.

Dan has been busy battling the heat to work on projects in his shop, I finished teaching my last summer class this week on the business of Interior Design and I have been doing design work, including tile selections and layouts, plumbing selections, custom bedding design etc.  So it has been a wonderful busy creative time here and now we ara getting ready for Allegan next weekend. No lazy  hazy crazy days of summer here!

Petoskey Show

This is how our space at Petoskey looked a few minutes after the show opened on Saturday morning. It was a beautiful day and we had lots of shoppers. As aways we had our corner right across from the parking lot and so we are fortunate to have most people start the show by going thru our booth first. We had a real mix of product with lots of furniture.

This wonderful blue bench made from a bed was the first furniture sale of the day and the wonderful whimsical white cabinet behind it only lasted a couple of hours longer. Don't you just love CJ's vintage feed sack pillows on the bench!

The yellow bed bench in this picture sold on the second day and most of the shelves/bookcases behind it all sold at the end of the first day.

This vintage Amish made harvest type table was admired by many but didn't sell so we will be putting it in one of our antique mall spaces. The two copper capitals on the table on the right came from some columns on a local church and got alot of attention.

All architectural items always get alot of attention and a pair of gable fretwork like the one above(from a local farmhouse) drew many admirers but didn't sell so they are still available.

The bent ash chair and sofa in the picture was a fun project that involving CJ's sewing talents and my woodworking and painting skills. We painted the furniture a soft white and recovered the cushions with blue ticking fabric. We didn't sell this item so it just got put into Eastown antique mall along with the spectacular pillows you see on the sofa made by CJ out of vintage patchwork fabric. The fun vintage stone urn hiding behind the rose picnic basket sold and went to a wonderful cottage on Lake Michigan.

As always we had lots of smalls and repurposed creations sale. We are grateful for all of the people that showed up to support us and purchase from us. Having done shows for the last year and half we are amazed at all of the friends and acquaintances we have made and we love visiting you all and seeing your familiar friendly faces at the shows we set up at.

The really stars of the weekend for us were CJ's parents. We were well fed and lodged. There was a get together with CJ's family to celebrate her Dad's birthday. So we even had cake and pie! Our experience was rich and right now we are feeling very tried but full of gratitude. Thanks to all with a special thanks to Mom and Dad Pluister.

Just a Few More "Tease" Items Ready for Petoskey!

Just a sneak peak at a few more items ready for Petoskey.

Old door panel paintings, vintage floral oil paintings framed in Dan's awesome old casing frames, vintage grain sack pillows with way cool old patches and fabric wall flowers - so cute on your front door, wall - you decide where :>

OK back to work!

Toodles

Petoskey Antiques @ the Fairgrounds Show this Weekend Aug. 7 & 8

Dan & I are busy getting ready for the 2nd Petoskey Antique Show of the summer @ the Emmet County Fairgrounds. The show is this weekend Aug. 7 & 8.

Dan grew up in Minnesota where PIE is king. Pie was an important part of his family gatherings and traditions. There is nothing more American than apple pie, right? So now it is an important part of: "our" tradition too. We had pie at our wedding reception, we made pie for Eric's birthday, we have several favorite movies with great pie scenes. Sweetland which was filmed not far from where Dan grew up - a beautiful moving movie of a mail order bride early in the 20th century. Michael staring John Travolta as the angel Michael - my all time favorite movie. Michael only has so much time here on earth left and has a list of things he wants to see and experience before he has to leave and of course he has a job to do too! So you can imagine my delight when Dan came home with his new creation, the PIE sign! and like always he asks me how much should I sell this for? My reply of course was $385.00. Well as it turns out you can buy this from him this weekend in Petoskey for less than that. There may be more.............

I have been tucked in my studio covering old cushions for this fab rattan furniture in ticking. What is it about ticking, I just love it and everything goes with it.

I've also been dreaming of what could become of this wonderful stash of fabric - so stay tuned for more!

We sure hope to see you this weekend in Petoskey!