SWEET FRENCH TOTES THAT ARE NOT AS GOOD AS CAROL'S

Way back in November 2011 Miss Carol over at The Polka Dot Closet blogged about doing some absolutely amazing Market Bags and I was blown away by what she created!

(If you haven't visited TPDC you just MUST do so today!)

Anyway...I made a mental note of the post and also saved it into my favorites!  Well...bettahhhh late than nevahhhh...I'm finally making a few for my new local booth space even though I took the easy way out and skipped on adding the ruffles like C did!  At SOME POINT I plan on making a few similar to hers, but last night I was just tooo lazy to get that creative!!!

I decided to keep mine easy-peasy and opted to use transfers from Karen at GF!  Three came from her amazing blog and one transfer was made using a vintage lace wrapper from France that I snagged several years ago (Fancy Edging).

I tea/coffee tinted-stained the pre-made tote bags and then washed them by hand which left some of the soft color behind.  The white-white of the original bags was too bright and the ecru bags were just too yellowy for me!

(Gosh...sometimes I feel like I'm nevahhh happy!)

I love how they came out and I'm hoping they'll be good sellers for me!

I promised my Miss K we would tint one a light PINK for her and right now we are trying to think of something fun to transfer to the front!  She definitely wants her name in some fashion!  My idea was "K LOVES HER NANA" but she said that sounded TOO BABY for her!  :(  WAHhhAHHHHH...  She's growing up WAAAAayyyy too fast!

Hope your weekend is fabulous!  As soon as I can focus on my morning I'm off to JUNQUE with my favorite wee girl and The AGPMan!

Love to you...

~IT WAS WHAT?~

 On Saturday I showed you some of the latest French themed pillows destined for my local booth space at Serendipity Market (Edmond, OK)...  Hope to have my wee little shoppe up and running and fully stocked in a couple of days.  Sooo much work to do...hauling of furniture, pricing/tagging and lots of arranging!

Today I'm sharing with you another pillow and I hope you'll be inspired to create something similar while re-purposing great used, vintage or second-hand clothes.  We all know our local thrift stores are filled up and over flowing with such things, right?

I love working with linen, flax and high quality cottons when making pillows.  The problem is the yardage is sooo expensive that once you purchase the fabric and either poly-filling or a feather insert the cost can truly get sky-high.

 Add some vintage buttons (or even new shell, etc.) the cost continues to climb...

Well...to help out my pocketbook and to keep my overall investment as low as possible (I resell most of what I make so I'm always thinking about profit) I scour the thrift stores for linen clothing for possible makeovers...

I found this great late 1990's Eddie Bauer dress for a few dollars and knew it would be fabulous made into a pillow.  It had shell buttons down the entire front and since it was made of 100% linen it had this wonderful color and texture to the cloth.

The entire skirt portion was used for the pillow...or about a yard (plus a little) of fabric!  To make this pillow out of new and comparable linen it would have cost me three or more times as much!  An added bonus was the front panel was perfect for the buttoned back!  LOVE THAT and no buttonholes to make or buttons to sew on!

I'm going to be in and out this week transforming my booth into what will hopefully be a sweet place to shop!

Hope your week is fabulous!

Love to you...

~FRENCH EPHEMERA PILLOWS~

 Today is an exciting day as my little booth space at Serendipity Market (Edmond, OK) is 99% ready to move in.  Just a couple pieces of wood flooring are left to install and then we can begin the task of filling her up with lots and lots of goodies!  Hand painted signs and furniture, pillows, sachets and sweet vintage finds and so much more....  I'm so happy I'll be settled in before Easter and Spring!  If you're like me you're already craving warmer weather and sunshine...

I've been a busy bee sewing and painting up a storm.  Such fun! 

I've finally made use of the vintage images I've collected while visiting the ever popular Karen at GF!!!.  I love, love, love how her graphics look when used on simple white cotton and linen pillows!  Nothing complicated here...petite ruffles combined with the old ephemera and feather inserts make for French themed pillows that are easy on the eye.

I love all of the old images, but my favorite one was used on the first pillow at the top!

I also snagged another mid-century maple dresser and recently painted it out in my favorite soft white paint.  This piece is almost exactly like one I sold last year that I painted pink.  Love this one in white...simple paint techniques, gentle distressing and a quick sealer help to make her home-ready!

I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day!  I made Chicken Spaghetti for my family and then we all played UNO until almost midnight.  Guess who one?  NOT ME!

Hope your Saturday is wonderful!

Love to you... 

~FEASTING ON AUTHENTIC PARIS BREAD~

Last Monday I celebrated another birthday with my family and friends.

I just LOVE LIFE...don't you?

 I sometimes dreaded my December birthday when I was a little child because someone was always gifting me with a 

Happy Birthday/Merry Christmas Present 

 and I just hated it...I was SURE I was being cheated out of something!!!  I suppose when you are little kid the grateful gift-giving & receiving spirit hasn't kicked in quite yet and I don't even like thinking today about how I might have behaved back then.

 These days I'm just happy to be remembered at all during what I know is one of the most busy, hectic and costly times of the year.

 Usually we dine in the evening with our children but this year my Mr. AGPMan and I enjoyed breakfast with our daughter and then spent our lunchtime  with our son and daughter-in-love. They are all sooo generous and never fail to bless me year after year.  I received wonderful, personal gifts and will enjoy each of them...  There is NOTHING quite as satisfying to me than my relationship with my two grown children and I love it that we all enjoy peace and laughter when we are together.

One amazing thing didn't come until yesterday because it was coming from far, far away!  My daughter knows how much I love all things French and couldn't resist a little extra gift for her momma.

 She ordered me a HUGE LOAF of French Bread from the Poilâne Bakery in Paris, France, and I was totally speechless when it arrived.  She ordered it on the 12th and it was baked this past Wednesday morning and shipped to America OVERNIGHT and I received it yesterday mid-day...

Now...I've had Americanized French Bread lots of times in my life.  But NEVER have I had French Bread baked in Paris, France, and then eaten it the next day.  It is WONDERFUL.  The loaf is huge and there is more than enough for several meals...

I know for certain the bread isn't expensive, but the shipping can be!  I'm thinking that next year I may order several loaves myself and combine the shipping to save money via the International Post!

My exercise bike is already calling out my name.  That's OK though!!!  The bread is soooo worth a few more minutes of stationary pedaling!  (Thank you, Adrienne & Brandon!)

Tomorrow I'll be signing off for the year.  Christmas is only a few days away and I want to spend as much time with my family as possible...

Blessings as we await the miracle of Christmas Day.

Love to you...

~FRENCH LINEN PINAFORE and OTHER VINTAGE FINDS~

Don't you just love it when you find great things?  Seems I'm always stumbling upon the neatest JUNQUE when I least expect it (and most often when I'm BROKE!).  Still...the

THRILL OF THE HUNT

keeps me looking and pressing on.

 I've been hibernating inside my home since Thursday so NO TAG SALE SHOPPING for me this week!  But a couple of weeks ago I did find some amazing treasures and today I'm showing you just what I discovered while scouring our local thrift shops here in Oklahoma!

See that amazing little white frock at the top?  When I first saw it at a local tag sale I wasn't sure what it was.  I knew from the lace trim it wasn't TRULY vintage...but I did recognize the lace edging and knew it probably hailed from the early to mid 1970's (gee...that's about 40 years old)!  It's a sheer French-English style linen pinafore with button closures on the sides.

Now...this pinafore is LONG!  At 5.4" when I held it up to me it dragged the floor.  Obviously it was fashioned for someone really tall!

 

Anyway...LOVED it and so home it came.  I'm going to enjoy it for a bit in my studio and then I'll probably pass it along and offer it for sale in my booth!

Isn't it grand?

 My next little find was this charming vintage compote from Japan.  When I was little my mother use to say..."It's cheap!  It's from Japan!  Only junk comes from Japan!"  I just crack up when I think about her saying that now!  We scramble to find things Made in Japan...

 Cost?  A cool ninety-nine cents!  Pretty fab, huh?  I'm keeping it.  These days I don't allow very many WHITE FINDS to pass thru my fingers...

Here's the tag...love that it's still in place!

Found another vintage style shoe planter for $2.99.  SCORE!

 Absolutely hated the floral insert and so I removed it!

 After washing it up I was surprised to find that some of the original paint came off while soaking in the water!  I LOVE IT EVEN MORE NOW!!!  Who knew?  Nothing is needed on the inside...not florals, nope, nauta, nothing!  Yep...keeping this, too!

A while back I shared with you my great vintage lamp finds.  Remember?  I snagged two identical petite old lamps at two different thrift shops in my city!!!  Well, I finally found matching shades that fit the lamps and decided it was my Mr. AGPMan's turn to perform his style of makeover magic.

I've seen all around blogland and beyond how lampshades have been transformed using chicken wire and decided to try this look out.  It's a wee bit industrial looking for me...but since I'm not planning on keeping the lamps (no room!) I figured why now go for something different!  Now...working with wire is NOT MY THING and after my guy finished the shades I was shocked at how long it took him to actually cover them with the wire.  Above it the first side he finished...took him 30 minutes to do just that little bit!  I plan to show the lamps to you sometime later this month...they came out darling!

Last find was the old Home Interiors (circa 1980) votive candelabra holder.  I remember having this exact one around the time my son, Brandon, was born (1982).  It was long ago discarded and now here I am buying one again!  I haven't worked on transforming it yet...but I'm going to!  I saw it somewhere holding cupcakes and I thought that was the SWEETEST THING!  Too bad only five will fit!  Still charming!

OK...more soon!  Hope your Tuesday is wonderful.  Come Thursday I get to LEAVE MY HOUSE!  After almost of week of being cooped up I'm about ready to lose my mind....

Love to you~

~EEEE GADS...MORE WHITE FRENCH PAINTED FINDS~

~TRANSFORMED VINTAGE CHAIR~

A few weeks ago I shared with you some pictures of my La Chaumière de Briarwood and how most of the things my hubby and I have purchased for our home were bought second hand.  Something doesn't have to be old for me to love it or for it to have value.  I've uncovered some of the most incredible finds over the years and even though sometimes I walk away empty handed I never feel like a trip to the thrift store has been in vain.  

~VINTAGE HITCHCOCK CHAIR~

Today I'm going to show you two things I snagged at our local Goodwill early last week.  Both were great finds, one old and one newer!

The vintage chair you see above was at one time a fairly high-end chair.  I saw a pair sell recently for $275.  Sadly, this particular one was NOT well taken care of.  It was close to what I would call filthy and the back and front glue joints were popped.  The chair was heavily scratched, dinged and nicked.  Since it was originally painted and hand stenciled there was no way to restore it.  That made it a perfect candidate for a makeover.  Some glue clamps, sandpaper and a couple coats of my favorite paint and she was ready for some artwork.

 ~LOVING THE RUSH SEAT~

Amazingly the Rush Seat was un-damaged.  I couldn't believe it!  It made the $4.99 asking price a no-brainer! :)  I gently distressed the chair after it was painted and added hand painted accents to the back using a mix of wrought iron black and deep brown paint.

~GREAT KITCHEN STOOL~

The second thing I found was a fabulous medium sized stool.  It was in perfect condition with the legs still in their original wood finish with the seat a chalkboard black.  I sanded down the entire thing (removing the shiny finish) and then painted it with the same paint I used for the Hitchcock chair. 

 

~SWEET FRENCH PAINTING~

This piece was actually a little harder to makeover.  All those spindly legs take time to paint!  But...I'm loving how it came out.  The stool cost me more than the chair did, but only by a couple of bucks.  Had it needed ANY repair work I'd have skipped on it.  Glad I hauled it home with me now!

 

 ~VINTAGE MAIL BOX~

I love old mail boxes, but generally I paint roses on them.  I haven't found one in a long time.  This one had a motif on the front I hated and when I removed it it left two holes.  So...I opted to attach a sweet rose floral applique to the front panel and skip the painting.  Sweet for a change!

 ~MISS K's ARTWORK~

After ten days my Miss K goes home today :...( and I'm kinda bummed.  I'll get more work done once she leaves, but I'm sure going to miss her.  We had so much fun!  Here's a picture of her Fleur-delis and Paris painting.  Not sure what else was going on here...but I always let her paint SOMETHING when I'm working on a new project!  Between the stories, the shopping and the endless giggles I'm

ONE BEAT NANA!

Hope your Monday is wonderful...

Blessings as you recycle, renew and repurpose...