Welcome Back, Blogger

I have been away from this beautiful blog of mine for far too long.  I have missed it, missed you---but I am back, and glad to be here! :)

Look forward to more giveaways, and more unwarranted opinions.  Because we don't get enough unwarranted opinions on the news or anything.

See you!

When Life Hands You Lemons....

Here's a few suggestions....

HilaryUpton

Collectique

SundayHatch

VintageShenanigans

Estheraguirr

Ahmelie

Lunatiqueart

RetoBabs on Etsy

Garage Sales!!!

I am at a crucial point in my year...Garage sales are about to begin and I am happy, and nervous all at the same time.

What if things aren't good this year?  What if people aren't selling off their rusty goodies because American Pickers has increased in popularity even more this past season? 

What if some of my favorite perpetual garage sales don't re-open? 

What if the weather Never gets warm enough to actually go to any garage sales?!

Love the looks on their faces here...

I'm actually not THAT worried...and I have been to several already this year, I am still fairly new but I am noticing that early season garage sales seem to fall into a few categories..

1.  The We-Did-Amazing-Advertising-On-Craigslist-But-All-We-Have-Is-Baby-Clothes garage sale.  I have already been to two of those this year, and think that the current trend is to use the words multi-family instead of we have newborn to toddler clothes, a couple beat up toys and a tractor.  These people are always so sweet, I always wish I could justify buying something...but I can't, so I always say I will tell people about the sale and I try to. :) 

As a side note--this garage sale tends to have multiple cats present for the duration.

Here Kitty, Kitty

2.  The Awkward-Silence garage sale.  We went to one held indoors by a moving company.  It had been advertised for weeks and we were really excited.  Not only was it a disappointing sale...it was in a small room where everyone was really really quiet.  Jonathan and I wanted to discuss whether or not to continue looking, but you could hear a pin drop.  We ended up doing the--'Hey, Hon...gotta get to that Thing' thing.  Of course as we exited everyone stopped and looked at us...it was weird.  I'm pretty sure that Norman Bates was running it, also. 

So So Scary

3.  The Over-Eager-Can-I-Help-You-Find-Something garage sale.  Sometimes these garage sales are later in the season, but we ran across one early this Spring...everywhere we went there was the lady of the house...scurrying, talking, making announcements.  I appreciate being made to feel welcome, but not spied on.  We finally got away from the watchful eye of 'Big Mother' when a gust of Spring wind blew her faux flower display over on her as she was making yet another announcement.  After making sure she was okay--we ran for the car while she was distracted by piles of fake hydrangeas.

All kidding aside...I actually really love that so many garage sales come with a slice of humanity.  People are so busy with their own lives, that there are so many of us who don't even know our neighbors names...It always makes me sad when people breeze in and out of Walmart without even saying hello to the little old guy who is greeting them (ours is Dewey)...I like that at many garage sales--people talk.  The folks running them sort of have to sit there, the folks buying from them usually have to ask questions...the objects are passed from one person to another in a community. 

It's Americana with a 50 cent price tag.  And that's worth a pretty penny.

My Interview with Kristin and Nan at TheVelvetBranch

The Velvet Branch is a unique name…And a mother daughter team is unique as well!! 

Please tell us how they both came to be.

The Name...

Kristin: We thought a long time. We wanted a name that would represent both of our home décor tastes, something that was original and something that didn’t limit us into doing only vintage or only hand painted items. My taste is bold, graphic, and glam, while my mom’s is more organic, natural, and simple. What’s more glam than velvet and more organic than a branch? 

How it Came to Be...

Nan: It’s rather a long story; I’ll try to give you the short version. I lost my job when the economy tanked and then I had a battle with breast cancer. These circumstances made me realize that I didn’t want a big, stressful, corporate job. So, urged by a dear friend with her insistence that I was crafty and talented as well as inspired by the success of our Etsy friend Todd Manring, we decided to turn a hobby into a business.

Where do you find your fabulous pieces to refinish?

Everywhere we can! A lot of our time is spent scouring Craigslist and scoping out yardsales and thrift stores. The side of the road is an unbelievably good resource as well. A lot of times people will just throw something out versus giving it away or refinishing it. This is a real shame; we hate to see that kind of potential and history tossed to the landfill. Friends and family also assist us finding pieces that need a little love and attention.

Do you decide together what the design will be for a piece of furniture?  Do you work from ‘inspiration pieces’ in magazines and the like?

We do always ask the other person for their input and opinion on pieces that we’re painting. If one of us is immediately inspired, the other one knows to step back and let it happen. We are constantly inspired by other people’s work, but what inspires us the most is the furniture piece itself. The shape or function will usually be the catalyst for the ultimate outcome. 

We love a piece with functionality AND beauty so that is always a goal for furniture that we choose.

Have you ever completely disagreed on the direction a piece of furniture should go? 

Who ‘won’?

Yes! _ We try to compromise and make sure that we are both represented in everything we do. For instance, one of us will “win” on the color choice, but the other will “win” on including some detail, like a pattern or trim. Often, one of us just has a clearer vision for an item than the other. 

If all else fails, Mom wins.

When did your love of vintage, and your redesigning of it start?

For as long as I can remember, we’ve shopped at thrift stores and reinvented things to suit our own tastes. What other people called junk never deterred us from seeing true potential However, we didn’t think of starting our own business doing this until a very close friend suggested it. She has been encouraging us and giving us advice all along the way.

Apart from the Etsy shop, what other things do you enjoy doing together?

Both of us have unique taste in movies (foreign films, documentaries, the occasional chick flick), so that’s something that we really love to do together. We also spend a lot of time talking, supporting each other through life’s ups and downs, shopping, and eating good food. Dad is a great cook and spoils us regularly with phenomenally good eats.

Where do you do the work?

We work out of the house. Most things are done in the basement, but if it’s a nice day, we try to do as much work outside as possible. Keeping track of our Etsy shop, bookkeeping, and assorted other duties are performed on our laptop on the kitchen counter. Our finished products are stored mostly in the spare bedroom but they have slowly spread throughout the house. My dad always encourages us by saying when we finish painting something that, “We’ll have to keep that one.” It is an ongoing joke but makes us feel good, too.

Tell us some about shipping your product, have any tips for the larger items?

Shipping is the hardest part of our business. We work really hard to get the best shipping prices for our customers and to ensure that our items arrive safely. FedEx is the best way to send smaller to medium sized items but for large things like dressers, we use a furniture delivery company. They pick it up from us, blanket wrap it, and deliver to the door step of our customers.

We have spent hours packaging an item. Since we live in The Furniture Capitol of The World, we are often able to reuse boxes and packaging materials from the furniture showrooms. We like to use foam wrap or flat Styrofoam sheets around furniture as well as added corrugated or styro corners. Also, we double box all fragile and hand painted items for extra protection. The office of a local dairy gives us their shredded office papers for packaging smaller things. We hot glue larger boxes to add stability and strength.

Animal Vegetable Mineral.

Nan: lamb (so cute and wooly!)/ cauliflower/ emerald (my birthstone and my favorite color)

Kristin: I’m a sucker for big, fat, wrinkly, bulldogs/ broccoli or spinach (toss up)/ diamond (my birthstone and who doesn’t love diamonds!)

Most fun you have had on a refinish.

Nan: We did a silver dresser several months ago. I had such a clear vision of what I wanted it to look like and it came out great! I actually made the flower stamps out of potatoes. That was so much fun and I loved the finish I got with the metallic and opalescent glaze and the texture with the striation. And I was so pleased to have the original mid-century hardware.

Kristin: We just finished a custom cabinet that was this antique, rustic wood piece. I painted it flat black and then painted an Asian geometric design on it in glossy black. It looks awesome with the subtle pattern that catches the light and vintage copper hardware. Now it’s a contemporary storage cabinet with Asian flare!

Mother’s Day is coming up, what’s one of your Best mother daughter memories?

Kristin: When I was a kid, I took dance classes and I loved getting ready for the recitals. My mom would put on my makeup, do my hair, and get me into the sparkly costumes. It was such a bonding experience.

Nan: Kristin was living in Raleigh, NC and I went to help her pack in preparation for moving back here to start our business. It was just the two of us working together and having a good time. It really felt like the beginning of something life changing. AND, we did go out to eat and to Starbucks for coffee and a scone. Yum.

Anything else you would like to leave us with, any advice?

We know it is cliché, but do what makes you happy! The freedom that owning your own business gives you is incredible and when you’re doing something you love, it’s hard to have too terrible of a day. As far as being creative with paint, just remember, it’s only paint. Be fearless! If you paint something and don’t like it, you can always repaint it. That’s what we always say. 

And we should know; we have painted and repainted many times.

Giveaway!! Upcycled Furniture & I Love Paint

Congrats to ReinvintageArts--winner of last week's giveaway with AmyKristineVintage!!

Many of you who have been reading along know I love vintage....and as attested to in early early posts (back when dinosaurs roamed this blog) I refinish furniture, and love refinished furniture.                  

You could paint just about anything cream and I would love it 

( well Almost--- probably not a litter box, or oatmeal).

In my mind, paint is the answer to almost any decorating dilemma.  Paint and Sticky back tile.  We once did a backsplash in a rental with sticky-back tile--you would not have believed how authentic and gorgeous it looked!  I have always wanted to try the ole paint your countertops to look like granite...haven't summoned the courage yet--but one day I will!!

Yes, this is a painted countertop below is the link for more...just finish reading Here first :)

http://kitchenbacksplashes.blogspot.com/2010/08/photos-of-painted-laminate-countertops.html

We still have a couch we painted brown to look like leather.  After we painted it with simple latex paint, we used several coats of paste wax, added some brads and boom!  Man Cave couch.  Here's some pictures... These were taken several years ago, without blogs in mind and in a parsonage --                       I had no control over the ugly paneling.

Before

After--Just Kidding...still Before!

Voila! After

Details

Told you--paint can fix anything...

This week's featured Etsy Shop is a Mother/Daughter team that can attest to that!!                                They are The Velvet Branch--and have some of the most drool-worthy furniture on the whole site...

This week they are giving away a 25.00 gift certificate to their shop so you can get some of that goodness for your dwelling!!  

Here's how to enter (you get one entry for each of these):

Comment on any post this week

Sign up to be a new blog follower

Follow me on Twitter, tweet your favorite Velvet Branch item, and let me know!

***A note here, I have some unclaimed prizes and have unfortunately had to draw new winners--please, please make sure I have your correct info so that you don't miss out!! :)***

Happy Entering to You!

Epic Sax Guy--

Love the Sax Guy!!!  

Some of the teenage guys in our worship band introduced us to this, and I laughed my head off at the sax guy.  Youtube has tons of remixes and loops going....check it out--it's crazy funny!

Please Die.

As someone who sells vintage for my livelihood---nothing makes me happier than a return to past fashion.  Mostly.

There are exceptions to every rule, here's a few that I wish would stay buried forever.

Platform Sneaker.

Why Prada, why?!! 

This is back for Spring 2011...and I don't know why.  What is really horrible about high end designers doing this is how it affects those of us who can't afford Prada.  I mean, you can own something completely hideous and when you get a look of What?! from people you can say...'It's Prada' suddenly--permission granted to wear pure ugliness.  All these ugly styles filter down to the rest of us after re-interpretation by Joe in the corner office at Wally World.  The same thing does not work when you say 'It's Walmart'...trust me I've tried. 

 Instead of permission you get the sympathy look--not nearly as fun.

Pegged Pants

We killed this one in the mid nineties...then it came back to life in 2008 like some freaky zombie...Now it's back, thanks to Armani?!  This reminds me of a spider I tried to kill the other day with a washcloth.  That was all I had on hand to try to exterminate the creepy crawler with.  Every time I thought it was dead, I hadn't squished it enough.  Then I threw it on the floor and just started stomping on it like crazy.  Maybe it got away, maybe it didn't.  But I felt better. 

I'm printing this picture out so I can do the same to it. 

The Mullet...or The Mohawk

This particular picture is tame compared to some of what I saw out there, mostly touted by Soccer players.  Love Soccer, not so much this style. 

Here's the thing.  It looks good on really attractive men with amazing athletic prowess in terrific shape.  It looks cute on little boys aged seven who want to be a soccer player when they grow up.  It looks sloppy on a teenager who didn't bathe for three days because he needed to get to that last level on Grand Theft Auto.  It just looks sad on the twenty something guy who used to play sports, but is still good at Wii bowling.  But we all know that it doesn't stop there.  There's some guy wearing this in a Joe Dirt sorta way, thinking he's 'in'.  It's not fair to him, or others that this style is back.  I blame Spain.

Popped collars

Please Stop.

Seriously.  Stop.

No Really, Stop.  Right now.

Of course, I am only poking a little fun at fashion...Who am I to judge? 

As I write this I am sitting comfortable in my leisure suit.

Have a great weekend!!