Yay to 800 followers and a giveaway!

I am soooo excited and honored to have just reached 800 followers! Wow, it's been a really great 19 months of blogging (especially for someone who thought she'd never do such a thing!).

To help celebrate the occasion, I'm hosting a giveaway for the super sweet Amber of Timeless Treasures. One lucky reader is going to win a $25.00 gift certificate toward any item in her shop (there are plenty of things available for under $25.00, too!).

I can't win the giveaway, of course, but if I could, I'd pick the necklace above. I love the rustic, oxidized look!

It's an awesome opportunity to win something personalized! :D To enter, all you have to do is go take a peek at Amber's shop and leave a comment here with a link to your favorite item. That's it! If you'd like a second entry, just blog or tweet the link to the giveaway and post a separate comment saying you did so. I'll randomly choose the winner Tuesday, February 8th at 7:30 a.m. central time.

**Make sure to leave a way to contact you if you win. In the past I've had a lot of people enter giveaways posting as 'anonymous' and not leaving contact info. Your entry won't be counted unless I know who you are. :)

Good luck!!

Weekend winter hike

Yesterday I went on a short winter hike and brought along the camera. In the photo above, we added the eyes, but the mouth was already there!


This owl has a wing disability and can't fly, and the forest preserve workers take care of it.






We're supposed to get 2 feet of snow within the next two days. I'm not looking forward to it.

Off to work I go!

Come antique shopping with me!

I went to one of my favorite local antique shops this morning, The Colonial Antique Mall in Woodstock, IL, and brought my camera along so I could take you with me! Excuse the poor photos, but the light was not great in there! The sweet woman who runs the booth above let me take all the photos I wanted. She had some sweet stitcheries:

This one must've taken FOREVER to make:

I'm always drawn to the kitchen items:

I love this sugar bowl!:

Here are some other booths in the mall (click to zoom):





I didn't come away with much today. I got some vintage lace and buttons that will soon find their way onto new cuffs for the shop, and this great little table for eating or writing in bed:

I've had my eye on this table for at least a year, and today I saw the price had been reduced to $8.00. The table part can be left flat or adjusted to four different angles. I bet Julia will love using it for drawing.

I might go back for a 1970s dress that reminded me a lot of this one, but in brown tones. I haven't decided yet.

I hope you all have a great weekend! :)

I like these.

From here.

P.S. I'll be posting a giveaway in the next few days- stay tuned! :D

Vintage purchases from this past weekend.

I went antique shopping here this weekend and just couldn't pass up these adorable cereal bowls, especially since they match my sugar bowl (you can see it in the background of this post). I wouldn't exactly call them a thrifty buy, so I held back from buying all six the seller had available. Maybe I'll go back.

The other thing I purchased was this 1877 French chromolith of historical silk designs. I thought it would look great framed on the wall:

It's still in the plastic, so ignore the glare!

Off to work I go!

Things I'm loving right now.

Instant collections arranged by color like this one.

The amazing watercolor art of Simone Ridyard.

This photo.

These really cool lamps made from old books. I love the little retro on/off switches!

These little wooden signs, made from recycled wood and stamped with a word or short phrase of your choice. I really love the old paint. I want one!

Finally restocking!

All new and ready to ship. :) In the shop now.

Random things around the house.

Antique store score!

Ok, it's not an antique- but I DID get it at an antique store.

I was browsing my favorite antique mall and saw this little cabinet/shelf and knew it would be PERFECT to hold some of my fabric and shipping supplies (those are my shipping envelopes on the bottom shelf).

The shelf was an ugly, kind of oak-ish color wood/press board mix. I decided to get it and paint it a nice chocolate brown.

The doors lift up and slide back into the shelf. Do you want to know the best part?? This shelf was $68.00 and I wasn't sure I wanted it (I'm bad at making decisions about furniture). I decided to browse the store and come back to it before I left to make a decision. By the time I got back to it 20 minutes later, there was a big red sale sticker on the price tag and it had gone down to $48.00!

Score!

I just snapped this photo of Kitterson. I love the pink nose!:

Look what I just got!

Have you ever seen such a lovely presentation as this??! Click to zoom! An absolute dear who lives in France and knows how much I long to get there one day gathered some things from her walk and sent them to me, all attached to this lovely card with little bits of string.


All the little specimens were numbered. The first two are a bone and feather of a bird. Also included are a fir cone, some boxwood, a grass stalk, some thyme (it smells great!),an end of lichen and she says the lovely dried flowers on the end make the sounds of cicadas in the wind!

I am so in awe of this little treasure. I am going to frame the card in a shadow box and hang it on my wall as a piece of art, for that is what it is! Thank you, thank you, thank you, Lililila! You can see her beautiful blog here, though you will have to know French! (or you can have google translate it, which I didn't know could be done until just now!)

Tiny canvas prints

It's no secret that I've been a huge fan of tushtush for a long time now. I own a number of original paintings from the very talented Tali and it's high time for a new addition. Since I also love tiny things, I'm really eyeing these tiny canvas prints. Wouldn't a collection of them be just stunning on the wall?

I love these little girls who appear to be crafting away:

The colors in this one are just perfect. I love that aqua!:

And being a guitar player myself, I love this one:

Really, it is so hard to choose. I feel like I'd need at least 8 of these (maybe more?) to make a statement, so this is going to require a bit of saving. I just love them all!