Evergreen (Or What I want To Be When I Grow Up)

I have been driving  to The Lake of the Ozarks for 6 weeks now. I have been getting knee injections to help make my life a lot more comfortable. I go in and get my shots and then go shopping! The shopping part makes the injections worthwhile. Anywho, one day I went in to Evergreen. They are a silk flower shop that is only open during the tourist season. I have known about the place for 8  years or so from when I and my family had lived here last time. So I was chomping at the bit to get in and see what it was like. Barbara, the super nice lady who used to run the preschool for my church, tipped me off to the place way back when. I am so glad I remembered her recommendation. I was not disappointed. Get ready for some eye candy!

This huge crystal ball greets you when you walk in. It spins too!

It is like walking into a really well appointed jungle.

Look up, there is beauty

Everywhere.

Shelves are bursting with pretty things that make you want to take all of it home.

How about some of this, or a little of that?

I soooo want my shop to be this exiting. (When I get one, that is).

That is an upside down wrought iron tree made into a chandelier. Genius!

I love the explosion of color everywhere.

What a cute birdcage.

These are the folks who dream it all up, them and the owner. But I didn't get a picture of him. Don't you love the canoe? It goes with the whole Lake of the Ozarks thing going on around here.

I should have bought these.

Can you imagine getting to make all these cool floral arrangements for your job every day? That would be so fun.

I want to get this layered look in my antiques booth, and later on in my store. Like the title says; I want to be like this when I grow up. (I'm 41).

So I will remain hopeful and keep pressing on through my business classes in college. I will keep learning hands on retailing out of my antiques booths, and I will continue to gather ideas from stellar businesses like this one.

If you are ever in the area, this is one stop you just have to make. By the way, they did not pay me to make this post. They don't even know I did. I just love to toot other peoples horns when they do something fabulous. I'm even going to pin my own post because I think the world should know what a cool place this is.

Before and After

Recently I re-did my big antique booth at Heartland Antique Mall. It is located on east bound interstate 44 in Lebanon Missouri. I have 2 small ones at Bear Ridge Antiques In Crocker Mo. I will be consolidating those two, and moving some of their stock to this booth at the end of the month. Doing this will reduce my outgoing cash. The result will be a good amount of stock that has never been seen by the crowd that frequents Heartland. So I think it is a good move. But more importantly I had to change the look and stock of the Heartland booth. Originally I attempted to market a 1970's groovy kind of vibe. It is all over the home dec magazines and there is a great deal of it to be found in the thrift stores around here. I worked very hard on it and the idea completely bombed. Nobody would buy my cute mushroom cookie jars and my orange and green knit afghans. So the only thing to do was change. I sold off all my stock at 75% off and took the money to buy shabby chic whites and romantic accessories. So here is a before and after comparison of the two styles in the same booth.

The real lesson here is to know my market. Here in this area, primitives sell well and so does pretty glass and anything to do with fishing or hunting. Shabby Chic is just starting to catch on in the antique malls here when it has been in urban areas for about 8 years now. My new booth is one of two of it's kind in my mall. This means there is not a great deal of competition. There was nothing like the previous 1970's look, but it was too different to be accepted.

Here I am in process, I decided to paint the walls to look like old parchment. They kind of look dirty, but the affect provided a neutral backdrop for merchandise. My 12 year old son Josh helped me paint. It was fun working with him.

This is the finished look with all of the goodies in it. Well, most of the goodies. I have an antique Victorian parlor set that I have to get in the booth in time for tax refunds.

The last picture didn't get in the overhead ladder. I really wanted one but had no idea where I was going to find one or how I would get it to the booth. I don't have a truck. Well, on painting day I noticed one for sale by one of the other vendors in the mall. It was only $25.00! God gave me the ladder I needed at a price that was super. Go God! I can hang chandeliers and candle holders. Or whatever. I also wanted a dress form to display jewelry and vintage clothing. Then the other day I found this great old (read, hard to find) dress form in another vendors booth. Oh happy day! These may seem like small events to you but to me they are examples of God's love and concern for every part of my life. They are love notes to my heart.

These items are  known as "smalls". In the antique business they are the bread and butter of daily sales and they add up a lot at the end of the month paycheck. Heartland sells mostly items that are under $20.00 because of it's location on the interstate. Travelers looking to pick up a small gift or something special stop in for a break from the road. They buy an ice cream or box of chocolates next door at the Russel Stovers outlet and then come in to cruise up and down the aisles a bit before they hit the road again. In the summer tour buses going to Branson stop here too. Big items won't fit on the bus but little things will.

Here are more smalls and I have already sold that black desk lamp this last weekend. I made the shade on the big lamp. I hope somebody falls in love with it and takes it home.

Typically items should be marked up three times the purchasing price. This is needed to cover the overhead of rent, credit card fees and 10% commission. But lately I have learned that the big ticket items such as furnishings may not even have double the markup. The idea is to understand what price will best appeal to the buyer and be able to move the high ticket items in a reasonable amount of time. Also, if sales are slow, a sale can get things moving again. So can moving around what is already in the booth. Pairing like objects together, matching colors, and resetting the booth are all important ways to keep repeat customers interested.

 

 I bought these shelves from other vendors in the mall. The screen will be used to sell wreaths I think it makes an airy divider between the booth and the aisle too.

Thanks for visiting my Heartland antique booth. Come on by if you are in the area. Again it's in Lebanon Missouri. There are loads of signs so you won't miss it and hours are from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM, 7 days a week.

Taking a Bitter Pill

This is my chosen cup to drink from.

I take a bunch of meds for fibromyalgia, back problems, hip issues, knee deterioration and lately shoulder pain.

I used to have just a regular kitchen glass in my bathroom to take my medicine. It would get dirty and yucky. I don't know why I didn't trade it out for a fresh one daily. It got gross and then off to the dishwasher it would go and another nondescript cup would move in in it's place.

One day as I was about to grab another plain old kitchen glass, I thought," I have struggled to add beauty to the rest of my life. Why not in this task too?" After all It is part of taking care of myself. I guess it is more important say than, not having chipped polish on my toenails or making sure I toss out holy socks and underwear. As a younger mom I used to let those things go and did whatever it took just to get by, day by day. But now as a middle aged woman I am more picky about the details. So indeed; why not add beauty here too. It makes taking my medicine an act of self care and it makes me mindful of my blessings as well. And I keep this one clean!

Etsy Store Items

After I get my next antique booth up and filled at another antique mall, I will be posting items like these on my Etsy store. These type of things go into my booths as well, but they are there for eye candy. Most of the buyers around here are looking for old rusty things and peeling paint more. Well, anyway, I love to make crafts and feel a deep need to share those creations with the whole world! So the Internet is a good thing indeed. Artists have never lived in a better time than now. Mainly because we don't have to face a jury just to display our stuff. I hit publish and I get instant gratification. Now I know that I have to get traffic to this site and to my Etsy site, but I believe the more items I put up and the more I write here, the greater the chances of getting found. I also have heard, from my web designer Jennifer, that  it is very important to hook up to already successful blogs and ask if I can guest post there. Also, Etsy offers all sorts of tutorials on how to get found on their search engine too.

So I present to you these beautiful objects for your consideration before they hit my Etsy store..

This is a three tier candy dish/pin holder/button holder, whatever holder. I used E600 glue to marry all the small dishes together.

These are miniature cloches containing treasures from the sea.  I used upside down candle holders glued to candlesticks.

Here I glued together inexpensive candlesticks, vintage jelly jars and old aluminum jello molds to create very interesting votives. I glued on random bits of sparkly leftovers which were at the bottom of my bead bag. Even broken shards of mirror were put to use to create something lovely made from recycled scraps. This is a very "green" project

I bought this pretty bottle from the thrift store and gussied it up with a label I downloaded from the Graphics Fairy at http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/. After gluing the label to the bottle I dry brushed on burnt umber and yellow ochre paint to age the label.

This little box used to be a Christmas box. With the help of Martha Stewart glitter it looks springy and cheery.

These paper roses were made from leftover tags from my antiques booth. Go recycling!

And lastly; here is a little tin that the future owner can turn into a portable sewing kit, The top  and side image are from The Graphics fairy. The top one is actually printed on fabric run through my laser jet printer. You iron your fabric out super flat and adhere it to freezer paper using Elmer's spray adhesive. Next cut the cloth/paper the exact same size as a piece of printer paper. Iron out again to get super flat and then run it through just the same way you would send any specialty paper through your printer (very carefully). The results can be used on whatever craft you can dream up!

 I hope you enjoyed these ideas, and I hope you  have a very crafty day.

 Yours', Cynthia

Antique Booth At Bear Ridge

Well booth number two at Bear Ridge Antiques went up this last week. It was a huge push of buying, cleaning, and tagging. It takes a bunch of work when a booth goes up from scratch. Weeks of picking through thrift stores and garage sales and flea markets finally pay off with the creation of a beautiful vignette that is friendly and shoppable. But I am still new to this business and just pray that people will come and purchase my hand-made and hand picked goodies. It feels like hanging my heart out in public for all the world to see. So I get really nervous if folks don't buy stuff and I take it personally if nothing sells.

That will never do, I intend to keep a strong and positive mindset. I will be a successful entrepreneur!

But I tell you, I love all of this stuff. I hope my customers and you love it all too. In the near future I will be opening up an Etsy shop so I can offer the same type of wonderful treasures that I either find here in the flea markets or the goodies will be hand made by me.

But for now, I hope you enjoy these pictures as you come shopping at my booth today.

  These chairs were a sad and faded ugly blue before they got a coat of paint. Yes paint. I figured if an artist can prep a canvas with gesso and paint, why not a whole chair as a 3 dimensional canvas?

The graphics on the chairs and other pieces are from http://www.graphicsfairy-diy.com/. Better known as The Graphics Fairy. Thank you so much! You make my stuff look great!

After I painted the chairs and let them dry for a couple of days, I applied the images with the help of a projection machine that makes images bigger. Using a plain old black Sharpie, I traced the outlines first and then filled in the centers. Easy as pie.

 Some other things in the booth are items cobbled together with E6000 glue. The candy dish on the left is an example. On the right (requiring no glue) is vintage bird cage I fell in love with at a flea market in Springfield MO.. I gave it a teacup "bird"to make it cheery.

There is more fun stuff on the shelves.Behind them is make-do newsprint wallpaper. The shop owner, Dee, suggested it. I think it will mellow to a lovely gold as it ages.

This piano bench got a layer of vintage sheet music and a design of an antique skeleton key (from the Graphics Fairy). I added some dry brushed white paint to lighten it a bit and give the whole piece texture.

Here is another small fancy table treated similarly, but instead of drawing the dragonfly on, I printed it out. I learned how to use water slide transfers from a kind lady at http://thepolkadotcloset.blogspot.com/2011/03/using-water-slide-decals.html. The proprietress there shares all of her crafts and is a major inspiration for me. Thanks Polka dot Closet!

Some more hand-crafted things are on top of the piano bench. There are some great close ups here
of the bottle.

.The "Dream" board sports a crown found at The Graphics Fairy too. I love her vintage images, and can't get enough! I also had fun decorating that lampshade on the right.

Thanks for coming to my booth today. I hope you enjoyed your time here! And just so you know some days when  I write I feel fun and bouncy, like today. Other times I am thoughtful and post deeper ideas like yesterday when I wrote about breast cancer. It is all the same person. I know we all have our moods, so I hope you will understand. Some of the posts will be Photo shop intensive and look very different from images like here, where I want you to see the booth only. Often times I will manipulate an image to express a feeling or an idea. Those times will have different colors added and other tricks so I can communicate better with you, the reader. Stick with me as I grow as an artist, business owner and blogger. I look forward to our time spent together and would love to read your blog too.

I Hate Pink

I hate pink.

Or at least I used to. Memories of thick pasty Peptobismol are what made me detest it. Or girly girls, and goody two shoes who hated me. Umm, not that I was a bad little girl; I took my medicine and wore dresses. But I loved my couture to be glaring orange or chartreuse green. Traditional? Never! Somehow along lifes' path I decided that pink was my enemy. Maybe 'cause all the sweetie pies who acted so darned cute were the ones that would turn into vampire-bunny backstabbers when the teachers weren't paying close attention. With a sneer and a swish of barbie pink skirts I was banned from the popular girls table; left to my lonely lunch staring at my unusual clothing choices. Kids can be so mean! And yes I do have a few unresolved inner child issues.

Pink as a young lady in high-school was a no-no, baby. Coolness was the thing, and no one was going to take black away from me. Lucky for me I grew up in the 80's and chartreuse and neon orange were "totally radical" too. Like, y'know? I shaved off half my head of hair in an asymmetrical cut one year before it was hip, and sported a large safety pin in my left earlobe as an act of rebellion against the rules, and of course all things pink.

Fast forward to baby number one. A son! Blue and more blue. A cute snugly-cuddles baby bundle wrapped up in a blue blanket. And then as he grew, the colors became the red of skinned knees and the brown of ground in dirt. Not just his dirt  but mine too as getting a shower when your kids are too young to leave unattended for very long, results in 3 day stink-a-thons for supremely exhausted moms. Why they don't warn you of this stage of motherhood while you are engaged in the act of starting a family is beyond me. However keeping up such a slothful routine is a guaranteed method of keeping your husband at bay. Not too shabby of an idea if that is your goal! But things being as they were,( me showered and cute), boy number two arrived and sealed the deal. No ballet pink tu-tu's were in my future. Tai kwon do, skateboards and a perpetual stink which emanates from my boys' bathroom is the reality that I now live in. They are 12 and 16 respectively. (At least I get more sleep).

So what do I do with this color?

My mom is a breast cancer survivor. I am so grateful for her time here on earth. Even when she is bossing me and driving me nuts. Well...she likes pink.

Pink is for the lady in Sunday school class this morning who has already had 3 cysts removed from her breasts and is looking at 4 more to be removed. Are they malignant... benign... what? Aghhhhh!

Pink is for the other woman who spoke words of encouragement to her as she told of her own ordeal with the disease. Two ladies in a group of eight. How about those statistics? That makes it one in four

1 for every 4!

But pink can also be pretty. Pink is the softness of first kisses. Pink is the color of the boutonniere he gave you for prom. Pink is the warmth of your beloved doggys' tongue as he greets you. Pink can be a blush that you got as you were gently teased by your husband for being sexy even when you were 9 months pregnant!  Pink are chubby child's hands holding yours in the parking lot of Wal Mart. Pink is your teen-age daughters hair after a friend dared her to do it.So many different pinks...

Pink is a ribbon for survivors. The toughest survivors on earth.

What do I think of pink now? I am not a breast cancer survivor, so why do I have a voice in this? Because it hits so close to home. My mom, my friends, maybe someone you know too. As a middle aged woman I have grown out of black and neon orange punk induced fits. I still dress kind of weird, but I like it that way. No longer in a popularity contest for being the coolest; I have come to a place where I love pink. For me it is the Hollywood glam of a feather boa draped across my bedroom mirror. Or the silly flower I crafted onto the top of my favorite pen. It is my go-to choice for all fancy underthings. I think of it as a luxury that is easily indulged in. But it has also become something stronger than steel and I believe in the strength of our joined voices in the fight against breast cancer. I believe in our inherent toughness even as we are weak and sick. I believe that God has made us stronger than we believe we are. And I believe that His love will help us through.

Even if what is wrong with you is not breast cancer. It could be depression, or fibromyalgia or M.S., or any other "common to women" malady. God will be there through it, right by your side and in your heart.

He is the pink of the sunrise in the morning after a long night of darkness and pain.