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.