ABBEY NIGHT

Happy Saturday evening everyone! Fun night tonight. Our Abbey (6 year old granddaughter) is spending the night. When she was tiny, she named me Bebe and my hubby is Papa and it has always stuck. She is SO into the shop, creating and helping putz that Papa named her "Little Bebe". Isn't it funny how a grandchild can actually become one of your best friends??
Things were a little slow in this cold old Michigan today. I started a color sale for the month of March. Everything in the shop that is the color green is on sale and I'll switch it every week this month. I could already see the difference from this morning until this afternoon.
I just wanted to say how much I've enjoyed this new blog thing! I haven't had this much fun in years! I love having the opportunity to meet so many of you from around the country and you've all made me feel so welcome - already! Thanks a million!
Have a great weekend and STAY WARM!
Until another day...

MORE ORDERS IN...

Happy Friday everyone! A few new goodies for you to see. Check out this prim potting shed sign hanging on the old pecan picker. $24.95

New flowers and herbs in our spring display. Various prices.

Desk and wrapping area. I love our old railroad depot windows!

I love this birdhouse. It looks just like something from the east coat. $69.95

Great little farm with animals. $24.95 The 4 pieces of fence is wonderful, it has green tips at the top of the picket. Would be a great display or save for the holidays to put around your tree. $34.95

New 3-pot planter on trellis. This would be so darn cute on a porch or in a kitchen or bathroom. $29.95

This is my favorite! White hanging post with 3 buckets for your flowers. I might have to bring one of these home! $29.95

Another cutie. White cracked hanging post topped with a sweet little bird. This planter has 6 smaller buckets. $29.95
Wow, this weather is something! I have to keep looking at the spring items in the shop so I can have a little hope! We are supposed to get close to zero again tonight. Can't wait to dig in the dirt and go to the nurseries.

Finally got my Mercantile Gathering's spring edition. It was so much fun to see Linda's house and Sally's store. I'm going to go on the hunt for the CS Home Tours tonight! Someone said they had them at Joann's (I need more material anyway).

Can't wait for tomorrow! I'm getting 2 really prim cupboards in. I love to get the old stuff, makes my heart skip a beat. They are both somewhat small, one is a chimney cupboard, but they are SO cute.

Got lots of ideas running around my brain, I hope to share more soon. Have a great Saturday! Only 20 days until Waynesville and Jailhouse Primitives...

A FEW MORE HANDMADES...

Happy Thursday evening blogger friends. I promised to put a few more handmades on, so here they are. Spring flowers are wool felt with old quilt centers "planted" in rusty cans. $14.95

Hannah's new hat is a black makedo with her new mustard spring bonnet. She is on an old grubbed up black vase. The color in the picture doesn't do her justice. She is a lot darker. $24.95

Cora's cone flower is a grubby blue felt handmade flower on a stick. She is one of my favorites! Her "hair" is rusty bells stitched around the top of her head. Her grubby dress has tiny blue stars and underneath she wears muslin bloomers. She would be adorable on a cupboard or peg hanger. Cora is 23" tall. $39.95

Tallula and her tulips. One of my newest black dolls. Tallula is wearing a small green check homespun blouse and bloomers. Her bibbed skirt is a larger green check homespun. Her hair is rusty curly wire. She just came in from the flower garden holding two handmade tulips. She stands 24" tall. $49.95

Jasper is a prim bunny makedo on an antique hog scraper. His whiskers are rusty wire and his ears are lined with OLD quilt batting. $27.95

Happy Harvey is a funny little prim bunny dressed in grubby red ticking overalls, rusty wire whiskers and carries 2 red spring tulips. He is 23" tall. $29.95

Are these slippers a hoot?

Doris and her dyed eggs is a cutie! She is wearing her green floral Easter dress, holding her rusty wire egg dipper and she put her grubby eggs in her pockets. Her feet were hurting, so she put on her little bunny slippers. She is 23" tall. $39.95

That's all the pictures I took for today. If you are ever interested in any of the items posted here, just let me know and we can ship them to your doorstep. Things were a little busy. My UPS man delivered a big order and my great high school friend, Hope, came and brought me lunch. We hadn't seen each other in quite a few years, so it was fun to catch up for the afternoon. It is quite something when you think of the history you have with old friends. Our oldest children both turn 40 this year and we have known each other since about the 7th grade!

Friend Connie and I are counting the days until our Ohio trip. Can't wait!! We have been wanting to go see Jailhouse Primitives for about a year and we are finally going to be able to do it. Check out her blog! I know we won't get any sleep, but who cares! We have 4 days to pack in Waynesville, a trade show in Columbus, visiting Jailhouse Primitives and Lizzie's Cabin and then on to the prim show in Richmond, Indiana. I miss her so darn much since she moved to Tennessee and we always have so much fun when we get together. It isn't often that a friend comes along that shares almost all of your same interests. We have had some of the best adventures. One year we did the 127 Garage Sale and went 1700 miles in 4 days! Did we ever find the treasures though. My favorite times together have been at our cottage in upper Michigan. We take the sewing machine and lots of supplies and sew like mad women in our p.j.'s for a few days. We live on popcorn and Diet Coke and laugh ourselves silly. She does a lot of wonderful handmades for Rebecca's Thyme in Pigeon Forge. Check out the website at http://www.rebeccasthyme.com That shop is FANTASTIC!!! Can't wait to go back someday.

My Abbey girl (granddaughter) came over tonight and we had a "cookie party" in bed and watched Idol. She is 6 years old and truly one of my best friends. She is a very big help at the shop and with anything else you need her to do. She started doing a few needle projects and she's actually pretty good. (You know, you've got to start them young!)

Now it's my turn to get some sleep. This has been a very busy week and I can't believe that tomorrow is Friday already!

Have a wonderful day and we'll talk again soon...

SHOP TOUR

What a great 2 days I've had! My friend Debbie came to visit for a "sleepover" and we played in the store for 2 days! We sat up and talked 'til 3 a.m. last night. My hubby finally couldn't take it any longer and went to bed! Thought you might like to see a few shots of the inside of our my shop. This is a building from the 1800's with creaky wood floors, 13' ceilings, and one brick wall. The other side was redone in the 70's with old houses that were being torn down around Holly and a "log cabin" built on the back wall. Hope you enjoy your tour!

Nice old hoosier with the flour bin and roll-down compartment. I call it our "chicken coop"! Lots of prim chicks and handmade gourd eggs are kept here.

Couldn't resist showing you this old, vintage windmill that Debbie brought this time. It is wonderful!!!

I love our little fireplace and electric logs. It is surrounded by old tables and chairs and lots of other prim goodies.

We hung this beautiful shelf/quilt rack today and I just LOVE it! Debbie's husband, Kenny, made it for the shop. I will take orders if anyone is interested. As soon as the weather gets a little warmer, he will be building more prim pieces for us. He is SO talented!!! I'm hoping he will do a prim island with old windows for the cupboard doors on it - please Kenny???

When you walk into the shop, this area is a raised wood and brick platform on your right. I am doing a little section of whites, greens, pinks and yellows for you shabby gals and for spring. This is soon going to become our new "porch" area.

More spring, Easter, and garden wares. My hubby built the little greenhouse for me and it's so much fun to decorate for all of the different seasons.

This is just a little sitting area in front of one of the "houses". Adding more and more vintage outdoor goods.

Another section of the shop with old cupboards, tables, dishes, candles and more.

Just a view of some of the old home fronts on one of the walls.

The first "house" with the red trim is really special to me. After I opened the shop, the local paper did a story about me. One of my elementary school friends saw the article and came in to visit. When she walked in the front door, she saw that red trim on that house and couldn't believe it! She lived in that house until she was in the second grade (in the 50's)! It was across from the post office and around the corner from the funeral home. She said she used to stand in the glass front door and watch the funeral processions go by. She even brought her mom back in to see it. So glad that at least part of it was saved!

This is my granddaughter Abbey's house. She has a t.v., little chairs and a sleeping bag behind the door. What a great little playhouse (and storage). I would have loved something like this when I was a little girl.

The blue house next to Abbey's house is our potty - pretty cute huh? There is the coolest old balcony above it.

My favorite is the "inside" of the log cabin. The old Detroit Jewel stove is for sale, but I also use it for my events at the shop. Great place to serve coffee, punch and munchies.

This "log cabin" is the back wall to the shop. I can't tell you how much character this gives and what a great place to house our prim goodies.

This has been a quick "two bit" tour, but at least you can get the idea. Debbie went with me last night to buy more things for the store. We talked and laughed and had the best time. It was so great to have her here today and, the good news is, she is coming back next week with another load!

I have added more handmades this week too, with more to come. I'm also hoping that more orders are being delivered tomorrow - another fun day!

I hope you all get a chance to come visit soon.

I've got to get sewing and working on another big bunny and black doll.

More to come tomorrow...

IN THE 1500'S...

Just wanted to share these fun facts that my sister-in-law Cyndy sent to me from the 1500's. I know a lot of gals say they would like to live "back in the old days".

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, Don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying, It's raining cats and dogs.

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, Dirt poor. The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floors to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed at the entrance way. Hence the saying a thresh hold.

They cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving the leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there quite awhile. Hence the rhyme "Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old..."

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show it off. It was a sign of wealth that the man could bring home the bacon. They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and chew the fat...

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the load, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust.

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out of a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait to see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.

England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead in through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift) to listen for a bell; thus, someone could be saved by the bell or was a dead ringer!

Still want to live in the old days???!!!

Will have more goodies in the shop today and hopefully pictures tomorrow. Have a great day!!!

CREATIVE DAY

Happy 63 years, Mom and Dad! Our family went over to my folk's house last evening and had dessert for their 63rd anniversary. That sure is quite an accomplishment in this day and age! I'm really proud of them and everything they have done for our family, especially what they have taught us. Whenever I stitch this verse, I always think of my mom: Strong Women. Let us know one, Let us be one, Let us raise one. Thanks Dad and Mom!

I'd like to introduce you to Rosie, my sweet Boxer dog. You will probably hear about her in upcoming blogs, so I thought you might like to see what she looks like. This little girl wouldn't hurt a flea, she is so gentle. I don't know what I would do without this wonderful, loyal companion.

Now on to my day! This is the day the store is closed, so I'm working like crazy on bunnies, black dolls, and samplers. They are in various stages right now, but I hope to finish up at least some of them by tonight and have them in the store tomorrow. There just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day to get all this done - especially when the shop is open 6 days a week! (But it is all worth it.)

Tomorrow friend Debbie is bringing another load of antiques. She said she has some great garden goodies this time too. I am so darn tired of winter, that I want more and more spring brought it! I'm also hoping more orders will arrive this week, it always feels like Christmas when that UPS man comes.

Our new supply of soy candles were delivered last week. I LOVE the Spiced Clove! They sure burn a long time.

Thank you so much to the new friends that have left comments on my blog. This is all a new adventure to me and it's so much fun! I hope that one day I will be able to visit all of your shops.

Better get creating...

HANDMADES FOR SALE...

This olde weed lady is carrying her bunch of Sweet Annie and a sweet little basket. Her skirt is from a vintage tablecloth, her coat has "penny" flowers, an old crocheted collar and sheep's wool hair. She stands 27" tall. $39.95

Custom scrapbooks made from vintage phonograph albums. These are a must for you scrappers - so unique. Fabulous when done up for someone special. $34.95

Edgar Rabbit And His Wares would love to come hang on one of your old cupboard doors this spring. He is dressed in wool pants and old quilt coat, carrying a handmade "basket" with eggs, carrots and a sprig of Sweet Annie. He measures 32" tall. $59.95

Tommy Tuxedo got his old grubby tux coat out of storage to go to the rabbit ball. He is on an antique spindle with eggs and Sweet Annie on the base. His whiskers are made out of old rusty wire. Tommy is holding a bunch of carrots and would look adorable on your prim table. Tommy is 34" tall. $59.95

Delbert The Doorman is such a prim doorhanger or shelf sitter. His pocket is made out of an old quilt and filled with eggs and carrots. $39.95

This cute little shelf sitter bunny has a side pocket filled with carrots and an egg. Would be great in a big basket! $29.95

Samplers, samplers, samplers... We have them all throughout the shop. Most 8 x 10's are priced at $29.95.

Henrietta Hen makedo is on a grubby candlestick. She has ripped strips for her "comb" and "tailfeathers". Only $24.95. The sweet little grubby spring chicks are nesting in zinc canning jar lids. They come with a rusty bell around their neck so they don't get lost. $9.95 each

Great, soft color window with 3 hooks has the Hollyhock Fairy verse stitched inside. Perfect for a kitchen or garden room. $59.95

Another productive day at the shop. Our soy candles were delivered and I met a lot of nice people. Next week will be wonderful! By midweek Debbie is bringing another load of antiques - lots of vintage garden and more! We will be getting more orders of spring goodies and lots more handmades. The handmades should include more bunnies, black dolls, unusual samplers, signs and who knows what else might show up? You'll just have to come see!

We have another granddaughter on the way in June and my daughter, Ashley, is busy with the nursery. I'll have to post pictures when she's finished, it is going to be fabulous and unusual!

I hope to have some prim home pictures sometime next week. This is going to be a really fun project for me. We have some wonderful homes lined up and then on to garden season...

We're supposed to be getting LOTS more snow this weekend. I know a lot of you have been so depressed about the cold and snow, but make the best of this and enjoy some home and family time. Put on a big pot of homemade soup, pour a cup of coffee and start a project you've been wanting to do.

Most of all, have a great weekend and feel free to contact me with any questions you may have about the items for sale. Until next time...

GOODS FOR SALE

Isn't this wool stitchery just the best? It can be yours for only $49.95.

Just had to show you my new prim Easter tree with the little basket ornies. They are $3.95 each. Also, take a look at the old painted step-back cupboard from the 1800's in the background. Another find from Debbie. I can't believe that it's only $395.

This little OLD, black pie safe is one of my favorites. The handle is made from an old spool and has a wooden latch. Just marked down to $95.00.

I LOVE this old wagon with the original green and yellow paint. It has wooden axles and removable sides. What a great piece for a garden or porch. This is also just $95.00.

This little vintage doll swing is one of our latest additions. It's so hard not to take it home with me. The picture does not do the colors justice. Couldn't you just see your spring bunnies sitting in this? Only $69.95.

If you are interested in any of the above items, just give me a call at the shop. We are able to ship small items, but large items are pick-up only.

Keep watching for our handmade items, they should be next! Have a good Friday and try to stay warm.

MORE SPRING!

What a fun day at the shop! First of all, some new orders arrived and it feels just like Christmas when I open the boxes. I got the cutest little birdhouses, an awesome big birdhouse, and lots of Easter ornies for your trees. Next, I got another load of antiques from friend Debbie - she is just the best! (She is planning on bringing more next week too.) To top it off, my husband had the day off and helped me hang some things and put up a prim Easter tree. What would I do without him?! Debbie brought the most beautiful wooden trunk that came over on the Amerika cruise lines in the 1800's. Of course it sold the very first day.

I wanted you "shabby" gals to know that I also have some furniture for you too. Great old Hoosier top, tables, benches and more. You should see the vintage loveseat slipcover, it is adorable. There is also the most beautiful lamp with baby roses on the shade.

I will have more handmades in by this weekend. More bunnies, black dolls, stitcheries... So much fun to put them out and watch the shop come to life. Also, soy candles are on order and should be in by Friday or Monday.

Friend Connie and I are counting the days until we meet in Waynesville and go on the next buying trip. Can't wait!!! It will be so much fun to bring back great things for the shop, but it will also be fun to just catch up with my friend. We have a lot of exploring to do!

I will be posting things for sale very soon, so keep watching...