Finding rusty old junk is fun! Nevertheless, I have found that no matter how much "stuff" I find and collect, only God can fully satisfy my heart. Matthew 6:19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Sunday, March 30, 2014

Hippity-Hoppity Easter's On It's Way

Well if you've been following a while then  it's no secret that I love holiday decorating and I really get into to most of them. I am especially excited for Easter and spring and gardening, since we are having the winter that never seems to end this year. Every time we get a couple of teaser days, snow follows. Nevertheless I have all of my spring decorating finished in time to enjoy it for a few weeks before Easter. I have several vignettes to share so I'll be showing just one today and hopefully one of my next few posts will be my Easter mantel and our new fireplace before and after makeover.
I started out creating a display using my soon to be 39 year old Anna-Lee rabbit from my first Easter. I love this Farmhouse-cottage area of our dining room that evolved when I brought in an old chippy screeen door and placed it in front of the ledge where I keep a lot of my ironstone. I thought an outdoorsy-farm theme would be perfect here for Spring.


 We both turn  39 tomorrow and we're still smiling!


Anna Lee Rabbit carries an Easter basket full of sweet little vintage eggs, a  furry chick, some straw and soft, yellow downy feathers.

This is such a great old ironstone piece. A cabbage bowl is just perfect for Easter.

I love filling the bowl with vintage decoupaged eggs, little blue eggs and straw and feathers instead of cheap, plastic grass. Just creates such a genuine farmhouse look.

                         Such beautiful, vivid pictures on these eggs which remind me so much of childhood Easters.

I recently bought several vintage Easter postcards and this one with the baby chick was a great addition to the spring farm vignette. 

Bon Ami, good friend(s), hope you  all have a springy-week full of sunshine and flowers everywhere! I have several more posts of vintage Easter and spring coming up soon, so be sure to stop by. Thanks for visiting today!


Amber

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Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Up cycled Vintage "Angel of Faith"

Hello again! I thought I would do a quick post tonight to show you my latest project. I found this little vintage angel Christmas ornament at an estate sale and thought she would be perfect for a chic up cycle.



I cleaned her up and gave her some shabby chic touches using vintage lace, an old button, some pearls and  tarnished tinsel. I had the little shield in my craft stash and decided it was just what she needed. Now she is not longer just a Christmas decoration, but can be a reminder of faith everyday. 

                                                                         Sweet feet

                                                                   Such a beautiful face!

Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified. Do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. Joshua 1:9

                                   Don't we all look and  feel better with a little bit of faith, lace and pearls?

"Angel of Faith" is now available in my Junky Chic Boutique Etsy shop. https://www.etsy.com/listing/184095898/vintage-japan-angel-ornament-up-cycle

 I think she would make a great graduation gift.

Thanks for visiting today. Remember, be strong and courageous!
Amber

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Monday, March 24, 2014

March Madness and Some Recent Junk Finds

It's March! Wait, it's almost April? Where has the time gone? In Kentucky, March Madness is usually associated with University of Kentucky basketball, but for me it's always about the big spring musical I am involved in, getting the yard and home prepared for spring, two birthdays, and trying to celebrate a little Saint Patrick's Day too! Things have finally settled down here long enough for me to get a blog post up today. I am the musical director for a large performing arts center in our town and every March is hectic. Our big spring musical always falls around St. Patrick's Day and it takes me at least a week to recover from the hectic schedule and to get back into blogging, decorating and junking. Last year I had a very similar post to this one when we did The Wizard Of Oz, which I am proud to say, ended up being nominated for seven national performing arts awards of which we won three! Well, now it's all over and I can take a breather, so today I am going to be showing you some highlights from my St. Patrick's Day/Grease weekend and also some of my favorite junk finds from this weekend.





The most I really had time for was a quick display on our mantel and a few small additions of green around the house. Because I am of Scottish heritage by birth and my husband is also of Scottish-Irish descent, we collect a lot of Celtic-inspired treasures, so in the past few years I stopped buying cutesy St. Patrick's Day decorations and started using what we already had, which is my favorite way to decorate anyway. I did our mantel up using some of these items. Unfortunately in the mayhem I just had time to snap a few blurry iphone pictures and didn't even get a whole mantel pic. That's how busy things were that weekend!

This Claddgah door knocker was found at an estate sale just a few days before St. Patrick's day. Lucky me!
Here is my great, great grandfather's journal. Absolutely amazing stuff in here! I acutally found this on St. Patrick's day while looking for something completely non-related. How's that for luck?

Last year I found this vintage Beistle die-cut leprechaun. I haven't looked it up but I would think this guy is pretty hard to come by. He really shows up well on the front door. Actually he is kind of creepy, but leprechauns are bit creepy when you think about it, so it's all good.

And what is March without lucky shamrocks? I love them, and they grow well for me outside from May til October. I plant them in my celtic knot planter with Irish moss and it's very magical. For now they are in sitting down in a silverplate bowl on the bar in our kitchen. I'm getting excited about gardening, and seeing these shamrocks everyday reminds me that it won't be too much longer.


 GREASE is the word...

This year's musical was Grease and it turned out fantastic! I was NOT a pink lady, just a wannabe! I am the musical director, so I teach all the songs and direct the music for the production, sing from off-stage, help with costuming and set, as well co-direct artistically. It's a lot of fun.


All of our cast were amazing this year. Our Rizzo was phenomenal. She is going on to major in musical theater and we all expect great things in her future. Her voice is pure BROADWAY!


            And here I am with Sandra Dee!This little gal is one of my private vocal and piano students for four years and she is like a little sister to me too. When she was in 5th grade she could sing Adele like nobody's business, and at age 14 she was able to land the lead role in this musical and she was amazing. I am so proud of her! Don't be surprised if you see her on American Idol one of these days!
                                            And we had some pretty cool T-Birds too!

I love doing plays and productions but with  my health issues it's hard to do much else during the last few weeks before opening, so my home and blogging took a back seat. Somehow this year I even managed to get a new boutique space opened during all the chaos. I have recouperated well, which makes me feel confident that my Lyme disease treatments are helping somewhat. Thank you to all of you who have been following and have commented that you are thinking of me and praying. Please continue. Although I look happy and "normal" in these pictures, it really is a struggle. But, I truly am on my way to recovery! For me, music, junking, blogging and decorating are the best medicine for the emotional aspects of chronic illness. Bring  on the junk!

This weekend I got back to junking and had some St. Patrick's Day luck leftover from the previous weekend! I found some gorgeous jewelry and antique postcards, some of which I will be listing in my Junky Chic Boutique etsy shop.  Here are some of my favorite finds:
Oh how I love ALL of these. I already have a few vintage Easter postcards so I'm going to list of couple of these in the shop and keep a few for myself. It's going to be hard to decide which ones to let go. You can also see a bit of the sweet, vintage dogwood earrings I found this weekend. They are in the little teal McCoy basket with the cutest little tiny eggs.

I also got some non-holiday postcards. This one is by far my favorite. Lovely artwork and an except from a poem by the famous Scottish poet, Robert Burns (My Luve Is Like A Red, Red Rose). This poem has also been set to music and I have used it many times as a teaching tool with my beginning choir classes, so that makes this postcard really special to me as it will always be a reminder of my days as a high school choral director.
Here's a lot of vintage jewelry which really seems to be what keeps coming my way these days. Or maybe I seek it out. I just can't resist it.

More awesome flea market finds. Cameo love/obsession. Vintage hardware love/obsession. Vintage postcard love/obsession. Vintage pin love/obsession. Vintage anything that is white and metal or iron and rusty-even if I have no clue what it is love/obsession You get the idea! Of course you do. You all  have your own junk passions too.
This sweet little pin from the 1920's-30's but it will be listed in Junky Chic Boutique later today before I end up hoarding keeping it too. It's so "period" looking, fantastic. Okay I am stopping now before I talk myself into pinning it on some lace somewhere around the house.

My birthday is March 31, and on the day I was born the newspaper horoscope said, "If your child is born today he/she will have lots of luck!" That has turned out to be true, but sometimes I must admit I wish the author would have specified, "good luck!" But overall, I must say I am very lucky indeed. So to end this post, I would have to say that  my favorite little treasure from the weekend would have to be his vintage horseshoe pin. As I say, I am a lucky junker! Junking is just really getting started with the warmer weather. Hope this find is a sign of things to come for the next few months.



Thanks for stopping by today! I'll be back soon with some spring and Easter highlights and some of my recent projects.

Happy Spring!

Amber

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Monday, March 10, 2014

Altered French-Inspired Pretties In My New Shop!

Hello everyone! It's been an eventful week for me. I thought I was just going to be opening my new online Etsy shop, Junky Chic Boutique, and within 48 hours of setting up the new Etsy shop, I  ended up actually opening my real world boutique in a new Antiques Emporium in town! It has been a whirlwind but I feel so blessed. I started a Junky Chic Boutique blog on blogger as well, but when I tried to redirect to my custom domain on godaddy to convert to a .com,  the blog page no longer shows up. I can still see my blogger dashboard there, but as soon as I click "view blog" it redirects to a parked godaddy page. If anyone else has had this problem, please help!

Anyway...
Here are some highlights of what's new this week in the Junky Chic Boutique! I will be adding items all this week, so be sure to check back often to see what's new.

 ~Beautiful Upcycled  Vintage "French" Dominoes~

These wonderful old dominoes feature a fleur de lis on one side. I have painted and distressed them in two different finishes, teal/gold verdigris and grey pewter.

                                                                       







The dominoes are available sets of 6 for $12 on etsy. I have two sets of each finish available. If you want to purchase two sets I am offering them on sale for $22. I have kept a set for myself of course! They look so pretty displayed in silverplate or ironstone dishes. 

Here you can see them displayed in my booth on a little corner shelf.

                                                             
~ Altered Peat Pot Easter Decoration~
                                                     
I recently created this altered peat pot using a sweet little Easter graphic from The Graphics Fairy. The pot has been chalk painted and stuffed with tulle and embellished with vintage lace, ribbon and buttons. A plastic egg has also been white washed and embellished with beautiful Edwardian lace. A bit of baby's breath adds the perfect touch.


                                                                   
                                       
                                                                                 https://www.etsy.com/listing/181392455/altered-peat-pot-easter-peat-pot-shabby?ref=listing-shop-header-3
                                             
~Vintage Dreamer Ornament~
This beautiful little ornament is handmade using an old frame and image of a lovely vintage lady. I painted and distressed the frame in a robin's egg blue, and gold and used a chalk-paint white wash over the top to bring out those beautiful roses. I attached vintage-style tarnished tinsel for hanging. I love his hanging from a shabby shelf, but it would also make a fun junky chic necklace when attached to a strand of big vintage pearls or chains!



                                                                     https://www.etsy.com/listing/181382297/vintage-dreamer-shabby-vintage-ornament?ref=listing-shop-header-4

More items will be added all this week so be sure to stop by the shop often. Thanks for visiting today!

Linking up:
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Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Junky Chic Spring Booth Displays

Hello blog friends! Today I will be sharing the updates I have made to my antiques booth where you can find lots of junky chic treasures.

This winter lover got a taste of spring fever last weekend when the weather warmed up, which included being able to get out and go to the flea market for first time in months. The colder weather returned almost immediately and I realized I had had enough like everyone else. Now I have both spring fever, and junk fever! It's been slim pickins around here for a while, as the harsh winter meant less estate sales. Nothing to be found at consignment either. So I decided to use the time to spruce up my booth, get rid of some things that were cluttering up my look and try to come up with some new vignettes and arrangements.

Here's what's going on so far. I say "so far" because the vendor adjacent to me is putting up a permanent partition of doors so I left that side alone until next week. I can't wait for the doors to be up. It's going to give me so much more display space and they will look awesome too.

I have decided to concentrate more on whites and creams as the overall theme for my booth, but I can't resist added some teal and robin's egg in, especially for spring. I set up this little garden welcome using a rusty porch rail and I loved how it looks in the booth, but now I am really thinking it needs to come with me!
Here you can see two of my recent projects, a little altered peat pot and also some altered shabby French dominos. I am going to do a post about these for Market Place Monday next week over at Common Ground. I have more of these that will soon be listed in my Etsy shop. If you would like to purchase them just email or comment!

Love these babies so much. One of their siblings, an early Madame Alexander doll, recently found a family. Sniff, sniff. But I'm happy she will be loved.

I have been so inspired by all the "divinely French" rooms and booths I have been seeing on beautiful blogs and pinterest, and I have always been drawn to vintage religious relics, so I was really excited to find this Virgin Mary garden statue on my flea market outing. I also got the shabby tabby cat too. You can see the white table with the grey grain stripe I made over a few weeks back.  If I had room for that table in my house I would be bringing home this whole vignette too! 

I bought the beautiful chalk ware Mary last year and found it in storage a few weeks back. I am really digging this vignette. The garden statue Mary was "injured" while the bed was being set up in the booth. Any tips for repairing concrete garden statues would be greatly appreciated. I can't sell her broken. Darn, I may just have to keep her...

(Duh duh duh duh....Duh duh duh duh...) Name that tune!

Beethoven's famous 5th symphony of course! There's always a bit of the music teacher in me in my booth displays. LOVE this chalk ware Beethoven. Um, why is he for sale in my booth? I am sitting here looking at him as I work on this post and thinking how one day I will be kicking myself for selling him. Well, I sort of thought of that already and priced him not to sell! If someone buys him I guess I'll be happy with the big sale! This reminds me the David affair all over again. You can check out my post about David here (http://junkaholicsunanimous.blogspot.com/2013/10/my-other-man.html)I am thinking David might be getting a buddy pretty soon...

Okay so I have to brag on myself a little about my innate psychic junk sense. I started buying brass and gold again, basically because it's just classic even though I got burned out on it the nineties. I just opened the recent issue of Flea Market Style Magazine, and brass is apparently one of the hot junk trends this spring. I almost got rid of those brass Victorian boots several times, thinking they might be outdated but I love them. I was going to paint them white but not now! Along with white, grey and silver are my new passions in decorating but I really like the golds and creams in this grouping.

Here is a cabinet that I made some drastic changes to. Because it's a 1940's cabinet, I previously had it filled with a lot or kitschy-kitchen items, chrome, soda bottles and things like that. I sold most of it anyway and since I have decided to concentrate on shabby-French-farmhouse-cottage type items for a while, I cleared out anything that was too retro and filled it with some ironstone and silver plate, and some garden inspired items for spring and summer. At first I didn't realize what I was doing but I soon realized I could play up the greens for Saint Patrick's Day. I really like the greens. I may do this at home too. 

I dug in my sheet music and found these old Irish tunes, and it really brought it all together. Any one crushing on that 1890's brown transfer ware, Edge and Malkin ironstone creamer and gravy boat? I am! Oh I can just see my Thanksgiving displays now! Wait...I'm selling those..I digress.


Yes, I do love junk!

Another recent find was this old local brick. Generally local items sell really well in our shop. I also bought one for my garden so I don't have to covet this one!


My obsession with vintage photos and cabinet cards continues to grow. I absolutely can't resist them.  Matter of fact, think I'm going go on a virtual hunt for some this evening. Must. Have. More. Junk.............

Well that's a pretty good idea of what I have in the booth right now. I sold my bed and several other things so I am going to have to rearrange some things already. I have also been busy crafting at home and getting things listed in my new Junky Chic Boutique Etsy shop. I hope you will check it out soon. I plan to do a "Grand Opening" post when I get several things listed. And as  always, if anything catches your eye in these pictures I can set up an Etsy listing for it and get it shipped to you when feasible. Thanks for stopping by today!

Amber

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