Hearts and Gardens

My gardening mostly happens in pots, I love to fill the deck with herbs and tomatoes and cascades of petunias, and I even fill window boxes with carrots and lettuce. It is just a dream at this point, as the deck is snow covered and scattered with corn and birdseed for the chilly back yard squirrels and birds right now. So, I just got out some gardening antiques to tide me over until spring, and I have collected quite a few tin hearts just for Valentines.

Back to Work~

Vacation over, but it was a very Merry Christmas. We spent the day with my in-laws, had a lovely dinner (even better that I didn't have to cook), and Eleanor is such a good pie baker, so dessert always a treat. The wrapping paper scraps are all picked up now, but we will enjoy the tree and the Santas for a couple more weeks yet. The snow we got was of the most beautiful kind, trees are all frosted, and it makes all the Christmas lights look a little misty and gorgeous. Even better news is that warm up is predicted so it could all melt before we have to shovel again.

I didn't spend the week doing completely nothing, so I have some great prims to list over the next few days, mashers and brooms and bowls and so much more, time to get cracking!

Taking Time Off

Ebay sales have slowed down, giving me a little time off, spent 2 glorious days just putting together a big puzzle and watching funny movies and Top Chef reruns. I got out the paints again yesterday and indulged myself with trying the robins egg paint, I think it is really pretty. The next color I tried is slate gray, still in the first stages, but think it will be gorgeous in the end. I might even start listing the things I've had finished a week ago and just didn't get around to putting them in.

First Snow

The first real snow fell last night, aching arms from all the shoveling, but it is pretty.

Too Attached

I just finished up a brown and blue calico collection and love it a little too much. I am especially going to have to force myself to sell the little bread boards, they are bitty little sandwich boards that look like toys, even my girls are saying "Mom, don't sell those, they are too cute!"

Decorating at Last

The tree is finally upright with ornaments and everything, I've thrown stuff in boxes, cleaned and decorated, I'll never remember what I did with all the junk lying around! Here are a few vignettes from the house, as you can see, my ebay addiction is samplers, my favorite dealers are Homestead Gatherings, Sandiscraps, Etwalls, and Kasi Small Corners. The toy cars and animals are all part of the Christmas farm, my girls favorite.

Early and Original Dough Bowls

Lots of prim originals on the way to ebay this week, tins, cookie cutters and chocolate molds, cute prairie whisk brooms and these extra gorgeous bowls.

Christmas Tree Farm, Mt Vernon and Amana

The open house is done, smaller crowd than usual, but everyone who came bought lots, so it was good. CUTE babies this year, little Lily, Cooper and Hunter were so sweet, my girls loved playing with them.

Today was spent going to Handley's Tree Farm in Solon to cut down our Christmas tree. It snowed just enough to make it the perfect tree day, there is a tiny brook you walk by to get to the tree field, all icy and pretty, the trees dusted with just the right amount of snow, and it smells SO good there. My dad was a lumberjack and that pine tree and sawdust smell takes me right back to visiting the sawmill and watching Dad and the uncles cut the trees. My husband surprised me when I came home with this antique truck that he put the Huntsman Brothers logo on the side, I just love it.

We had to go to Mt Vernon, Polly Ann's is packed to the gills with great buys, such a cheery bright shop, I love it. I got a wonderful dough bowl there. It was such a nice sunny (if freezing) day, we went on to Amana to stock up on Civil War calicos and some amazing wood prims that I should have ready for sale tomorrow. Grapevine Antiques and Smokehouse Square always have the best of the best. A stop at Erenbergers, where I always want everything, plus the wood stove makes a day like this a must stop. Amana is all decked out with real greenery, such a pretty town.

An Ebay Day

I'm filling up the ebay store over the next couple days, then off to Clarinda and back next week with more for ebay. I stopped over in northwest Missouri and found some wonderful prims, the good originals being listed today, the ones that need a lick of paint coming soon. Here are some things I did last week and just getting to listing today.

The Clarinda Open House December 3 and 4

Here are some more photos of the show coming up this weekend in Clarinda, 302 S. 15th across from the library.

Country Christmas Open House in Clarinda

Still having more enthusiasm than sense, I am having my annual Christmas sale at my home in Clarinda Iowa, 302 South 15th Street on December 3rd and 4th. I deck the grand old lady out with antiques and my own folk art for this sale. It is exhausting, but I really love doing up displays, and here is a tiny sneak peek of the offerings I will have there. I will set up this weekend, hopefully remember to take my camera and show off my little vignettes.

My Christmas Workshop

I took a little time off this weekend to visit the Hoover Presidential Library just a few miles down the road. Their Christmas tree display is themed on the Little House books, so how could I resist? They had everything from a tree for Oleson's General Store to Pa's Fiddle tree, it was so much fun. Later, Grace and I went to Harry Potter, and cried buckets, it was so sad. Last movie I fell apart at was the Princess and the Frog, so you can see I cry easily.

Back to work with a vengeance this week, the Christmas workshop is a giant mess, but I'm getting things done slowly but surely. Hope to have these listed tonight.

Plugging Away

The new appliances have arrived, along with an unexpected tax bill. I feel so Roseanne RoseannaDanna, if it's not one thing it's another...

I'm throwing myself into ebay work, should have many fine things listed over the next few days, still have special orders to do and trying not to look at the new robins egg blue paint I just found, because I can hardly wait to see how it looks on a bowl. I found these 2 tall tin pails in Walnut, one with a lid, one without, very cute all Christmassed up. The old school slates turned out so good with their new milk paint.

Unexpected Remodeling

Most of my life, I have lived in broken down old houses. When I was a newlywed, my husband and I, with more enthusiasm than sense, decided to remodel an old farmhouse all by ourselves. We made so many mistakes, but by the time we sold that and bought our little Victorian cottage, we were pretty good at the whole house fix up. Then, we sold the cottage and bought the money pit, the big Queen Anne that sucked the life out of us for 8 years. We had gutted and redone that whole house except for one room when we went off to China to adopt our first daughter. I shut the door to the room and declared that I wasn't ever opening it again, but eventually we finished that too. Now that we have moved to Iowa City, old houses just cost too darn much, so we bought a new one. Interestingly enough, this new house has an appliance curse on it. We were here 6 months when the oven heating coil actually exploded, flames shooting out of the oven. We bought a new stove. One year later, the oven controls just stopped working, my husband had to install a new circuit panel to fix it. The microwave stopped working, had to be replaced. The dishwasher broke its seal, my husband had to replace that. It got clogged. He fixed that. This week, the oven controls went out again. I turned around, and the dishwasher was pouring water all over the floor again. Nothing to do but just stand there and try to decide whether to laugh or cry. This turned into good husband stating he was done repairing bad appliances, first suggesting we really live the pioneer life with a wood cook stove and a wash basin. Later, we went to look to replace the stove and glory be, I have all new appliances arriving at the end of the week, my kitchen might be beautiful at last. The only thing that worries me is the expectation that I actually clean now....

Ebay's Sunday Auctions

I am slowly but surely getting things into the store, these are going to be ebay auctions on Sunday, under my user id 6stringbluesman. All are going to have a $14.95 starting price, and I will be adding in tons of buy it nows, lots of Christmas tins, trees, rolling pins and mashers. Isn't the little bear the cutest thing ever?