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?

A Day at the Barn and a Weekend in Clarinda

The whirlwind continues.... Last week, we supposedly went to help decorate at Barntiques, but we weren't much help. Shopping turned out to be the real reason we stayed around, I found so many great prims, at the always reasonable Barntiques price. I got a bunch of mashers to paint, a gorgeous early dough bowl, cute tins and crocks, it is all going to turn out great.

The weekend was supposed to be spent in Clarinda raking leaves. Well, that didn't turn out either, so many leaves still on the trees, it seemed silly to even bother. So, of course, we went shopping. This time, we stopped in Walnut, I filled the car with rolling pins and tins and bowls, the only thing I couldn't find was bread boards. Lots of open houses around the area coming up, maybe a few will show up.

The photos are a little of my Coffee Christmas collection.