Notes from A Cottage Industry

A lil' ramekin of heaven.

  I like sweets as much as the next girl, but, I can go days...weeks really, without actually eating a cupcake (although I love baking and decorating them) or cakes, or pies, or cookies. I am not a chocoholic. I mean, sure, I like chocolate (especially the wonderful chocolates made with gourmet sea salts and such on top...gotta love that sweet with the salty combo!) but if I were only allowed to choose one dessert for the rest of my life, it would be an easy choice, taking me all of a half of a nanosecond.. it would be Creme Brulee. To my way of thinking, it's a gourmet comfort food or sorts. Absolute heaven on earth, if prepared correctly and not too burned on top.

Now, although I love to bake, it may surprise you to know that I myself have never made Creme Brulee. Nope, not even once. I assumed it was complicated. I think I got this notion because it has the caramelized top and the fact that you use one of those little torchy things, but it might have simply been the fact that the name is intimidating to me. French. (It must be complicated if it's French, right?) At any rate, in order to feed my craving for Creme Brulee, I order it in restaurants any time it's on the menu when I am dining out.

I am sharing this because I have discovered that I was woefully (And happily, if I do say so myself!) wrong in my conclusion that Creme Brulee is a complicated dessert. Quite the contrary. 

Bob makes Creme Brulee on a fairly regular (okay, not nearly regularly enough for my taste, but I'll take what I can get) basis. And...guess what? It's easy. It's got less than five ingredients. It doesn't take a PhD, nor a French Culinary degree.

Who knew? 

Not me. But..he did.

Weekly Words to Live By - week 161

How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these.
       - George Washington Carver

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   If you'd like to join me in sharing your own "Weekly Words to Live By", use the Mr. Linky tool below to link your blog post to this week's specific Words to live By post, and please remember to link back to this post here on Notes From A Cottage Industry.

Playing with the Playroom.

Now that I live up here in the Pacific Northwest, I have the luxury of playing around with projects, not only at my own home, but at my two daughter's homes as well. (Oh, and you know how I love a project!!!)

Well, there are quite a few new projects going on between all three of our homes, and I just had to share the latest project over at Mr. C's home.

There is a small bedroom just off of the kitchen that was used as a playroom for the last family that lived here, and Mr. C's mama decided to continue using the room that way. It makes perfect sense, really. This way, Carter can walk in and play while his Mama is in the kitchen and it's easy to keep an eye on him..or join him!

Carter's Mama, his auntie, and I all got together one day and painted the room Robin's egg blue. My daughter had found a vintage shelving piece (At Camas Antiques...where else?) that we think must have been part of an old kitchen set up. Anyway, Carter's daddy mounted it to the wall and it holds lots of toys now. (How cool is that?!) A small thrifted cottage style coffee table, complete with a long drawer (perfect for housing coloring books and crayons later!) and a painted child's chair work great for Carter to play at. (Actually, he loves to eat little snacks here!) We used chalkboard paint and created a nice big chalkboard on the opposite wall, which I then painted a dictionary description of the word Play on, and finished it off with a frame made from simple painted one by fours. We completed the fabulous chalkboard area by adding a couple of little metal sparrows I still had from way back when I had my teeny tiny shop at Arlington Gardens Mall. Carter is fascinated with the birdies and loves to point at them way up there in their nest!(fyi...the smudgy look on the chalkboard is 'coz I had just painted the words and tried to clean a bit of the chalk template off...rest assured it all looks uniform today)
Old shutters that we found at the salvage yard completed the vintage details for the playroom. (which was a bit of a challenge when all of today's toys are incredibly bright and plastic!) Once Carter is a little bit older, we may add a curtain on a tension rod to the closet to create a puppet theater, but for now, the closet is crammed full of toys. I am not sure exactly who likes the playroom more, Carter, or us girls!

Barn House eye candy at Camas Antiques.

Joe is most definitely the king of display. A true master. I popped over to Camas Antiques to fluff my booth after my day at the bank, and I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw the progress he had made on his fabulous window arrangement. (Actually, I was so taken in that I think I even drooled.)

He even staged the entrance to the window display from inside the store, making it a new focal point!

There was a slight glare due to the outside street lights and the window glass, so you'll have to look past that, but...wow. Take a look yourself.... 

I am absolutely dying to see exactly what fabric and all is under the wrapped settee in the display. I know it is going to be a feast for the eyes.

All of the incredible items you see in the window will be for sale come Friday, when the Camas Antiques 6th Anniversary sale begins. There will be prizes for the first 50 shoppers each day, and sales in most every booth space, including mine. (I am picturing the line of shoppers waiting for the store to open, tapping the window chanting "Open, open, open!" like on that old Mervyn's commercial, aren't you?)

I can only imagine how quickly this gorgeous window display is going to be picked over, and Joe will then return to restock with more amazing finds....and more inspiration for us all.

Things to come....

I arrived at Camas Antiques to work a bit more on my booth space, only to find that the Worthy Goods girls had removed their fabulous window display, and Joe from the Barn House Boys was setting up the backdrop for his creations.

Wow.

Rusted, corrugated sheet metal strips adorned the walls for a dramatic backdrop. Incredible.  Aaaaa-mazing. (and as I said, this is simply the backdrop.) I'll be popping by there after work at the bank tonight to take more pictures of Joe's progress and do a bit more tweaking to my own booth space for the big anniversary sale going on this weekend at Camas Antiques.

I can hardly wait to see what I will find!

Guess who got a new hairdo...

Ya baby, it's Mr. C. and he's rockin' the spiked-and-tossled-looks-like-bed-head-hair-but-in-a-way-too-cool-for-school kind of way. (Although, I must admit it kinda breaks my heart that he doesn't look much like a baby any more.)

What's that? You wanna see it from the side view?

Yup, he's definitely a hunka hunka burnin' love..

A little bit of vintage in the corner of my booth space.

 Here are the latest additions to my booth this week. 
 I know black may not scream springtime to some, but I do like the new edge it gives this corner of my space.....
 vintage photos, both on the table, and a nice big stash of them beneath the table scape...
  silver, dishes...burlap upholstered cushions on the chairs, matching the ruffled burlap table runner.
  I hung my vintage mirrored wall sconces on the wooden doors behind my table set up to add a little more vintage punch....  I'm pretty happy with the way things are looking so far, and I'll be adding more to the other areas of my booth space tomorrow.

Weekly Words to Live By - week 160

 All seasons are beautiful for the person who carries happiness within.

                        Horace Friess

If you'd like to join me in sharing your own "Weekkly Words to Live By", use the Mr. Linky tool below  to link to this week's specific Words to live By post, and let your readers know about the Mr. Linky back here on Notes From A Cottage Industry.

And the winner is.....

......Marie!! Thank you all for entering my giveaway and especially for reading my blog. This has been so much fun that I just may have to do another for the first day of summer!

HAPPY FIRST DAY OF SPRING, EVERYONE! I'll be taking Moose to the dog park again, and planting some flowers later today...hope you're doing something fun also.

Wide open spaces.

The perfect weather here meant another trip to the 18th Avenue Dog Park for some fun and exercise with MrHappyBigYellowDog. 

Great park. Room to run. And to chase balls. Lots of room for running and ball chasing.

*sigh* He just can't get enough of this place. (...and neither can I.)

First day of Spring Givaway!!

The weather up here in the beautiful Pacific Northwest has been fabulous of late, to say the least, with more spectacular weather in the forecast for the upcoming next few days. (sorry for those of you living where the weather is still cold.) The spring like weather puts me in the mood to plant flowers and head over to the Dog Park with Moose every spare afternoon that I can find. It also makes me want to create, and to clean, and to organize. (Although my plans always seem to somehow get side tracked in regards to cleaning and organizing.)

Anyway.

I was in the unpack-and-organize mode yesterday, and I decided that since the first day of spring is this Saturday (I know! Can you believe it's already going to be spring of 2010?! Time flies.) I'd do a Giveaway here on my blog to celebrate.

The Giveaway package includes everything pictured up top...The Spring Cleaning book, one of my "Nest Full of Happy Thoughts", and a vintage apron. All of these vintage treasures have been gathered from around my own home.

To enter my First Day of Spring drawing, simply leave a comment on this post, and this Saturday, March 20th, I will announce the winner. Get an extra chance at having your name drawn by linking my post on your blog. (And shoot me an email or comment to let me know this.)

Happy St. Paddy's Day!

Top O' the mornin' to you! Don't forget to wear some green today!

I'll be doing another post later today...I'm going to be hosting a giveaway!

Thrifting finds of the day.

 I spent the bulk of yesterday out thrifting with my daughter all around Portland. We found lots of great treasures, and I wasted no time at all getting things polished up, and tagged and taking them down to my booth space. I think this unique old typewriter was my daughter's personal favorite find. See how the metal rod things stick way up? It reminds me of butterfly wings there. A very unique design, and it has just the right amount of rusty patina.

Oh! How about these shiny lil' silvery buckets? Kind of perfect for an elegant Easter table, don'tcha think? I love the idea of an elegant tablescape..picture these on one of the Sewing Queen's burlap runners. The burlap with the bling, so to speak. Yummy.
This white glassware basket was one of my favorite finds...perfect for holding rolled up napkins on an Easter buffet set up.It's a bit hard to tell in this photo, but it is a very large basket- longer than a butter knife, which is why I think it would work so well for a buffet table.
We had so much fun out thrifting! So many sweet accessories....my booth space is really filled to the brim, and that makes me happy. My five days off from the bank were put to really good use!

Vintage jelly cupboard.

 I was very lucky to score a vintage jelly cupboard last week. It is now proudly holding lots of wonderful vintage items in my booth space at Camas Antiques and I wanted to share it with you. It really makes my booth space, I think.
  I love the chicken wore on all of the windows! I also love the various colors of paint on the wood.
I've also brought in my stash of faux Robin's eggs and nests (some bags are eggs, some are eggs and nests)...perfect for Easter and spring time! By next week I hope to have a Robin's eggs blue tall boy chest to complete the new look. 

Please, do stop by and check things out if you're in the area!

Weekly Words to Live By - week 159

The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking places. 

~Author Unknown

If you'd like to join me in sharing your own "Weekly Words to live by", simply use the Mr. Linky tool below  to link to this week's specific Words to live By post, and let your readers know about the Mr. Linky back here on Notes From A Cottage Industry.

Knives, forks and spoons.

 I have a thing for vintage flatware. I love the patina and the feel of old silver ware, not to mention all of the wonderful detail work on the handles. Oh, and all of the different types of utensils. Ice tea and sugar spoons, butter knives...I love 'em all.

My latest favorite thing to do with these little gems is to bundle them up with scraps of lace and old seam binding and nestle them in with treasures on my dining room hutch. (Of course, I have so many pieces that many of them are in my booth at Camas Antiques)

I'm off for a morning of thrifting with Carter's Mama now, and I am hoping to find more vintage flatware to add to my collection...and my booth space. I'll share my finds of the day a bit later!

A sweet lil' seat.

 I whipped up this little chair-redo for my booth yesterday afternoon. It had a bad bleach spot right in the center of the seat, so I foofied it up for some lucky little Miss.
 

You likey?

Fabulousness, courtesy of the Sewing Queen of northern Nevada.

 Mmmmm. Incredibly fabulous. Ya baby, that's what I'm talking about. This is sort of a sideways slide into Tablescape Thursdays over at Between Naps on the Porch, because these are a perfect part of building a perfect table scape.

The Sewing Queen is at it again. She's created the most amazing burlap table runners in two lengths and two different ruffle sizes. ( Oh! All runners are completely finished on both sides, making them reversable, which I really love!)The six inch ruffle, shown above, was made from natural burlap, and measures 88 inches from end to end. (Be still my heart. I love this look!)
The two inch ruffle table runner arrived in two sizes. A completed 75 inch long runner, and a completed 54 inch long runner. She made both sizes in two color ways- the natural, and  a wonderful creamy off white. 
 

I am so excited to get these down to my booth at Camas Antiques! I know many of you will be curious as to the pricing on these gems (and yes, they can be easily shipped!) so here they are:

88" with 6" ruffle in natural- $63

75" with 2" ruffle in natural or creamy off white- $57

54" with 2" ruffle in natural or creamy off white- $48

I love the casual yet completely classic look of the burlap fabric and the ruffled ends. So perfect for springtime...for anytime, now that I think about it. I cannot wait to create my table scape for Easter brunch with one of these wonderful runners!

Behind the sofa....

Thank you all so very much for the ideas and thoughts on my sofa dilemma yesterday. Many of you felt I needed a sofa table behind the sofa, and I guess it was hard to tell in my photos, but I do have a sofa table back there.

I began with an actual sofa table before Christmas, and switched it out to a drop leaf table in early February so that I could multi task it to be an intimate dining table for two or three. I don't like dining at my dining room table when there are only two or three of us. My dining room table is quite large as you might recall, and I always feel like when there are only two or three people, we are clustered down at one end. Adding the drop leaf behind the sofa was a perfect solution. (Remember it here, Valentine's Day, and for Bob's birthday?)

When the table is not set for dining, I sometimes leave the two dining chairs there, but not always. (Yesterday's post pictures show the room with no chairs at the table) The table is currently holding an old birdcage. Thanks to all the ideas yesterday, I am rethinking this, and might opt for something with more weight on the table to add some substance to this part of the room. I also think I may add a basket of blanket throws or something like that under the table.

As for the sofa or sectional debate...I am still very much undecided, but you've given me much to think about and I will keep you updated on my decision! Thanks again for all of the input.

Old sofa/new sectional debate.

Okay, I am having a bit of a ...well, I guess you could say it's a decorating dilemma...or, maybe it's a budget dilemma...or both. I'm not quite sure.

Remember my sofa? The one I bought at the thrift shop way back when? Ya, that one. Slipcovered in that yummy fabric... I love it, I really do. Anyway, I love the way it looks, but I am not sure if I love the way it looks in my new home. You see, when I lived in my one story cottage on Norman Drive, the sofa was the perfect size for the living room, along with my two slip covered cottage chairs.

Now that I live in a three story town home with the very large great room, I am not sure that the sofa is the right size for the room.It's a little hard to photograph the entire room...here is what you see as you enter the room from the long entry hall..
From this stand point it's fine. But, as you enter the room, I feel like it looks a bit lost in the room. (not ridiculously lost, just a bit...undersized, maybe? Maybe not? Maybe I just want a new project?)
Here's the debate- I am feeling like the large living room here might need one of these (in khaki, butter, or natural)... All cozy and inviting, with ample seating, and large enough to make a statement in the ample sized room...hmmm? I like the idea of this style- more of an updated twist on my vintage eclectic...but, at the same time, I feel like the look is just so...contemporary. I know I could personalize it with a throw and some great toss pillows, but, in the end, will I feel like it looks too..expected?

**Oh! I should tell you at this point that if I were to buy a new sectional, I'd sell my vintage slip covered sofa when I do the window display at Camas Antiques,(what a great display that would make!!!) and this could very nearly pay for the new sectional, as long as I get it on sale, which is the budget part of my quandary.**

So...please help me out here. I'd love to hear your opinion, as I am torn right down the middle on this one. What are your thoughts?

Little bits of sprintime begin to show at Camas Antiques.

My booth space, along with many others at Camas Antiques, is beginning to show signs that springtime is coming, with soft pastel colors and bunnies popping up here and there. I've added a charming vintage dresser and a sweet dresser top mirror.... ....some faux chocolate bunnies......

...and some very adorable little ceramic vase style napkin rings.

Vintage lace bundles, and teacups, and lot's of little paper goods...
even a fun little needlepoint carrot pillow....
...and a quilt and sham set in some yummy spring colors!
I've got a dream schedule at the bank this week, and I'll be adding more items to my booth space each day this week!

Weekly Words to Live By - week 158

 

Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars.                  Henry Van Dyke

     If you'd like to join me in sharing your own "Weekly Words to live by", simply use the Mr. Linky too below  to link to this week's specific Words to live By post, and let your readers know about the Mr. Linky back here on Notes From A Cottage Industry.

 

Good clean fun.

   Sorry for the late post today. I'm over at Mr. C's this weekend while his folks are out of town. His Auntie is here with us and we are having a ball. 
 I snapped a few pictures during bath time that I knew you'd want to see!
 

***Don't forget that tonight I'll be posting our "Weekly Words to Live By", so if you want to get on the Mr. Linky list, get your blog post ready!***

Window shopping.

The first Friday of each month is called "First Friday" in Camas, Washington. All the shops on charming 4th Avenue in Camas stay open late and serve little treats like chocolates and wine, and it's a nice community event. If you are anywhere nearby, you should consider driving to 4th Avenue tonight to take  peek.(And make sure to see window display for yourself, up close and personal...and my booth inside the shop!)

Currently the large display window at Camas Antiques is all done up in shades of cream by none other than Worthy Goods. So vintage. I just adore everything in the display. (such talent!)

The next window display for Camas Antiques will be done by none other than the Barn House boys. How amazing will that be?!) I cannot wait to see what all appears in the window.

I am very thrilled to share with you that following the BH Boys in the large display window at Camas Antiques will be...me. Yes, A Cottage Industry will be taking front and center stage sometime in April!

Oh, I have such plans!

Dog day afternoon.

 
Aaaah, the dog park. Moose and I took a trip over to run around and at long last I remembered to bring my camera along. Turns out it's a lot harder to get good pictures of moving dogs than I thought it would be.

New friends. Big. Little. Friendly. Furry.

Trash cans with "D.P." spray painted in large letters on the side. (which I forgot to get a picture of, sadly.)

D.P?

D.P. (dog poop, of course.)

*sigh* Gotta love this place.

All Stars.

...Ya baby, Converse All Stars. They seem to have a popularity that never goes away. Carter and Isabelle's Auntie was on a weekend get-away last weekend and, when she found these little shoes, she knew she had to get them. (A pair for each baby, and two more for baby gifts to friends!)

Oh, but that wasn't all...take a look at what she created for our little princess-in-training! The store that sold the shoes also had some for sale that were all bejewelled...for an astronomical price. She decided to do them herself, and simply added jewels and and sassy laces! How cute is that?! I can't wait to see these gems on Isabelle's lil' feet!

Bliss is but a moment with a cupcake.

I had a cupcake order for babycakes that I am delivering today.

I always forget what good therapy baking is for me, no matter what my mood may be when I begin. It's a creative experience, and it somehow just makes me happy. Mixing batter, deciding how I am going to decorate the cupcakes, the whole beginning to end process inspires me, and improves my outlook on life. (I know. Cheesy sounding, but...well, no one can be un-cheered by a cupcake, after all.)

With the cupcake order completed, I'm off and running for another busy Monday. Hope your week is off to a fabulous start.