Celebrating!

This is my 100th post and 1st giveaway!

photo credit Cape Cod Rambling Rose

Last weekend was my shop open house.  What made it so delightful were my friends, who came out in force!  One friend is someone I knew in California when my kids were little.  She's here for a temporary job and I love it that she took her lunch hour to come visit the shop.

Another friend brought her children and they were an additional delight!  Her daughter tried on a whole bunch of my vintage hats.  Her 5 year old son did also.  Then my friend and I had to join in the fun! 

  We all looked mahvalous.  

photo credit Cape Cod Rambling Rose

The kids each picked out a vintage ornament for their tree.  Yessss -- handing off the vintage tradition to the next generation.  

photo credit Cape Cod Rambling Rose

 

Louise, who is so busy with 4 kids, her husband's shop and her creative endeavors, showed up to ooh and ah!  Even tho there are lots of breakables in the shop, I really enjoy kids coming in -- well behaved & interesting kids anyway.  So I was glad Louise brought her 2 youngest.  They are sweeties!  I have used some of her beautiful photos for this post.  She is documenting Cape Cod this holiday, drop over and see her blog Cape Cod Rambling Rose. 

New friends also visited.  A couple with an antique shop up the road who have welcomed me into the 6A community of antique shops came by on Sunday.  Their daughters visited on Saturday.  One daughter, Lee is an amazing photographer.  Click here to see her website.  

 

photo credit Lee Sutton Photography

She's purchased some things from my shop for props and we have a mutual admiration society.  She loves my shop, I love her photos!  

 

 

photo credit Cape Cod Rambling Rose

Two women who had never been in the shop before came in.  We hit it off right away.  I love making new friends, so I hope I get to see these ladies again.  Maybe they like to go out to lunch?   

 

So to celebrate both 100 and friendship, I am having a giveaway.  I will pick a comment and send this little basket & other treasures from my studio & shop.  Leave a comment before December 24th, telling me what you celebrate and treasure in your life! 

Holiday Decor

As I was getting ready for my shop open house, I looked around to see what I could use to decorate.  Most everyone has things especially for the holidays -- either purchased or handed down.   But what if you don't?  I came up with some fun "everyday" items to re-purpose for holiday displays.

I also came up with different ways to use vintage decorations.  With the shop, my purpose is sales, but I thought the ideas could be used in a person's home as well.

Find books with  red or green covers.

Add decorative ribbon in a coordinating design.
Millinery flowers or greenery would also be nice.

A plaid umbrella, plaid hatbox & round hatbox with red top.

I tied a ribbon around the plaid hatbox and opened the umbrella.  

Instant holiday colors.

Whiting & Davis Mesh Evening Bags.

Think of your pretty bags, the ones you never use, what with the kids and the economy.  If your bags are not as glittery as these, tie a pretty bow around one.

Stemware with small glass ornaments.

I got these glasses at auction.

They were part of a box lot.  Most of the matched sets have sold and I have these left. Usually they look like orphans, but with red ornaments they look pretty good.  Adding red shred and a pretty ribbon would jazz them up further!

An alternative to hanging ornaments on a tree.
 The look so pretty against the big window!

The shop doesn't have space for a large tree and I wanted to display all these wonderful vintage ornaments.  I strung a garland made of wire between a couple cup hooks and viola!  These ornaments are lightweight, if you have heavier ones just make sure you use wire that will support them.

 

Vintage ornaments on a silver tray. 

These remind me of my grandma, my shop inspiration.

Lightbulb Parfait.

These came in another box lot of Christmas pretties.

Added to orphan stemware, they look good enough to eat!

However you decorate this season, I hope you have fun and use things that really mean something to you.

2 Little Shops, 2 Much Fun!

My friend and neighbor Amy Mason has a wonderful shop across the street from me.  Sometimes it's just knowing she's over there, open, that gets me to open my shop when I might really rather be going out to lunch and reading a book!

Tomorrow we are having open houses at our shops.  She designed a great e-card, the gist of which you can see here.

My card

Designed by Amy at Stony Brook Design

(the back has all the pertinent info)

Amy's business card
She designs the cutest greeting cards too.
I love visiting her shop, it's bright, cheery and full of color.
Plus she does killer displays!

Adding a bit of sparkle to the blues.

A couple hours away from Pink Saturday!

Holiday gift tags

I couldn't resist the white embossing powder, it's called "winter wonderland" and has a little bit of sparkle to it!

Shop Blues

A group of friends on a Girl's Weekend came into the shop today.

They are celebrating their 50th birthdays.


I loved their energy and how often then would call to each other about how cute this was or how wonderful that was.  The shop is all my taste, so it felt quite validating!

 They picked out interesting items, like this fabric.
And had ideas of how and where it could be used.

My favorite customers are the ones who like the shop.

I do love to make sales, but honestly I am equally happy when I have an appreciative person, even if they don't buy a thing.

So in my usual California enthusiasm (which I know is not really appreciated in New England), I blurted out how delighted I was to have them in the shop and liking so many of my things. It went over like a lead balloon!  I felt like an idiot the moment the words were out of my mouth.    

So to make myself feel better I decided to make my "blues" into a photographic essay and  share it with you!  And it has worked!  Enjoy the pretties and thanks for listening!

For today's Pink Saturday posts go over to Bev's blog.

Not a Pink Saturday

Or Thoughts on My Shop 

 

There's no way around it.

My shop is GIRLY!

Half the walls are painted pale pink.  I carry pretty china, white linens, vintage women's clothing, shoes & bags, sewing collectibles, hatboxes, glitter in cut crystal salt shakers . . . you know, the things we all love!  I put white embroidered doilies under everything.

And while I am not the most sensitive person on the planet, I have been getting a bit bothered by the male customer's response.

A man came in Saturday and his first words were, "Oops!"

And then he turned around and walked out.


Comments like, "Nothing here for us guys," are much too common.  I have been feeling very defensive.

So yesterday afternoon I decided to see if I could make one area a little less off-putting to the men who wander in.

 

  I was having a tough time making the displays look good.  I wasn't sure what would work.  And let's be honest, the things I picked didn't look good to me.  There were no doilies on the shelves, no millinery flowers, no floral tea cups.

 

I called my friend Amy, the one who spent this summer helping me in the shop.  Her thought was, well I can't print her thought, but it ends with ". . . if they can't take a joke."  Which made me laugh.  She also reminded me that it's my taste which the shop reflects and I didn't need to change that!

I guess all I needed was someone to remind me to lighten up.

After that, it was fun to find things less frilly.

 

 Above this sign & planter I left Wendy Addison's Tinsel Trading glitter swallows hanging on the shutter.

So now when one comes into the shop, this is the cabinet they see.

It's not tools or fishing lures, but it's not pink or too floral either.

Of course when you walk to the back of the shop, this shelf is loaded up with pretty wedding goodies.

And while I've sold a number of things from this photo, these are still some of my favorite things!

Mix & Match

My friend Amy spent most of this summer on Cape Cod.  I loved having her here!  Years ago, when we both worked at the BPL, she invited me to her folks' place on the Cape and that was that.  I have loved it here ever since!

This summer, once a week, she would arrive at the shop, play with the displays, help me with pricing,and either bring lunch or make it.

She has returned to Florida and I'm gonna miss her.

This display is my tribute to her.

Inspired by Amy's love of mix & match I set to work.

 I started with 4 hand-painted plates, each in a different pastel and fruit motif.

I found tea cups & saucers in similar colors, placed some pretty faux fruit in a center glass bowl, added stemmed crystal, crisp linens and . . . 

VOILA!

Wouldn't the crystal goblets look wonderful with a thick, icy fruit concoction?  It calls for beautiful silver flatware, a teapot, milk jugs and sugar bowls (and probably a larger table!)  If this was in your home, probably the centerpiece would be real fruit.

I love giving customers an idea of what to do with some of their pretties.  If this inspired you, I'd love to see your mix & match tables.

I'll be sure to share them with Amy.

STUFF

The essay is the "before." The photos are the "after." I hope it all makes sense. My calves are feeling the burn of taking more than 20 trips upstairs to get clutter out of the shop.

I have too many things for my living and working space. It's not so bad that someone is going to call in the Health Dept, but it bothers me. It is exacerbated by the fact that I am both an antiques dealer and a collage artist. There's just always so much cool stuff at estate & yard sales, flea markets, and other antique shops, and it's hard to pass them up!

My shop, Rose Brier Antiques, was closed all winter and I'm afraid I let it get very overrun by things needing pricing & treasures I wanted to incorporate into collages. Anything I didn't know what to do with went onto the floor. Like a lot of people who have too much stuff, I really wasn't aware of how much I really had. I am working to open the shop on Saturday and without a huge effort to remove the clutter, customers would not be able to get in the door. My insurance would probably be sorely tested as customers tripped over all the crap on the floor.

When we lived in San Diego, I had space in an antique mall. I would shop on Cape Cod every summer and bring things back to sell. When I closed that space I continued to buy but I didn't open another antique shop until last summer, some six years later! On the one hand, I have lots of fun things to put out. On the other, there are boxes and boxes of treasures that haven't seen the light of day for a few years.

My husband had a brilliant suggestion. As he reminded me, the shop displays are in place and very nice. All I needed to do was remove the items that were un-priced, un-ironed, on the floor, or otherwise making the place look scruffy. His suggestion -- just move it -- has worked wonderfully. I moved the excess to our upstairs guest room knowing I wouldn't have guests until the end of July. It gives me a deadline to deal with it, cuz I hate having company see my slob side! And the shop can open for the season. Hooray!


For those of you dealing with stuff issues, I highly recommend this book: Stuff, Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things by Randy O. Frost & Gail Steketee, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010. The authors are therapists who have been working with people who hoard. It's well written, gentle and insightful. I learned a lot about what triggers hoarding and how we give meaning to things. I'm glad to say I'm not a full-out compulsive hoarder, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a whole lot of valuable information to be gained.

A Holiday from "shoulds"

I am going to be taking a holiday from blogging in January.

I know I have that button, "blogging without obligation," but really, it doesn't work! I still feel like I ought to blog more regularly.

A therapist I know has a business card with all the usual stuff on the front and on the back is this line
Don't Should On Me!

I'm taking blogging out of the should category. Recently I've felt I wasn't always me when I've posted and I'd like this space to be both pretty and real.


Usually I don't make New Year's Resolutions, but this year, while soaking up the sun in the desert, I thought I would get more organized, get rid of the excess stuff I have collected over the years,** blog more, stop leaving my studio and shop in such a mess, make more art. You know the list!


What seems do-able sitting on a bench in the sun doesn't always seem so easy under grey skies and with all the stuff at home that yells at me: 1000's of inches of wallpaper to strip, boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff to sort thru, laundry, papers to file.**

Something had to go. As much as I love blogging, I realized I needed to revamp 3 really important areas of my life, and the blog was one of them. The other two are getting the shop ready to re-open in March, and designing a studio I can really create in!

So I'm taking my creative life on as a full-time job, 9-5. I have no idea if I can do this. I would much rather sit down and read a book than do anything else. Shopping & going out for lunch are easy! Getting into the shop/studio is tough. Staying there all day is almost impossible. But if I don't do it now, I'll never do it. I have so many beautiful ideas. I know I have taste. It's the Nike slogan
Just do it!

Feel free to leave comments or send emails. I will respond to all of them. I'll also let you know when I'm back.

~Marilee


**While on our trip both my kids asked if I had seen the TV show Hoarders. My daughter was glad to discover hoarding is a "thing;" that other people have trouble with holding on to things. The kids said they didn't think I was that far gone, but perhaps I ought to watch it as a cautionary tale. They're right. I'm not a hoarder, but I do have too much stuff and it's tough to get rid of it.

So Fun!

Yesterday was a wonderful day!

Elyse and her sister visited my shop.
They showed up just as I was turning on the lights and we had a really fun visit.


This is one of her beautiful soup can pencil holders. It is sitting out on my desk as I type this!

Elyse and her sister.
In real life, they are in much sharper focus!


Elyse & me.
When Elyse posts her pictures at cottage, they may be in better focus. She has a new camera and I forgot to turn my flash on.

After Elyse left to visit Vintage Lizzie, down the road, I had other delightful people in. It was like a ray of appreciation came in with Elyse and her sister and brightened up everyone who stopped by -- another sister duo from NJ and Washington state and a mom & daughter from around the corner. It was really fun to spend the day in the shop with like minded women who enjoyed my taste and were friendly.



Knowing the sun would be out, and I had linens to clean & sun bleach, I left a load in the washing machine to soak overnight. This morning I wiped the clothesline clean -- I do not know how a thin piece of plastic covered wire can get so dirty. 45 minutes, a bleach soaked rag & some coriander scented all purpose clearer later, I could hang out these pretties.

A square piece to put over one's bed pillow.

Just beyond the clothes line are plants that always remind me of Autumn.


Bittersweet.
They are invasive plants in the northeast and my son has worked hard to eradicate them.
Sorry Ter, they are back.