Yummy Vintage Goodness and a BIG announcement!

A few weeks ago my hubby was browsing Craig's List and he said to me... "hey honey, you might like this!" I took one look at it and my mouth dropped to the ground,. Especially after I saw the asking price of... wait for it.......$75.00!! I couldn't believe my eyes, but was a little discouraged when I saw that it had been listed for several weeks already.

"It wont still be there, surely someone has snatched her up already."(I whined to my hubby)

But, with shaking hands I quickly sent the guy an email asking if she was still available.

I waited... and waited... and waited.... Three days went by without a single return email or phone call.

"See, I said to hubby pouting... I was right. She is sold already."

But then on the fourth day a miracle happened and a phone call came in... "Am I still interested in the mannequin???? Are you kidding? Absolutely!"

But the race was on because she was in Prescott and I am in Phoenix (about 2.5 hours away)

Two other people were coming to see her that day. I hopped in my car and a half hour after the guy called, I was on my way to Prescott. If all went well, I would arrive an hour before the first of the other two potential buyers!

Well, as you can see... she came home with me. The day was absolutely perfect. The weather was cool for this time of year since we had just had some great rain and as a result everything was green including the desert! The drive was beautiful and I was feeling so happy and blessed!

After I picked her up I drove into Old town Prescott to hit antique row. Many wonderful antique shops line the street so I parked my car at one end and worked my way down to the other!

 This is what I came home with... I love that heart pounding feeling when you find something fabulous!!!

I was truly in my happy place as perused the shops filled with yummy vintage goodness.

There are not many things I enjoy as much as searching for (and finding) a wonderful treasure from the past.

And that brings me to my big announcement....

For quite a while I have wondered if I should try my hand at renting a space in a great shop and selling my found, re-purposed and hand made goodies. I am so happy when I am in that place, so after much encouragement from my friends I finally decided to take the plunge and do it!!!

So "My Desert Cottage" will now be a booth in a fabulous Vintage shop called Rusty Saturday!

It is in a wonderful area on Cave Creek Rd that is home to many awesome vintage shops both North and South of Cactus.

I will be moving in the first weekend of September and will have my "Grand Opening" the same weekend as The Salvage Yard's monthly sale. (Sept 11th- 14th)

I've been collecting, painting, cleaning, collecting and painting and pretty much thinking of nothing else for the last 6 weeks!!

Here is a tiny sneak peak of a few things you will find in my booth.

I'll show you some more goodies next time!!

Sweet Salvage celebrates it's 3rd birthday with "The Trilogy"

I can't believe Sweet Salvage has been open for 3 years now! Even more amazing than that is the fact that in those 3 years I have only missed one show out of 36!!! These photos of the beautiful vignettes  that the whole Sweet team puts together should tell you exactly why.

I am just in my happy place when I am there and able to look at all the wonderful goodies that they have collected and put together for us to enjoy.

 I am really into Ironstone right now!

 Mix it with old books, vintage linens and hydrangeas and you have a perfect vignette.

 More of my favorite things... silver and architectural salvage!

 Yep... Enough said. :)

 I could totally see the vignette painted into a beautiful still life!!

 No one does Industrial Chic like Lisa!! I love this table!

 This ladder was so cool!!

 Myko's space was dripping with girly oppulence as always!

 The boutique has been expanded and now carries more than just yummy clothing and accesories.

A girl could get lost in here for hours!! (And I have!!!) LOL!!

I hope you find some time to pop over there this weekend and check it out!!

Reupholstering a chair... Before and After!

Almost 15 years ago my Mom gave me this chair that belonged to my grandmother.

When I received it,  it was a bright orange and totally not my style! Then several years ago I had the opportunity to get it professionally reupholstered with this blue and grey check. (The cushion is missing in this photo but it matched the blue check)  At the time, my style had a lot more color in it and was a little more "country". For the last 5 years or so the chair has been cast off into the storage room never to see the light of day. Until now!!!

I got the wild idea that I was going to attempt to redo the chair myself! I slowly began stripping it down layer by layer. I was hoping that after removing most of layers I would be left with a perfectly lovely 

deconstructed chair like I have pinned on my Pinterest board "Love affair with Chairs"

Alas... that was not to be. :(

I broke out the gloves (really important... trust me) pliers and a flat head screw driver and began removing the thousands of staples that were in this chair. (I am not exaggerating!) It seems that every time this chair was redone (about 4 times I am guessing) they never removed the old staples and only added to them!!

Oh my gosh... there are still so many more to go!!!!

I decided to paint the frame and distress it before I started added fabric back.

Are you ready to see the after???

Ta Da!! 

Holy Moley was it a lot of work, but I'm really happy with results 

and I saved myself about 400 dollars!!

 The back and the bottom under the cushion is all done with a very tight weave upholstery grade burlap fabric.

 I decided I didn't want to spend any money so I patchworked it all together using a different fabric on each of the panels and the cushion. They are all different patterns of matlesse' or  textured tone on tone fabric.

 I didn't have enough burlap gimp of either color to do the whole thing, so used both!! I like the way it looks and I think it adds to patchwork look.

 To help give me a little of the "deconstructed" look I really wanted, I sewed the seams on the cushion inside out so that they showed. I added some burlap colored fringe to them to to bring some of that color to the cushion.

 Here it is in its spot in the room. :)

It's not as well done as a professional could have done it, but I don't care!! I'm really pleased!

And last but not least... this is the pillow I made for it. I saw something similar at a store called Rustic Stuff here in town. I fell in love with it, but at $120.00 it was out of my budget. I used some more of that tight weave burlap I had and sewed layers of lace pieces to it using vertical lines about an inch apart. I left the seams on the outside of this one too. I like the look for stuff like this and it is sooo much easier than turning the seams when you are using heaver or bulky fabric.

Well that's it!! I hope you are inspired and realize that you can do it too!!!!

I'm linking up at Inspire Me Monday this week!!