Just a Little Catch Up

We have been in full-blown get-ready mode for the past month leading up to the KalamazooKitty Marketplace Vintage Show which takes place tomorrow! Yikes! We are tired but we have a bunch of great stuff! We have spent months in "the thrill of the vintage hunt" and now are ready to share it all with a bunch of people! If you are in the Kalamazoo, MI area tomorrow don't let a little rain keep you away. Find our family, The Re-Mod Squad, in booth B12 & 13. Stop in and say hello! Here's a little sneak peak at what we've been working on:

A few before and after shots:

The chairs and table legs are charcoal, though the photo makes them look black.

O love the little detail on the back of this bench.

The newest member of our family really liked this next piece. Turquoise must be his favorite color!

Again the photo does not do justice to the color of this paint.

New to our line of altered book journals: travel journals! These are heading to the show tomorrow but will also be in my Etsy shop soon.

So, back to the newest member of our family peaking out in the picture above. Two weeks ago we ended up adopting a kitten from our 10 year old neighbor girl. After five years of being pet-free and saying no every time we had the "we should get another cat" discussion, this little guy worked his way into my heart in less than an hour. He is so loving and loves to cuddle. The neighbor kids named him Gizmo. Keeping him close so the neighbor girl can visit helped my decision also! He immediately has made himself at home and it feels like he has always been a part of our family. It really is great watching my hubby enjoy having a cat again. :)

I'll let Gizmo end this post with his irresistible cuteness.

When Life Gives You Lemons...

You know how the saying goes: when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Life is full of bumps and bruises along the way, it's just a fact of life. How we respond to those bumps and bruises is up to us. Do we take the lemons we are handed and just let them sit on the counter and rot from unuse, or do we make a pitcher of refreshing lemonade and enjoy the outcome?

If you have been following my blog this year, you know that we stepped out and decided to turn our love of hunting vintage items into a business, selling on Etsy and at vintage market events. (If you haven't been following along you can get a brief overview in this post.) We have been on "the thrill of the hunt" for vintage finds this summer and along the way we have visited a few vintage market events. Our first event we visited was the KalamazooKitty Marketplace in May. It was a jammed pack event with great vendors and huge crowds. 

We then visited the Everlasting Blooms Vintage Market in June and we loved this show. It was somewhat smaller than the KalamazooKitty Marketplace but it had great vendors and a wonderful intimate atmosphere on the grounds of the Everlasting Blooms Greenhouse. 

We were so excited last month when we applied to enter the Everlasting Blooms Fall Vintage Market and were accepted! But then just three short weeks later we learned that the Everlasting Blooms event had been cancelled due to some unresolved issues they were having with the township. We immediately began looking for another event to enter for the same weekend as I had already purchased a plane ticket for my daughter to join us at the event. Lo and behold, as we searched we remembered that the KalamazooKitty Fall Marketplace was the same weekend. We were sure it would be full and, if not, we doubted we had enough experience to do a show of this magnitude. But within 24 hours we received a response that we had been accepted into the event! We are so excited to announce that we are a:

We spent the first half of our vacation earlier this month at my sister's house on the lake. While we were there my sister, niece and I spent a day of vintage hunting. We decided we needed a collective name for our family venture at vintage markets. After much brainstorming and laughing we came up with "The Re-Mod Squad". This will be the name we use when we do shows collectively. Now, you won't find us if you hunt for that name but you can find me here, and please visit my sister at Simply B.E. and my niece at The Chevron Rose and check out their works of art!

What I love best about this venture is that I share it with my family. My hubby is partnering with me in Found on Brighton Vintage. We have been busy hunting and will continue to hunt and paint and repurpose in the weeks ahead. We'll even sneak some before and after shots of our projects as the show date draws near!

If you are in the southwest Michigan area on October 16 stop by the KalamazooKitty Marketplace and visit our booth. You never know, we may even have some lemonade available!

July Manifesto

In the One Little Word group I belong to our challenge for July is to come up with a manifesto that aligns with our intentions for the year and encourages us in our goals. My manifesto came to me easily because I immediately thought of a little saying my sister and I have been using for the past few months - "You don;t know until you try".

This year my word for the year is rest and right from the start of the year

Around Here Lately

Lately I have been doing art journaling on a small scale - 3 x 5 to be exact. I started working on smaller art when I started my Rolodex art journal (see the start here). Lately small has been quick and easy. I stumbled on the Index Card a Day (ICAD) art challenge and 30 Days of Bible Lettering. These two challenges have been running at the same time and I am "loosely" following them when I need a creative spark.

To Market, To Market...

It only seems natural that the next step in our vintage journey is to enter a vintage market show. I am excited to announce that we will be participating in the Funky Junk in the Country Vintage Market on July 23 in Monclova, which is just outside of Toledo.

My sister and I have spent the past few months on "the thrill of the vintage hunt" acquiring all kinds of vintage finds. My hubby and I have been refreshing and repurposing a variety of these findings. The vintage items are stacking up as we get ready for the market!

Meandering 5.10.2016

"Meandering: adjective; the act of following a winding or indirect course. Ramble, roam, zigzag, circuitous. A blog post about a variety of things; a little bit of this and a little bit of that."

April was a busy month and May is looking to be even more so. I'm aware of this coming into these months each year and I try to manage events and energy well, but each year turns out the same. Busy! So I just go with the flow and fit in what I can. 

I am running a bit behind with The Documented Life Project (DLP) and have just finished photographing my March pages.

Last month I added Found on Brighton Vintage to my Etsy shop and my sister has joined me in this new venture. We're recording our adventures of the thrill of the vintage hunt in an FB group. Recent additions to the vintage section of the shop have been:

Swedish Enamelware Bowls

Vintage Metal Rolodex

Metal Florist Frog

1950's Metal Picnic Basket

Vintage Printer's Tray

1950"s World Atlas from Replogle Globe Co.

Last month my friend Bernice from the UK was in the states and spent a long weekend with me. We stayed in a cottage along Lake Erie and did some local exploring. We wandered through parks and along the beach and visited local landmarks like the Marblehead lighthouse and the historic neighborhood surrounding Thomas Edison's birthplace in Milan.

I did sunrise walks both mornings we were there. The first morning everything was calm and the lake was like a mirror. On day 2 the wind had picked up and totally changed the look of the lake. What a difference a day makes!

During some art time Bernice taught me a technique using patterned napkins by tearing off the backing paper and using a liquid adhesive to glue the tissue portion to the background. I used the technique on this page in my DLP journal.

We saw quite a few birds during our adventure but I'll save those for the next post.  We are just weeks away from the end of the school year and I am ready for the slower pace of summer. Last week I helped the 4th and 8th grade classes put a community garden at the school as part of the health initiative committee I've sat on this year. The kids decorated the boards for the raised beds and started all the plants as seeds in the classroom, 

That's it for today. Have a great week!