I received a couple of comments about the font I am using, so I thought I would test a couple. Let me know what you think is best, I want it to be easy to read. So leave a comment, because I love comments. Even if you are one of my peeps from CA, I like to know who’s popped by.

During the day I have all these ideas and thoughts about things I will blog about. The problem comes when I sit down and actually start typing. My mind goes blank or the words in my head come out all jumbled up and I can ’t put together a coherent thought. My sister and my husband have no problems expressing themselves when writing, do they have blogs NOPE. They both should, they would be interesting and funny.

Here is another font choice, I like this one or the second paragraph best. LMK what ya think!  Not much else to write about because I am busy getting the store ready for opening day!  4 Days left to enter the giveaway!

XOXO Jen

I finished a couple of books and thought I would share with you. I have been staying up way to late at night reading, I just can’t stop my self, maybe in the back of my mind I know everyone will sleep in until at least 8:30-9am. The first book I finished was -Fearless Fourteen by Janet Evanovich, which I finished in four days and who knows when her next book will be out. l crack up every time I read these books, the situations are hysterical. If you haven’t read this series, start with number One-ONE for the money, you will not be sorry!

The second book I finished was “Twenty Wishes” by Debbi Macomber. It was the fourth in the Blossom Street Series, which are all great books especially if you are a knitter. It was a great story about a group of woman who each wrote down twenty wishes and each one tries to complete these wishes. Makes you want to write a list of your own. Who knows maybe I will.

I just started a new book called Water for Elephants, I am only a few pages into it.  I will have to report on it when I am done.  Heather at Blhum Studios gave it rave reviews, so I am excited to read more of it.

This is my little dude’s feet in his Salt Water Sandals. My girls had them when they were little so I had to get them for Mr. Graham. They are the best. You can wear them in the water, pool, ocean, bath or whatever you can come up with. They still look like new and he has worn them a lot. He wears them when we go to the pool and I take him in the pool with them on. This works well for when we get out of the pool, it keeps his little feet of the hot ground. People at the pool have to let me know that he still has his shoes on, and I so nicely have to let them know that- I know and it is ok. Are salt water sandals like flocked trees in North Carolina-NON existent??? I did order these on eBay and they came from Sacramento CA.  So many things to get use to over on this side of the US.

There are a few days left to enter my give away, so post a comment letting me know you want to be considered for the drawing.

XOXO Jen

 This week was good, I accomplished some things I have been meaning to do and had not got around to doing them. 

#1: I did yoga in my basement twice.  I have not done yoga since leaving Napa, and BOY was I in need of some stretching. 

#2: Chad Gab and I played tennis, which I have not done for at least two years.  How I know this is: Chad and the girls got me a pink tennis racket for Christmas a few years ago and it still had the tags on it!!  

#3: I hung up the mountain of clothes in my room and finally unpacked two of the three bathroom boxes I had on my side of the bedroom. 

#4: As you will see we have french doors in our family room, and they were unfinished when we moved in.  Chad and I had painted them a few months ago and started scraping the paint off each of the 30 squares.  There were two left to scrape, so Friday I finally scraped them.

#5: Also, on Friday I finished painting the built in shelf in our family room. 

#6: Today, I actually vacuumed and mopped under the couches in my family room.

#7: We started painting the kitchen and almost have the sewing room re-painted.

We have lived in this house since March and I  am finally posting before and after pictures of our family room.  I decided not to post pictures of the house until there were before and after pictures.  You can look here and see the only other before and after photos of the house. 

 This is how we saw the house the first time we walked through, as you can tell, we have good imaginations. This doorway is into the foyer.

 Another photo of how lovely it was before, that is the doorway into the kitchen.

Here is a picture when we moved in, as you can see we had the wood floor put in before we moved in, and we had the ceilings scraped.

The unfinished french doors and the super hideous ceiling fan.

Here is the shelving I finally finished painting and then I got to fill it up with all of my goodies.

One slight turn to the left to get more of the room.  I have all my yarn and knitting projects in the bottom cupboards, such awesome storage.

The next section of the room, you can see part of the painted french doors.  Our TV armoire use to have doors and be in the sewing room at my old house.  Also at the Napa house we use to have the TV on the wall, which didn’t really work with the layout of this room.  We may eventually hang it on the fireplace. 

We hung this pretty chandelier that I got at a yard sale years ago for 5$. We also white washed the bricks, then decided to remove the glass doors so we need to white wash were we removed the doors.

We still need to paint all of the pocket door, as you can see we have only primed them.  They are so handy because we can keep Graham contained. If you look back at the before pics, this is where we ripped down the shelf, we still need to do something about the old intercom system.

So now you see why I had to wait to show you before and after, the before was soooo bad. 

Hope you enjoyed the pictures.  There is still time to sign up for my give away, so go here and sign up.

XOXO Jen 

There were estate sales in the paper today, so of course I could not pass them buy.  I even forced Gabby to come with me and Graham, which she was not happy about.  She says” Whos mom makes them go to yard sales with her?”  a second later “who’s mom even go to yard sales?”  I say, “a lot of moms go to yard sales”she says”whatever, you are weird”  

The first sale sounded great: Vintage books, fabric and kitchen, plus it was in the historic part of downtown Greensboro.  Negative, there was a bunch of regular crappy stuff.  I did purchase some vintage Christmas cookie cutters, hat are cute and will be in the shoppe later this year.

The second sale was a 20 minute drive, so off we go and Graham falls asleep of course. Me thinking great I am going to have to wake him up to go into the estate sale.  I lucked out, the sale was in the front yard out in the country, so I parked in front and rolled all the windows down and Gab turned on the DVD player, they were never out of my site.  It was quite nice to not have to carry the 30lb wiggly boy while digging through boxes and listen to Gabby say can we go now every 5 minutes.

The box of Shiny Brites were thrown in the bottom of a box with a ton of heavy stuff on them. I was shocked they were still intact. love the one in the middle.  The aqua bowl only cost me 25cents, it is going to look cute with the rest of my melmac. I got the dog for Gab, however I have one that is about the same size and it is black and white with a pink bow and I think they will be adorable together, so Gab is not getting this one for her collection. Mean mommy!!! The bracelets and earrings may end up in the shoppe, we shall see. I am keeping the pink necklace, I love it.

So exciting to find vintage tinsel garland, will be keeping this, you never have enough garland.  OMG, this is off subject, but I have chatted with two different people here and they have never heard of a FLOCKED Christmas Tree. YIKES!  For those of you who don’t know me well, I always get a real live green tree and I get a second live tree flocked PINK or White.  I am freaking out that they don’t flock trees here, whatever will I do. Chad says I can get the cans of spray flock from Walmart and do it myself, wouln’t that look NICE

Jewelry Close Up. 

Don’t you love these vintage clutches!  I have a few all ready and I use them when I get dressed up. The two silver ones are going to be in the shoppe.

I was just looking on ebay yesterday for vintage iron on transfers for embroidery and look what I found today! Yippee for me, I have been itching to do some embroidery.  Yes, another vintage padded hanger, I will never stop buying them. This one was 25cents.  I will have everything in my closet on them some day.  I’m about half way there. Then I will start on the girls closets!  They do take up more space than the regular hangers, but they are so pretty and they keep the shoulders of your shirts from getting weird boobie marks.!

Vintage cookie cutters mentioned at the top.

  Close up of my cute doggie

Vintage hats 1$ each, I may actually wear the floppy blue one. 

A bunch more close ups of the purses and some jewelry I got.  Not sure if I am keeping the jewelry or selling it, who knows! 

XOXO Jen

Here are a couple of the swaps I have participated in recently.  The first one was for “red, white and blue for you”, I knit the red and white dish cloth. This package headed off to Florida, hope Shan likes it. 

These were for the Lucky Parcel swap themed red and aqua, I think they turned out cute.  However I have decided to take a break from swapping for awhile and concentrate on my site.  

This is one of red and aqua packages I have received, it’s so cute!

Don’t forget to enter my give away, you have until June 30th. 

As I mentioned yesterday, I am doing a give away to celebrate the site being done!  The Shoppe’s grand opening is scheduled for July 1st, which I am getting very excited about.  Ok here are the details for the giveaway: leave a comment on this post and you will be entered in the drawing and put a link on your blog to my give away and you will get entered a second time.  Entries will be accepted until 12pm EST on June 30th. Due to shipping expense, I can only accept entries in the USA, SORRY:( The drawing will take place on July 1st. Here are the goodies:  1 yard of 54″wide rosey decorator fabric, 1 vintage millinery flower, 1 vintage rosey saucer, 4 pages of Vintage Ephemera and one vintage flower broach.  Tell your friends!

These are the types of items that will be in the Shoppe.  If you love the fabric, I have about 15 yards of it that will be for sale so check back July 1st.

 XOXO Jen

I would like to thank the designers of my site for all their hard work.  Heather Bluhm of Bluhm Studios designed my buttons and the banner, which I LOVE!!!   And Brian of Mr Doodle & Co. designed the site and patiently answered the 150+ emails I have sent him over the last couple of months, I am so happy with the site and would highly recommend them. Thanks Guys!! 

Paint update:  If you look at the bottom of the last post you can see my paint dilemma.  I tested the free paint and it is still not the same color as what poor Chad all ready painted.  So now he has to repaint, which is frustrating because we have 15 other rooms in this house that need to be painted! UGGG 

 Tomorrows post will include a giveaway, so stop on by and enter to win!

XOXO Jen

It was an ok weekend for finding goodies,  I got most of it on Friday.  I set out Friday AM at 7:30 with my neighbor Robin, and her son Addison watched the kidos.  The first sale we went to was in a great older home, however it smelled terribly of CAT PEE.  I did find a couple of things despite the smell.  We had to wait until noon for the next one to start, so we went home, and I put Graham down for a nap and I laid down for and hour also, it was so nice to take a nap:)  We got to the second one close to 1pm after Graham woke up.  I was bummed I didn’t get there at noon because the antique dealer guy got all the really great vintage metal outdoor furniture for super cheap.  The early Bird gets the worm!!   

 Here are all the goodies! At the noon sale I got the Pink pot with the lid, it is not vintage, but it is Pink and brand new.  The poor lady who’s house it was, was being treated for a chemical imbalance.  She clearly had a shopping problem.  You walked into the basement and on the right wall were about 50(I am serious) brand new comforter sets in their original packages, then you walked into another room and there were boxes from floor to ceiling of brand new cook ware of all shapes and sizes.  Robin was able to stock her sons first kitchen in his first apartment with all sorts of great kitchen stuff for $40.00.  I also got the silver bread basket which she had about 7 of, yikes.  I got the cute glass covered dish, the pillow cases everything is sitting on, the aqua juicer and the large plastic bag with cross stitch supplies. I got the glass candy jar on sat for 50 cents, crazy cheap, I am going to use it for storage in my sewing room.

The vintage fisher price boat and the vintage books, I found on sat, while I was suppose to be at Lowes dealing with paint.  I got the little ceramic rose at the cat pee house, and the two hangers, which thankfully do not smell. The little clock and the tole painted magazine rack were found at a sale on Friday evening. 

 Here is the new little rose with the others I have, I love them, and may end up with them all over my house and be like the poor lady with the imbalance. 

This bowl was also from the imbalance house.  I have used it twice all ready.  

This gem was from the cat pee house, it doesn’t smell like cat pee, it smells like SMOKE!  So I aired it out in the driveway for a day and sprayed it down with disinfectant spray,  I took out the fabric panel and now it sits in the garage waiting for me to do something with it.  I am going to use it in the sewing room to hold fabric.  We left my built in storage in the Napa house, so I am having to get new stuff(Darn)  to put my fabric in. I like this way better than the pressed wood built ins from Home Depot.   

What is this you ask???  A huge pain in the butt that is what it is.  This is a corner of the sewing room which my hubby so nicely painted for me. I bought one gallon of paint and Chad painted the whole room other then a few areas that needed to be cut in around the ceiling and base boards and…. we ran out of paint.  So I took the original little card that the DUMB guy at Lowe’s wrote on back to the same dumb guy and asked for 1 gallon of the EXACT same paint.  I brought the new can home and handed it to Chadwick and he went up and spent 3 hours finishing the cutting in.  We went up there the next day to check it out and realized as you can see from the photo it was a lot lighter.  So I went back Friday afternoon to the SAME dumb a%#, and told him what the problem is and he said I need the original can of paint, which I told him is long gone in the trash, and I have never had to bring in a can of paint before.  So he tried to fix it and it was still way to light.  So I went back Friday evening and it was a different guy and he was very nice and tried again to fix it and it was way to dark which you can see int he photo.  Saturday am I headed back to stupid Lowes, where I will not be buying paint ever again.  And I ended up getting 2 free gallons of the original paint and I have a feeling the original color is messed up so poor Chad is going to have to repaint 3 of the four walls, I will leave the window wall the darker color it is and save him some time.  I haven;t opened the new paint and tested it yet, when I do I will let you know what happens.  Off to bed!

Jen

They are tired from all the typing.  I finally got all my blogger friends links on the site.  I took me forever, but  you are all there under info, and links.  I am happy to have that task done.  I got a few cool things while I was out at the Estate Sales, however I need to take photos still. Maybe tomorrow.  The store is getting closer to being open, I am giving myself a deadline of JULY 1st.  Now I am held accountable!  I will be hosting a giveaway for the “Grand Opening”, so stay tuned.

Can not type any more, must relax and knit!

Jen

I got my computer back all ready!  They said it would be 2 weeks, it only took a few days from when I sent it out.  SOOOO happy, doing a happy dance!!!  I am finally going to upload the pics from my recent garage sale activites.  BEWARE… there are a lot of  photos in this post.  We  joined our neighborhood pool  about a week ago and have been there every day  except today.  Today we relaxed and cleaned, the weather was finally not a million degrees, thank goodness.    I am really annoyed, my publisher is not working correctly as it is a trial, however I don’t want to spend $170.00, any one have a suggestion how or where to get it for less? Now on to the photos!!!

This is what I received from a swap, Pay it Forward Lucky Parcel.

 This one is hysterical!  Chad on the beach memorial day weekend.  It was about 65 out and windy, he is such a wimp!!

Doesn’t he look cute in my vintage quilts next to my cute vintage 2$ chair.

While Wendy was here, we cooked and baked a lot.  All of the girls had on aprons  so Little dude wanted one too, so I dug through the apron stash and found the least girly one.  He thought he was hot stuff.

This next one is pretty scary,  it is my living room! This is all the pictures, blankets, curtains, and knick knacks that need to find homes still.  For some reason I can”t make a decision where I want things to go, so there they sit in a crazy mass waiting to find homes.  SHEESH

I got these cute chairs at a garage sale for 2$ a piece. Two has always been my favorite number, but it also seems to be my lucky number for buying things.  I happen to love paying 2$ for things, who doesn’t??  I plan to put these in the basement around this table and recover them with a cute retro fabric so that they will all match, not sure what they were thinking.

At this same sale I got all of these super goodies. Except the curtain panels, I got them the same day though.

You will be seeing some of these things for sale in the shop soon.

This pretty plate is hanging in my kitchen and all the cute dogies have gone to live in Gabby’s room with the rest of her vintage dogs.

I love this childrens book, the illustrations are amazing.  The rosey hot plate is in my kitchen also.

I am keeping the beads too, however there were a few other pieces that will go in the store.

Poor little one eyed bug, the lady said all these animals were from the 50’s. I would like to try to give him some new eyes, we’ll see.

A close up of the fab book.

I got this cute pink shelf and this bowling pin at a different sale.  The pink shelf is now in the sewing room, which you will get to see soon:)  The lady running the sale called me a silly girl from CA for buying the bowling pin!  I like the bowling pin, it is cute, it is now in Grahams room, it may end up in the basement or it might stay on the shelf in G’s room.

My funny little dude, he likes to play in the cupboard while I am working in the kitchen.  Could he be any cuter?  Like the UGLY cabinets, I am getting paint in the AM so Hubby can start painting them.  I also need to find hardware for them.

I made these for my friend Heather’s baby who will be born any day now.  I love that they look like mary janes!

I got this neeto quilted pillow last weekend, I Love it and it looks super cute on the sofa!

I like this plate a lot, not sure if it will go on my plate wall, we’ll see.

Sweet little baby doll dress, I will be selling this one!

Another cute pillow, you will see this in the store too.

Hope you enjoyed all the fun photos!  It feels good to be caught up.  The store will be opening soon~

Jen( Notice no fancy font-stupid publisher)