Is There A Doctor In The House?

There may not be a doctor in the house, but there certainly could be a really cute vintage medical cabinet.  This was a great find for me and a piece that I thought would make a great little storage cabinet next to my desk, however a gal just can't keep it all and away it went to the store.

Made of metal and painted white with a cool industrial stainless steel top, this little gem screams farmhouse style all the way home!  A top drawer and cabinet space provide plenty room to hold bathroom, craft room, kitchen, or office accessories.  A light bulb just came on in my head and how about using this to hold potting soil (in the drawer) and, below, hand shovels, gardening gloves and small clay pots?  

The sides have metal towel bars.  So cute for kitchen or bath towels - or gardening tools!  And to finish it off, it gets around good on its little caster wheels.

How about using this outside for the hubby's BBQ?  An instant buffet on wheels.  Or even a mini bar?  There's plenty of room below to store your favorite tasty beverage.  See what a versatile piece this is?  Lovvvvve.

Have a super weekend everyone!

Fresh Peach Cobbler

 There is something about a fresh peach cobbler that screams summer is here!  We have a wonderful ranch in our town, The Smith Ranch, that town-folk and out of town-folk flock to during peach harvest time.  You have to get to the fruit stand early because these peaches go fast.  Seriously fast.  They are THAT good!

The peaches are really the very best that I have ever had.  Sweet, tender, juicy and don't watch me eat one because it ain't a purdy site watching the peach juice roll down my arms and chin.  My audience is usually the scotties and all they care about is if a morsel may happen to fall down in their direction.

 Because we are now a Gluten-Free household, I am learning to adapt to baking and cooking for our new diet.  I miss Gluten and may I just say that being GF really sucks big time!  However, having Celiac Disease isn't fun and sacrifices have to be made in order to be healthy.  (But oh how I miss my chocolate chip cookies!)  

I used GF Bisquick for the topping.  (This box was nearly $7.00 - sticker shock! - and there is about 3 cups of mix to use.)

For the topping I used 2 cups of Bisquick, cut in one cube (1/2 cup) of cold butter, added 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup milk (or enough to make the dough hold together), 1 beaten egg and 1 tsp vanilla.  

For the peaches, I added 1/2 cup sugar and 2 tablespoons of corn starch.  Mix it up and place the peaches in a glass pan.  Spread the Bisquick topping over the peaches and bake at 375 for 45 minutes, or until the topping is a golden color.

Delicious!  Pardon me..... I must go and pig out!!!!  A cup of hot French Roast and hot peach cobbler...life is good...even Gluten Free!

I had fun using PicMonkey for this post.  PM can be a huge time vacuum, like Pinterest!!!

Revamped Garage Find – A Fun Piece For Objet d’art

Every now and then I buy a piece that needs to be painted and it will sit around until I know just what I want to do with it.  This cabinet – once a man’s garage tool organizer – is one of those pieces that waited awhile to be beautified.  When I bought it I knew it would be a great piece for an art studio or craft room.

I didn’t snap any “before” photos, but the entire cabinet was the color of the drawer below.  Not bad if you like all wood, but having a bit of old-white AS chalk paint added really freshened it up.

To get the stripes, I eye-balled the placement of the blue painter’s tape along the front of each drawer.  I used a sponge brush to apply several coats of chalkboard paint – about 5 total.

After the paint dried, I simply wrote numbers on each drawer.  Instead of the numbers, you could also write what is in the drawer, such as craft paper, buttons, glue, paint, etc.

 

For the final touch, the edges and sides were sanded down and a clear paste wax was added only to the white painted surfaces. 

I am linking this to Wow Us Wednesday’s at Kim’s blog, Savvy Southern Style.  Stop on by her blog to be inspired this week!  There are some lovely re-do’s and recipes there, like breakfast quiche muffins!

Too Doggone Cute!

Photo: Pinterest – Media-Cache.ec4.pinterest.com

Ok, these have to be some of THE cutest cupcakes ever!  I found them on Pinterest and thought I’d share them with you, though some of you may have already discovered them on a board or two.  I believe they are Westies, however I think that they could pass as a Wheaten Scottie, too!  Wouldn’t they be fun for a child’s birthday party or for a doggie party, too?  It would be really hard for me to bite into these little works of art, that is for sure.

Oh JOY! and What is IT?

I am just thrilled to have received the news that I was the random number generator’s pick on July 17th!  (I’d kiss that RNG if I could!!)  Why you ask?  Well, I had the link to my blog friend Allison’s –( The Polohouse Blog )- giveaway on my sidebar for a few days – it is actually the photo below.  The giveaway was for two pieces of ironstone (pinch me) and a wicker covered bottle (another pinch, palease!)  Now I don’t hold my breath when it comes to giveaways because I usually am the blogger who doesn’t wins. I am more like the one who is reading the post announcing the winner of said giveaway and being excited for the lucky gal!  

I am so humbled to have won something beautiful from the lovely Allison.  In fact, just a few days ago I had the chance to meet my friend Cheryl’s good friend, Sabrina.  We were chatting about what decorating style she prefers and she said that she likes the Ralph Lauren look with ample plaid throws and equestrian decor.  Knowing that she reads blogs, I asked her if she knew of The Polohouse blog.  Her reaction went something like:  “Are you kidding?!!!!!  I love her (Allison’s) blog and her home is amazing!”  …small world we have with the internet, eh?  It’s like the six degrees of separation theory.

Thank you so much, Allison, for having such a beautiful giveaway.  I feel so blessed to have won. I know that many women out there had their fingers crossed like me.  I also thank YOUR readers who have been kind enough to visit my blog and have become “followers”, too.  Thank you, ladies!!  ((hugs))

I am going to have a giveaway in August, so stay tuned.  Something old, metal and vintage.  Hmmph?!

Ok, now on to the “what is it” part of this post.  My friend Barbara brought in this cool metal contraption – a little bit of rust included – a few weeks ago.  It is a super fun display piece with two doors and two wire racked shelving compartments.  She asked me if I knew what it had been used for.  I didn’t have a clue, but after a quick check online, we discovered that it is a steam canning unit that was used by the upper crust during the Depression Era. 

 

It would be cute up on a desk to hold computer paper and other odds and ends that don’t look great sitting out and about.  OR, how about using it in an art studio to hold papers and boxes of pens and other art supplies?  A cool piece, Miss Barbara!  You done good!

Trash Talk

About 10 years ago I first heard the phrase “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”  When I am out scouting for items to resell, I think about the friend who told me this and wonder if what I pick will be appreciated and sought after by adventurous shoppers.

The business of buying and reselling is a gamble – but it is something that helps supplement our income.  With the nagging threat of a job loss on the forefront, coupled with the horrific price of health insurance that we pay out of pocket, my little business is not only fun but a necessity at this point. 

 

One rule of thumb that I keep in mind when selecting items to sell is to think outside of my safety zone.  This means that every now and then I need to buy something that I would not necessarily use in my own home. For example, I recently found a Mid-Century modern Starburst wall clock at an estate sale.  Yea, not my style, but a few days later it was purchased by a young couple who loved it. 

I adore old scales, clocks, ironstone, transferware, old floral Sunday oils (with holes, too), galvanized buckets, rusty baskets, oil cans and chippy painted furniture.  Though not elegant and refined, these old pieces have personality with their aged and weathered appearance and fit “my style” of decorating, which I describe as an eclectic mix of cottage and English style decor.

 

The vintage store display below was one of those finds that I thought would be wonderful out on my patio to hold potted plants.  Instead, it is for sale in the shop.  It would be just perfect in a kitchen!  Wouldn’t it be great to display old crockery bowls and neatly stacked piles of French towels?  Or, better yet, use for a little mini bar – after all, it says “Perfect Cocktails Every Time With Holland House.”

 

My favorite egg basket sold the other day and now I am having seller’s remorse for putting it in the shop to sell.  That’s how it goes though – can’t keep everything!  One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.  The search is on for another one!

From December till….

…now in July is how long it took for me to figure out where I was going to put a gift that had been given to me for Christmas. More on that in a moment.

My family maintains –in great humor I might add – that I am difficult to buy a gift for.  Really, I say, even after having dropped several suggestions to them of things that I would fancy all wrapped up in Christmas paper and sweetly tucked under the tree.  However, the ears that my verbal list lands on are often distracted by more astute guy interests, such as motorcycle parts or BBQ rubs.  I am hopeful that my little hints will be filed in the hemisphere of the brain that is the go-to section rather than the mental purge lobe because active listening wasn’t happening the moment that I was dropping a heavy hint.

So I’ve heard that our male counterparts on earth are more visual than women.  Ok, maybe.  In my case this past December I found the hypothesis to be accurate.  While at a Christmas open house at the antique mall, I pointed out a beautiful Italian toleware wall sconce, that was for sale in my friend’s space, to my son and husband and said that that was the ONLY thing I wanted for Christmas.  And, as you see, Santa son and hubs came through with flying colors.

As shared in my last post, it takes me a little time to figure out where I might add a newly purchased piece to my decor.  When I see an item that I know I love and will fit in the home, I usually will purchase it – granted, if the price is doable.  There have been many times that I have had a pang of angst in my stomach when going back to get something that I liked and finding out that it had been sold.  Well shucks!  Know what I mean? 

At first I thought the sconce would look nice in our family room, but after having moved the 1920’s oil painting to the dining room, a “light” came on that the painting and the sconce seem to share a commonality in colors and flowers – and it pairs up perfectly with the chandelier over the dining table, too.  Out of the closet my sconce came and two nails later it was up and illuminating one corner of the dining room. 

 

The primitive green bench below pulls the vignette together.  It took 7 months to figure that one out, but I think this corner will remain as such for a very long time.

Next project, picking laminate flooring.  I am loving the lighter wood colors but am pulled to a bit of the darker ones, like a hickory or even cherry.  Any bits of advice from anybody as to what a good brand and color are?

Transfer Where?

 

One morning I was making my way around one of my favorite flea markets and came upon an older gentleman who had a lot of dishes and glassware for sale in his space.  Rather than look at each table and each item (I am impatient, I know) I asked him if he had any Transferware.  He looked confused and a little miffed and said, “What!?  You want me to transfer where?”  I had to look behind me to see if perhaps there may have been someone else he was conversing with, but no, it was just me.  


I gave him my nervous giggle and said, “What?”  He became more irritated with me and said, “I am NOT moving – I am all set up and this is MY spot!”

 

I told him he must have misunderstood me – OBVIOUSLY – and I explained to him I was looking to buy English Transferware and did he have any for sale.  He then laughed and answered my question with a bit of embarrassment in his tone.  He had NO Transferware dishes, so I moved on and made a "mental note to self" to just look without asking next time.  Geesh.  I mumbled to myself – in my best Jim Carey impersonation – Allllrightythen! and moved on.

A few sellers down the row had this sweet English green Transferware creamer for sale.  Score!  Not a “good buy” by resale means for me, but it is a keeper for my personal collection. 

The bowl below I bought last week at an estate sale and, well gosh, I think I will have to keep it – after all, it goes nicely with the little creamer. 

 

I am fond of the green and brown Transferware and have not paid more than 15.00 for any single item.  The brown platter above was $5.00 and is from the 19th century.  Love those bargain finds!