New Year/New Look at the Shop

I'm sitting here in our office on the north end of the house, listening to the stiff north wind whistle all around us, and I am so glad to finally be warm and snug at home. The first part of the week was spent taking all of the Christmas down at our space in the shop and transforming the look with new furniture and other merchandise. Though I enjoy merchandising and display, it is VERY time consuming, especially when shifting most of the major pieces of furniture and tagging and pricing LOTS of new stuff. But it's all done now and for the next several days we are just going to be holed up here at home, watching our beloved UT Longhorns play for the National Championship tonight and generally vegging out till the weekend.

I snapped photos of the new look at the shop...I hope you enjoy the tour...(click any image to enlarge)

This is a fun cupboard/hutch/bar I have been dying to get finished and in the shop for weeks. It was a cheap Craigslist find ($40) that we shored up and painted/distressed. I wish I had taken a before photo...it was painted a really ugly shade of red, but it was still an interesting piece that I knew had a lot of potential, primarily as a display unit. It's anchoring the entrance to our space and will hopefully draw folks in...it's hard to see in this photo, but it has cabinets and shelves on the bottom as well as a cabinet on the top which will give us lots of display options...

The glass was missing in the cabinet doors on the top, so I put lace in them instead...

You can look through it to see the rest of the space...

I love the coutry/cottage kitchen feel it gives the space - we are collecting lots more vintage kitchen merchandise and will be adding it in the space as we get it ready. Here are a few kitcheny items we're featuring...

As you head around the bar you can see that we moved the large table, brought the smaller round table to this end, and added a small vintage china cabinet in the corner...

At the end of the bar I placed a vintage step stool that I painted YEARS ago...it goes with the look now and I'm ready to say "so long"....

I made a fun little magnetic chalkboard from a vintage red gingham metal tray that my Mom had for years...I masked off and painted the center of the tray with chalkboard paint, added wire for a hanger, ribbons and rick rack for fouf, and a couple of red fabric strawberries with magnets glued to the back to use for holding recipe cards or whatever...

Here's the interior of the little china cabinet....we'll be getting a lot more goodies to put in here if it stays around for a while...

We're still using the Duncan Phyfe drop-leaf table in the middle of our space, but instead of retro Christmas, it's now holding a pretty collection of garden-y tableware and other items...

Finally, we moved the large table and chairs as well as the chandelier to the opposite end of our space. In early November I had the table decked out in shabby pink for Christmas with a set of sweet rose china, then I switched it to red plaid, cranberry reds and burgundy and a different china pattern for December, and now I've gone back to the pinks for Valentine's Day...

I'm still featuring the Moss Rose china, but only a sub-set of it - I've off-loaded a lot of the backstock of the china to the corner cabinet next to the table - this is so we'd have room for a wider variety of merchandise on the table. I re-used the cranberry charger like I did in December, but I softened it with a pretty vintage doily...very Valentine-y...

Here's more of the Valentine-themed merchandise...

I've been wanting to make a cloche for the longest time and I finally got it done...(on the cheap, of course). I've had this large glass planter/candleholder for a good while (it's the kind that hangs in a round metal holder)- I simply inverted it, glued on an etched candle holder and a vintage porcelain knob to make a handle, then I hung an 80%-off Christmas ornament on it for a bit of sparkle...

Speaking of cheap, these 6 beautiful Spode Mansard "Lady Anne" saucers were just 2 bucks total at a garage sale...love the diamond-weave texture around the edge of the plates...

Thanks for hanging in there through all the photos...whew! Lots of new stuff! I'm enjoying this little break from the shop - I'll be shifting gears to illustration work for the next few days, and will have a new Aimee Asher clip art set to share very soon - more to come...please check back often! (I hope if you haven't yet that you'll consider becoming a blog follower so you can easily see when I do a new post!). I also have some exciting news to share about another interview I did...this time it is for a retail gift trade magazine...can't wait to share!! I'll also share links to my newest products in the Universal Designs line...they turned out GREAT!! So far, 2010 is shaping up to be an exciting year!!

Thanks for sharing it all with me - what a blessing you are!!