Where Bloggers Create 2012: Just Bee 'n Me Studio

Hello!! Whether you are visiting here for the first time from Where Bloggers Create 2012 or you're an old friend stopping by to say hi - Welcome!!  I'm Becky Schultea, full-time licensing artist and illustrator (and part time crafter), and this is a tour of my little studio at our Woodland Cottage near Houston, Texas. I have had a BLAST setting up my studio here and getting it functional and fun!!  Can't wait to show you the details...

Before we get started though, I want to thank Karen at My Desert Cottage for hosting this incredibly inspiring blog event - this is the 4th annual one and they just keep getting better and more amazing! I am looking forward to looking through all the many creative spaces and getting to know the creative souls behind them...I hope you'll do the same!

So here are the details of my 10 x 13 studio, otherwise known as a spare bedroom in our 3 bedroom cottage. I will keep my commentary to a bare minimum and just let the photos do the talking...enjoy!!

This inspiration board is a rusty old baby mattress spring - I used to use it for display at the antique shop space I used to have...

 Love my little buckets full of fabric...

Vintage stuff everywhere...

The display with the little cards is from Universal Designs who licenses my artwork. That is from my Easter collection from 2012...

I won that adorable little bear illustration (below) from my friend and fellow artist Diane Knott when she was having a blog giveaway a few years ago...

I love my paint caddy - $15 garage sale find and it was full of unopened paint bottles!

Here's my bakers rack in the corner, loaded down with goodies. Above it are the posters I made of my Just Bee 'n Me girls for the Craft and Hobby Association trade show I attended in January...

There's always a place at my craft table for you...I hope you can come by someday and play!!!

My Mom and I are going to be launching an Etsy shop early this Fall - these vintage junk jewelry pieces might just be part of the fun you'll find there...you'll have to check back and see!! We're shooting for an August 31st grand opening...

The dual closets are full of fun too...

Rounding out the room is a rack full of vintage embroidered linens (one of my most favorite things in the world!) Just love 'em!! I love the one in the middle (a sweet gift from a dear friend) that says "Say It With Stitches" - just perfect!

I am so grateful that you stopped by to tour my studio and say hi! What an honor to have you here!! 

Thanks again and God Bless You!!

Fresh Mercies

It's going to be one of those weeks - the busy kind. The kind that have you meeting yourself coming and going. The kind where you hit yourself in the head for being a procrastinator. The kind where you have to make a list every single day to make sure you don't forget to do each very important thing you have to do. The kind where it's so easy to forget to stop...and pray...and trust...and be grateful. You know those kind of weeks...those kind of days...

Thank You Lord for your fresh mercies each morning. Help me to not hurry past them with my own agenda leading the way. Help me to pause, to breathe, to reflect...help me to seek You first in all things. Thank you for this new day...may it be Your priorities at the top of my list, and not my own. May I feel Your gentle guidance, and take Your easy yoke, and pull Your light burden....mine are just too heavy to carry.

He has fresh mercies for you this morning...don't let your agenda push you past them. Enjoy them today and all this week, and I will try to do the same. I have a feeling that we'll still get everything done that is important, but we'll also get some much needed peace in the process...

Back to the Drawing Board

Hey y'all - I had to put decorating at the Woodland Cottage on the back burner for about a week or so because I've been doing some seasonal designing back at the old drawing board for a client. Here's just a few little snippets of what I've been up to...

I also made a little Scripture art that I posted to Facebook recently just for fun...

"...you have been called to live in freedom...
use your freedom to serve one another in love."

Galatians 5:13

Do you remember this daisy trim from the 60's/70's...?

When I was about 8 years old, my Mom gave me a small vanity table that she had skirted in lime green dotted swiss fabric and trimmed with this daisy trim. I LOVED that vanity...it looked so grown up and so cute. I guess I've loved that daisy trim ever since. It seems to be growing in popularity again along with lot's of other 70's icons and images. Here's a cute example from Etsy that I saw on Pinterest...

 These adorable tea towels can be found in SureLeeQ Designs' Etsy shop - 

thanks Shirley for permission to post your photo! 

If you'd like to Pin this photo, please pin from the SureLeeQ link - thanks!

Meanwhile, even though I had to take a bit of a decorating break, I've still done quite a bit since my last post. I just have not had time to take good photos. I promise I will very soon - the cottage is looking so sweet and cozy and colorful and comfortable - just like I dreamed it could be!!  I'd LOVE to have you all over for coffee and cupcakes - wish I could!!

I'll leave you with this one little tease - this garage sale dresser hutch ($4.00 is what the tag says) is an important part of a big repurpose project I did for the living room at the cottage - can't wait to show you how it turned out!!

Have a great week friends - I'll be back soon with more reveal photos!!

Oh - not to forget - prayers for all those affected by the extreme heat, the wildfires, and the mess that tropical storm Debby is already causing...Lord please keep your children under the shadow of your wing!

Free Father's Day Printable

I created this Father's Day Scripture art last year and offered it as a free printable, so I thought I'd offer it as a freebie again this year! This is one of the illustrations I lost in a hard drive crash last year, so I was glad it was captured online and not lost forever...

The verse is Psalm 112:1-9 in the New Living Translation, and it is filled with lovely promises and blessings for those who "fear the Lord and delight in obeying his commands..."  This would be great printed out and made into an embellished card or maybe framed for Dad - whatever you'd like. Simply right click the image and save, then print from your printer. (Please remember it is available for personal, non-commercial use only.)

I hope you have a blessed Father's Day this weekend, honoring your Daddy, Husband, Grandpa, Brother or any other special Dad in your life!

Where Bloggers Create 2012: I'll Be There!

I'm saving you a seat...

...and stocking my shelves...

...for the "Where Bloggers Create 2012" blog party hosted by the awesome Karen Valentine at My Desert Cottage!!

I hope you'll join me and SO many other bloggers from all over blogland as we share inspiring, fun photos of our studios, sewing rooms, and other creative nooks in our homes. Better yet, participate in the fun and share YOUR creative space with all of us...we'd love to see it!!

So, on July 14th I'll reveal my new studio at the Woodland Cottage for the party - I look forward to seeing you there!!

Meanwhile, I'll keep sharing various corners of the Cottage as I complete them...it's all starting to really come together and look sweet and cozy! More photos coming very soon I promise!

Hugs & Blessings for your week!

Sneak Peek: Our Cottage Kitchen

(the box window in our Woodland Cottage kitchen, May 2012)

For a little perspective, here's a before shot of the kitchen from 2006 when I first purchased the house...it was clean and nice, but VERY vanilla...

Well, we are *finally* finished with all the repainting and reflooring on our Woodland Cottage (!!) and most everything has been moved in, so I have turned my sights to decorating! And wow, have I been having fun! As some of you remember, we used to have space in an antique/collectibles shop, but we closed it down in July of 2010 so that I could concentrate on my art licensing business. Well, we still had boxes of awesome, cute, vintage flea market and garage sale finds left and they have been waiting patiently in our storage building to be put to good use. It has been like Christmas around here opening up the boxes to see what treasures await!

The following photos highlight the items in and around the box window in our kitchen. A box window is wonderful, but it really doesn't serve much of a practical purpose; however, it is awesome for displaying collectibles, so that's exactly what I've done with the space.

Most everything you'll see in the following photos was a frugal find at a flea market or garage sale, or else something that we made...or a combination.

My Dad made the cute shelf with reclaimed fence wood and a red and white ticking backing and I filled it with vintage goodies. In this photo you can see the green we used for the kitchen walls - it's made by Behr from Home Depot and it's called Rejuvenate...

My Mom stitched the little embroidered strawberry way back in the 70's...the sweet little chicken is a lone salt shaker without her pepper partner...

I love colorful enamelware and pick it up when I can find it for a steal - love the colors in the bowl. And you can see that I have used my no-sew cherry valance here at the Woodland Cottage - I just loved it too much to leave it out at the mobile home...

Antique apple cookie jar from a friend...

...and one of my favorite resale store finds, this cute USA Pottery cookie jar shaped like a coffee pot...

Colorful enamel pots fit just right in this narrow spot...

Love this chippy ceramic chicken and rooster set that I got at a junk store - and the corn-shaped jar was my Grandma's. Plus, a fabulous green enamelware coffee pot and my first ever cookbook from 1983...

I love vintage crewel embroidery pieces and have been collecting them for years - this one was done by a friend years ago...love the sweet sentiment.   BTW, the black and white polka dot clock was just a plain black $3.00 clock from Wal-Mart that I added white dots to with a paint pen...

Here's the whole box window...

...and here you can see a bit of the back wall of the kitchen, but I am not quite done hanging and arranging items just yet...

    

...and here's a close up of the wonderful tall crewel piece that I got at a garage sale for $2.00...

When I get everything just so on the remaining walls I'll take a few more photos to show you. I am really happy with the way the kitchen is all coming together so far. We still have some very cute knobs to put on the cabinet doors and drawers, plus a few other touches here and there. For "Phase II" of the kitchen redecorating, I would love to have vintage-styled white tile with black tile trim to replace the tired dated "butcher block" laminate...here's an inspiration photo from Pinterest to show you what I have in mind...

(Originally from House Beautiful)

That just screams cottage to me, and it will go a long way to help transform my 1982 track house into a true cottage gem...

Speaking of Pinterest, I invite you to follow along with my boards where I pin all manner of inspiration,  like the "My Colorful Cottage Style" board filled with cute colorful cottage goodness! I am getting SO many of my decorating ideas from Pinterest - it's a wonderful resource and so much fun!

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A few days ago on Facebook I said that I was decorating our cottage using at least two or three larger items from the following photo of our last space at the antique shop...

Well, I found a way to use that wonderful old black bar/cabinet right in our cottage...

It is now acting as a divider between the dining room and the living room! I love this silly old piece and was so happy that I could make it work. I was afraid it might close off the open space too much, but because it is so open itself, it doesn't block the view or feel closed off. Plus it provides some great extra storage and it will be a wonderful setting for seasonal displays throughout the year...

Well, that gives you a pretty good idea of what I've been up to all these past weeks. There are lots more projects to do (some furniture painting and decor crafting) but we are off to a very good start. It is really staring to look cute and feel cozy around here and we are loving it!

Can't wait to take more photos and share more of our progress throughout the house!  I'll be adding the photos to Pinterest too, so you can repin if you'd like...or feel free to pin them right from here...

Be blessed this week friends - I have really missed you, but I think we have turned a corner with our progress and things should be getting back to normal around here very soon. I'm looking forward to visiting more with all of you...take care and God Bless!