A Happy Accident with a Cottage Accent Table…

While I have been frantically searching about for interesting and pretty things for my booth that I’ve been talking about, I found this little gem last week. It was a true trash to treasure transformation. I’m actually not sure what the intended purposes for this table are, but I think it would be perfectly lovely as a magazine rack and table combination…or a phone table…or a ??

Here’s what it looked like before:

And with a whole lot of tlc and a few days later, here it is again:

The “after” picture was taken in the new booth that we are starting to put things in now. Imagine the roses much pinker and the leaves in hues of greens and yellows. I was really pleased with how it turned out even though I had originally intended for this to be all white. There really are happy accidents!!

Cheesy Comfort Foods

I guess one of my all time comfort foods has to be cheese. Or at least cheesy things. Macaroni and Cheese. Potatoes and Cheese. Salad with Cheese. Baked Potato with Cheese. Burger with Cheese. Ok, I guess you get the picture!!

A week or so ago I made this lovely and delicious casserole called Chicken Spaghetti , though I altered it a bit to make it more heart healthy and to only serve two people. Oh, and I took the pimentos out, too, because neither Charles nor I care for them. This was really, really great and despite the fact I made it for two people, I still had enough left from my meal to have lunch a couple days later. And, guess what? It heats up marvelously as leftovers! Mind you, I’m terribly picky about leftovers. I wish I weren’t and I wish I could say I use everything up and there is never any waste. Alas, that is not the case. But with this dish, not a speck went to waste!! When you click the link above for the recipe, you will read a very delightful lady’s step-by-step words and hopefully will find her as fun as I did!! Enjoy!

Why not?

 

“You see things and you say “Why”, But I dream things that never were and I say “Why not?”‘ –George Bernard Shaw

The Most Important Thing On My To-Do List…

The more I have thought about opening up this booth at this nearby antique and home decor mall, I become more and more excited. You see after Charles and I started dating, he introduced me to ebay. At the time he sold all kinds of things on ebay which was, at that time, a most wonderful venue. The fees were reasonable and a seller could actually make a comfortable amount of money on there. The marketplace was not flooded and there were lots of sales to be had. Did I mention that I first laid eyes on ebay in 2000? What a difference 8 years made!!

Ebay was so exciting. We’d go to estate sales, auctions, tag sales, antique stores, ANYWHERE really and we’d look for treasures. Imagine our surprise when his parents purchased a house that had an attic full of old contents such as The Carpenters tickets, memorabilia, posters, newspaper clippings, etc. That was just the beginning! We were so excited about all those things and I remember how we felt when we snagged something good at an estate sale, too. That’s always been kind of our thing and even though we’ve almost completely abandoned ebay at this point, we still visit estate sales and all the other fun places…just not as much and not with the same level of excitement. Now, with the booth, I realize we can do that again! Oh the joys of the thrill of the hunt!! I couldn’t be more excited!

I’ve been doing alot of researching on how to make my booth look good. It currently has only the back wall – no side walls. Since I’m new to all this, we either have to build or buy everything except we do have a unit with four shelves that we found at an auction several years ago. It was so cheap, we had to buy it with it’s heavy glass shelves inside a wood frame. There’s an old bookcase in our storage building outside that we purchased for me to refinish at some point and put in our home, but now I’m thinking don’t refinish it. That should be cleaned up and carried up there for displaying items, though I’m not ready to part with it. Over the weekend, we found a white plastic unit with four shelves at Lowe’s for a cool $20. I am hoping I can dress it up a bit, too. I really want this to be cute, but I fear it’s a hodge podge of things for now. It’s not very consistent, but I guess it is an antiques booth and it’s not supposed to be perfect. However, I think I will change it all up when I see if this booth is profitable. Then, I’ll sink some more money into it. I don’t think anyone has any idea how excited I am about this booth and how very much I hope it goes crazy in sales and fun!! So I guess I should probably call the owner and tell him I have decided I do want to rent that booth and find out what to do from here!! LOL – that’s a REALLY important thing to do today!!

Lovely Transformation

This one is going in my antique/home decor booth when I get it all stocked soon. Here’s a before picture so you can see what I was working with:

and after some sweet light pink paint for the background and some hand painted wee rosebuds and greenery, this is what it looks like:

I also started on a new little frame that I completely forgot to take before pictures of, but when I have it completed, I’ll post it here too. It will also go in my booth when that time comes. I’m really still debating about renting the booth, but the more I think of it, the better it seems to me. I’m pretty sure that I will soon have one….I’m just toooo tooooo tooooo excited about it!! :D