The studio has been a flurry of activity so far this week.  It’s our last full week before Lucketts and we’re making a push to get everything finished, photographed, priced and packed.  There are so many pieces that I haven’t even had the chance to share!  A market scale, a barrel scale, an amazing clock (that works) from a telegraph office, textiles, baskets, fans, totes, and lots of ironstone. I do find myself wrestling with the familiar doubts that always nag me before an event.  Am I bringing too much?  Not enough?  It really feels like overkill one moment and nowhere near adequate the next. Even though it’s all a little ridiculous, I think it’s a part of that nervous energy that balls up before something exciting.  I always felt it before a performance when I was into that sort of thing and it always drove me to do better.  I

One of my blog readers gave me the nicest compliment a couple of months ago.  She said something like, “I love that you love nice things, but you can let them go.”  I keep coming back to those words as I’m deciding what to keep and what to sell. Loving a piece isn’t enough.  Hoping I will have the perfect place for it isn’t enough.  If I use those two arguments as qualifiers, I would keep everything.  Those two arguments are factors, but I also have to think about versatility.  Can I use the piece in a variety of ways, in many different rooms, giving me lots of options as I set up in a new home and studio? I love this dry sink and I have been holding onto it in the hopes that some day, I could hook it up to a drain and wall-mounted faucet and love

If you are a scale-lover, as I am, you may have spotted the antique fan scale on the Farmhouse White buffet I shared on Friday… I don’t know what it is about scales that pull me in every time, but I love them and have been selling them in my retail space at the Lucketts Spring Market since my first year as a vendor.  I am bringing several this year, maybe about eight, including this beauty… That dial has all kinds of crazy numbers on it and I don’t even know why they are there, but beyond their practical purpose, they just look cool. Agreed? And I like that it’s big, but not too big.  You could realistically have this on a kitchen island without it looking grossly out of proportion. My new Lucketts helper, Debbie, and I worked on some furniture pieces today, but I don’t have anything finished to

   I don’t carry a lot of wholesale items in my booth each year at the Lucketts Spring Market, but I do bring a few.  It’s nice to have multiples of some items and to have “fillers” that can supplement the antiques. A couple of weeks ago, I was placing an order for garden scissors and a few other “fillers” that sold well last year and I came across the sweetest cast iron rabbit.  Not only just a rabbit, but a rabbit with a little woven rucksack with leather straps.  It seemed perfect for a spring market. I hadn’t ordered them before, I added just two to my order to see how they looked in person… I also had a sneaking suspicion that Kriste would be in love with it and would want to buy one.  I was right on that!  I kept the other one and ordered more to carry at

When I was out shopping a couple of weeks ago, this piece caught my eye the minute I walked past it.  I leaned over to my mom, who is a great shopping companion, but doesn’t always like the things I’m drawn to, and said, “I’m buying it.” She whole-heartedly agreed that I should. It’s just such an interesting piece!  Clearly something that was handmade.  Perhaps built around those drawers?  Or a piece assembled out of other old pieces?  Whatever the history, it works and I love it. The paint was already perfect, but it needed a good wiping-down and a coat of Tough Coat to seal the chipping paint.  That was one of the projects Emily tackled for me when she was helping at the studio last week.  She was such a tremendous help! The drawers are definitely my favorite part.  The chippy paint, the bin-cup pulls, and the way

The days are ticking away and the Lucketts Spring Market is getting closer and closer.  Even though I am in pretty good shape, I do need to squeeze in shopping trips when I can.  So, Saturday, after my son’s soccer game, my mom and I hit an antique store to see if we could find anything.  It was a quick trip!  We were speed-walking through the aisles towards the end, but we did come away with some good stuff, including this gray-painted shoe cart… I’ve bought and sold several shoe carts over the years and I have a couple that I use in the studio, but I’ve never had one that is tall and skinny, like this one.  It is quite a functional size – offering a lot of storage without taking up a lot of floor space. And the gray paint is pretty awesome as well…  Chipped and worn to perfection.