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Running a Business

buying & selling antiques

what’s left at Lucketts

It’s so sad, but the Lucketts Spring Market has been canceled for Sunday. There was heavy rain Friday night and it rained off an on all day on Saturday. The parking fields are covered with mud and standing water, so there is nowhere for customers to park. Just an FYI for those who were planning to stop by… Day one of the Lucketts Spring Market 2016 is in the books and I am totally pooped. I’ll give a full recap in a few days, but I will say that today was totally crazy and my biggest Lucketts day ever. We sold more in one day than we did in last year’s entire event. It was insane and unexpected, because things were pretty low key on VIP day last year. Today, there was a line out the tent for three straight hours. We were totally overwhelmed. Here are a couple of pictures

May 21, 2016 50 Comments

All Things Home

shopping guide & T’was the Night Before Lucketts

This is it! The official guide to shopping the Miss Mustard Seed booth at the Lucketts Spring Market in 2016. I wish I had more pictures to share of how everything is laid out, but that just didn’t happen this year. The weather was beautiful today and I could almost hear my booth calling me to come and play, but I had a lot of errands and last minute things to do, so it’ll have to wait until morning. This is Lucketts second year as a three day event, so I feel like I know more of what to expect, although this year feels like there is more anticipation leading up to Friday. Maybe it’s just me, but that’s how it feels. Here are some tips, suggestions, information, answers to FAQ’s, etc… PARKING I was at Lucketts on Thursday and, even after all of the rain we’ve had in May,

May 20, 2016 43 Comments

buying & selling antiques

10 lbs of flour in a 5 lb sack

When I arrived at Lucketts this morning, all of the 20′ truck had been unloaded and the smaller truck was half empty. As I surveyed the tent and the jumble of furniture that was placed generally according to my map, I realized space planning on this scale is not my forte. 20′ x 40′ sounded huge to me. Well, it is, but it shrinks when you try to fit the contents of a tightly packed 20′ truck and somewhat full 17′ truck inside. I stood with my hands on my hips, not sure even where to start. I had a group of strong young guys and willing women, all waiting for my direction, and I froze. Everyone was so understanding and I think they recognized that I was trying to fit 10 lbs of flour in a 5 lb sack. They patiently waited as I thought through all of my options,

May 19, 2016 40 Comments

buying & selling antiques

space planning & loading the truck for an antique market

If you’ve been following my blog for even the past few weeks, you know that we’ve been getting ready for our biggest event of the year, the Lucketts Spring Market. I’ve received a lot of questions about the process of packing up all of this stuff, so I thought I’d share a behind-the-scenes post on it. It really is like moving a household. We started packing up the small stuff a couple of weeks ago. I set up a packing station in the middle of the studio with paper, boxes and shrink wrap. I arranged furniture and collected breakable things that needed to be wrapped and packed and brought them to the reproduction shoe carts. My mom then wrapped everything in small boxes and some of the market baskets I’ve been buying. Once the box or basket was packed, I carried it over and added it to the “smalls pile”. This

May 18, 2016 44 Comments

All Things Home

on the truck to Lucketts | the smalls & littles

Thanks for all of the encouragement in your comments on yesterday’s post. As I’m in the heat of last minute details, it was really uplifting. So, yesterday I shared the furniture. Today, I’m sharing the smalls & littles. I’ve shared a few times that these are the pieces that bring life to a space, whether it’s your home, a styled photoshoot, or a retail space. My smalls used to be more of an afterthought…things I would trip across on my hunt for furniture. But I have learned that all of those smalls really add up and most of them I can just buy and tag. I focused this year on smalls and littles that fit with the Farmhouse White theme and also ones that would bring a lot of texture to the booth, since the palette is pretty monochromatic. I also curated things that were utilitarian and pretty at the same time.

May 17, 2016 58 Comments

buying & selling antiques

on the truck to Lucketts | the furniture

Lucketts week is finally here!! It’s been my focus for so long that it’s hard to believe it’s happening in just a few days. It’ll really hit me when I see my stuff in the tent. Since I have been shopping for and working on pieces for so long, I thought it would be a good idea to post a refresher of what we’ll be bringing. I have decided to sell the tufted sofa! I sort of can’t believe it, either, but I’ve photographed it and loved on it and I’m okay with selling it. I have it priced at $1,200, making it the most expensive piece in my booth. The other furniture pieces are priced from $110 (small tables & chairs) – $425 (large cabinets). I have two hardware cabinets… Both are painted the same and have chickenwire on the door fronts. They are also on steel casters to make

May 16, 2016 115 Comments

Furniture Makeovers

look book two & new t-shirts

I have a bit of a reputation for getting things done quickly. I can crank out furniture and whip through slipcovers. But, I will fully admit that I am slow when it comes to putting out a look book. It took over a year to get the first one out and about a year and a half to get out the second one! A part of the problem is that I can set my own deadline, so I just don’t set a deadline and allow the project to “come together organically”, which means it takes forever. So, after many meetings, e-mails, photo shoots, layouts, font options, painting, writing, collaborating, editing and proofing, Miss Mustard Seed’s Milk Paint Look Book Two is finally finished and sitting in boxes in my studio. Kriste and Heidi did most of the initial legwork to set the style and overall tone of the look book and

May 14, 2016 29 Comments

All Things Home

last minute Lucketts haul

It’s getting down to the wire. I had an errand to run yesterday, so I decided to do some last minute shopping while I was out. The day away from the studio was good for me, anyway. There is still a lot to do, but sometimes I just invent more things to do when I’m in the studio! It ended up being an amazing shopping trip. I found a few things that made my heart beat a little faster… I really like to take pretty, styled pictures of the things I find, but we’re running out of room in the studio and work hours in the day! So, I just snapped some pictures as I unpacked and tagged my recent finds. The video covers most of the items, but there are a few I didn’t mention in order to keep the video shorter. I couldn’t resist this concrete statue. It looks

May 13, 2016 31 Comments

I’m Marian, a painter, writer, and lover of all things creative. From art and antiques to home projects and everyday life, I share my journey in hopes of inspiring you to embrace your own creativity and make beauty in the spaces you live.

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