Aprons anyone?

So as I said yesterday, the flea market we went to this past weekend was amazing! Here are the vintage aprons I bought:


This one I loved because of the shape it had. The V shape that the blue rickrack makes gives the apron a really smooth look. The actual print on the fabric is of little blue girls with their hands and feet all touching.




This apron features images from Pennsylvania Dutch motifs. I've been admiring the style and design of Pennsylvania German patterns and motifs used, so I was thrilled to find this one. I've seen old towels and such with these designs on, but they've always ended up being a little too expensive for me. I love the print of this apron!



This apron I got for the soft floral print on the fabric. I bought it with intentions of cutting it up, but can't bring myself to do it. I actually really like the style of the apron, even though I'm typically not a fan of the full bib apron. The shape is really nice and I love the pockets on it. The back is all open, except for the shoulder straps and the tie around the waist. To me, this looks like the aprons they wore on The Waltons TV show, and I love it for that.




Here's one of my favorite aprons we have for sale in our shop. I love these little mushrooms on it:



Hope you enjoyed these great aprons!

~Beth

Flea Market Time...

This past weekend, we headed to Renningers's Antique and Flea Market Extravaganza. The market is in Kutztown, PA and is wonderful place to find some really unique things. They have these "extravaganzas" every April, June, and September and have regular flea markets every week. This was our first time going and am looking forward to returning in June or September for the next one. We spent about 5 hours looking around and found some great deals. I've been very interested in objects with Saints and other religious figures on, and was thrilled to find these:









I can't to get a chance to use these charms soon! While I was adding to that collection, Kinsey started a new collection for himself....belt buckles. He found this one for only $5:



We also found some really nice vintage fabrics at a lot of different stands. One woman had probably hundreds of different prints and trims for sale. It was difficult not to buy them all...but we settled on these four:



I already used the green and white flower print on a clutch I made today. I'm looking forward to using the brown flower print for a little quilt I'm planning to make myself. I also believe I may have unintentionally started another new collection. I've been buying a lot of aprons recently. I've been buying them with intentions to cut them up and use the fabric, but I can't seem to bring myself do cut them. So I think I'm just collecting old aprons now. I bought three vintage ones at the flea market that I will post photos of them tomorrow. They're gorgeous!

Look for two brand new clutches to be listed in our shop today!

Beth

A Land of Huge Trees...

As you know, this past weekend we headed down south to Richmond for the Spring Bada Bing show. We were fortunate enough to be able to make it a long weekend trip and got to spend Friday through Sunday enjoying the beautiful and warm Virginia weather. On Saturday morning we got up early and headed out to find a nice place to have some breakfast (the breakfast at the hotel we were staying at was anything but desirable). We came across a nice little place called Cafe Gutenberg (http://www.cafegutenberg.com/). It turned out to be a great airy place that served food, coffee, wine, and sold books. I choose to go with the Asparagus & Scrambled Egg Panini and hashbrown and Kinsey went with the Sweet Ricotta & Candied Orange Crepes. Both were very delicious! After breakfast (or more like brunch, I suppose), we found this great park area called Maymont. If you're from Richmond or have been here, then you know how beautiful the area is.

Here's a photo of the mansion that the Dooleys, who lived on this property between 1893 and 1925, had built:



The entire area is filled with huge trees, Italian and Japanese gardens, a waterfall, ponds, a wildlife area, and a lot more. We explored as much as we could, but still couldn't see everything in the hours we were there. One of the best things I saw was right when I was walking out of the bathroom. This gorgeous, gigantic tree caught my attention immediately:



Here's me walking to another great tree:



This was definitely an inspiring place for us to visit! We took tons of pictures for inspiration and are exciting to get back into the crafting mode again! Look for a massive update later today and keep your eyes out for new designs (especially ones in my "forest floor" series in the next week!

Happy Earth Day!

Happy Earth Day! Hopefully you celebrated this wonderful day someway special!

Sorry it's been a while. We've been really busy getting ready for the Spring Bada Bing show in Richmond which was held this past Sunday. It was a great time and was good meeting some great crafty folks and some fellow Etsy sellers, too! Here's a link to a list of the vendors who had tables:

http://richmondcraftmafia.com/springbadabing2008/vendors.htm



Here's some photos of the inside of the show. It looked really good in the building and the Richmond Craft Mafia did a wonderful job!









I didn't take a shot of our own booth, but here's a shot looking down on part of it:



This was the first show that I had my felt pins for sale and they seemed to be a hit. So it was good to see that all that hard work was worth it! My newest "forest floor" clutches were popular, as well, which was nice to see. I will be posting more about our trip to Richmond (which included a trip to a beautiful park with the most amazing trees we've ever seen, tomorrow.