Meet Burly, my grandpuppy pug - a former Washingtonian, now living in steamy Corpus Christi, Texas. He's figured out a grand way to stay cooler while exercising - hitch a ride on Baby Claire's stroller! And get pushed for the last mile or so by Casey, my daughter-in-law. He's looking pretty pleased with this system.
Or you can attend this 'cool' event this weekend.
Usually this sign is on my work table in my studio, so I am able to be reminded of its’ valuable message often. Today I placed it in our hydrangea garden for a prettier background shot to share with you.
Hope you are enjoying this weather and/or finding a way to stay as cool as possible!
We spent our sunny Saturday having a wonderful time at the Vintage Summer Garden Market hosted by Bountiful Home in Edmonds.
We’ve got the truck packed with all sorts of wonderful new finds and creations for Saturday’s (July 25) Vintage Summer Garden Market at:
Bountiful Home
122 – 4th Ave. S.
Edmonds
10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
For more info or directions, please contact Todd at 425-775-3800 or Lisa at 425-330-5425.
We’ll be waiting for you in the always-lovely backyard nursery area.
AND....we are happy to announce that Lyneen is our Art Party Giveaway Winner! Congrats, Lyneen...watch your mailbox for some Salvage Studio love! Thanks to all who posted comments and entered our giveaway. And don't forget there are still spaces available for the Art Party. It is shaping up to be quite the event.
Our next Salvage Studio charm swap is August 29. We have two groups of 25 fun-loving customer friends who will get together and swap handmade charms with everyone in their group. We have five openings in the afternoon gathering, which will meet from 1 – 3 p.m. Sometimes people can’t attend in person, so Lisa and I are their proxy traders. This invitation is extended to our blog friends who live all over the place if you’d like to play with us! You would mail your 25 charms to us, and in return receive 25 fabulously different charms sent back to you.
Here are a few guidelines we have found are useful:
Each charm should not be bigger than 1 ½”.
Try to make them as water resistant as possible.
Please remember to cut back on the charms’ weight when
possible.Your charms can be all the same or a variety.
We found it is really helpful if your name is attached
someway to each charm. A simple paper tag is fine.
The necklace in the photo is adorned with charms I have received in our swaps. If you’d like to swap charms with us, please leave a comment, and I’ll get more info to you!
Several months ago I was the lucky recipient of a vintage piano that had to be dissected a bit to get it out of a basement. One part is the intact keyboard with lovely old ivory keys. I’m saving that for a special future project. The other part are the “insides”. I call them striker bars, but I’m probably making that name up. From the moment I laid eyes on it, I considered it a piece of sculpture. I recently got around to hanging it on a wall in my foyer.
I’m darn happy with how it looks!
It took me awhile to figure out how easy it is to rid our garage of used paint thinner, crusty cans of oil paints and such. The Snohomish County Hazardous Waste Drop Off Station is simple to find on 3434 McDougall in Everett. Just a block east of Broadway. Check their website for the hours and days of operation since it isn’t every day. Also find out all the things they will accept – yes on used batteries and no on electronics, for example.
As the sign says, they no longer accept latex paints. But I was lucky finding a home for lots of mine. Deb and Bob of Retreat rescued lots of mine, and are putting it to work lickety-split. I had a couple of partial cans of latex paint that were unusable. I was a bit skeptical that adding kitty litter would dry them out in a reasonable amount of time, but it was sort of fun to do and worked quickly. Then those cans could be put in with our regular garbage.
Here’s an action shot of a happy homeowner!
The Art Party, our all day art retreat on September 19 is getting closer! And there are still openings left, so it isn’t too late to register. As a little preview of the door prizes that we will be sharing at our future day of fun and frolic, is this extra clever package of art supplies. Our Art Party partner, Cindy, assembled these nifty items, and rounded them up with a vintage pants hanger. You have a chance to win this now. Just leave a comment below. We’ll announce the lucky winner next Friday, July 24.
Please click on the Art Party logo on our sidebar for more info. Lots of goodies will be waiting for you there!
Another way of creating more simplicity in my life is embracing more neutral shades of color in our home decor. Creamy whites, that burlap color and maybe a touch of aquamarine here and there are very appealing to me these days. I found this can of antique white paint out in the garage. It was left by the previous owners 12 years ago, and I was really surprised that once it was stirred up, it was in great shape. I covered up some of those “1980s country” colors still lurking on a few things here and there with a light coat of the white. One coat did the trick on a few things. Gone was some brick red, with mustard right behind! And this took no time at all. Now this little side table will be a two-coater.
Two coats of paint, some sanding and a coat of paste wax really didn’t take that much more time.
I’m not missing the former brick red tops on these!
Here’s an idea I came up with a couple of days ago. I wanted to put a rug in my girly bedroom with subdued colors. I had this Oriental rug that needed a new home.
I decided to see what the back side of it looked like, and I found the perfect rug! The softer colors were exactly what I was looking for, and the texture was rougher and more worn looking, which was a bonus. One rug equals two looks!
Should I cut bait and donate the jacket to the Goodwill? I could rescue the mother of pearl buttons first, since they are quite spiffy. Or as a last resort, what about dying it black to cover up some of that color?
I am so glad our friend, Cindy, shared this ultra useful website with us.
It tells you about all sorts of worthwhile organizations that accept your donations, and it is organized by categories. It is time to part with my son's bikes, since they outgrew them ages ago. The hard part is deciding which good cause more than the next good cause to select!
We will be selling our handmade garden art at the Georgetown Arts and Garden Tour is this Sunday, July 12 from 10 am to 5 pm in Seattle. Come visit us as we hang out on the stylish porch of Karalee, a favorite customer friend of ours. This garden tour is known for including innovative and untraditional garden designs, and it is free! Maps available on day of tour at the Bank of America parking lot located at 1112 S. Bailey Street, Seattle. For more information, call Jon Dove at 206-763-9895 or jonbdove@gmail.com.We are thrilled to be a part of it.
I promise to summon some willpower and not overrun this blog with pictures of my new granddaughter. But I felt you would want to see these baby toes!
What are your ideas for things that are as cute as baby toes?
I would tea dye a damask tablecloth I already owned, and use burlap as sort of a runner/second layer. Several lifetimes ago, I had a cloth doll business, and tea dyed the muslin for their bodies. It's an easy process, and produced just the look I was after. There is no need to iron damask anymore. I really prefer the soft and rumpled look.The burlap was easy to find at Jo-Anns. I cut off a long length, washed it and dried it. I am really pleased with the look! And at a cost of under $6.00 for the burlap, really pleased with the cost.
And I must give credit to the KINGS OF BURLAP, the boys of Barn House.
Along with the purging and reorganizing comes nesting. It feels good to add new decorating touches to my spiffied-up areas. I’ve been dipping into my inventory stored out in our garage.
These red metal hanging hooks were at the studio forever and a day. I even had a gal come up to tell me they really weren’t hooks. She told me what their official purpose was. I wasn’t feeling spunky-enough that day to share the whole re-purposing concept with her. (Can’t say I miss that part of retail one smidgeon!) Now these hooks are by our back door holding keys.
I created this stool from a broken chair. The top spindles were removed and the seat was reinforced. It was never adopted. I was in our guestroom (the room that Baby Claire will bring her parents to stay in room) and decided I should put a little side table by the rocker. Presto! A small stack of children’s books from back in my day awaits.
These tin drawer liners were rescued from my youngest son’s house before we rented it out. Now they are stacked in a narrow wall opening looking nifty as can be, and holding vintage millinery and tacky plastic corsages. Instead of making labels for the boxes, I arranged these on top for visual aids.
This is the best kind of “shopping”!
I love holidays, and I love parades. Saturday Raoul and I went to Edmonds to watch the Kiddies Parade. Both of my "boys" (ages 28 & 29) live far away now. So this was a great cure for the empty nest blues. 
My best photos were of the little girls. Guess I am missing that new granddaughter too.
Here is the waiting area for the kids with their decorated bikes, wagons, strollers and even a small train. Lots of kids and lots of excitement.
We arrived early to walk around Edmonds, and were impressed that chairs lined the street already.
And an amazing bonus to the festivities - J.P. Patches was the Grand Marshall!
Hope your 4th was tiptop as well.
At the Farm Chicks show, Lisa and I each bought some of these charming boxes. We had so little time to shop, that the few treasures I did acquire are extra special keepsakes of THE BEST SHOW EVER!
I had been organizing future jewelry projects in separate little dishes. One dish for one project. Adding and subtracting pieces until I was ready to assemble it. Well lots of ideas equaled lots of little dishes. Now I have 18 cubbies all side by side, looking really good, and being highly functional. Happiness in a box is what it is!
When we closed our retail studio location, I inherited one of my favorite entries that we received from our Think Green event. (Everyone who participated received a similar bag of junk/found object components. They had to use all the pieces to fashion a piece of art. The donated monetary proceeds were given to the RE Store. It was tons of fun to see all the fantastic results !) One of our consignor friends, Kay, created this masterpiece. She titled it “Junk Faces”.We have a coffee table in our family room which has a giant shadow box for a top. Kay’s piece of art looks terrific displayed in it.
