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Saturday, August 31, 2013

Fluffing the Booth Spaces for Fall

This past week, my sister & I restyled our booth spaces to reflect signs of Fall and feathering the nest.....

We got news that our pie safe we set in July sold, so bringing in a new [old] piece of furniture prompted a major overhaul.
We had just sourced a fainting couch and, not only did we bring it in, we soon realized it sort  of clashed with the remaining styling of our cottage-themed space.  So, we did a complete flip of two of our spaces!

The so-called cottage space went from this (in July):
To this, ready for September and a more Fall appearance:
This Victorian look can come off as dark (not to mention the poor fluorescent lighting in the mall which always makes photographs a challenge), but once we lightened it up with the vintage crochet tablecloth and pair of floor lamps (only one is visible in photo above), it came together nicely.  We added the smoking stand, walking stick and top hat, and completely reworked the pegboard wall of prints.  To complete the vignette, we also moved the antique iron bed frame, vintage wicker table behind it, and all the wool area rugs from its prior location.  We placed the largest rug on the floor, tying it altogether.

And the previous area we called the "living room" went from this (note the wall of prints and bed with rugs):
To this (I apologize for the darkness of the photo. Among all the white pieces, the fluorescent lighting and flash/non-flash choice on my camera, I either get a total white-out or this.  I even adjusted the contrasts & brightness of the photos taken).
This is now the condensed version of the cottage scene.  And because the rug in the "living room" did not coordinate with the new and condensed cottage scene, we flipped the underpinning of this area (set just the week prior) from this:
To this:
And yes, that sewing machine is new [old] too.  It's a very nice Singer machine with 6-drawer cabinet, complete with all its attachments in the original dove-tailed wooden box.  Moving the cabinet & machine wasn't the easiest task, especially when we lift with heavy crocks, wooden boxes and lanterns in place, lol.  We're gluttons for punishment We love what we do when we style our space, and it's a good thing.

And because our antique mall sees more traffic during holiday weekends (we are at the junction of interstates I-79, I-77 and I-64), we moved in a few more items for Labor Day weekend.
This vintage scarecrow is wanting to feature (and sell!) the vintage, wooden box.  The box has some great parquetry in a nautical theme on it, as well as locking doors with shelves behind it.  
One more thing we styled around the primitive cabinet was this wagon wheel, with a great provenance:
This wheel was, literally, dug out of the dirt floor basement level of a local, 3-generation estate.  The family who owned and actually used this wheel was locally based, and we helped the person to whom all its contents were bequeathed upon clean it all out - what a job!  The house was built at the turn of the 20th century (we even have the original list of building supply materials), and this wheel (we sold the other one last year) was original to the family's means of transportation when the house was built.

So, we're set for the start of September, at least for another week - or until a major piece sells.  At which time you'll find us flipping vignettes, yet again.  
Meanwhile, I have fluffing to do here at home - company's coming for a gathering.  Enjoy the rest your long weekend..  And if you haven't entered for your chance to WIN a pair of 3-day passes to Country Living's Fair in Columbus September 13-15 that I'm giving away, CLICK HERE TO ENTER!

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Giveaway: Pair of Country Living Fair's 3-Day Passes!

I've been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to allow one of my readers the chance to WIN a PAIR of 3-day passes to the Country Living Fair in Columbus, OH this coming September 13-15, 2013.  It is expected to draw over 25,000 attendees, and you & a friend could be two of them!  Read on to see how you can win!

This fair promises to bring the pages of Country Living Magazine to life, and it's got an all-star list of guests scheduled to appear, including CL's editor-in-chief, Sarah Gray Miller (pictured below), as well as many of the magazine's other editors and contributors.  (All photos in this post Courtesy of Country Living).
The Country Living Fair in Columbus will give attendees the chance to enjoy the Country Living lifestyle in a fun, festival atmosphere with cooking, crafting, and other DIY demonstrations, as well as fantastic local and artisanal food. In addition, guests will have access to a unique shopping experience featuring more than 200 vendors offering antiques, gifts, home décor, jewelry and more.



Special guests scheduled to attend the Columbus Country Living Fair and participate in book signings, demonstrations and panel discussions include:
  • ·         Brent Ridge and Josh Kilmer-Purcell, of Cooking Channel’s “The Fabulous Beekman Boys";
  • ·         Cari Cucksey, estate sale expert and host of HGTV’s “Cash & Cari”;
  • ·         Faith Durand, executive editor of TheKitchn.com and author of “Bakeless Sweets”;
  • ·         Allison Chapman, owner of Igloo Letterpress in Columbus;
  • ·         Kelly McCants, founder of Modern June and author of “Sewing with Oilcloth.”

You can purchase tickets by visiting www.stellashows.com or call (866) 500-FAIR, but now is your chance to WIN a PAIR of 3-day passes to the fair!

Entries must be received by 11:59 pm (EDT), Wednesday, September 4, 2013 to be eligible.  One random drawing winner will be announced in a post sometime Thursday, September 5, 2013.  

I'm offering readers three separate chance entries into the random drawing in order to increase your odds of winning.  Here's how you enter:  
  1. Leave a comment on this post, indicating you would like to be entered for the chance drawing.
  2. Become a follower of my blog, PANOPLY, by either signing up with Google+ or email subscription.  Then please leave another comment letting me know you're a follower.
  3. Share this giveaway via a link on either your FACEBOOK or HOMETALK page, and leave a comment indicating such so that I may visit your page and see the post while I'm there.
ONE lucky reader will win a PAIR of 3-day passes - one pass for YOU and one pass for a FRIEND of your choosing!  

Hurry!  Call your best friend and tell them about the fair and your chance to win!  Let them in on it so they can enter, and increase your chances of going together!  Can you say girl trip?!  
GOOD LUCK!


More details on the fair:

Location: Held rain or shine outdoors under tents, the Fair takes place at the Ohio Village, next to the Ohio History Center and located across from the Ohio State Fairgrounds at I-71 and 17th Avenue in Columbus (800 E. 17thAve.). Regular parking fees apply daily.
HoursFridaySaturday & Sunday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; gates open for Early Birds at 8:30 a.m. Friday & Saturday.

Tickets:
·         Admission is $13 in advance and $16 at the door; three-day weekend passes are available for $15 in advance and $20 at the door;
·         An Early Bird 3-Day Weekend Pass is available for $40 (in advance only) and grants early admission on Friday and Saturday at 8:30 a.m. (no early admission on Sunday);
·         Children ages 16 and under are free;
·         Ticket prices include admission to the Ohio History Center Museum.

Go RVing and IAMS are sponsors of this year’s Country Living Fair in Columbus. The Fair is produced by Stella Show Management Company. 

This ticket giveaway is sponsored by Country Living Magazine, a Hearst Magazines publication.

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

A Peek into My Vintage Decor Preferences

I have yet to offer a tour of my home, but today I'm going to share a few of my preferences in choices I've made for my decor.  There are some recurring themes in accessory choices for me, all reflective of the vintage items I come across, collect and am consistently drawn to:  textiles (namely needlepoints in this case), statues, china, metals, and even lamps.

Our home decor is a very transitional style with some vintage flair, I would say.  By definition, this style type is a marriage of both traditional and modern flair, with clean lines and fabrics, [hopefully] classic through the years.  Undoubtedly, ours is a marriage of two households, as my husband & I literally did just that when we married.  Over the past decade, I have made several modifications to the overall look with my personal style approach - sleuth decorating as I like to call it - wherein I add little touches, usually before company comes. This seems to always help my husband in accepting the subtle changes more favorably, as most company will notice little things and compliment those they like, and he then notices too.

There's no question that I am a Flapper girl at heart, and this is consistent with the modern touches I inject into my decor, reflective of the women of the late teens of the 1900's into the 1930's.

My office/spare bedroom showcases a series of five Art Deco needlepoints I scored from a local woman's estate.  The beaded purse is just one of way too many examples I collect, and am continuously looking for new ways to display.  I have shown my guest room before; suffice it to say that it has become my purse museum.
Keeping with the Art Deco theme, here's my vanity valet that was just recently published in Flea Market Style magazine.
Along with my valet, I have a collection of several plates on this same bathroom's wall, demonstrating one of my cross-collectibles: my inner Flapper girl and my love of china / decorative plates.  The porcelain story plates below are four in a series of twelve, I believe, titled "Bains de Mer" (Sea Bathing).  They are from the Creil et Montereau French factory (pre-1920).  Both the plates & valet are from auction.
Plates and statues are a common theme scattered throughout my decor.  In my living room (which really should be called a keeping room because we pretty much just keep it, and don't live in it), we have a bit of an Asian theme going on, albeit transitional.  Another platter (below), this one is early 20th century Asian, signed in red on the back, although I haven't figured out its pedigree, if any (where's Antiques Roadshow's Lark Mason when you need him, anyway??).
And yes, that's a foo dog - a little feng shui never hurt anybody, and he's supposed to be a guardian against evil. Although he is not of a pair and is not outside my door, he is situated at a North facing entrance, which is said to be the correct position.  Reflecting in the mirror, you can see another bust I have on the occasional table.  On the opposite end of the oriental credenza, this lamp and vase are both items my husband helped select.
The vase is "the Love Birds", by Consolidated Glass, an estate piece.  It is hand-painted in colors we use in our decor.  The lamp was a super find in an antique store in Lebanon, OH - it is a Frederick Cooper vintage lamp.  The shade, on the other hand, is newer, selected with the help of one of my lamp aficionado friends.  He tells me Frederick Cooper lamps were once the Cadillac of lamps, and I scored mine for just $20.  The shade, on the other hand, was a different story in terms of cost.  We won't go there.
Another room, another platter. This is my favorite Fall decor platter, another estate sale find.
It is Johnson Brothers' Windsor Ware,  "Harvest Fruit".  It is a sizable 20" platter, and I love how it blends together my love of china, brown transferware and complementary colors in my decor.
Coordinating with my platter above is this subset of my brown transferware (below).  Whenever I find a piece of brown transferware that is attractive to me for its style (as in the Aesthetic patterns, which tie in with my attraction to some Asian design), its vessel (any unusual or hard-to-come-by serving pieces), or its value, I will take it home with me.  Hence, my [now] collection is pretty random.  For example, below you see a nice tureen and underplate, but no lid (which came from a family-tied estate pick that may still yield its lid someday).  I have dressed it for Fall, with mounded, preserved moss and deer antlers on the underplate.  The small plate is resting on a fork easel - clever repurposing from a silverplate fork.

In this same room, I display another statue, a salt sculpture rendition of "Three Graces" (below).  As a former ballerina, this statue is reminiscent of a role I danced with two others when I was pregnant with my first daughter, also a dancer.  It spoke to me when I spotted it in an antique store in Kentucky.
To the left you see another recurring theme I love in my decor, vintage needlepoint.  This time it's a pillow for the winged chair.  I love pillows in chairs as lumbar supports and/or lap props for books, magazines and portable devices.  This one was sourced in an antique shop in Abingdon, VA.

In another room, I have these two needlepoint pillows (below).  And while the needlepoints are vintage, they are reworked by Sharon Wollman of Wollworks and C'est Chouette, located in South Dakota.  I love her tag line on her website, "These may be your grandmother's needlepoints, but these are not your grandmother's pillows".  Sharon uses upholstery webbing, brush fringe and nice, zippered cotton and linen backings for her pillows in the Wollworks line; and adds satins & laces to her line in C'est Chouette.  I found Sharon through a Romantic Homes magazine ad.
I absolutely love these, and they showcase another of my favorite interests - landscape gardening.

And I cannot go without a nod to my love of vintage metals - mostly sterling and silverplate.  I don't know where this collection began, but it has grown to the point where it has its own cabinet.  I have a thing for napkin rings and baby cups.  And hotel silver.  And utensils.  And I use quite a lot of these pieces, some for their intended purpose, others in repurposing.  I like metals because they don't readily break.  They just bend (as in when you put them in the kitchen disposal).
In my sunroom, I have a  little bit of each of my collections in display, including metals (the wind chime below is from ReLoved Creations by Cindy Kelly).  Cindy is a beautiful artist, inside and out, located in Canada, and I have purchased several items from her.  She repurposes [mostly] silverplate utensils and vessels into jewelry & home decor.  Her packaging is also a reloved work of art too - she uses cereal boxes and newspapers.
In my sunroom, I have fun with seasonal displays, mostly with little nods toward my love of gardening.  I'm pretty much a sucker for old gardening hand tools, especially when they come in a cool box.
And I love vintage flower frogs, spigots, sprinklers, nozzles, plant tenders, broken wings....
And collected nests, eggs, shells & nuts.
And, of course, there's the recurring theme of statues........
And pillows.  This sunflower pillow came straight from one of Common Ground's Marketplace links,  featuring Janet Reddick's Etsy shop, Urban Farmhouse Chic.  Thanks, Debra, for featuring Janet!

To end this mini tour of my vintage decor preferences, I'll show you one more lamp (below), before turning out the lights on this post.
This little lamp is also a cross-collectible - statue and lamp.  I found the base in the same store in Lebanon OH as the the Frederick Cooper earlier in this post.  I love the romantic features of the little girl playing her violin.  And the cake top shade was chosen with the help of the same friend who helped me with the other lamp's shade choice.  Most expensive cake I've ever bought but, again, we won't go there.

Whatever your decor preferences are, I would encourage you to shop vintage.  You'll not only find uniqueness in your design decor by adding vintage pieces, but you may end up with a collection, or two - and, ultimately, renting space in an antique mall near you someday.  :)

With this post, I'm linking with these friends:
Common Ground
Jennifer Rizzo
French Country Cottage

And be sure to link up with Debra Oliver's blog anniversary giveaway on her latest post Be Inspired #154 - she's partnering with Elliott-Heath Designs for a pillow cover for some lucky reader!  And we know at least one of us will be going there, seeing as how pillows are part of the decor!


Sunday, August 25, 2013

I'm in Flea Market Style.....Well, Sort Of

I must say...I look forward to August and February for one common thread.....it's when Flea Market Style hits the newsstands!  Below is a photo of the latest Winter issue of FMS.  I absolutely adore Ki Nassauer and her style (the link within her name takes you to a Wall Street Journal feature article and video of her from June, 2012).

Ki is the editor and junk entrepreneur behind Flea Market Style and Junk Bonanza, respectively, and no, I did not get paid for writing this.  I just love this woman and her team's creativity.  This past year, she also published a first Flea Market Style Weddings issue, and I got my hands on that issue as well, from which I gleaned an idea or two or three for my daughter's wedding this October.
I'm especially excited for this issue....I'm in it!  Well, not me personally, but one of my favorite vintage items. FMS wanted submittals for Reader Favorites of vintage items scored, and I submitted a photo and blurb of my Art Deco statue I had won at auction and use in my bathroom as a valet for toilet paper.  Turns out, my Deco woman not only got mentioned, but she got her photo published too!  My local auction house got a shout out too, as their website was listed for my purchase source.
There's all kinds of super junk style and projects in Ki's magazine, so you may want to pick up your own copy.  If you can't find it on your newsstands, you can order one directly from the Flea Market Style link above in this post.  These are keeper magazines.  And Ki's been around the block a time or two - some of you may remember her project features in Country Home magazine, as well as the book she co-authored, titled "Junk Beautiful".  And she makes her rounds regularly at various pop-up sales and events besides her own Junk Bonanza.  She is all about the hunt and fun with vintage and junk!

Saturday, August 17, 2013

The Dish on Napkins - Size Matters!

I consider myself a city girl, but almost anywhere in West Virginia is country - God's country!  Yesterday my sister M & I took a drive 30 miles north of Charleston for an estate sale.....the home was at the end of a road less traveled....the scenery was gorgeous.....beautiful country fields as far as the eye could see.....wish I had had more than just my phone to take pictures.....
But the real story here is about what I scored.

I picked up some more vintage damask tablecloths to use for my daughter's wedding in October, the kind that are very ordinary - the kind most typical in households of those who married in the late '40's and early '50's.  But there were a couple of other surprises in the linens that I bought in a box lot, for little.  One looks to be a linen bed sheet, with initials faintly cross-stitched at the top, center.  Nice.  And the other surprise was a new, old stock, heavier blend of damask and linen tablecloth.  It looks to be either French or Irish, not the typical, flimsy American rayon blend, and it is a huge 80" x 138"!   That's eleven feet and six inches long!
But get this - the napkins - if you can call them that - are GINOURMOUS!!  They are 29.5" x 34" - about the size of a card table topper!  And I would have guessed that maybe that's what they are, but there were twelve of them!  Now, I've heard of five napkin burgers, right?  But really?  So, I had to research the history of napkins.......

Seems that by the 17th century, standard napkins were 35" x 45" (!), to accommodate people who ate with their fingers.  (Insert West Virginia hillbilly joke here, permission granted).  Each napkin was generally sized to approximately one-third of the breadth of the tablecloth.  It was only later in that (17th) century that royalty accepted the fork, and neatness in dining was emphasized.  By the 18th century, all classes accepted the fork for dining, and the size of napkins was reduced to 30" x 36".  My research indicates that in the late 1700's, a French treatise declared a napkin should start below the collar at the neck and cover the body to the knees.  

Well, okay then - BINGO!  I know my napkins don't date from the 18th century, but they are definitely old-world in style, and date to at least the 1940's or 1950's, maybe earlier.  So, I've got myself a dozen of these to-the-knee napkins.  And here's the million dollar question: why was a napkin that BIG when plate sizes were historically smaller at the time??

Suffice it say, it is generally common knowledge that dinner plate sizes used to be a lot smaller than they are today.  I have some very old Staffordshire plates from the late 1800's which are 7.75" in diameter.  Dinner plates in the 1920's (until sometime in the 1960's) were about the size of our salad plates today, or 9".  And by 2000, our dinner plate size grew to 12", and buffet plates can be 13-14".  Dinner napkins, on the other hand, have shrunk to no larger than a size ranging from 16" - 21".   

Well, maybe these GIGANTIC napkins I have were for the Paul Bunyon kind of guys (American folklore lumberjack usually described as a giant) that would've had Paul Bunyon kind of meals after working in the Paul Bunyon kind of country fields from where I bought them.  Or, maybe these napkins aren't old at all, and were specifically made for West Virginians - we were, after all, top-ranked for obesity in 2012 (we're #3, only outranked by Louisiana & Mississippi), so we would NEED these OVERSIZED napkins.  Or, maybe they aren't napkins at all - maybe they were intended as chair covers, and I could re-cover a dozen chairs with them.  Or make a skirt.  Or a tent.  Or a sail.  

I know one thing I won't be selling these napkins as, or using these napkins for - napkins. Unless I decide to resort to pitchforks, long-handled scythes and shovels as eating utensils.  I think I'll leave those to the Paul Bunyons of the world, and keep my city slicker forks, knives and spoons.
What would you do with a dozen COLOSSAL napkins?


Wednesday, August 14, 2013

More Summer Booth Changes

Seems most are talking about how quickly time is flying, and looking through my photos from our space at the antique mall is consistent with that message for us at Panoply also.

Since Spring, we've had shopping excursions at Springfield's Flea Market Extravaganza, a few good estate sales, and most recently, a pick from NC.  I thought I'd show some photos of the vignettes that resulted from those picks, not previously seen in prior posts.

We brought this side-by-side secretary in just recently, and it sold within a week.  One of the fascinating things about retail is you just never know when something is going to sit for a while, or sell quickly!
The [old] school vignette we had set just a couple of weeks ago also got sent to detention hall; that is, all six chairs were put on layaway within a week, so we assembled a few other vintage children's chairs we had on hand to give some semblance to a school room again.
That distressed cabinet you see in the center of the above photo is a great primitive scored at Springfield. It's a great, fits-most-anywhere type of cabinet.
And, from the NC estate pick, we retrieved several items, including the Honorable Mrs. Graham, a very old copy of an original oil by Thomas Gainsborough (English, 1727-1788).  She presides over what we refer to as the "living room" of our booth space, which you can see pictured just to the left of the photo below.
And on the edge of our "living room" is a collection of antique wool area rugs, all the same pattern, but various sizes.  These were also from NC, whose estate's dwellers operated a boarding house at one time.
Another entire collection my sisters brought back from NC was that of shaving mugs and skuttles, many with their original brushes.
We had a few other barber-related items we supplemented this vignette with.  It's always fun when random purchasing comes together in a theme, especially when there are three of us buying independently of each other.

Keeping with the 'mantiques', we always seem to attract the men, as well as the women, with our ongoing stash of vintage and antique hardware (we like our yin with our yang, so we mix in lace with our leather):
Primitive tools and sundries are also popular (that's a wooden paint can on that small wooden crate on the right, very unusual, and a miner's basket to the left, obscured somewhat by the brown gooseneck lamp):
And other man-geared items, including tools, liquor flasks, toys and oil cans get the guys' attention.

We even have a selection of men's hats, including top hat, straw boater, and original Stetsons, many of which are new old stock (and those French cup holders/bottle racks are great for displaying hats!).
One of our staples is our linens, and we continuously hoard stock these.
Then there are the one-off items, certainly not a collection, but something that catches our attention when scouting sales, and is unique enough that we think will catch another's attention as well.  This Catholic sick-call box from the late 1890s is one of those items.  These were in most every Catholic home once upon a time, at the ready for a priest who may be called to anoint a gravely ill person.
As disparate as some of these photos may seem, somehow, it all comes together in themed vignettes for us, whether in a floor display, curio case, or tabletop setting.  Then we either sell something that's an integral part of a display, or we get the urge to just change things up because we either get a great new stash of items, or just because....we can.  What great fun it is to shop and style. Oh, and did I mention selling is fun too?

Linking with: