Linens Unleashed

Remember in my last post I mentioned I got a display piece from our local ReStore?  Well, today my sister & I took it in to the antique mall and placed it in our booth - and we're totally pleased with the outcome!  Until now, our rack of vintage linens was overstuffed, which made it hard to even see what we had to offer.  But now, we have two racks, and room to bring in more linens!

Here's the rack we got from ReStore:

And here it is after today's styling in our booth space:

Here's what the original rack looks like now that its load has been lightened (it's two-sided, see photos below): 

We left the more formal linens in the two-sided original rack, and put the casual cottons in the cage rack.  The best part of it all - we didn't need to take anything out of the booth to make room for this!

Gone Junkin'....

Gone Junkin'....

My sister and I took a little junkin' trip just north of our town this past Saturday....can you guess where?

This is the Mothman, an urban legend created from an event that occurred in 1966, in Pt. Pleasant, WV.  I think the memorial creates more of a legend than the actual event did.  Wouldn't you love having this thing in your entryway?? Me either.


On another side trip this past week, this time to my local ReStore, I came across this sweet find!

Probably originally used in some sort of merchandising display, we're planning on doing something similar - cleaning it up and storing linens in our antique mall booth display.  It's super sturdy, has five graduated baskets (removeable) on a chrome frame, AND it has wheels!  Wouldn't it look great in a kitchen, or laundry room, bathroom?  I can think of several repurposing ideas.  What would you do with it?

"A Panoply of Purses" - 1st Edition, 2013

It's one month till Spring (thank goodness!) and, apart from going to the antique mall each week to restyle one section at a time, I haven't gotten into much personal decluttering or organizing at home since putting away Christmas decor.

One thing I did manage to do, however, is create a virtual organization of my purse collection - no small feat! I've been collecting for years and, though I've had the forethought of detailing the purchase records, listing each one on an Excel spreadsheet, and taking photographs of every purse in my collection, only now was I inspired to organize it all. And I did it with a Shutterfly book!

Shutterfly had a feature that let me link my project book within my blog from 2013-2017 for readers to view.
UPDATE: 
Unfortunately, in May of 2017, Shutterfly chose to disallow the use of the widget they specifically created to link with blogs.

If you're interested in seeing more of my purse collection, please visit my Pinterest boards below. You'll see my restored purse there, along with many other examples of beaded, mesh, and other styles, most of which are from my personal collection.  Enjoy!
Panoply Antique Beaded Purses 
Panoply Antique & Vintage Mesh Purses
Panoply Vintage Children's Purses
Panoply Other Antique & Vintage Purses, Vanities 

I've attached a photo of my book below so you can see what the end product looks like.

As always, your visits, comments and loyal readership are welcome, and much appreciated!

Rita C. at Panoply

Jane! Stop this Crazy Thing!

Man, oh man!

Last night I could NOT get to sleep...found myself actually praying for a mind at rest.  My mind was racing.....

Seems like each time we go to the antique mall to restage something, anything, my mind goes into overdrive at the end of that day, and sometimes spills into the next one, or more.  That's the case this week.  After restaging and snapping photos of our work, I come home anxious to organize the photojournaling.  It's a fun thing to do, memorializing the displays and inventory, and it helps in planning future changes we'll make.

If planning ahead and organizing's not enough for my brain, while on the computer, I first jump into Excel to reconcile the January sales reports from the mall.  Then, I jump over to catch up on Facebook and Pinterest posts.  Not such a good idea.  Bing! Boom!  First I need to finish mentally filing all that I've done and still want to do, let alone process all the new things that may inspire me or divert my attention.  So I take a break from the computer to join my husband for some talk time.  And food.

We're sitting in the TV area, catching up on news, and suddenly I find myself really getting into watching a great, competitive college basketball game - a team I've never even cared about before! My daughter then texts me, asking me if I'd looked over her tax papers yet, anxious to know if she qualifies for a new vehicle state tax credit.  No, but I start googling on my smartphone any information I can find from our state's legislation, and I find myself then jumping into tax preparation mode.  "Jane!  Stop this crazy thing!"  George Jetson would scream, as he's walking the dog on the treadmill in the sky.  That's how I feel sometimes!  Actually, that's how I feel most of the time.  My brain is constantly in overdrive. 

I've come to a point of filling my daily routine with 'to do' lists of all these self-imposed tasks, and I create new lists daily (love that ColorNote app on my phone!).  Sometimes I find myself feeling just a little like the gerbel on the spinning wheel (or like George Jetson).  I need a careful balance of mental and physical activity to help myself rest well at night, but sometimes the energy in this Universe is just way too strong for me.  And I feel caught up in it.  Most of the time I like it, but sometimes I just want to unplug.  Rest my mind.

It's as if our world is so FULL of so much technology, so much information processing simultaneously, so much visual stimulation...and we've all learned to increase our capacity in just trying to survive it by multi-tasking, working longer, working smarter.  They say the brain's capacity is only tapped, what, 10-20% in our lifetime?  Holy moly!  I think there'd actually be flames coming out of my head sometimes if it were charged any higher!

How do you let it all go?  Inspire me, please!

Organized Chaos

Talk about a crazy month at the shop for Panoply!  We've all come to know that January typically centers on organization - at least that's what the magazines try to get us to think - getting holiday decor tucked away, etc. - but I believe we've coined a new activity for the month - organized chaos!

Right after Christmas, we sold a primitive utility cabinet that was originally purchased to display smalls.  Here's a photo (below) of the cabinet's interior, with four of the five shelves.  Needless to say, the fifth shelf was also loaded, as was the floor space at the bottom AND the space above.  We always try to capitalize on vertical space, as booth space real estate comes with a price!  So, On Jan 7th, we unloaded the cabinet, and rearranged all the items pictured below.

Next up:  we located a curio cabinet to move into another area of ours, so that we could display several small items under lock and key.  By Jan 14th, the curio pictured below was situated, and starting to shape up (i.e., fill up).

 By the end of that same week, an underpinning of a new display sold - the crock bench pictured below.  So that prompted a whole new display in the space we had just overhauled the first week of the month!

We then flipped one whole section, wall for wall, open space for open space, during week three of January!  We added a couple new anchoring pieces, (items that can hold several smalls!), and thought we were, once again, well organized.  And each time we do a move, we clean, so our space was being very well maintained throughout. 

New crock bench, open floor section (note chicken coop now standing, behind bench).

Left wall, new wooden crates & vintage wire laundry basket.

Right wall, new washstand.

Lo and behold, we get a phone call this past weekend, saying our center section is about to be disrupted.  Seems normal people out there in the real world are also organizing in their real homes, and one of them wanted to purchase our center anchoring louvered cabinet.  As you can see by the photo below, it's quite the cottage piece, found with its original paint.  And very sturdy - it had a nice shelf inside with adjustable tracking on the sides for varying heights.

  

Center wall, louvered cabinet, holding pillows, and industrial wire baskets on stool - both sold; both holding smalls.

So, for our January finale, we tried to minimize the moves, and opted to slide the cubby pictured below into the vacant space, keeping the vertical real estate maximized.  That blank space on the right of the wall is the breaker box, where staff needs daily access to turn lights on/off.  You can also see (in the details, if you compare to the photo above) that we added lace around the wire laundry basket's edge, and slid the garden urns to the right of the cubby (and stuffed a few pillows into it!). 

It goes without saying that we love what we're doing, and what we did in January is a testament to what they say in this business - move things around regularly, and you will stir interest from customers - it looks like new things every week, just because they get moved around so much!  I hope the months to come are just as good as January seemed to be.  I like organized chaos.

Center wall re-do, with cubby now anchoring the space.







Be Mine

Another couple weeks have flown by, along with a couple more trips to our local antique mall to fluff the booths.  Actually, it was a little more than that - two weeks ago we located a curio cabinet to use for display, so that week was spent hauling it, cleaning it, shopping hardware (locks), getting more items ready for display, and THEN placing it in the booth space.  Yesterday we restaged two major sections of our displays because the crock bench sold (new display photos to come, but the bench that started the major overhaul is here: http://wvpanoply.blogspot.com/2013/01/new-year-new-arrangement.html).  Fluffing's more like overhauling for us when just one item gets displaced because we have so.much.stuff.

We're ready for Valentine's Day, where the universal message seems to be, "Be Mine".

I guess that's the universal theme for collectors, too - be mine.  I've read many a blog or article that asks the rhetorical question at its end, "What do you collect?"  My list is pretty long, depending on how many you count as the rule for calling something a collection or not.  And then there's the other two-thirds of Panoply's lists (my two sisters, M & J).  By the way, you can also follow us on Pinterest at http://pinterest.com/wvpanoply/ (the easy button's in the right-hand column of this blog).  I have one board devoted entirely to Panoply - Three Sisters' Antiques & Other Treasures, as well as several other boards.  Here's [some of] our lists of things we collect:

• Purses - antique beaded & mesh, and the not-so-easy-to-find children's purses.  This is my all-time favorite pasttime, so much so that I even travel to gatherings with like-minded collectors in distant cities just to be with them, shop among them, and share with them.  They are my friends.  Purse ephemera (particularly photographs of women with their antique purses) are another extension of this collection - a little hard to come by, but much more affordable than the purses.
• Antique dolls - my sister M has been collecting antique dolls like I have purses, only longer.  She's a master dollmaker, and has had a small business in the past of repairing antique dolls and producing reproductions of many, as well as teaching dollmaking.  Suffice it to say she has an entirely gorgeous suite in her home that was built with her doll displays in mind.
• Primitives - my sister J loves primitives and feels certain she was a servant in a former life.  Her home comes to life with a classy mix of traditional decor with a dash of primitive accessories.  She's very into crocks, utensils, and hardware, and has made entire wall displays of her collections. 
• Linens - love, love, love old linens, especially those which are hand-worked.  Within this are sub-categories:  quilts, pillowcases, tablecloths, dresser scarves, hankies.  My sisters and I all love linens.  We buy, launder & press them, keep many, and sell the rest.
• Miniature books - an oddity that I thought perhaps my voracious reader husband would get into (but no, he doesn't like 'stuff'.  I know, sad, but true).
• Religious relics - I just feel the need to rescue them, probably a guilty complex left over from parochial education.
• Old china - which I actually use.  I come from a big family, and host several get-togethers annually.  My jadeite is my favorite china collectible, but I also collect mismatched pieces of white ironstone and [mostly] brown transferware.  I also have several sets of of very useful estate acquired patterns, ranging in service from 12 to 24.
• Then there's sterling and silverplate serving pieces & utensils, hotel silver, hats, perfume bottles.......

So, I guess the better question may be, "What don't you collect?"  That answer is pretty easy - glass.  Coming from West Virginia, that speaks volumes, as there are numerous glass factories that were started along our river valleys, most notably Blenko and Fenton.  None of us - M, J or myself - collect glassware, but we will occasionally purchase it for resell (as in the photo above, which has a piece of Pilgrim glass).

What makes your heart go pitter-patter?  What speaks to your heart and says "Be Mine"?  Hopefully, it's more than some "thing", and your heart is full with someone or several someones.

New Year, New Arrangement

My local sister & I worked in our booth spaces in our local antique mall on Tuesday, Jan 8th - all day.  She had just gotten back from her beach vacation with my third sister (from Cincinnati), with whom we collectively call ourselves 'Panoply' (aka the Three Sisters).  Needless to say, she had to flip her switch and get her "game face" on with my arrival at her house early in the morning, loading my SUV with items to be used in our re-staging.

Talk about one thing leading to another!  Once one vignette is disassembled, it's like scope creep - it just keeps on going until something like the store closing (most typical for us), or having a late afternoon appointment (this day's case), stops us.

We rent about 255 square feet of space, in two separate floor sections, separated only by an aisle, on the main floor of our antique mall.  One area gravitates toward Primitive/Depression items and the other area is pretty much Romantic/Victorian/Art Deco.  We always try to keep a few anchoring pieces in our booths to display, but when one sells, it's a major overhaul.  That's what this past Tuesday was (a display piece with five shelves of displaced items sold!), plus we packed up and cleared out all of our unsold Christmas holiday items.  We're now looking toward early Spring - Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, and Easter.

Here are a few photos from our work this past Tuesday - just a few macro views of how we create moods with the things we've acquired and made available for sale.  We hope it's inviting for shoppers and inspiring to other shopkeepers.  Enjoy!


This is one of Panoply's booth spaces (the more Primitive/Depression displays), reset January, 2013.

 

This is the same Panoply booth, from the opposite angle.  The Primitive/Depression displays transition toward more Romantic on the left side.  Adjacent to the left side of this photo is our other booth space (see next photo).

This is Panoply's more Romantic/Victorian booth space, reset January, 2013. 

As you can tell by the photos, we display a fairly wide assortment of "picks"; hence, our name, Panoply, which means "a wide-ranging and impressive array".