July Manifesto

In the One Little Word group I belong to our challenge for July is to come up with a manifesto that aligns with our intentions for the year and encourages us in our goals. My manifesto came to me easily because I immediately thought of a little saying my sister and I have been using for the past few months - "You don;t know until you try".

This year my word for the year is rest and right from the start of the year I have been embracing changes that create health and help prevent burn-out. Through it all I am putting habits into place that help me rest in God and gain a healthier outlook and a healthier body. I have found in recent years that creativity is really a vital part of keeping myself healthy emotionally and mentally. On our sisters road trip this past February my sister and I reconnected with our love of hunting vintage items. Over the months since that trip we have been on the "thrill of the hunt", discovering vintage shops and markets and fairs in the areas around and between our homes in southwest Michigan and northwest Ohio. 

Through it all that little saying above started popping up. We hate passing up great finds but honestly neither one of us needs much in our homes after years of collecting. So in the spring I started carrying vintage items in my Etsy shop. Then we started a Facebook group where we share our journey hunting vintage items and ideas of how to use them. 

Then in June we decided to enter a vintage market that took place July 23, after all, you don't know until you try!

It was the hottest day of the summer with heat advisories, but we had a good time and I met the owner of Great Finds in Maumee antique store....and a week later I now have a booth in that store! Stepping out and trying the vintage market and a booth in the antique store has enabled my hubby to join the adventure with repurposed furniture.

A mindset of "you don't know until you try" has really enabled us to step out and take risks. The thrill of the vintage hunt combined with art journaling exercises my creative muscles and, while it is hard work, it is so energizing! What might be on your list of things to step out and try?

Around Here Lately

Lately I have been doing art journaling on a small scale - 3 x 5 to be exact. I started working on smaller art when I started my Rolodex art journal (see the start here). Lately small has been quick and easy. I stumbled on the Index Card a Day (ICAD) art challenge and 30 Days of Bible Lettering. These two challenges have been running at the same time and I am "loosely" following them when I need a creative spark.

Working on this scale has resulted in my looking at things differently when I am shopping vintage, mainly office items. In preparation for the upcoming vintage market we are participating in I have been altering various office items to use as art journaling display.

I have hit the jackpot in my thrill of the vintage hunt shopping with lots of file boxes and a lot of clipboards in various sizes.

So, we are finally approaching our first vintage market which will take place this Saturday.

I moved my dining room table into the living room and "staged" (can you tell I have been watching too much HGTV and DIY network lately?) my booth in the dining room so I can be prepared. Staging helps insure that I have enough tables and other ways to display my items. It will obviously look somewhat different on grass and under a canopy tent!

We found a few new shows on HGTV and DIY that have been inspiring our vintage business. Masters of Flip, Nashville Flipped and Vintage Flip - all three shows specialize in buying vintage homes, restoring them and then selling them. We've been flipping channels between them and Cleveland Indians baseball!

A few more Bible Lettering pages done in my altered book journal instead of the small scale:

I'm off to a personal retreat for a few days to do some stuff for ministry and then we have the vintage market! Here's to hoping you all have a great week!

To Market, To Market...

It only seems natural that the next step in our vintage journey is to enter a vintage market show. I am excited to announce that we will be participating in the Funky Junk in the Country Vintage Market on July 23 in Monclova, which is just outside of Toledo.

My sister and I have spent the past few months on "the thrill of the vintage hunt" acquiring all kinds of vintage finds. My hubby and I have been refreshing and repurposing a variety of these findings. The vintage items are stacking up as we get ready for the market!

My hubby refinished and distressed these barrel back library chairs made by Heywood & Wakefield Co, in Chicago between 1933-1966. He has a few other pieces he's been working on including the coat rack in the picture below the chairs.

Lots of altered book journals

Vintage industrial office items.

Lots of options for using vintage office supplies for art display

In addition to vintage and repurposed items, my niece Lizzie will be there with her hand lettered signs and home decor. You can see more of her items on her Face book page The Chevron Rose.

And my sister is working on her watercolor and mixed media art in prints and note cards. She just started a blog where she will soon display some of her art. Visit her at A Simply Blissful Existence. I'm so glad she finally took the step to start a blog and is sharing her creativity!

While "busy" seems to be a word that is too frequent in my vocabulary, this little bit of busy we've added is actually energizing. We're doing something we all enjoy and we're doing it together!

So, if you are in the area on July 23rd stop by and visit us at the vintage market. In the meantime you can see some of the things we are working on in my Etsy shop or in our Found on Brighton Vintage Facebook group.

June in Review

Summer is here and the busyness of the school year winds down for just a bit. It amazes me when I think about the fact that my daughter graduated from high school 18 years ago! The first year after she graduated it felt strange not to have the school year dictating our schedules and our calendar. We got past that - along with numerous other empty nest transitions! But then our church began a ministry to the elementary school nearby, and I soon became the leader of that ministry, and over the past 11 years I find that the school year once again has the greatest impact on my schedule and calendar! So, while I am not a teacher or a school employee, I find I release a huge sigh in June when the calendar and the schedule slows down for a while.

As a result of the ministry we have in to the school and the neighborhood I have gained a bunch of God-grandchildren over the years. We have had many kids come to church without their parents and they became "our kids". Then a few of the moms started coming and soon became like daughters to me and over time "Grandma Mary" started. This month the first of those God-grandkids graduated from high school. It was made even more exciting as his mom told me he is the first high school graduate! I'm so proud of Shanon! He is an awesome young man and is an incredible role model for his younger siblings and the kids in our church community. 

"The thrill of the vintage hunt" has continued for my sister and I in June. We attended a great vintage market in Grand Rapids at Everlasting Blooms Greenhouse and Gift Shop.

It was a great show. We fell in love with one of the vendors, Urban Rewind, and visited her booth twice. Her booth is on the right in the picture below - the one that is packed full of people! We hope to run into her again. And we will definitely attend Everlasting Bloom's markets again in the future!

My weekend getaway to my sister's included a full day of thrift shopping in Grand Rapids. We are having a blast hunting down great vintage finds! We have done this all our life but now that we decided to be more intentional about it and add vintage goods to Found on Brighton we find we have a new level of excitement and energy as we travel and "thrift"! It also gives us an opportunity to spend more time together, and that's never a problem for us sister BFF's! 

My hubby is involved in this new adventure as well. We headed to Cleveland a few weeks ago to our nephew's graduation party and stopped at a flea market and some stores along the way. We made some great finds!

One thing I have found a good deal of recently is vintage office papers - ledger and graph and lined - so I have been able to add a new line of altered book journals to my shop. Using dictionary, encyclopedia, and ledger book covers these journals contain the same watercolor and patterned types of paper as my standard journals, but they also contain a variety of the office papers, more ephemera papers and an extra large shipping tag. 50 pages total!

There hasn't been a lot of art time this month as I've spent my creative time in other ways. We have some exciting news to share, but I'll save that for another post in a few days! Stop back soon!