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!

Art Journaling Lists

I am a list maker. I make daily to-do lists. I make lists of things I'd like to do. I make lists of observations I see when studying the Bible or reading a book. And from time-to-time I will participate in making art journal lists. In April and May the "Get Messy" art journaling community is doing a season of list making. I'm not doing all of the lists, but am selecting one or two each week. I'm making my art journal lists on large shipping tags and inserting them in my DLP journal. Here are a few of my lists from the "Get Messy" art journal prompts.

In April I changed the format for my weekly Documented Life Project (DLP) pages as I wanted wider spaces to write in. I'm working on getting caught up with April and May.

Pop over to my Etsy shop and check out the new altered book art journals I listed this week.

I'm off to make a few more lists! How about you?

My One Little Word 2016 ~ Rest

It's the middle of March already and I haven't really shared much about my word for 2016. Selecting a word to focus on has been a valued practice for me for a number of years now. Some years my word has really impacted my life and other years my word has just kind of been in the background not doing much. I made the decision that this year I would throw myself wholeheartedly into having this be a year where my word has a big impact on my life. This means I am taking my time and letting the prompts and exercises steep like a good cup of tea and I'm not being driven by the calendar.

Flip-side of my January divider page

A good quote to start the focus this year.

So, why did I choose REST as my word this year? There's a lot encompassed in this word for me. First, and foremost, it is about resting in God and trusting Him. I want to live wholeheartedly and that can only come as we walk in step with God and what He has for our lives. I'm resting in Him to focus on getting healthy this year - changing how I eat, exercising, looking at emotional and mental health, and keeping away from things and outlooks that cause burnout for me. This year I am intentionally slowing down in order to focus. In fact, I am focusing on four areas: spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical. I'm setting goals in all of those areas. My focus this year is to try and change or add a new habit each month and then build on them for health. In January I focused on adding more servings of vegetables to our diet - I've gotten really creative with adding spinach to many dishes to increase the vegetable intake!

Definitions, synonyms and a Scripture verse to support my word.

There has been a lot happening surrounding my focus on Rest in the first few months of the year and it feels like a really good start.

February divider

Flip-side of Feb divider

My Intentions & Goals this year

Following along with Ali Edward's prompts and the OLW community help me stay focused and keep creative ~ creativity is one of my emotional ways of staying healthy! I highly recommend her class.

Tracking my February practice - eating more fruit

February begins the practice of Lent

Each year I embark on a journey, but this year the word "pilgrimage" seems to fit my direction better. A pilgrimage is a journey to a holy place ~ that holy place for me is called REST. What journey are you on this year?

New in my Etsy shop, {found on brighton}:

Have a good weekend. I am off to our staff retreat this evening and tomorrow.

Art Journal Plans 2016

 I am participating in a number of groups this year to help inspire my creative juices. Last year I really missed joining in with One Little Word (OLW) and The Documented Life Project (DLP) due to my busyness with the His Kingdom Come community. This year I am already enjoying slowing down and spending time on projects that foster reflection and changing habits, life planning and documenting memories. This is what these two projects bring to the table.

One Little Word is led by Ali Edwards - you can learn more about her on her website here. Ali offers a year full of prompts and ideas to incorporate with your word for the year. The Documented Life Project is a year long project done in a planner that uses prompts and technique challenges to record daily life throughout the year - you can learn more about their project here.

 

Originally I thought I would combine my different art adventures into one, or maybe two, journals. But as time progressed and I got involved in the plans for each group I decided on separate journals. And I decided to actually use the journals each group was offering their members. But then, just because I love making my own journals, I added an altered book journal in which I sewed the signatures and bound them into the spine of the book. I found this wonderfully worn German book at a book sale and the pages were literally falling out of it. It's worn cover and beautiful red spine were calling to me to be made into a journal and I intend to use it for miscellaneous art projects and classes throughout the year. In addition to that I made a small pamphlet style booklet to use as a travel journal on my upcoming road trip with my sister (I made one for her also!).

Here are some glimpses of my various art journals:

One Little Word:

OLW January divider page with my word circled: Rest

The Documented Life Project

Altered Book Art Journal:

Sisters Road Trip Travel Journal:

I will still do art and make recording from my photo walks in my Nature Journal. Who knows what else I'll get involved in this year. I'm just going with the creative flow!

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