Little Chair, Little Chair...

What is your past?
Who built you? Who first took you home and made you their own?
Were you a country chair or a city chair?
How long did you languish ruined and forgotten in a barn? A garage? A basement?

Jon and I are always curious about some of the old stuff we find. You know how sometimes when you are shopping or "picking" you see something that you snatch up without hesitation?
A while back, we found this chair and I immediately liked its lines and curves and brought it home.

Then followed 18 months of sitting out in our garage. Waiting. Sorry, Little Chair. Now you are helping me learn some new tricks. Reupholstery. New paint techniques. You are going to be beautiful again!

As you can see, this chair is still a work in progress. But all the nasty fabric and stuffing (along with the 5 million little tack nails!) are gone and its had a good scrubbing. Time for the fun part...
I don't now how wise it is to write a tutorial on something I've never done before, but follow along as I share this project with you. More to come...

Warning! These are not glamour shots.

Faded Elegance or Too Far Gone...

That is the debate here at Angel's Attic. We just picked up this "beauty" today - Linda was instantly in love but Husband thinks it is too late for this one. How sad. So we bought it cheap, mainly for the weath of old mouldings and bric-a-brac (or so I told him). For our spring shows, we plan to create a tremaux mirror, which would be a great use for the antique dentil moulding. (But shhh, I'm still secretly hoping for a miracle and to bring this table back to life.)
Yes, it time to start designing and planning for shows in 2011, beginning in April. More on that to come very soon. And watch to see the fate of this wonderful old table - either revitalized or repurposed, it will be a gem.

Vintage Finds and Handmade Treasures Market

I hope you had a chance to visit the Vintage Finds Market this past weekend, hosted by Unexpected Necessities Jennifer and Kathy!
There was a wonderful variety of goodies - from the ooh la la Frenchie chic to vintage '50's Christmas.
Jon and I came home inspired and with a gorgeous stained glass window!

 Jennifer and Kathy

 Shari with her wonderful Southern Charm jewelry.

Pure Pleasure

No, we didn't mix business with pleasure. Last weekend was all pleasure!

We combined a camping adventure on Flathead Lake, Montana with a morning shopping the Vintage Whites Market in Somers (just south of Kalispell.) Great stuff!

Jon was skeptical that we could get all thirteen fabulous finds into the car and still fit Gabby and Lily as well as all the camping gear. Ha! No problem for a determined woman.

Thanks, Vintage Whites for a fun morning!

The girls have been part of our vintage shows and shopping for quite a while and it is cute to see them developing interest in old things. Gabby, who is 9, actually watches out for antique store and museums.

An awesome antique store in Somers.

Just seeing this old "Rocket Tricycle" got Jon to imagining how different his life would be now if only he'd owned this trike as a child. (Astronaut? Rocket Scientist? Funky Trike Builder?)

And check out an opportunity to own this fixer upper? Glamping anyone?

Lily taking a breather at "The Barn" antique store in Bigfork, Montana.

On our way home Gabby found this crazy museum in Polson! Who could resist going inside a museum with a flying saucer on the roof?

 The girls checking out a tin monster outside the museum.

Hmmm...I'm not feeling the "Rattlesnake Beauty." Just plain freaky.

A cool Bickensderfer typewriter from 1897. Just try to find the home row on that keyboard!

Fun to explain the charms of an old fashioned soda fountain to the girls.

A favorite! An old Huey helicopter complete with all the switches, gauges, and dials - to delight two girls and their grandpa.

Halfway home - take time to explore new places - like this store in Perma, Montana. No treasures inside but a cute exterior and a chat with the quirky owner.

We created a lot of memories on this short three day trip. One as simple as a chocolate pudding-stained little face.

Another fun show - as a shopper this time!

On Sunday, we risked exposing our sunburns to the 86+ degree heat (see previous post) to visit the Latah Creek Variety Market, as shoppers rather than vendors this time. After completing the Vintage Barn show on Saturday, it was refreshing just to wander aimlessly around digging through other people's treasures. It was especially sweet knowing we wouldn't have to pack up and haul any of it at the end of the day! Here are a few pictures that we took. It is a little embarrassing that we have more and better pictures of this show than of the one we were vendors at, but when we are working a show we seldom have the free time to do the things we would love to do, like taking pictures - and shopping.

The Latah show is hosted by the Latah Partners, along with Chaps/Cake, which is sufficient excuse to attend the show in itself.

We want to especially thank the exceptionally nice ladies at Sisters, who gave precious little straw hats to our granddaughters to shield them from the heat.

Spring Fever Open House Preview #3

Here we have a few of the vintage linens from the Trunk that you'll see at the Open House on April 24.

Spring Fever Open House Preview #2

Know what time it is? Time to mark your calendar for the Angel's Attic Spring Fever sale on April 24th!

Spring Fever Open House Preview #1

We want to show you a few sneak peeks from our Angel's Attic sale on Saturday, April 24th. We are getting excited and hope that once you see a few hints of what we have, then you will be too. Keep coming back, as we will be posting lots more pics!


This is a true one of a kind. For more information about the sale, including when and where, please click here!

The Potting Cottage

During the record snowfall of last year, our ratty old metal yard shed collapsed under the load.
Looking back, I say hooray! The shed was vintage 1960's, rusty, and UGLY. We kept it around as the only place to store the lawn mower. Trust me, vintage was not a good thing in this case.
Jon and I had been talking about building a new shed for a couple of years. We plan everything to absolute death! But now we ran out of procrastinating time since this mess was now in plain view from the street.



So after several weeks of hard work, my husband finished this cute building that we lovingly call the Potting Cottage (say it with a Cockney accent for good measure). He even hand-built a cupola to match the one on our house, figured out how to build the window trellis (without a plan), and made a birthday gift to me of this little sign that hangs under the window. I'm happy every time I putter around out there with my pots and dirt - and he is happy to get my gardening stuff out of the garage. Good things do sometimes come from bad.

Treasure Chest

I've heard of these kind of things happening to other people, but never to us. Someone becomes aware of your love of all things vintage, then contacts you saying something along the lines of "I know you like old stuff and I have this old trunk that has been in my family for years. I wonder if you would want it?"

That was today. A very nice woman who visited our Angel's Attic Open House last fall called to tell us about an old trunk that had been in her family for over 100 years. She said she loved the work I had done with the vintage furniture we had for sale and wanted to give the trunk to someone who would "know what to do with it". The trunk has seen better days, but has a lot of beautiful details and a rich patina born of many hands and much travel. It has stories to tell. To top it off, she then further surprised me by apologizing because she had accidentally left some old linens and things in the trunk she had meant to throw away. (!)


Very cool. Apology accepted.

We had a lot of fun digging into the trunk to see what treasures might be inside. The generous previous owner insisted that we are welcome to resell any of it if we want to. We don't know yet what all we will do with it, but if you are curious about what we found, come to our Angel's Attic Open House in April. I'm sure some of it will make the display.

Thank you, Sue!
- Jon

Scanning for Life Forms...

I just had to show you how cute our granddaughters were on Halloween. Jillian is on the left in the costume (uniform?) that our daughter Jessica made. Maybe you have to have been a Star Trek fan to fully appreciate it, but I thought it was totally irresistible. Jess made it as authentic as possible, not only making a Next Generation era commanders uniform - notice the three pips on the collar - but she also made a mini tricorder out of felt to go with it. You should see the tote bags she makes for us! Next to her is Lily wearing a classic pumpkin costume that her mother wore when she was about the same age (3), Summer dressed as a "flower child" and Gabby looking scary with her glow-in-the-dark fangs and the glittering red cape Linda made for her.

-Jon