My Mom is an Olympic Champion!

Yes, it's true. She won the 100-meter run in the Tennessee Senior Olympics, finishing in 18.69 seconds. I will post a picture later, with more results. (The Commercial Appeal did not spell our name correctly: it's Stricklin.)

Congratulazioni Mom! Ti amo!

A Before and After

One of my favorite things on other blogs are Before and After's of furniture makeovers. There are some really creative and talented people out there and I have taken it upon myself to become one--in my spare time.

My first attempt was with this cheval mirror I bought from a fellow off Craigslist. In a stroke of beginner's luck, I got the thing for a fair bit less than he was asking, and he delivered it (to my office no less), AND I wrote a check for it. Which of us was more naive? What I've since learned about Craigslist is, that it's a sellers market for most anything really worth having. You have a small window of time to contact the seller and show up on the doorstep with exactly the amount of cash they are asking. Some folks will hold the thing for you and go in order of inquiries, others it's purely first come, first serve. Since I have a day job, I don't generally do well with the "first come, first serve." I have found that most people will help you load the purchase in your car.

The "Before" photo is actually the one from Craigslist.

With my usual fervor when I get excited about a new venture, I researched the heck out of how to paint this thing. I was a little dismayed to learn that to get the look I wanted, it really boiled down to technique and skill.

I went way overboard on the sanding/stripping, partly because I thought I had to, and partly because it was a nice stall tactic for prolonging when I actually had to break out the paintbrushes and make a committment.
Here is a Before/After of my practice antiquing with sanding and glaze.

When we got our surprise snow day in early March I fired up the space heater in the garage and went to work. In the end, I was very pleased with the results. I had no idea with I was doing at first with the antiquing glaze. I wanted a heavily aged/antiqued look and finally got it with a lot of light sanding, soft cloth rubbing and do-overs with the glaze. I channelled the mirror: If I were in an attic getting moved around and banged up, where would it show? Toes, edges, and prominent spots. That is where I focused the sanding.

Here it is in the booth with Chr doing a little "Ta-da!" in the reflection.

La Vita Squisita! Progress in Booth 36

This week the kids were on Spring Break, so I took (most of) the week off to spend time with them. During our time off, the girls and I went on thrifting/buying trips and worked on our inventory to clean, refurb, price, and get it into our booth. I bought two bakers racks from Craigslist to display the pottery and kitchen items.



I have a fabulous collection of items in the booth from Italy. I made little tags that are Italian flags with Fatto in Italia on them. I am trying to stick closely to the Italian motif, but I also allow in pieces of acceptable quality that fit in with my Italian motif, or that go with the themes I am building on, or that are simply too wonderful not to include.

La Vita Squisita! Progress in Booth 36

I have been making progress with my booth. More than just the fun hunting-gathering-gleaning from the attic part, I have inventoried researched, priced and tagged.















I painted and faux finished a set of shelves that I picked up from Craigslist. They were so long they barely fit in the Sequoia, but really good for displaying my goodies.






It's been a little slow going because I've been fighting a cold. In the end, the cold won when it developped into bronchitis. My preferred method for being sick is to deny it, ignore it, and it will go away. I don't have time to be sick for Pete's Sake. With four kids, it seems someone always needs to go to a doctor/dentist/orthodontist/therapist, so it doesn't leave much time for me to self-indulge in my own maladies. This morning, however, I admitted defeat, went to the Minor Med, and got some proper medication. One of my "to-do's" for 2009 is to get myself a proper Family Doctor. I really should get on that.


Chr has been a terrific help setting up the booth, carrying, cleaning, sorting, and of course keeping me company on our hunting/gathering outings.












This is what we opened with. It looked so sparse after all that work, but it was pretty and Chr and I were proud of our work.

After a second installment of inventory. Hah, this is going to take a while.

This Sculptured Daisy china is so cheerful and pretty. I kept a piece back for myself. A little goes a long way if that's all you have on the table, but it looks great mixed in with coordinating pieces.

Primo Anniversario Alla Villa Pellegrini

Wednesday was a very special day here at Villa Pellegrini, but I was to bedraggled by a cold to write about it. Yesterday morning as I came downstairs after dragging schoolchildren out of bed, I looked out the rear windows, over the rolling hills and beautiful trees, and thought how fortunate to have such a breathtaking view. Then it occurred to me that it was our 1 year anniversary on that day. H had already left for work so I sent him the text, "Happy Anniversary." I knew he would get it right away--and he did.

It was love at first sight for me when we found this lot. We had absolutely scoured Shelby County and could not find what we were looking for in a lot to build on. Basically: lots of trees, hills, large lot, not expensive. That combination just did not seem to exist. That's when we started edging our way across the county line, getting a little braver and a little further out into the FC.

And then we found Lot 6. It had trees galore, a meadow with a grove of trees in the middle, a creek, and a wide open flat area on which to build a house. Of course we did not put V.P. on the flat space. We moved some dirt around and took out just enough trees to place her so she would be surrounded by trees, overlooking a dropoff out the back that rises up again in the distance in a way that makes you think of being in the mountains. In the front we can look out and see more trees, a pond and our lawn. It's all about the views here!

The first night, H and I were here alone. The second night, the girls joined us. We had to go pick them up from their after-school care, and on the drive there storms began gathering, and we could see tornadoes from the car! We got them picked up and back home again just in time for the electricity to go out.

By pure stroke of luck I had just unpacked candles and matches, and not only did I remember where I had put them, but I was able to find them in the dark. I was also able to put my hands on the crankable weather radio, which required a LOT of cranking. It had been my prediction early on that we would move into the house during an ice storm, so I was slightly off on my forecast.

It didn't take long for the tornadoes to die down and for the novely of crashing around in the dark to wear off, so we did what any local would (or should) do--we went to El Nopal for dinner. (I called ahead, and "Si," they had electricity.) We could not go the "usual" way because huge trees were blocking the roads. It was amazing driving along and looking at all the damage the storm had caused. We were so grateful that we didn't have any damage. We were a little iffy on whether we had homeowner's insurance at the time.

At El Nopal, we could enjoy margaritas and watch Dave Brown in all his weatherman glory on their big screen TV with the misaligned projectors (so the red, green, and blue were all slightly off). We were regulars at EN by that time and knew all the waiters by name. They knew us too, but what they didn't know is that we had just become bona fide residents of the FC.

La Vita Squisita: Booth 36 at The Antique Gallery

That's Me! I am now the Booth 36 vendor at The Antique Gallery in Bartlett, TN (6044 Stage Rd if you are in the neighborhood). I love visiting this antique mall and have been a long-time customer. Every time I'd visit, a little voice would say, "You can do this...and it would be so fun..." I've heard that voice say that very thing many times, and too often "fun" would start to seem like "work," which I already have enough of. So far this has been a lot of work, but so much fun! I have two simple goals for this booth: have fun with this new hobby and break even each month. Easy, right?

So how did I get here? A few weeks ago I was at a different antique gallery, and I saw a fateful sign that said, "Booths Available." Hmmm...I do have a lot of collectibles that I've been trying to get rid of. Lots of them have been donated to Goodwill, and while I don't really regret the donations, I couldn't shake the feeling that they were really too valuable for such a fate. Selling them in an antique store seemed so much more humane. So I asked, just out of "curiosity" how much a booth would cost. Well the answer did nothing to discourage me or the voice (which, it turns out, is also me).

My adrenaline began to pump a little as I headed over to The Antique Gallery to ask the same question. Of course walking in the door of that place, (it was the Piggly Wiggly when I moved to Bartlett over 16 years ago) you are met with a rush of Vintage and Antique and Collectible, with a smattering of Kitsch and Junk that renders you helpless. If you are the kind of person who doesn't really think you need a Lay's Peanut jar brimming with old cupcake toppers until you are face to face with one, and then you are kicking yourself for not saving every cupcake topper you ever had your hands on so that you would now have such a jar for yourself because Look-What-They-Are-Worth-Now, and you are seriously considering paying $28 for just such a jar, well then, you know how I felt.

With H's support, I reserved a booth that is small enough for a beginner. The good news regarding this booth is that the former occupant has done well enough here that she is moving to a bigger booth. Ah, dare to dream...

In the mean time, I have been going through my collections at home, setting out things I can part with and saving a few treasures for myself. I have so many wonderful antique sewing notions. I have also been pulling things from my mother's attic--the collections our family amassed, mainly my dad who is the King of Junking, Thrifting, and Scavenging. That man wrote the book on gleaning treasures from junk piles. Some of my earliest memories were of going to the Salvation Army and Goodwill stores around Nashville. He referred to the second-hand stores collectively as "The Junk Store." A trip to The Junk Store always meant "new" toys and books and whatever. We had hoards of "whatever." Frankly a little too much "whatever." My mom's attic, which is floored the entire footprint of her house is lined on either side with shelves made of nailed-together 2x4s. Those shelves are well-stocked with an inventory of old toys, books, dishes, and endless supplies of "whatever." It's like an antique store you have to stoop over in to shop (and occasionally crack your head on a low-lying beam). Just right for seeding my inventory.

For now, my booth is empty and waiting for me to stock, and my stock is sitting staged on my dining room table waiting for price tags, which I have printed and just need to fill out with all the pertinent information: Booth #36; item number; item description; and of course price (very reasonable!).