New blog for the Mermaids!

The Mermaids Mercantile Last Sunday!
A day of fun, creativity and great shopping!

visit http://themermaidsmercantile.blogspot.com to see all the beautiful hand made treasures and meet the artist! lots more to come. Next Mermaid event is Oct 25th!

Big event at my shop this Sunday!

We have the worlds best craft fair/ flea market on the last Sunday of every month in the garden area of my shop!

This Sunday we are bringing out all the fall goodies! I have 20 vendors who create some of the best handicrafts that I have ever seen.

It will be a feast for the eyes and a great chance to buy some one-of a kind gifts!

I have searched high and low to find the best, looking at many talented submissions and hand selecting the most unique and talented crafts people in our community all with a vintage recycled and re-purposed point of view.

Just some of the things you will find.....

pillows made from vintage linens.

to -die- for- jewelry and finery

altered dress forms and vignettes

re-purposed vintage furniture, hand bags and clothing

beautiful mermaid paintings

vintage Halloween goodies to wear and display

vintage garden art and furnishings

wind chimes, mosaics, hand made baby clothes

green lunch boxes, dress hand made trick-or treat bags and chandelier's

handmade dolls ( yes there will be mermaid dolls)

a good old fashioned bake sale and a lot more!

Hope to see you all on Sunday!

oh yeah, I am working on a giant pair of mirrored eye glasses, a few seashell crowns, the butterfly dress form (from the last post)and this super fab wig head! Maybe a few more surprises if I can squeeze them in!

Sincerely,
Debi

See the rest of my Cottage makeover

This old truck is a few blocks from my house I jog past it every week, day dreaming about my fantasy design show and how great it would be to drive up in something like this at the opening of each episode. It's so rusty crusty beautiful!





since my last post I covered my pillows with a million silk flowers, and dyed my wool rug pink!














I went to the laundry mat (late at night because they frown on this) put my rug in the biggest washer and waited for it to get completely wet then added about 7 boxes of rit dye mixed with salt. Cold water for wool. (It still shrunk a little) I am so happy with the results, totally dolled up my living room!













My Craft room... where all the crazy ideas are born! I dont know what this
multi-cubby shelf was originally for, but I love it!









magnetic tins hold tiny supplies, my chandelier has peacock feathers, (I don't like it ... it will soon be changed).

new paint cans can be found at home depot for a few dollars. They hold my seashells, fun to decorate. Old grocery store shelves keep my craft supplies organized.

Love the vintage chalk board/sign found at the swap meet.

This is my new chair,(craigslist) pin tucked like my sofa, it is velvet and the orange needs to change to fuscia or deep red. Can you paint velvet? does anyone know?

The curtains are from Ikea I cut them off too short by mistake. A few weeks later I was at Ross and I saw this darling dress ($12) it was floor length. I don't look good in the long style dresses so I bought it and cut off the bottom tier. Then I realized that my leftover dress ruffle would look so perfect on my curtains! I felt like a modern day Scarlet O'hara hot glueing ball fringe and ruffles to my window treatments. "oh Rhett! wear shall I go? What shall I glue?" (Yes I'm corny and I don't sew!)

My Dad built this cabinet from two old windows, the chippy peely old door was $1 at a yard sale, and the vintage metal flowers above the window, I found in the trash.... rusty, and waiting for someone to love it back to life.

My dreamy little bedroom is only 10x11 but is my favorite room! There was no space for a dresser so I put the bed up on a platform made from a vintage cabinet, two giant drawers hold all my things. My bedding is a vintage chenille bed cover dyed scarlet combined with a square dance petty coat/dust ruffle... I LOVE THIS! the pillows are vintage tapistry from 'pure west' by Cheryl Long. these are to-die for, (a trade with one of my clients) The hand made throw was a $3 thift store find, the old window was rescued from a tear down, and the pink rug was white and dingy, my sister was giving it away (rit dye is fun stuff!)

my bedroom is tiny but it has a high arched ceiling. The butterfly is hand painted paper mache, made by an artist in Cabo San Jose mex.

this is my bedroom window... a very unattractive aluminum framed replacement. I added vintage molding, about 60 antique wood spools and a sheer white pettycoat to make it beautiful!

I married a dressform with a vintage floor lamp and embellished it with butterflies, leaves and a dreamy 1950's petty coat.....

I didn't realize that the vintage lamp was european... oops! so now it has to be rewired before I sell it.

I love the details there are rhinestones on the backs of each butterfly that I clipped of of a broken vintage belt.

this is the entry to my bedroom, I was looking through my old issues of Domino magazine and saw some vintage inspired wall paper that I wanted to order for this wall... 120.00 for one roll! (who can do that?) a few days later I went to 'matilda's mouse' the fabulous barn sale in Valley Center. She was having her once a year 'dot' sale. This roll of vintage wallpaper was $1! it's red hot pink and gold with beautiful texture! I had never attempted hanging wall paper before and I spent a long time trying to get it to hang straight, then I realized that my walls are crooked! I put up the wavey molding to cover up the wall paper gap. My dad rescued a bunch of this from his neighbors trash can for me. Thanks Dad!

this super fab mirror hanging in my 4x 8 bathroom, will one day be embellished and for sale in my shop!

I got this vintage wicker cabinet from a 93 year old woman who called me up wanting to sell me her seashell collection.... she said I am moving and I am selling everything maybe you would like to see what else I have before we have our estate sale! (what did she have? that's a whole other blog).

this is my bathroom window, there are hot pink seashells hanging in the window. It's so hard to photograph windows. There are still many details that I have planned for my cottage that I havn't gotten to yet, but untill next time....

Thanks for reading my blog! Stay tuned my next post is a very funny adventure that took place a few weeks ago........ fellow artist and friend Erin Petit sent me a notice from craigslist, it read;

'barn full of free stuff! closing ranch, farm eqipment, household goods,old wood, furniture and more!... first come first served.' .......I went, my heart raced... and I got (two truckloads) good stuff... I will tell you all about it on my next post.

Hope you had fun!

sincerely,

Debi