Patina General

Growing Mums

I know what you're thinking...  Mums are a FALL flower, why is she talking about them now!  Well I love having several of them to decorate the outside of our home and many more to decorate the inside and outside of the store each fall.  If I wait til fall, the bushel basket size mums get pretty price-y when I want sooo many.

Several years ago I thought I'd try growing my own.  It was easy and quite fun to watch them grow.  When fall came the reward was enjoying all their beauty.  I've been doing it ever since.  Sometimes the hardest part is finding a place to buy the starter size mums.

I buy them in the little 3 inch pots and plant them in a variety of containers (galvanized buckets are my favorite) and some in the ground.  I place a few empty flower containers in the bottom of each large pot to take up space so I don't need as much dirt.  Makes them much lighter when transporting them to the store or moving them around the yard to make sure they get hit by the sprinkler system while we are on vacation.

They look a little lonely in such a large pot at first, but eventually they fill in the entire pot.  I use Miracle Grow Potting soil to fill the pots, but my best growing tip is using Miracle Grow Fertilizer in my watering can everytime I water them.  I put one scoop of Miracle Grow and fill the watering can with water and water them everyday because they like full sun and dry out quickly.

I continue this routine as they grow, pinching off any flower buds that sprout so the growth goes to the plant.  I pinch off buds until the 4th of July, after that, let them come.  Around August 1st I stop using Miracle Grow Fertilizer and switch over to Miracle Grow Bloom Booster to promote lots of buds and flower growth.  Follow this routine and you'll have a harvest of fall beauty to enjoy.

I use the Bloom Booster daily in my watering can when watering all my summer flowers.  Just one scoop does the trick.

Garage Sale Opener!!!

The guys may look forward to Fishing Opener, but us girls love Garage Sale Opener.  This year everyone is itching to get out and hunt for junk after our seemingly never ending winter.  The snow storms just kept coming one after the other, it's become quite laughable.

Over my morning Mountain Dew(I'm not a coffee drinker, love the smell just not the taste), I quickly scanned our freebie paper for sale potentials.  I skip the baby sale ads unless we are looking for baby toys for our dog, Scooter.  Love them at 25 cents each and they last much longer than expensive dog toys. 

Looks like tomorrow morning I hit the trail with my jean jacket, cap(because there is no time for hair when the first sale starts at 7:00 am) and my capable side kick, our daughter.  No school, so I have a partner in crime.  She's not a morning person, but for garage sales she jumps out of bed early.  She also comes prepared, bringing bottles of water, Cheez-It crackers and wet wipes of course.

Our daughter drags my husband out of bed early on Saturday morning of Occasional Sale weekend when I'm at the store.  She makes her list of sales the night before, packs her goodies and they hit the road when I leave for the store.  She loves being "Head of Purchasing" since I'm not along.  She knows her stuff, they always have a competition to see who can find the item that Mom will like the best.  Nothing like bonding over Junk!

I'm excited for the Church Sales, mass gathering potential at one location.  That's when it really helps to have a helper or two. I'll continue to check Craigslist and the Classifieds to see if any more sales pop up to add to my list.

Waiting...It's Not Easy

This year we are waiting on Spring!  The calendar says spring is almost here, but mother nature says "not so fast".

We've all experienced times in our lives when we've waited for things.

• for a diploma
• that dream job
• the perfect spouse
• a baby
• for a house to sell, so we can move forward with our plans
• for our children to live their lives the way we think they should

and the list goes on...

Lora and I dreamed of having our own store for many years.  We had rented spaces in other stores over the years, but kept the dream of our very own store alive.  

Most days we were content in the knowledge that our kids were young and our hearts were at home raising them.  Every so often we'd get that tickle of an itch to let our minds wander and dream what we would do if we had our own space to play.  Then we would remind ourselves, "all in God's perfect timing".  There is no hurrying God, He is faithful.

From time to time, one of us would spy a potential store site.  We'd talk, imagine the possibility, and have the store layout mapped out in our minds.  Our husbands can atest, Lora and I can go from zero to sixty faster than most cars.  We do turn an entire store into a complete mess and put it back together completely different in three days month after month.

Patience is not a virtue that comes naturally to either of us.  We like things to move quickly.  That's one of the many reasons we love having our store in Buffalo.  

Lora and I both knew we had to wait for God's timing.  He would lead us to the perfect location when the time was right, we just had to wait.

If you have difficulty waiting, read through the words of this song from the movie "Fireproof".

I'm Waiting, by John Waller

I'm waiting

I'm waiting on You, Lord

And I am hopeful

I'm waiting on You, Lord

Though it's painful

But patiently, I will wait

 

I will move ahead, bold and confident

Taking every step in obedience

While I'm waiting

I will serve You while I'm waiting

I will worship while I'm waiting

I will not faint

I'll be running the race

Even while I wait

 

I'm waiting

I'm waiting on You, Lord

And I am peaceful

I'm waiting on You, Lord

Though it's not easy

But faithfully, I will wait

 

Making Letters

Last month's occasional, we had these "Winter Sale" letters hanging in the windows.  I snapped pic's as I was creating them, so you could see my process.  Incorporating words into your home is so popular right now.  It's a great way to remind yourself of the important things in life.  Putting the word, "Blessed"  "Family", "Kindness", or "Love" creates an emotional mood in your home.  I also thought these hooped letters would be fun for a birthday party, with the special person's name on them! Using a patterned background fabric, instead of this plain white would punch up the whole look!

The first step is to find a font you like.  I have quite a few already in my computer, but if you don't, there are many places to download them on the internet, for free, or for a small price.  I chose one with chunky, fun letters that could be seen clearly in the window.  I used a mixture of lower case and upper case letters.  I purchased wooden embroidery hoops from the fabric store, in a variety of sizes.  They're very cheap! In a word document, I typed out an individual letter, and increased the percentage size, until it was big enough to fit in it's designated hoop.  My letters were in the 150-300% range.  I then copied them off on my printer and cut them out.

I pinned them to my fabric and cut around them.  You could also trace around them, but I was trying to be quick (this isn't a money making project for me, just a part of store ownership :) I cut out squares of the white fabric, big enough for the hoops.  If you've never used these hoops before, they're very easy.  They are in 2 parts, an inner hoop and an outer, with a tightening screw at the top.  To get the fabric into it, you loosen the screw and lay your fabric on the inside hoop.  The bigger hoop gets put over, and you tighten the screw, pulling the fabric taut as you go.  But...before you go ahead and do this, get the letter attached!

I could have used heat-n-bond to attach these, but good old tacky glue was quicker and easier.  I just wanted the letters to stay put while I was zig-zag stitching around them.  If you're not a sewer, you could skip this step, hand sew something, or even use puffy paint.  I just like the folksy look of zig-zag stitching, but it's a lot of presser foot work to go around letters, if you know what I mean!

Once all your letters are attached, you can place them in the hoops.  I also put some glue on the outside of the inside hoop, so the fabric would be quite attached.  Pull the fabric as taut as you can get it, and tighten that screw.  Trim away any excess fabric.  I decided to add a few white buttons, to simulate snowflakes.  I just glued them on and let them dry.

I found this beautiful colored, twisted Martha Stewart yarn at the fabric store, and doubled the length to hang them in the windows.  I simply wound the yarn around the screw mechanism.  

Some fun variations for this project would be to paint or Rit dye the hoops, to give them a pop of color, or put patterned washi tape around them.  Use rick rack or cute ribbon to hang them, as another option.

If you make some, post them on our Facebook page!  We'd love to see your version!

Vintage Clothing Revival: Enjoying the Journey

This crazy business that we're in...it's like unraveling history, and hearing stories that go along with the item's we find, and also hearing stories that are prompted by the objects we're working on.  Yes, we enjoy selling the final product, and seeing how excited our customers are about their new find, but all along the journey, I appreciate and enjoy each step.  

The adventure usually starts with something forgotton, or ignored for quite a white.  It's been left in the basement, the attic, or even pushed out to the garage. Something that's been useful, essential, loved...but it's seen it's day.  It's no longer what it once was.

A friend from years past invited me over for her parent's home's estate sale.  As I was digging around the very full garage, I spied this old container.  I love vintage labels, and thought this carton may make a cute side table.  The friend explained that it was full of her parents clothing.  Someone had offered to take them off her hands and create rag balls, but that offer had not come to fruition. I decided to bring home the stinky mass of fabric, and see what would become of it all!

Once home, I opened the lid and was greeted by the most musty smelling pile of laundry I've ever gotten into!  I decided it was the safest to just dump the whole lot out in the grass, for fear of what else had decided to live in this pile over the years! I was pleasantly surprised to see that no furry creatures had been nesting inside! In the clear sunshine, I began to appreciate the faded, vintage fabrics of these turn-of-the-century clothes.  I began sorting them by color and decided I would give them a good soak, and a line-dry in the sunshine, and see what evolved!

I washed the darker load first.  As I began to hang them on the line, not only the beauty of the vintage fabrics could be seen, but the designs and details could also be appreciated.

The pintucks, the eyelet ruffles, the different styles of collars.  These were the clothes I remembered my 90 year old great-grandma wearing.  Their lives had been extended as long as they could possibly could.  There were patches everywhere, the fabric was thread-bare, and their buttons had long ago been taken off and used elsewhere. The extension of usefulness amazed me.  How quickly we throw things away, and only see their usefullness in their prime. Hmmm...  I wished I could revive these clothes to their original purpose but they needed to be re-invented.  Take the weaknesses, and make them strong again.

The bright color load was even more beautiful than the blues and greens!

Once again, I loved each and every detail of this generations-ago wardrobe.

The contrasting fabric inlays, the rickrack, the polka-dots all had me charmed.  I even loved the store-bought tags I found on some of them!

The clothes looked so pretty hanging on the line in the sunshine!  It was like vintage, clothing bunting that even coordinated with my flowers!

The rag ball idea that my friend had given me sounded like the best fate for these beautiful clothes.  I've been taking a stack of clothing wherever I go and have some time to dis-assemble these beauties.  As I was ripping strips of cloth at the cabin, my aunt remembered how she had ripped fabric strips for her grandma, as a child.  My great, great grandma instructed her to sew the strips together smoothly, so the rag rugs she made would not have bumps.  I cherish and use those very same rugs my aunt helped to make.  As I was learning how to make my first ragballs, my 8 year-old neice was eagerly learning also. 

I love how the generations before made use of everything.  They took what was weak, and combined it together to make something strong and useful.  The ragballs are a work in progress.  They are time consuming, and relaxing at the same time.  The finished product isn't anything too special...but I've enjoyed the journey.  I'm picturing them with evergreen boughs for Christmas, in a primitave wooden bowl, or maybe piled high on a footed cake plate or metal urn!

 

Crunching the Numbers

Yeah!  Are we all excited that tax season is over?  I know that there are people in the world that really enjoy working with numbers, but I am definitely not one of them! As a small business owner, though, I have to keep track of numbers, and luckily Cheryl and I can divy up this not-my-favorite-part-of-business area.  So, to add a post to our "mom-prenuers" category, I thought I'd go over how we cover this side of the business.  This is also for you wanna-be shop owners, that think it would be fun to find junk and sell it somewhere!  There are soooo many sides to small business ownership!

After our occasional sale weekend, Cheryl takes a big envelope home full of tags.  She separates them all out and finds out how much each of our contributor's sold and how much we sold.  She then sends checks out to all of them, and then we decide if we can pay ourselves!  Cheryl is the main book-keeper, and keeps track of all of our bills.  Thank goodness!  She and Mr. Fix-it know that I should not be a part of that! She is also the go-to person for most "business" related conversations: insurance, credit card machines, ordering supplies, etc. She was a business major; I was only a business minor, and dropped out after I almost flunked basic economics. This is one of the God-ordained reasons why our partnership works!!

Once Cheryl gets done with her end of the tags, they get sent my way.  I am the keeper of the inventory.  This way, we are both always in touch with what is selling.  I would much rather spend my screen time blogging, but excel spreadsheets, and pie charts can be kind of fun, when you've done a lot of work acquiring and fixing up all those finds!  I begin my part by dividing all the tags into 20 different categories.  I love using my Grandma's "Hall" custard cups, all arranged on a vintage metal tray.  I use handwritten shipping tags with the category names.

In order to relax and tell myself I need to sit for awhile, I do usually burn one of Barb's lovely candles.

If any of you have done the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University program, you'll understand that I am definitely the "free spirit". Seventeen minutes is the time frame that I can spend on anything numbers related!  Luckily, typeing in all the fun items we've sold at the store, is like walking down memory lane!

Mr. Fix-it is our I.T. guru and has set up the customized spreadsheets, and even made pie charts!

We are so thankful that he knows how to do this type of technology! He just showed me how to black out all those secret numbers with a paintbrush!  Hmmm...I may use that again sometime!

The numbers that need to be dealt with in small business are never-ending.  Even when all the statements for taxes have been turned in, there is still mileage to be kept track of, receipts from stores where we purchased materials, and sales tax to be paid!  Cheryl and I have been doing this together for a looong time, and have developed a system that works with both our giftings.  I wouldn't recommend partnership to many people, because there are so many places where disagreements could arise.  But somehow,  Cheryl and I have grown up in this business together, and have a lot of trust for each other, and can give one another a lot of grace, when needed!  We like to think it was a match made in heaven!

Ladders: Unknown Stories

Can you think of a caption for this photo?  Maybe it could be on the front of a greeting card..."Still climbing, and never getting anywhere..." Or how about, "You look like you could use a lift!"  Can you think of any?

I had just told a "picker" friend that we are always looking for ladders.  Ezra likes to call himself our "junk pimp".  That's a little racey for us, but he is kind of our "personal picker". He was garage saleing the other morning, always on the hunt for some great finds.  He called me, reporting he had just found a bunch of ladders!  Tis the season to use ladders inside and out-vertical, holding bath towels or linens, or horizontal for a pot rack or herb drier.  I told Ezra to grab the whole lot of them.  Hence, the line of ladders drying in the sun in the driveway, after my scrubbing session.

After a good scrubbing, and some sunshine, I got to work with my brush and polyurethane.  A couple of coats really brings out the beauty, in these meant-for-function, utilitarian pieces. After spending quite some time brushing, I got to know some of the personalities of these ladders, or whomever owned them.

First of all, I realized these ladders all came from the same home. Hmmm-must have been a fairly handy gentlemen.  Secondly, I realized he had painted a lot of colors over the years-there were many colors of paint drips on the ladders. I kind of liked his or her taste: soft yellows, sage greens, aqua blues.  

These initials caught my eye.  Mr. FHM must have needed to identify his ladder, somewhere other than in his own yard!  Church work day, at a work site? These initials made me chuckle, because in my husband's family, we are all known by our initials!  He comes from a family of 5 boys whose names all begin with H!  Their dad's name also began with H!  To add to the creativity, the 5 boys middle names began with A, B, C, D, and E.  As a result, each family is known as the HAB's, HBB's...all the way to us at the end of the family, the HEB's.  Now you know why these initials struck my funny bone!

Mr. FHM must have thought it was too hard to write his initials on every ladder, and decided to just swipe them with that same red paint to identify them as his own!

Each of the ladders were different.  Some had round rungs, some had square rungs.  This light colored ladder, even had a date on it!  It's coloring and square rungs looked more mid-century modern, and this date stamp confirmed it's heritage!  Mr FHM must have had one of his kids helping on a project, because someone got carried away with the stamp!

I just have fun making up stories, as I'm spending time re-freshing junky treasures!  I'll be on the hunt for more ladders, and hope all of you that took these beauties home will have fun decorating with them! 

 

Contact Paper: To Reveal or Not to Reveal

Nine and a half feet of faux-wood-paneling contact paper! This was the project that was calling to me the week before March occasional.  If you made it to the store last month, you saw the finished product: an awesome, perfectly junky, beautifully green, folding harvest table.  

As with  most of our finds...they don't look like this when we acquire them!  I spotted this table on my way out of an estate sale.  I had already done quite a bit of damage, and luckily Mr. Fix-it had accompanied me this Saturday morn.  I made piles, and he carried them out to the van. Wish it was always that easy! Well, as I was heading out the garage, which now had it's overhead door open, I spotted a shabby, green, tapered leg!  I hadn't even noticed the table that had been heaped with greasy, crusty garage tools.  I asked the worker if the table was for sale, and he said "It could be." I decided on the car ride home, that this might have been the find of the day! 

Once I had it opened in my garage, and was facing the huge job of refreshing it, I couldn't help but think, "Who would have covered this awesome table with 9 1/2 feet of contact paper!  Why?? 

As I got the heat gun pumped up to 1000 degrees to melt off the sticky-ness, and scraped the melty plastic off with my putty knife, I realized this covering of contact paper had probably preserved this table through the years.  Oil had been spilled, but hadn't penetrated the wood, heavy items had been dropped, but had just created some nice divits=more character! As I got to thinking deeper, as I am known to do when I have a power tool in my hand, I realized life can be like this.  Sometimes, the truth of a situation is too painful to deal with at the time.  I had friends that realized in college, that they had been abused, but had blocked it out, until they were mature enough to deal with it. After Christmas break, I was asked, "Did you have a nice break?"  Instead of getting into the details of losing my mother-in-law on Christmas Day and spending the week planning her funeral, it was easier to say, "It was good."

In Ecclesiastes 3:1 the Bible talks about there being "A time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die...a time to weep and a time to laugh...a time to embrace and a time to refrain...a time to keep and a time to throw away...a time to tear and a time to mend...a time to be silent and a time to speak...He has made everything beautiful in it's time."

Time.

Sometimes the secrets of time get unlocked in their due time, and will create beauty. There's a time for contact paper to cover up, and a time for it to be scraped away for the big reveal!

 Hope you can spend some time, this Holy Week and think about weeping, and celebrating! 

 

March Madness

March Madness...  weather!  Hope you had a chance to enjoy the summer like outdoors this past weekend.  It was a Patina General working weekend at our house.  

 

Welcome to our garage!  April Occasional is buried in there somewhere.  This is a view of our third stall, aka Patina General storage unit.  I can't believe I'm unveiling this pic to the public when I'm always telling our kids to keep the third stall garage door closed for fear of the neighbors calling hoarders anonymous.  My husband is a saint for not giving a hoot that his garage has taken on a new purpose.

I've been known to sand furniture on a sunny somewhat warm day in the middle of winter in years past, but full blown turn on the hose scrubbing has never before happened in March.  In my neck of the woods this past weekend it was too humid to brush paint and too windy to spray paint (unless our neighbors wanted a new color scheme to their house).  Hubby and I spent Saturday dismantling furniture, cutting and fitting new backs, tops and other various parts to create pieces for the store.  

He took a few March Madness breaks to check scores and to let me know that I was beating him on our bracket challenge.  My secret to winning has nothing to do with my knowledge of sports, quite the opposite.  My strategy... I choose Syracuse to win because I like Syracuse Dishes, I'd rather visit this state over that state and many other quirky reasonings.

Hope you can make it to April Occasional in a few weeks and see if you recognize anything from this picture.

Lora, I've aired our messy garage for all to see, do you want to show them yours?

Mrs. Meyers Bar Soap

You've asked for it and now we've got it at Patina General.

Lora and I have been using Mrs. Meyers soap products for our families for many years.  We love the beautiful scents and its ability to clean.

Mrs. Meyers liquid soap is a staple at each sink in our house.  The winter season takes its toll on my hands and I've found bar soap to be more delicate.  I add a bar of Mrs. Meyers to each sink.

Mrs. Meyers bars are much larger than a regular bar of soap, I think it's fun to use random saucers from sets of dishes or ones I've found on my junking journeys (garage sales, thrift stores etc.). I'm not a fan of messy bar soaps and Mrs. Meyers is hard milled, she keeps her shape.