Sunshine on a Cloudy Day

If this is your first time over here, Welcome to the new Year of Serendipity!!!!  I'm still tweaking a few things here and there (including updating my rather sad home tour and pathetic 30 before 30), but I'd love to hear what you think! In the midst of launching this site and ironing out kinks with my web designers, I've gone spray-happy again.  I can't help myself!  Spray paint is such a fantastic way to make an instant transformation.

As I mentioned last week, I have target lock on my front porch.  My itsy bitsy never used front porch.  So far, I've purchased paint to refresh the trim and started looking at solid stains for the floor, but I may have started a little backwards... I started with the furniture.

I found 2 perfectly scaled chairs on Craigslist and a small side table at the thrift store which all called for a few coats of spray paint.  So far I've tackled the side table.

It went from this:

to this in about a half an hour:

Talk about instant gratification!  I'm not too worried about having a wooden side table on the porch since it won't be exposed to too much of the elements, but that's also why I went for an inexpensive thrifted piece (with some sexy legs, no?).

I was very tempted to run outside at 8am this morning and try to get the chairs painted, so I could include them in this post, but I probably want to do them right and not just fast.  probably.  because they're going to be fan.tas.tic.  With the glorious weekend forecast (rain rain rain), it looks like I'll be impatiently waiting until Monday/Tuesday to do the chairs.

I hope your holiday weekend forecast is better than ours and you can enjoy some sunshine!  I'll just enjoy my sunshine colored table instead as I watch the rain.

Do you have any awesome holiday weekend plans or projects?  and what do you think of the new site??

Brimfield Eye Candy

Brimfield has such an amazing collection of amazing stuff of all proportions.  (Did you see my haul in yesterdays post?) If I was a photographer, I could just spend the day taking pictures of history, pre-styled vignettes, and bizarre oddities.

How amazing are these doors??

I would love to see a toddler riding this, but it would lose character if someone restored it.

Dapper or creepy, I really can't decide.

Remember how I mentioned the bizarre conglomeration of items for sale?

Dad was endlessly amused by this one-armed-bandit... literally

I so wanted to adopt these chairs for my porch... but not for $500.  Don't you worry, though I have a replacement up my sleeve.

This was definitely my favorite pic of the day.

My attempt at photography was even captured by the other photog (Handy Dad)

So have I inspired you to check out the Brimfield Antiques Flea Market next time around?  (July!)

What a Hoot!

Sorry for my lack of post on Friday- I got a little overexciting about getting up early to go to Brimfield and I totally forgot to blog.  I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me eventually.  Maybe this picture of me with the Jolly Green Giant will help. (check out those amazing industrial storage units behind us!)

So, Brimfield.  Going to Brimfield each year is like going to an amusement park for me.  Lots of crazy characters to watch (with the exception of ourselves of course), some awesome stuff for sale, some beyond ridiculous stuff for sale, and amongst all that is the challenge of trying to snag some amazing deals.

Since I still always get the question "What's Brimfield?", Brimfield is the largest outdoor antiques flea market.  It takes place 3 times a year in the tiny town of Brimfield MA and there are over 6,000 dealers set up on either side of a mile stretch of rt 20.  It's treasure-hunters Meca.

And amazing deals I did get!  My haul includes:

Metal sphere: $20.  I plan to add plants to the inside of this as an awesome architectural feature for my porch or patio.

Child's shoe mold: $4.

I also got an amazing deal on a gift for someone, but since I don't want to spoil the surprise, all I'll say is that I love cool vintage pieces for awesome prices (shocker!).

My absolute favorite find everyone else thinks I'm completely nuts for even buying.  Before I show you, there's a back story.  For more than three years, I've been drooling over one of the owl cookie jars from Anthropologie.  Not long after discovering that jar, I found out that it's a reproduction of a vintage piece from the 40s.  So why buy a new repro when I can dream of owning an original?  Over two years ago at a tag sale, I spotted the coveted hooter, but the price was higher than I wanted to pay- and I've been wishing I had just sucked it up and bought it ever since.  Brimfield to the rescue!

Let me set the stage: I went with the parents and it was the end of a long day out in the sun and dust, we were losing steam fast.  Out of the corner of my eye I spotted him, blurted out "I know what I'm buying" and beelined across the isle and picked up the cookie jar.  By the time my parents caught up, I was already haggling with the vendor.  Originally priced at $150, it had already been slashed down to $75 and I got her down another $10.  The vintage 40s Shawnee winking owl cookie jar also came with 3 (?) matching salt and pepper shakers for $65.  My parents thought he was hideous and I already knew Hubs would agree- he's scoffed at the Anthro one as long as I've drooled over it.  But I don't care what they think, he's awesome and makes me grin ear to ear!!!

The shakers on the other hand, I do find creepy, so they'll probably be finding themselves listed on e-bay. They have shifty eyes and I don't trust them.

Since Hubby's convinced that my beloved owl's going to come to life and haunt him (crazy boy), I'm sparing him by keeping the owl in my office.  I'm secretly (or not so secretly now) hoping the owl will grow on him and eventually it can migrate to another room.  eventually.  maybe.  doubtful.  Oh well, I'm still so excited about this owl!!! AND the deal that I got for him!

I'll pop in tomorrow for a rare Tuesday post and share some cool Brimfield pictures from Handy Dad and me.  If I put them all in today, this post would never end.  It's already a bit long since I'm apparently rather long-winded.  It's part of my charm, I hope.

So do you love my vintage owl as much as I do, or do you think it's creepy like apparently every one else does??