Introducing Mi Tipo...

... my new shop on etsy. Mi Tipo means "My Type" in Spanish. It's where you'll find letters, numbers and other bits of alphabetalia sized from 1/4" to 17" tall. 

  I've been wanting to re-vamp my original etsy shop, Gracie's Cottage, for quite some time.  Moving letters & numbers into their own shop is the first step. 

Please stop in and check out Mi Tipo when you have a moment. I've just begun to load it and there's lots more to come in the days ahead! 

I'm linking up withe Debra over at Common Ground for Monday Marketplace...follow me over to check it out!

Who Can Resist...

...a big bowl filled with buttons?  I recently acquired these and was planning to just put them out at the mall with small bags as a little 'self-serve button bar'.  (I have a few fun buttons tucked away, but don't consider myself a button collector.)  I should have just packed these up right away, but no, I had to start pawing through them.

 

 I started to spy a few that looked interesting.

Right off the bat I found this little button with a working compass insert. I've had little compasses before and little buttons, but never, ever, ever a little compass-button.

I spent a few more minutes going through them.

 I didn't find any big ticket buttons.

But found several that charmed me.

 Now I know that before I let them go, I'm going to have to dump the whole lot and spend a couple hours going through them. If I don't I'll forever wonder what I might have missed.

 

This is a perfect example of why I never accomplish what I should.  Some little thing ends up taking hours instead of minutes.  Does that ever happen to you?

Turquoise Annie

Finding the turquoise cupboard last week spurred me to finish a project I'd already started.  I'd painted this old frame in Annie Sloane Provence, but wasn't quite happy with it.  (Sorry, forgot to get a 'before' pic of the dirty old brown frame - please use your imagination!)   I've always found Provence to be a little 'heavy' and a bit 'muddy' for  my taste, so decided to experiment.  I used a favorite vintage stool as my inspiration color.

Through some crazy stroke of luck, it was a near-perfect match on the first try.  I poured a little old white into a container, added a little less Provence, and even less Antibes Green and this is the result.

I distressed it just a bit, waxed it and hung it up today, around one of my favorite pieces of artwork.

This little gal is titled 'Sink or Swim'; I love her and am inspired by the simple title daily. She was a gift from my pal, Candyce of Altered Ever After.   (Speaking of Candyce, you need to go read her latest blog entry on her harrowing adventure at Kane County this past weekend -yikes!)

Now I'm pondering what to do with the ice cream table & chairs.  I'm looking for a fun print, (with a touch of turquoise), to use for chair cushions,  and thinking about Old White.  The options are A. Leave them  B. Paint the chairs C. Paint the table top and/or base.

I'm linking up with Laura at The Ironstone Nest for Transformation Tuesday.  Let's all go see what everyone's been up to this summer!

A Manly Auction

Hot. It's been hot. I headed off to a local estate auction on Saturday with three frozen bottles of water.
When they were gone seven hours later, I headed  home. There was still a huge amount to be sold and I knew that there were going to be bargains, but the heat won. Go ahead, call me a wimp!

This row, three trailers long was less than 1/4 of what was sold that day.

Almost all of it went in box lots, and the lots got bigger as the day got later.

Some of the stuff that would have been cool to repurpose went to guys that restore cars. Rats.
They were willing to pay to get what they needed.

These old lights and reflectors looked like interesting.

I did buy a few lots, just to get the locker baskets that were holding the stuff.  I also got some great ephemera and several industrial drawer units in various sizes. Sorry, no photos yet. The Pilot fairy neglected to go out in the heat, unload and clean them up for me.

I love old tractor umbrellas and they are hard to find in good condition. It was a bit of a battle but I did triumph and come home with this. It's the coolest thing I got all day. Literally!  Hope your efforts this weekend were rewarded with something you love!

I'm linking up with Debra at Common Ground for Marketplace Monday.  Why don't you click here and come along with me?