I'm so eggcited!

Go-Go(my Ameraucana chicken) finally layed her first egg and it is beautiful!  OK...I know no one probably cares, but for a crazy chicken person, this is exciting stuff!  I'm new to the chicken world, and when I heard there was a breed of chicken that layed in my favorite color, I was hooked. I got Go-Go this summer, and was told she would lay in the fall.  Well, I was begining to think there was something wrong with her...until this week!  She finally started laying.

Here's Go-Go. She's my shyest chicken, so it is really hard to get a picture of her. She's sort of the loner of the bunch....always off on her own or hiding.  She's very different from the rest of the over-bearing, fearless posse.

See what I mean.  This is them a couple weeks ago when I let them out on one of our nicer days. They stood at the back door all day begging for food.  Crazy chickens.

If you notice, my kitchen walls, and boots are in the same color as Go-Go's eggs.

Here's a picture of all my girls eggs.  We have a nice mix of colors and sizes, just like my chickens!

 

 

 

"SOLD, to bidder #144"

Well, Anne and I took off again this past Saturday, and drove to Iowa for another auction.  The auction house was packed, so we were a little skeptical about how it would turn out for us.  However, we managed to fill the car again! 

 
This is at the front of the room, looking back at the crowd.  Anne and I stayed up here all day so we could see what we were bidding on really well.

 

Crates, Crates, Crates.  We love them, and can't get enough of them.  This auction had a ton of really cool ones.

 
See what I mean?  These Ball jar crates were so cool, and unfortunately, out of our price range.  Being that they are hard to find, everyone wanted them, and that drove the price up. 

 
This auction even had the Ball jars to go with the crates.  There were tons of the blue colored jars.

 
There were a lot of old food containers.  I wonder why people saved such things.  Can you imagine saving a Cheerios box for 40 or 50 years?   They were really cute though.  I believe one bidder bought most of them.  I can see why people collect them, the old graphics on them are very cool. 

 
There were bottles of all kinds at this auction.

 
I loved this box of old bottles so much, I bid on them and won.

 
This orange glazed Red Wing pottery crock sold for $800.  It was very exciting to watch.  After it sold I remembered I had picked it up early on in the day.  Had I  known, I would of stayed clear of it. 

 
You can get everything at an auction.  Even art work.  There were quite a few really nice paintings that were very reasonably priced.  

 
There were tons of vintage feed sacks at this auction.  Not in the best shape, but really cute.  No one showed any interest in them all day, until Anne and I wanted them.  They must have known we had good taste.  Anne walked away with two of the cuter ones!  This being one of them. 

 

See all that stuff under the tables?  That's our stuff a quarter of the way through the auction.  We filled up two 6 foot tables underneath!  It may look like junk now, but just wait. 

 If you have never been to an auction, you should give it a try.  They are a lot of fun. 

 

 

 

 

 

Winter Freeze

Hello everyone, hope you are all keeping warm.  It is FREEZING here in the Chicago area!   We have been working very hard at our Etsy sites.  Trying to add new things to each site every day.  Our crafty site is called tatteredtique, and our vintage site is tatteredtiquevintage.  Anyway, trying to keep it filled, takes a lot of work, between pictures, loading the info, running off to the post office every other day, it keeps us busy.   Speaking of busy, Anne and I (and Dad) are off to Iowa again for another auction.  Mom is off to one in Wisconsin.  I hope we find lots of new treasures!  We will post some pics after the weekend.  Stay warm!  Go Bears!

 

Burlap Wine Bag

I wanted to share with you the wine bag I made out of burlap.  I love using burlap in my crafts, and this is something I have wanted to do for a while. I had the perfect reason, seeing that it was my friends birthday and I needed a wine bag for her wine. 

 
First, I figured out how long I needed my burlap to be.  Then I cut it, and pinned it along three sides.  I then layed the bottle down again to make sure the size would still be good.

 
I then sewed up the three sides.  When I was done with the three sides, I folded down the top and stitched a horizontal stich to create a pocket for my ribbon.  I thread the ribbon through, which was not easy.  

 

This is the finished product.  I added a vintage crystal for some extra flair.  Pretty cute for a quick, first try.  

 
  Remember the French Birthday Tags I made earlier this week?  I added one to my wine bag and wrote a Birthday note to the back of the tag.  This was a very easy project, and it is much more fun then an ordinary wine bag you can pick up at the store.  Presentation is everything!

Iowa Auction

This past weekend, Anne and I, (and dad) drove to Iowa for an Estate Auction.  I wanted to share some photos of what was there.  We managed to fill the back of the car, but were a little disappointed because we would of liked to of brought a few larger furniture pieces back.  Even in the middle of winter there is fierce competion at an auction!  We like to keep our prices very fair, so we tend to be very cheap. 

 
This was one of our favorite pieces, but it went too high in bidding.  It is the perfect little shabby piece of furniture. 

 
These were both so cool, but again, the bidding was out of our league. 

  
Vintage trunks are a common site at auctions.

 
There were tons, and tons of great little chairs.  Dining chairs, stools, and benches also.
 
This was our other favorite piece of furniture.  We loved everything about it.  It had cutting boards that pulled out on top, and large metal bucket drawers on the bottem.

 
This great old mirror frame came home with us.  I can't wait to make it a chalkboard.  It will be fabulous.

 
Anne snagged this adorable old chenille bedspread. 

 

There were quite a few vintage quilts, and tons of antique linens.

 
There were lots of vintage holiday items.  One of these yellow wax rabbits made it way home with Anne.

 
These little santa bells were so cute.  They came in their original box which was as cute as the santa's themselves.

 
I was drooling over all the old ornaments, which I have an obsession about.  But, unfortunately, so were many other bidders as well.

 
These guys made it home with me.  You will either see them on Etsy in the near future, or next year for Christmas.

 
Isn't she adorable.  She was in great shape too. 

 
Loads of old books and ephemera came home with Anne, including these old craft magazines.  I flipped through every one on the way home for ideas. 

 
There were a few boxes of old marbles.  We don't usually see as many large ones as we did at this auction.

Are you a fan of "American Pickers" on the History channel?  Well, on the way home, we drove through Le Clarie, Iowa to visit Antique Archaeology.  They had closed up shop by the time we arrived, but we still got some pictures in.

 
 
 

French Birthday Tags

I wanted to quickly share something I made earlier tonight.  I got the idea from the cute French Christmas tags I made last month.  I thought it would be cute to use the "Bon Anniversaire", Happy Birthday image Anne found last October, and the large vintage sheet music cards I have.  Also, mom scored a huge box of crystals at the auction she went to this past weekend.  I put them all together and, Voila.  These would be so cute on top a gift, or posted on a memo board. 

 
Sorry, the pictures aren't the greatest, but you get the idea though. They turned out really cute.

 

One last thing.  It is my girlfriend Carrie's Birthday tomorrow.  She is one of my oldest, and dearest friends.   For our 40th birthdays, Carrie and I and a few more of our friends, all went to Vegas this past November together.  We all had a blast.  I just wanted to wish her a big Happy Birthday. Bon Anniversaire Carrie! 

 

ROAD TRIP!

Anne and I are pretty geeked up about this weekend.  We are planning a roadtrip to Iowa for an estate auction.  We are prepared for it to be a big bust.  You just don't know what to expect in the middle of the winter at an auction, 4 1/2 hours away from home.  That isn't what we are excited about though, it's that we have a guest going with us on the trip.  Guess who?  It's our dad!!!  We can't believe it.  He actually wants to go with us.  Mom can't make it becasue she will be at another auction closer to home this weekend.  For the first time in a long time, we are splitting up to cover more ground.  Wish us luck.  We may not come home with anything but awesome dad stories!

 
This is us a couple years back, in Paris.  We stopped to garbage pick, of course. Anne is laughing hysterically, and dad has just said "you've gotta be kidding me".  But, that old french window frame from Paris made it home with us.  

 

  Don't forget, Grayslake Antique Market is this weekend.  It's something to do on a cold winter day.

 

ROAD TRIP!

Anne and I are pretty geeked up about this weekend.  We are planning a roadtrip to Iowa for an estate auction.  We are prepared for it to be a big bust.  You just don't know what to expect in the middle of the winter at an auction, 4 1/2 hours away from home.  That isn't what we are excited about though, it's that we have a guest going with us on the trip.  Guess who?  It's our dad!!!  We can't believe it.  He actually wants to go with us.  Mom can't make it becasue she will be at another auction closer to home this weekend.  For the first time in a long time, we are splitting up to cover more ground.  Wish us luck.  We may not come home with anything but awesome dad stories!

 
This is us a couple years back, in Paris.  We stopped to garbage pick, of course. Anne is laughing hysterically, and dad has just said "you've gotta be kidding me".  But, that old french window frame from Paris made it home with us.  

 

  Don't forget, Grayslake Antique Market is this weekend.  It's something to do on a cold winter day.

 

Julie's Craft room

 
My girls and I started working in my cramped, uncreative craft room the other day to clean it up and make it usable.  After our last show, and after Christmas, the room had been used as a dumping place for Tattered Tiques, and misplaced household things due to Christmas.  With the new year right around the corner, and multiple markets on the way, I wanted to be ready to "create".  The other reason was, for Christmas, my mom got me a bunch of modular storage cubes from Michael's craft store.  Do you think she was trying to tell me something? 

 
This is the awful and very embarrassing before picture.  It sort of makes me look like one of those horders. I promise, it didn't always look like this!  It was a productive work space at one point in time. 

 
Its getting there!

 

 

Tattered Tiques "girls", Coco, and Chanel.  Underneath the girls, is a large, white, antique table, great for working on projects!

 
This is my desk area, mom got me that great carousel for all my stuff.  It works great for corraling all your pens, rulers, scissors, tools, and other stuff you need at a moments reach.  I highly recommend one.

 
 Another great gift from mom.  This ribbon holder has room for a ton of ribbon as you can see.  It also provides a nice self for another one of my collections, antique alarm clocks. 

 
I like to mix storage with display.  What's the point of having a creative space if you can't see what inspires you?  Those brown paper bags are just waiting to be turned from blah, to beautiful. 

 
There is something about old torn up lamp shades that I love.  They make such cute display pieces when hung.  I have quite a few we will be selling this year at the markets.  I used to have an obsession with vintage lamps. 

 
I couldn't forget the girls craft area.  It just needed to be cleaned off and beautified.  How did we do? I actually created a monster with this one.  Margaret had made me a list of things she needed for her craft area.  One of which was a ton of ribbon for her empty ribbon holder.  I took care of that first thing this morning!

 
Vintage lamp, so adorable.  Margaret also persuaded me to let her have one of my cubes to help keep her area neat.  Good idea!

 
 
This is Mary, Margaret's mannequin.  She was in an ugly brown strecthy fabric until Margaret gave her new life.  She turned out really cute!  She fits right into her new creative space!

 

 

 
Finished product.  We added a vintage chandelier for added sparkle.  It's still not worthy of the pages of Where Women Create, but I think the whole room looks awesome.  I have to thank Margaret for that, she had me down there every day for three days.  Anytime I went up stairs for something she would ask me when I'm going back down stairs.  If she would only start asking me when I was going to get back on the treadmill!!!