Tuesday, December 25, 2012

What Sells On A Saturday

Last Saturday, I had a customer of mine come in with her husband to look at
a red sofa I had on consignment.
The husband loved the sofa, but not for the beach house like she wanted. He wants to
put it in their living room her in town. Ok, this is getting interesting. I showed them the big
floral sofa that come in mid week, they only want $700.00 for it. It's by Hickory Chair, in
get shape, the fabric a lone is worth $700.00. My intern feel asleep on it and Elfie has claimed
it his. It really is a beautiful sofa, they say, let's buy this for the beach house. Ok lets do I
say. And tell us about this bench, would this be great for our front porch at our house
here. And yes this too could be yours, it is a Chippendale bench designed by an
English Gardner named Lutyen and has a special powder coat paint to last forever.
Ok we will take all three, please. Yahoo I say! What started out to be a quiet Saturday
of Elfie and I curled up on that big sofa reading Fifty Shades Darker, became a great
day. Now I need to find more sofas.

Monday, December 17, 2012

My Families Old Plantation At Christmas

Once a year my family on my mother's side, gather together to celebrate Christmas
at my families old Plantation, Norwood, in Powhatan. The home was built in the 1800,
and my relatives, the Randolph's purchased it soon after it was built, 1812, I think. One
day I will post more pictures, it now belongs to my aunt, so I didn't feel right running
around snapping pictures of everything.


 My daughter, Ellie, helped snap the pictures. She say I really need to take a photography class.
Back to the house, this is were my grandfather grew up and raised his family. My children were
the forth generation to attend a Easter hunt there.
 The house is on several acres. There is the main house and several other buildings including a tenant
house, a kitchen, barns and a private cemetery with a tomb. The plantation backs up to the James
River. There is one main hall in the back of the house, upstairs and down stairs and an English
basement.


Here you see a picture of my Mother and my two aunts. My mom Elizabeth is in the blue,
my aunt Mary in the scarf and my aunt Connie in the Christmas sweater. Also known as
the Kennon sisters.
The adult table in the dining room. This house is like a museum, nothing has ever left
this house. It is always been the same since I used to spend my summers there as a
child. My mother was married there to my father and I was married there to my children's
father. For my wedding, they decided to re wallpaper the front and back halls. They stripped
it down to the plaster and found that it originally had been stenciled with a pineapple motif.
The sign of welcome!

Notice the wallpaper behind my cousin Russ's wife Ann Cabel, and there daughters Cabel
and Peyton.
My children, Ellie and Edmund McElroy.
All of the grandchildren, except my brother L.H.'s and cousin Peter's. A happy bunch
and a beautiful place to get together with family.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Making A Burlap Wreath

Yesterday I made my first burlap wreath. I saw on the blog "Top This Top That" were she
made this cool burlap wreath and it looked really easy. The big problem was finding the
material. My Michaels was out of burlap ribbon and I needed to find a big wire wreath.
I went to the website Save on Crafts, the wreaths were out and the ribbon was really
expensive, bu I did buy from them my ribbons and my sprays of berries and peacock
feathers. Here are the results-
 The burlap ribbon is from Burlap Fabric .Com and the wreath is from Roberts Crafts.Com.
 I looped the ribbon in and out of the wire rows and pushed it to the end to make it full.


The ribbon and garland can be removed to create another wreath idea for another season!

Friday, December 7, 2012

My Christmas Decorations

Last night I started my Christmas decorating tradition. I stopped by the store
and got a bottle of extra dry Totts, next went to the church near my house and
bought a Douglas Fir Tree. The nice man shoved the 7' tree into the back of my
little Volvo, which now needs to be cleaned. I brought down all the Christmas bins,
set the tree up and went to work. I started with the lights and then the garland and ribbon.
For some reason I put the thicker ribbon at the top and the thinner at the bottom. It was
a visual nightmare, so I started to take it off. What's that saying, try, try again. Well all
of the sudden the center lights on the tree went out. I can't have lights at the top and bottom
and not in the middle. I put the Champagne down and drove to Rite Aid for more lights,
two 100 ft boxes, 2/$7.00! : ) And we start again, smooth sailing this time. Even if the ribbon
and garland are not perfect. Did I mention that when I was a stay at home mom, I made my
own beaded garland and garland mixed with beaded ribbon, small and large ribbon. My Martha
Stewart days!





More ribbons draped on the dining room chandelier.

The living room mantel, the foo dogs get so tickled when they get to shine next to the sparkly
Christmas balls!




And the den decorations. Sunday we bring in the greens and finish the outside.



Monday, November 26, 2012

New Beautiful Nature Inspired Merchandise

Just in, new nature inspired trays and bags in bright hues and colors.
All designed by local artist like Katie Shillinglaw and Lisa Gabel. Natural
jute/cotton bags and hand lacquered trays from the company Rock Flower
Paper. Love it when I find a new great line to carry in my store. It's like







Christmas morning!

Small Business Saturday

Thank you to all the people who supported Small Business Saturday.
The streets in Downtown Staunton were packed and you even liked
my cookies I put out. I even had an Etsy shopper. God bless us all!


Margaret :>)


Monday, November 19, 2012

Class and Trash

Remember the post I made about all the goodies I found
at the Thrift store I found through the blogger Richmond
Thrifter? Well here is the compote I bought for $7 from Erin
of Richmond Thrifter and the beautiful arrangement the local
florist, Honey Bee Florist, did for me for my Mom's 75th
birthday. I now have it because she is on her way to Hawaii
for the holiday. Do they have turkeys in Hawaii?

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

More Pictures Of My Big Design Job

More pictures of the latest installations of my bi design job for my neighbor!
This is the flat balloon shade we made for her bathroom.
This is an old Waverly floral chintz that my client had and we used it to make these
sweet balloon shades.



I wanted to mention that all these rooms have been repainted with colors that I have picked
out, including the den above, Navajo White, which was a knotty pine before. We wanted
to lighten everything up. I love the Duralee shade and the Cowtan and Tout slipcovers with
the brush fringe.
We put a beautiful blue herring bone fabric on the pair of camel back sofas and updated
the needlepoint pillows.

Last picture, the pretty Thibaut fabric we used on the lovely dining room chairs that
my client found at The Elephant Toe in Richmond.