The Eastern Shore

The Eastern Shore is one place I've never explored. It was on my 92 Days of Summer List a couple years back but never got crossed off. I had had the opportunity to go a few weeks ago when my friend Tara had a Groupon that was running out soon. Lucky me, I scored a day with her horseback riding, enjoying the local pub and a little thrifting as well.

We started our morning at Pfeiffer Riding Stables for an hour-long horse ride. The farm is family-run (but originally from Michigan, have to love those Midwesterners!) and the owner's son actually guided our tour. The guides were fun and super friendly and the trails were beautiful. My horse, Edgar, had a thing for Tara's horse and liked to rub his face on him and crowd their space. Maybe a little inpatient and nosy like his rider? Ha.

After the trails, we found our way to Kelly's Gingernut Pub. At first I thought it was just "The Gingernut Pub," which reminded me like something out of Harry Potter and was excited to check it out. Come to find out, the restaurant is an old bank from 1907 and you can actually dine in the original bank vault (can you say Gringotts??), walk up the spiral staircase to the loft (Ron's House) and lots of local beers are on tap (i.e. Butterbeer). Enough with the Potter obsession, it was ridiculously cute and the fish tacos were fantastic.

The Eastern Shore is littered with antique stores, flea markets, farmer's markets and markets of complete randomness. This trip we only hit up a couple, but my new favorite is R & T Nautical. Yes, there was a trailer completely full to the ceiling with clothes and a back warehouse room, which was clearly being used as someone's bedroom.... But I scored seven vases, including milk glass, for $7! Next time we drive over there, we're starting early at the flea markets and bringing a bigger car.

#75: Visit Phoebus

I have been to Phoebus once before, but at the time I didn't realize that's where I was. I saw a ballet at the American Theater a few years back and just loved the beautiful old venue. Recently on a trip to Fort Monroe for work, my friend and co-worker told me the little area was actually considered Phoebus. Come to find out, it was it's own city until 1952 until it was consolidated with the city of Hampton. Regardless, the cute little strip holds several antique shops, a few restaurants, a children's consignment shop, a florist and a VFW.

On our way back from another work trip to Fort Monroe we decided to stop at one of the shops. (Only because we were so efficient during our mission to the Fort.) The majority of the places were closed, but we managed to make it into The Little Blue Shop. The antique store was filled with all sorts of goodies, from Mason jars to toy trucks. The owner was so nice, he dropped the prices without even having to barter! I'll be making another stop next time I'm out, hopefully some of the other stores will be open!

I'm participating in my third annual 92 Days of Summer challenge. Read about the project here.

#46: Freebie

All my good photo wall research became super useful last night. We spent some time Monday night arranging the frames in different ways and ended up liking most of them. I'm not really sure we ever settled on just one, but we must have gotten bored and left the room.... making this our final design. Kudos to Mike and his patience for doing all the precise measuring and hammering. Kudos to my toe for not breaking when the drill dropped on it.

This whole wall only cost me $2. I had all the frames, except the diamond mirrors which were purchased at the thrift store for $1 each. The faces are charcoal drawings my sister brought back from Asia. The teal butterfly is hand-stitched by my Great Aunt Alice (in 1978) and the other two pieces are things I designed. 

First photo wall down! #46, you're off the list! I'm participating in my third 92 Days of Summer challenge. Read about the project here.

Monday Musebles

Absolutely love this sign, the back read "John Ward 1971: Authentic Sign Abandoned by Gypsies on Wilson Blvd. in Arlington, VA." Could have been mine for a mere $300!

Our dining room table and bedroom set was delivered on Friday. Of course, we can't just have a smooth process, so only half of the bed was delivered. They tried again on Sunday to bring the missing footboard and brought the wrong color...so we wait some more. In the meantime, I made our first family dinner on a real table Friday night.

window pane

Saturday morning I woke up bright and early and went garage saling to find a dehumidifier for only $10! I thought for sure it wouldn't work, but it's in the basement collecting water as we speak! I hit up Country Boys on Granby Street, which is a place I love and am terrified of at the same time.
 

shutters

It's a salvage yard/antique store full of treasures...if you can get to them. I found a set of black weathered shutters I'm pretty fond of ($35 for the pair) and a antique window pane ($85 for one), which I'm particularly interested in.

English stained glass

1920s wardrobe

I finally stopped in this place called Boobala's Importers on Granby. I've driven by it a million times and never actually stopped in. If you're looking for the mecca of stained glass, this is the place to go! Beautiful stuff, lots of it, but prices start at $125 for an 11"x14" piece. The rest of the store is filled with goreous antiques. I found a wardrobe there from the 1920s, all dark hardwood, asking $300. It would need shelves and I'm not leaning toward anymore dark furniture in the house, so I passed on it.

Howeletts Trading Post opened up just two weeks ago (on Granby Street as well). I found a great china cabinet there, glass and shelves still in tact ($275). It would definitely need a deep cleaning, a polish and probably the shelves painted.

At the end of the day I came home with just the dehumidifier and quite a few new go-to places for antiques and thrifty goodness.

Monday Musebles

Art books full of how-to diagrams, $2.

I took Estate Shopping to a new level this weekend. I spent more than hour on Friday diagraming out my sale route, with driving directions and a map to boot. My friend Susie and I left around 8:30 and hit up about five or six sales.

Box of more than 120 spools of thread for $10. I needed that.

I managed to enter a family's house, that was not in fact an estate sale (in my defense, the signs were very confusing)...still not sure who was more surprised - me or the 8-year-old boy. I almost ran over a man who was stupidly close to a moving car and gave me the dirty look. We smelled odors on humans we should never (ever) smell. I discovered some super nice (and not so nice) neighborhoods to potentially consider for our eventual house hunt. But best of all, I got  great friend time adventuring around curious scenes for a morning.

Children's and Chanukah books, Boy Scout manuals, Esquire Bartending Guide, $4.

Oh, and we got some decent deals too! I also managed to get my name on two more Estate Sale Company's mailing list, so I'll be able to keep up my weekend sales attack :)

Box full of paint pallettes, clothes pins, tags, bags and cards, $2.50.

Monday Musebles

Newest addition for the craft shop section at Better Block...Paper Parcels.
Packs of new, vintage papers including scrapbooking, doilies, envelopes, sheet music, flash
cards, stickers, button cards, graph paper and more.

Lately I feel like I've been running a race and I just can't keep up (i.e. this post coming to you today - instead of Monday)! My daily to-do list has been more like a novel and at the end of the day I'm struggling to cross anything off - and you know how bad that irritates me!

Left, display case/china cabinet for $70. Top right, hanging white shelf was only $14! Needed some work, but what a steal!
Bottom right, baby crib that hangs from the ceiling. I am dying to buy this for my mini bolts of fabric!

This past weekend I felt like I did a lot of nothing. A few projects got worked on, but none completely finished. I cleaned messes to make more, of a different variety. I went and saw some really lovely display pieces for the Better Block project, but didn't actually purchase anything. 

We're only naughty when it comes to running marathons ;)

But, by the time Sunday rolled around, I wasn't actually feeling too overwhelmed. A few of us girls went to cheer on a friend running the Shamrock Marathon.We didn't end up lasting too long...the weather was definitely not on our side. I'm still in awe about how someone could run for FIVE hours in those conditions. Or any conditions for that matter! Kudos to you Susie!

Fawn Street Studios. Loved this space...that spiral staircase with the skylights and disco ball?
Sounds like my kind of place to have a wedding!

Mike and I checked out the new Art Design Craft Norfolk show at the Fawn Street Studios. Then we headed over to Belmont for a beer and some BBQ (seriously delicious food here).

Passed on the green Bud Light for a new Third Shift. Pretty tasty.

No lies, I would drink this stuff if it were socially acceptable!

I spent the rest of the night with some Dexter (yeah, back on this train again) and measuring fabric for my mini bolts for the Better Block. As you can see, a lot of nonstop randomness going on around our house. I guess it's not a terrible thing...for now.

Left, mini bolts of fabric. Right, "spools" of lace for sale.

Thrifty Thursday

Anyone interested in some water skiing patches? I seem to have a surplus of them these days....

Monday Musebles

I drove a lot this weekend. 172.6 miles to be exact. And where did I go? No where in particular and specifically, everywhere. Saturday morning we attended the Better Block community walk, which was pretty much like the walk-about the Norfolk Arts District did a few weeks back....the turnout was great! A few of the Kitsch girls were there and we spoke briefly about working together for a business popup for the weekend of April 12th - which is AWESOME! We're getting the details worked out, so there isn't too much to report just yet. It did make the rest of my weekend very busy with looking for display pieces and extra arts and crafts supplies. I thought I'd share some of my finds and potential purchases here!

Vintage cardboard cutting mat. Thinking I could use it for bolts to wrap fabric around.

New antique shop on Granby Street I visited for the first time.
VERY reasonable prices and the merch is in pretty good shape.

The Store for Stores in Norfolk, a place everyone should go at least once!
These card and paper racks ranged from $40 to $100.

More from The Store for Stores. The bin shelf is only $67 and comes with the bins! Now only if I had buttons to fill all those bins... I like the idea of the picnic table shelving unit, it would take up a lot of space!

At Urban Castaways in Ghent. I'd love to hang fabric from vintage pants hangers from the metal birdbath on the left.

A vintage wooden drying rack...another way to display fabric or paper.
Hoping I can get someone (i.e. Barney) to make this for me!

Crafting time at Grow Interactive

I ended the weekend at the 7 Cities Crafters meeting, which is held monthly at Grow Interactive on Granby Street. I had two firsts here: first time attending a meeting and first time at Grow. Whoa, totally love both! And totally want to have an office space like this one day!

Thrifty Thursday Part 2

I mentioned my obsession with vintage cookbooks in this month's Momentarily Obsessed With... I wasn't lying. The book names, the illustrations and the photos is entertaining alone. But if you go through and actually look at the recipes (perhaps be really adventurous and make a few) you're certainly in for a treat.

It's a delight when I find a written note in on the cover of the book. Funny how "Mrs. Ellis's husband" did a great job at work so she gets a cookbook? I suppose to make him hearty meals to keep him strong at work? Haha.

This gem I found at an estate sale a few months back. I haven't been able to cut it up quite yet, but it's going to make some fabulous cards when I do!

The cookbook on the right is actually a compilation of recipes from the local infamous Strawberry Festival that's held at the beginning of every Summer out in Pungo. This particular book is from 1976, the strawberry is glued on the cover :)

Thrifty Thursday

I've been on the lookout for some new drinking glasses. The eight-pack of Ikea cups I bought 5 years is down to just two now...so it's about time. After a couple weeks of searching, I finally came across these at the MoJo thrift stop down the street. Four glasses for $2 was a deal I couldn't pass up on. Not to mention they have a sweet iridescent sheen to them, which the photo doesn't show. Sorry, Ikea, you're out!

Cards Galore!

I have been cranking out the handmade cards like a crazy woman. I've had a couple books I was stashing away for a while and finally broke them out. The new flower cards (above) are some of my favorites so far. The images come from a 1960s gardening how-to book and are just so vibrant and pretty to look at. I combined them with some leftover scrapbooking paper and think they'd be great Mother's Day cards.

These are the products of the children's books I bought a few weeks back. I was so tempted to keep some of the Pokey Little Puppy cards for myself! We always read that book when I was a child.

15 packs total, ready to hit the stores! I'm hoping to get into a few new stores this Spring, so keep your fingers crossed.