The T-Cozy

Our MV Living Room, Dining Area & Sun Room

I am finally getting around to sharing the inside of our Martha’s Vineyard vacation house with you. (Sorry it has taken so long; been crazy busy here.)

During the early spring of 2017, we furnished the home from scratch on a shoestring budget. Packing our car to the gills to bring items on the ferry over the course of several months was challenging. But little by little, we did it. Fortunately, the home’s former owners left several decorative pieces behind, such as the vintage window on the wall, the floor lamp with cork shade in the corner, and the table under the TV. So nice of them!

A few trips to IKEA, the Elephant's Trunk Flea Market, Home Goods, Pottery Barn, Pier One, and various estate sales helped to round out the decor. Oh, and I can’t forget to mention that a friend gave us the sisal rug — perfect for a beach house!

Across the way, you'll find the dining area which leads into a bright sunroom. The table (purchased with credit card points for zero dollars at Pottery Barn) has chairs from IKEA, chair pads from Pier One, and a long wooden bench left behind by the previous owners. More points were used to buy the metal light fixture at Home Goods for exactly one penny! 

My favorite room in the house, the sunroom, features woven furniture (thank you Pottery Barn) and a vintage cabinet in the corner that once lived in my tea room. Now it holds board games and puzzles. The previous owners left us the three ocean paintings in that exact spot on the wall. Yay!

Several years ago, we found an old pine table with hand-painted poppies for $25 at a church tag sale. We stored it in the basement of our CT house hoping that it would someday become a breakfast table on the front porch of our very own house on Martha’s Vineyard. 

When our long-awaited cottage finally became a reality, it didn’t have a front porch. So we cut down the table’s legs, turning it into the perfect coffee table.

The little stool, below, was also left behind for us. It has just the right amount of wear/paint loss. LOVE!

Thank you for coming along on this quick tour of our MV living room, dining area and sun room. More rooms to come . . . I promise!

Susan
Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. I’d love to hear from you!

Showering the Bride-To-Be with Love

It has been a while since my last post. Sorry, April was a bit of a blur. I spent most of my free time planning and preparing for my daughter’s bridal shower.  

I worked on lots of fun projects for the event which took place in late April at The Twisted Tail in Philadelphia. We rented their Club Room that has a rustic vibe featuring two fireplaces and a chalkboard spanning the length of one wall. What a great space! 

For party guest favors, I ordered an assortment of mini succulents from The Succulent Source. Once the adorable plants arrived, I made origami boxes for them out of patterned paper in shades of blue and green. 

I then placed tiny “Let Love Grow” tags in each one and used moss as filler. Aren’t they sweet?

To keep costs down, my daughter and I did the floral arrangements ourselves. Using an array of flowers from the grocery store, we placed them in vintage blue glass mason jars gifted to us by a neighbor. We were very pleased (and a little surprised) with how well they turned out.

A picture frame (sans glass) with rows of twine strung across it was lent to me by a friend. Using tiny clothes pins, I displayed photos of the happy couple through the years. 

Another dear friend with mad cake decorating skills made the cake. Sherri does this as a hobby that began when she helped me make a birthday cake for Hannah nine years ago (shared HERE). Starting with that very first one, Sherri caught the fondant cake-making bug and has since made over 50 amazing cakes for family and friends.

With help from Sherri and her daughter Michele (who is Hannah’s maid of honor), we came up with a few fun party games.

There were questions to answer, faux engagement rings to steal, ages to guess, and more... 

I also asked each guest to fill out a card offering “Advice and Wishes for the Soon-to-be Mrs.” that I placed in a handmade album for Hannah to take home and share with her fiancé.

Speaking of her fiancé, he showed up near the end of the shower with a beautiful bouquet for his beautiful bride-to-be.

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Susan
Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. I’d love to hear from you!

Our MV Cottage Wishlist, a Lucky Rock & a Letter from John

Over the last 11 years of blogging, I’ve shared our various fun-filled family trips to Martha’s Vineyard with you. As you may know, for over three decades, we rented an array of lovely summer homes there. But we always longed to own a little piece of MV heaven. Once our kids were done with college, we realized that we could finally afford to fulfill our dream. We searched in earnest for two years before we found the perfect place — a modest and well-kept cottage in the pastoral town of West Tisbury. Upon entering the house for the first time, both John and I knew it was “the one” because it ticked off each and every one of the boxes on our wishlist.

When we toured the house with our realtor Emma on that cold December morning, it was one of a long list of houses to see. And since we were on the island for only that one day, we had a lot to accomplish. After viewing all of the properties, we got a very good sense of how our favorite compared to others in its price range. In our eyes, there was really no comparison. It was exactly what we wanted! However, it was just above our maximum price. Isn’t that always the way?

We had a lot of thinking and financial calculating to do before we would feel comfortable putting in an offer. We toured the house for a second time that afternoon and then headed to the ferry landing. With a few minutes to spare before our boat home, we stopped by a nearby beach for a moment. It was blustery and I stayed in the car while John took a quick stroll to the water’s edge. When he returned, he was holding a small rock in his hand. We took it home to CT hoping that this little piece of the island would bring us luck in our upcoming negotiations.

Knowing how difficult it is to find desirable houses in our price range, time was of the essence. So the next day, we put in an offer. We also knew how competitive the MV market is and felt we needed something to help the sellers know more about us. We decided to include a letter written by John about his 50+ year connection to the island. Next came a bit of countering back and forth. We also learned that there were two additional offers from potential buyers on the table. Even so, they chose to accept our offer. We were told that it was John’s letter that tipped the scales in our direction!

After doing a happy dance, we placed our lucky rock on the windowsill above the kitchen sink where it still sits today.

Soon I’ll invite you inside our new MV cottage, so please stop by again.

Susan
Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. I’d love to hear from you!

Welcome to Our MV Cottage!

As you may know, John and I finally fulfilled our long held dream of owning a home on our beloved Martha’s Vineyard. It has been a year since we purchased it and I hoped to share it with you sooner. But life got it the way. So here is my first in a series of posts devoted to our little piece of MV island paradise. Let’s start with the exterior...

Our sweet little cottage built in the mid-1990s seems like a mere baby compared to our 93-year-old stone and shingle CT home. Located in the pastoral mid-island town of West Tisbury, it is part of an association with a neighborhood swimming pool and tennis courts. Nestled back from the road on just over an acre of property, our place has loads of privacy.

The home’s previous owners planted lovely flowering shrubs in the garden as well as enclosing and winterizing a screened porch. What really sold us on this house was how move-in ready it was. After doing extensive renovations to our CT cottage, we had no desire to embark on any more remodeling projects.

Our house boasts a large back deck with plenty of room for lounging, dining and grilling as well as an outdoor shower, perfect for rinsing off sand after a day at the beach. 

The view from the deck is quite serene. Our property has a little shed in one corner and backs up to conservation land. Just beyond that is the Manuel F. Correllus State Forest which has miles of hiking trails and paved bike paths.

Once we closed on our MV digs, we were happy to find that the previous owners left us an array of home decor items, one of which was an old window screen with an arched shape and shabby green paint. I decided to turn it into a welcome sign. Here’s how...

I chose a typeface on my computer, printed out the word “Welcome” and enlarged it to the proper size on my copier. Then I cut it out, spaced out the letters and taped them to the back of the screen. Using cream-colored acrylic paint and a small brush, I simply traced over the black letters. Once the paint dried, I removed the paper template — and voilà! 

I planned to hang my refurbished screen in the foyer, but there wasn’t enough room on the wall for it. I then decided to try the space above the front door. It’s a perfect fit!

It took us three months to feather our MV nest — loads of work and somewhat of a challenge to furnish a house on an island. But for me, it was truly a labor of love. In subsequent posts, I hope you’ll come along as I take you inside. 

Susan
Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. I’d love to hear from you!

Spike, Our Pet Frog, Turns 20!

In February of 1998, our then 4-year-old son Jacob headed off to a friend’s birthday party. When I picked him up at the end of the afternoon, I was surprised to find an unusual item in his party favor bag — a baby frog! The birthday boy’s mom thought it would be fun to give the guests frogs in small jars of water to take home. Crazy, right? Although Jacob was happy, John and I weren’t thrilled to have an instant pet. We didn’t even have a proper tank to put it in, let alone frog food. So I quickly did research online and learned that this sudden addition to our family was an aquatic African clawed frog. With that knowledge in hand, we headed out to the pet store to get the appropriate supplies. Once we got our baby frog set up in his new home on the kitchen counter, Jacob promptly named him Spike. 

And now, 20 years later, Spike is still going strong! Plus, out of all of the partygoers’ frogs, he is the only one that is still alive. Why has Spike lived so long? We’re not really sure. Perhaps it’s because we have only used spring water in his tank. Or that we have a cover on the tank so he can’t jump out and go exploring. But I believe it is due to the fact that for all these years, his tank has been front and center on our kitchen counter, right in the thick of things. Spike gets to see us come and go. And I think he likes watching John cook dinner every evening.

Susan
Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. I’d love to hear from you!

My Etsy Listing To-Do List

I like to spend my days finding, making and sharing items with you in my Etsy shop. My latest acquisitions are shown below. Once these treasures are in hand, I begin to create their Etsy listings. That’s when I truly miss my brick and mortar antiques shop. I long for the days when a patron would simply walk in the door, fall in love with an item, buy it, and take it home — all in a matter of minutes. 

Now that I sell online, the process is a bit more complicated. Each item you see in my shop is cleaned, photographed and written about with the utmost of care. Once it is purchased, it must be securely packed for shipment to virtually anywhere around the globe.

So... if you ever see something on this blog or in my Instagram feed that you can’t live without, please feel free to contact me before it makes its Etsy debut. I’d be more than happy to sell it to you directly and circumvent the time-eating listing process entirely!

Wishing you a wonderful weekend,

Susan
Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. I’d love to hear from you!

Susan
Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. I’d love to hear from you!

Snow Day = Sew Day

We have had quite an abominable winter so far with super cold temperatures and lots of snow. And it’s only early January! Just last week, normal activity ground to a halt when a massive East Coast storm blew in. 

If I have to be housebound, there is no place I’d rather be than in my cozy studio. So during the storm, I decided to hunker down and spend the day channeling spring by sewing pennant banners out of cheerful vintage textiles.

I have saved snippets of favorite fabrics for years. Most were once useful kitchen items (tablecloths, tea towels, curtains, etc.) but they had seen better days. However, they still had lots of usable bits, so why not cut them up and repurpose them?

Usually I make my textile garlands out of triangular flags of all the same fabric. But this time, I chose to mix things up resulting in a fun, happy medley of color and pattern. I had just enough to make three different lengths of bunting. Aren’t they pretty?

I love how they turned out. Soon all three will make their Etsy shop debut, perhaps by the end of the week.

Stay warm and safe this winter. And when all else fails . . . get creative!

Susan
Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. I’d love to hear from you!

Sending My Best Wishes to You

In these final days of 2017, wishing you and yours a healthy, peaceful and oh so happy new year!

Susan
Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. I’d love to hear from you!

West Elm Pop-Up Prep: Making Vintage Textile Collages, Zippered Pouches & More

Did you know that West Elm graciously offers artists the opportunity to sell handmade wares at their home decor stores? How great is that?! My local Westport, CT store is hosting pop up shops throughout the holiday season and I am so pleased to be one of the artists this year. With my first pop-up fast approaching, I’ve been busily making things to sell. Here is what I’ve been up to...

In my Etsy shop, I sell Swatch Portraits utilizing humble embroidery hoops that frame vintage fabric. To shake things up a bit, I began making textile collages featuring remnants of favorite fabrics, embroidered bits and rick-rack sewn together in a happy design. And once I got started, I just couldn’t stop! 

For kicks, I put them up on the wall of my studio. I love how colorful they are and how they look all grouped together.

In the spirit of the season, I decided to make a bunch more using a Santa Train textile from the 1960s combined with a whimsical dotty fabric and yellow rick rack.

Aren’t they fun? I then embarked on another sewing project that enabled me to learn something new...

In all my years of sewing, I had never put a zipper in before. So I decided to be brave and create an array of zippered pouches made from a stash of yummy fabric remnants.

I am happy to report that zipper installation wasn’t nearly as hard as I expected. Here are my finished pouches...

Today, I am gathering, organizing and pricing all of the handmade items that will accompany me to the sale.

If you happen to find yourself in my area on Saturday, December 9, stop by and say hello at West Elm, 35 Main Street in Westport, CT. I’d love to see you! And for some last minute holiday shopping, I will be there again on Sunday, December 17.

Susan
Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. I’d love to hear from you!

From Our House to Yours . . .

Happy Thanksgiving!

Susan
Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. I’d love to hear from you!

Possibowlities

I adore vintage pottery mixing bowls. Why? Because of their many admirable qualities — they are solid, dependable, and oh so useful.

Perfect for stirring up cake or pancake batter, or as a serving bowl for tossed salad. I always have one filled with fresh fruit on our kitchen counter. And they do a great job of corralling a variety of colorful items in my studio.

So many possibowlities!

Susan
Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. I’d love to hear from you!

Tray Transformation

When I’m feeling crafty, I like to use the ancient art of decoupage as a way to inject new life into vintage objects that have seen better days. At a local thrift shop, I discovered a green metal serving tray that was just waiting to be refurbished. I realized its potential and scooped it up for a mere dollar.

The next day, I gathered materials for the project: tear sheets from old garden books, Mod Podge, an X-acto knife, a cutting board, and a collection of flower-shaped vintage buttons magnets.

After selecting various garden-themed images to use on the tray, I carefully cut them out. 

As I often do, I decided to use book pages with text as a background. I glued them in place and coated them with light beige paint to soften the black typography. 

Next, I arranged colorful wildflower drawings and black and white illustrations on top of the background, as well as the Latin names for the flowers I had chosen. When all of the elements pleased my eye, I coated the front of the tray with five layers of Mod Podge.

Now this tray is all ready to be of service in the kitchen, embellish a dresser, or grace a coffee table. And by adding six of my handmade button magnets in matching colors, it can do double-duty as a message board.

And there you have it! Of course, if you actually want to have it, you can find it for sale in my Etsy shop HERE.

Give this fun and easy decoupage project a try. If you do, be sure to let me know. I’d love to see a photo of your handiwork.

Susan
Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. I’d love to hear from you!

My Custom Art Globe in Germany’s Glamour Magazine

A couple of months ago, I was contacted by Nina, an editor at Glamour Magazine in Germany. She came across my Altered Art World Globes online — the ones that feature images from vintage primers of picket fences and friendly children at play. The upcoming October issue of Glamour was to have a piece on the European Union and Nina kindly asked me to create a custom globe with the same vibe for the article. But instead of having the usual words “We Are Neighbors,” she requested that it say “Wir sind Freunde” which means “We are Friends.” We searched far and wide for just the right  image of neighborly people about the same age as Glamour’s readers. Luckily, we found the perfect retro illustration at Getty Images.

I got right to work on the globe and here is the result...

And here it is in the October issue, now on newsstands in Germany. So exciting!

It was such fun to do a custom globe and so very nice to be discovered by someone from afar. Many thanks to Nina, and to Glamour Magazine!

Susan
Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. I’d love to hear from you!

Labor Day Savings in My Etsy Shop

Enjoy 10% off in my Etsy shop this Labor Day weekend! You’ll find reduced prices on an array of fun, whimsical items that are chock full of vintage goodness. This T-Party Antiques sale goes through Monday, September 4.

Have a nice holiday weekend. Happy shopping!

Susan
Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. I’d love to hear from you!

Instagram Color Stories

Visual styling has always come easily to me. For some reason that I can’t quite explain, I have a knack for arranging random objects into pleasing displays, whether on the shelves of a shop, in my own home, or on my Instagram feed, where lately I’ve been having fun creating these “color stories” using products that look happy together from my Etsy shop. 

 

 

 

 

 

Fun stuff, right? Thanks for stopping by!

Susan
Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. I’d love to hear from you!

SaveSaveSaveSave

SaveSave