Annual Fall Event

As much as I hate to see summer end, I love to decorate for fall. I love the rich colors of autumn and the crispness of the air. I am going to share photos of our sale and I hope you enjoy them!

Having the corn crib to decorate in is wonderful. Every season we decorate for is new and exciting for each one. As much as I love the shabby chic look I also love reds, golds and greens too. I love change so much that I redecorate constantly. Having my own cottage/studio gives me the opportunity to do just that.

My friend Tracy and I decorated the front room of the studio in whites with a little pastel mixed in here and there.

We also mixed in some greens and browns in the photo below. The steps were a wonderful find and perfect to set up displays on. It is so much fun to use architectural cast offs and give them a new life.

Our back room of the cottage was decorated in the gold, red and black colors. The fireplace mantel was made from old barnwood.

Outside in the courtyard we brought out all the pinks. They looked so great with all the flowers and herbs as a backdrop.

We are going to have our second weekend fall sale coming up on Aug.22 and 23. I have been busy painting away and rearanging for customers to come and shop. I love to revamp and have them return and be surprised at the difference.

With the end of summer approaching and the end of my sales for the summer I am looking forward to fall house cleaning and preparing my gardens for the winter. I am also very excited to say that very soon I will be offering prints of my paintings! I will keep you informed on that when I have more to tell.

Thanks for visiting and check back as I will have more photos of this next weekends sale!

Blessings to you and yours! ~ Nichole

Mid-Summer Arts and Crafts Show

Wow, where does the time go! It has been over a month since my last post. Summers are so busy and it is almost half over. I feel like I have not slowed down to enjoy it. This weekend our town held our mid-summer arts and crafts show down by Spirit Lake. My friend Tracy and I coordinate the event for our local C&C.

This year was especially fun for us because we invited our junking friends to join the show. It was such a blast to share and laugh with these ladies. We love and admire each others talents and different styles. We joke that we just keep buying from each other and eventually something will eventually work its way around to all of us.

Of course with these talented ladies joining our show, I had to step up my game a bit! I wanted to make sure I had nice display for my creations. I asked my hubby to make me something that was light enough to transport, and still be a big statement. So between the two of us we came up with this arbor made of corn-crib panelling and barn wood. It was a wonderful airy back drop for my art.

Our other display piece is one of my favorites too as it is my hubbies childhood swing set. When we hauled it out of the woods a couple years ago, Justin thought I was crazy LOL! What on earth was I going to do with that pile of rusted metal?! Of course in my mind I thought of many neat things I could do with it. So now this worn out, well loved swing set is now a fun display piece.

Tracy's "up north" art and my garden crafts display nicely on it. Originally this swing sets braces were bent and rusted, so Justin took them off and made new braces out of barn wood. Then more barn wood was used for a table. Its next use I think will be a buffet table for our next BBQ, or maybe I will have stools made and it can be a table for seating! Can you imagine that, and having a lovely garden chandelier hanging from the bar as a centerpiece hehe?!! What fun!! If I do that I will take many pictures and share them with you.

Besides working on getting ready for the craft show I have been busy in my garden. I have finally gotten a handle on the weeding by amending my soil and mulching. Wow, what a difference that makes! My flowers are doing better than they ever have. I still have a lot of work to do and some of my flower beds are needing some tlc. Gardening takes patience and it sometimes takes years to see results.

Two of my favorites are pictured above ~peonies and roses. I am hoping my roses survive as I have always dreamed of having roses. Between the cold winters and the animals I have not had much success with them. These roses above are a hardy species and I have been told they should survive the winter.

Ahh, summers are too short. I will miss working in my gardens and will look at these pictures longingly this winter. Spring and Summer are definitely my favorite seasons. I feel so alive when I am out in my yard working. It is where I feel close to God and I thank him for my many blessings.

I hope you are having a wonderful summer, and I will talk to you again very soon!!

Blessings to you and yours! ~ Nichole

What a beautiful day!!

Hello all! What a beautiful day we had for our sale! Many weeks of creating and preparation came before the big day. Besides all the time it takes in shopping for treasures and then recreating them, I was also hard at work creating a magical place to visit. We had old treasured friends come back to visit us and made some new friends that we hope will return to see what else we bring in our future sales. I thank each and everyone of you who came!

I took many pictures of this special day and would love to share them with you. I hope you enjoy looking at them and wish you could have been here in person to share it with us!

It is always fun when we have our sales because with every one we have it different for every sale. Our last sale was our Holiday Boutique sale and we hold it over deer season. We coordinate it with other talented women who have the same kind of sales and make it into a holiday tour. For this sale we went with a garden theme. I love to mix rustic and romance. In fact it is my passion!! I love to take "junk" and make it beautiful! Old things have soul and were lovingly used. I love to give it new life and make everyday purposeful items beautiful and useable again.

This is the back half of my studio, which is where I do a lot of my painting and creating. It rarely looks nice like this as it is quite messy when I am making things. This winter as I was building my web site business I also repainted every surface of my studio. I love the warm yellow on the walls. For this sale I displayed the items in this room that I have painted and are featured on my web site.

I wish I could show you a better picture of my ceilings as they are quite neat. My friend Tracy and I did a tissue paper technique on them and then this winter I finally painted them creating a sky effect. On my floors I painted a faux stone look on the concrete floor. It was a lot of work, but very rewarding.

This is my corncrib gazeebo that I display in for my sales. It is so much fun to decorate and for this sale we went with a romantic garden feel.

This beautiful garden bench was made by my husband Justin. It is created from an old metal headboard and some reclaimed barnwood. Sitting on top of it is a flower box made out of barnwood and peices of an old fence. I love it when he helps me!

These lovely girls are my daughter Alison and my friend's daughter Alexis. Tracy and I thought it would be lovely to have them be a part of our sale and they were great! They were the perfect little hostesses and sold lemonade and cookies. The girls were set up on the porch of Alison's playhouse and it was a picture of sweetness!!

This above is my outhouse that I had my husband bring over from a farm from out of town. The fence behind it came from the dump. Can you tell I love old things LOL!? For this sale we decorated it in a retro red and aqua theme. My friend Merry who creates all the lovely pillows and linen creations has love for this style, along with the romantic country style, so a lot of her creations were displayed in there. She has made a beautiful and functional line of aprons that I will be adding to the site very soon.


This picture was taken after my sale had ended and I was reflecting on what a beautiful day it had turned out to be. God had shined down on us and I was blessed with the glorious weather and wonderful friends who came out to share it with us. I also want to say a big thank you to my Mom who always comes for my sales and helps out. She is a beautiful loving and giving person! She is also a wonderful talented artist and I cannot wait for her to add her touch to my web site.

Thank you to you too for visiting and letting me share this day with you. It is a dream come true for me to be able to do this. Also I have to thank my husband and children for being patient with me when I am getting ready for these sales! I am looking forward to relaxing a bit and spending some quality time with them.

Hope you have a wonderful and blessed day!! Hugs ~ Nichole

Cottage Sale

Hi there! It has been a while since I last entered a new post, but I have been very busy!! With spring finally here I have been gardening my little heart out and it has been pure heaven. I have 40 acres of beautiful dream land. For the last 4 years I have been planting gardens and landscaping our property. Unfortunately we have very sandy soil, so some of my gardening has been done in vain. A few weeks ago my husband brought home some organic soil and I was jumping and clapping my hands like a little girl.

Besides amending my soil and adding mulch I have also been painting the exterior of my studio and daughters playhouse. I painted the trim a color called "dinasour" and the shutters a color called "lollipop". I wanted to paint them the colors in my flowers around my gardens. After painting the pink on the shutters I decided it was a little too powerful so I toned it down with an antique white dry brush technique. I was a lot more calmer and satisfied with it after I did that.

My studio and daughters playhouse was built by my husband Justin, with as much salvaged materials as we could claim. The playhouse was built for Alison for her birthday last summer. She calls it her studio and pretends to be like me. It is amazing what they pick up, as I watch her imitate me and decorate her place. I hope it will make wonderful memories for her.

The new addition to our property came this weekend when Justin and our friend Matt put up my second corn crib "gazeebo". The first one I had put up next to my studio for my sales to set up in.

It was quite a feat to disassemble them and then put them back together. When they disassembled them they were two panels high, each 12 feet tall. It was a very long day when they brought them home and assembled the first one. The second one was placed on top of my sunny garden and is the perfect back drop for it. The pictures below show them putting it together....

I am so lucky to have a husband and good friends to help out and build these things that I dream up. When I first said I wanted a corn crib for a gazeebo I got some crazy looks, but when they see it they like it. I hope to grow vines on them so they can almost be like private rooms. In this gazeebo I want to hang a loveseat style porch swing.

This morning I lived a dream of mine and I walked out to look at all my gardens with my cup of coffee and just soaked in the beauty. God's miracles were all around me and I felt contentment. As I stood inside my gazeebo the birds were singing and it sounded so neat as it echoed under the tin roof. I cannot wait to see how my gardens blossom with all the work amending the soil. In the corn planter above I hope to put some beautiful cascading annuals in the pots.



Well with all that work behind me I have been getting ready for my annual sale. Along with my creations my friends Tracy and Merry add their talents. Our sale is this Saturday on June 7th. As always these sales are a lot of work and I never know if I am ever going to pull it off. There is so much that I want to do and just never enough time!! The postcards are out and I hope that a lot of you reading have gotten yours and are excited to come again!

I will try and update you all on how my week of painting and planning is going. I will also be showing you pictures of all our creations!! Stay tuned, and blessing to you!! ~ Nichole

Think Spring!!!!

I hope you are all having a glorious, beautiful, sunny spring day!! Sadly as I look out my window it is dreary and they are calling for rain and snow. Here in Northern Minnesota we have been hit hard with late snow storms. All I can do is just THINK SPRING!! ~ and know it won't last, so I thought I would share some of my photos of my gardens of years past with you, in hopes of spring. I hope you enjoy!!

This is my sunny wildflower garden. Every year it is a little different and I love to see what each year brings! I got this perfectly rusty corn planter as a centerpiece for my rambling wildflowers.

These lovely flowers are called Angel Trumpets. These were grown by direct seeding and if left to go to seed will spread wildly. They are striking and beautiful, but if not placed right can overcrowd other plants. The beautiful white flowers only last a few days, but are lovely to see when they do.

I love this picture, with the light and shadows and brigh pink cosmos!!

This photo was taken in the morning overlooking our land from the gardens vantage point. We have a beautiful view over looking the beautiful Blueberry River bed.

These two flowering crabs are taken from my parents place. I have a few on my property but they are not this grand yet. One thing about gardening and growing is it teaches you lessons in patience. It is so fulfilling and rewarding to see the miracles of nature God blesses us with!


Wishing you a happy spring day!! Until next time~Nichole

Hello Friends!

Here we go!! This is exciting for me to begin my new blog! I have so many things I want to share with you and I can't wait. I am so passionate about repurposing old vintage decor and architecture. I love the thrill of the hunt and taking it home and bringing beauty to something well worn. The best finds are the free ones that someone tosses away. I will be sharing some photos of before and after.

Below are some photos of my studio that my loving and talented husband built. For years I have been collecting "junk" and was able to use it to build my studio. I especially love the leaded glass window inside. We have reclaimed barn wood and old siding throughout. I have seasonal sale events inside my studio with talented friends and artisans, and people always comment on how old and established the studio looks. They believe it an old building, when in fact it was built under two years ago.

My studio/cottage is 16' by 24'. I am so blessed to have my own space as a large canvas! I painted a faux wood floor in the front and a stone faux floor in the back. I have yet to paint the rugs on the floor, because I haven't figured out a design yet. I will likely paint my roses in oil in a pretty pattern. I have put coats of poly on it for I don't want to do that painting again for a long, long while, LOL!!! It is very labor intensive but has a very striking effect. Even my husband and his friend were impressed!

I also painted a sky up on the ceiling. My friend Tracy and I applied a tissue paper tecnique on the cieling when it was first built, and by painting the sky it brings the vaulted ceiling down and cozies up the room. I also found these old chandeliers on the cheap and painted and embelished them.

This hutch was one of my most expensive purchases, but sometime when you absolutely love something you just have to get it! I actually passed it up and couldn't get it off of my mind. I knew I had to have it, and was able to make payments on it.

I have been very busy revamping the studio for my upcoming sale event in June. I will also be concentrating on the back of my cottage which is where I do my painting. I love painting in oils. I not only love to paint roses on my peices but I love to paint children. I have so much on my plate it is hard to fit everything in, but I try!!

I also look forward to sharing my gardens with you, I am sooo excited to be working in my gardens after this long winter!

Thanks for visiting and I look forward to the next time!!

Blessings!

Nichole