If Ever You Find Yourself In The Area

I invite you to visit me in my little funky shop by the sea (also known as one bay of our garage).







Like this happy honeymooning couple did today! Rachel and Matt were just married on Saturday and had contacted me several months ago from a feature post that my sweet blog friend Kat at Low Tide High Style did on us. They hope to also get into pottery making some day and were interested in stopping by to see our pottery in person. Aren't they adorable? Can you tell they were just married?

I must warn you though, I don't have set hours, and I'm almost never open, but if you find yourself planning a trip here, I'd love to meet you, so just email me like Rachel did. Usually I can be found somewhere around here though, like on the shore collecting shells and sea glass to keep making other stuff to put in my shop that I'm rarely in.

And whenever we make any new pottery, the shop is a place to keep it.

Then when I'm in the car and Henri is driving, I like to knit and so I keep making these hand knit wool felted purses that end up in here too. Or some funky kind of driftwood hanging rack. Sometimes I even bring home vintage paintings of the sea and hang them in the shop that I rarely open.

My hand knit wool felted scarves end up here too, along with bird houses that I cover in shells. I even have a few vintage earrings and trinkets that I scatter around here and there.

I've been known to add shells to the frames of vintage paintings that I come across, and then paint them up in whatever colors I find in my paint box.

And I almost always get a little carried away with the glitter.

So if you visit, you will likely get some on you too, and we'll have fun!

Along Came A Spider

While outside with my friend Diane, she spotted this spider on one of my wild roses. As I ran back to the house to get my camera, I was hoping it would stay right there until I could take a picture. It did, so now I have a proper introduction to what I recently did to my downstairs kitchen.

Our house was built in the 60s, as you can tell from the wavy wood valance that was so popular to have back then. Blue painter's tape surrounds what became my jumping off point for my latest attempt to paint and distress yet another room.

I have been collecting ironstone plates and English silver plate, so I asked Henri to think of a phrase that would become a prominent part of my newly distressed kitchen. This is what he came up with. I used carbon paper to transfer the lettering that I printed out and enlarged and then used black paint to fill in the rest. When I finished I thought the black paint looked a little too stark, so I softened it with some chalk to fade it out a bit.

Next I needed a little layering for the window treatment, so I added some lace and stitched up some simple curtains in a fabric that reminded me of an antique linen (but it's not).

I even added a swagged ruffle to the curtain and left the edges frayed. Henri switched out the light fixture for a small chandelier. I left the natural wood in these 60s cabinets and distressed just the cabinet fronts. Then I took a picture for you from atop a chair because this is a very small kitchen.

I already had this wooden cherub shelf that I further distressed with some cream colored paint

Here's my ironstone soup tureen with some recent vintage copper finds.

I switched out my cabinet hardware for these ones that were less than a dollar a piece.

So were the bin pulls for the drawers. But they came in a shiny gold finish, so I hit them with a spray of ultra flat camo spray paint from Krylon.

My English silver plate clam shell serves as a soap dish.

And I found an antique mirror to help add the illusion of space to my tiny kitchen.

To tie into the dining area, I even changed out the "tuffet" part of my previously distressed dining chairs. This is the "before" that shows the tapestry fabric I covered them in 20 years ago.

Here's the "after" which is the same fabric I used for the kitchen curtains.

So glad that spider showed up when he did.

Because I was wondering just how I was going to explain what I did to that kitchen.

Rock Bound Coastal Kitchen

We spend a lot of time walking along the shore here, so when it came time to splurge on a couple slabs of granite for my tiny kitchen, I knew exactly what I wanted it to look like.

I wanted a slab of black granite with a rock-faced edge.

And I wanted the edges to follow an irregular line.

I got lucky and found someone willing to do this for me.

I also wanted a large under mount sink since we do not have a dishwasher (unless you count me) in our tiny kitchen.

Henri even made up some granite knobs for our kitchen cupboards from rocks we found on the shore.

We also used a few of our raku fish drawer pulls in here too.

When we moved here, there was already a little built-in diner booth, so I had a rock-faced slab of granite made for that too. I hung a tin *seahorse* as a backdrop to the diner booth.

The diner booth is built up on a little platform with 2 benches for seating.

On the edge of the platform I installed a little boat cleat.

And now I can easily serve all meals dockside, even on a rainy day. Although on sunny days, sometimes the *dishwasher* doesn't work real well.

Cabin Fever

About this time of year, all over Maine you can sense the beginning of ugly. I don't mean ugly as in unpleasant to look at, I'm talking ugly, as in having the temperament of a bear.

And yes, a lot of us here in Maine, tend to have at least 1 room in our house devoted to all things campy.

A room with lots of wood, where husbands would bristle at the mere mention of how a gallon of paint would sure do wonders to cheer up the place.




Fortunately, the State of Maine has come up with a cure for a mid-winter case of cabin fever.



It's a weekend of free fishing , which means you don't need to purchase a fishing license in order to fish, making it an affordable outing.




Interestingly enough, the free fishing weekend always coincides with Valentines Day. How romantic you say? Oh, and I'm talking ice fishing, where you drill holes in the ice, bait and set your trap and wait around in the cold for a flag to pop up, to let you know when you have a bite.

And let me just say, if I didn't enjoy going as much as I do, I would probably just stay home and dream about how a room of wood might look in a fresh coat of paint. Good thing I love my husband. Oh I really do.

Simplify Is My New Mantra

Today I decided to completely clear the space that I blog from of any unnecessary clutter. Gone is my bulky 3 in 1 printer, scanner, fax and in it's place there is a lamp. I have a favorite painting on the wall in front of me and a comfortable chair for me and also one for someone who may want to sit and chat.

No more tangles of cords either. I had my land phone disconnected and we will now rely solely on our cell phone. I may eventually miss my printer, but for now the plan is to hand write anything I wish to keep a copy of.

Although I've been using this table for my desk for a while now, I still enjoy looking at the chippy paint worn away from it's lovely hand painted scene.

Here's a closeup of the brass embellishment used to help protect the leg corners.

The painting above my desk is a pastoral scene with a young Dutch girl walking along a path.

My lamp shade is old beer bottle sea glass, that I strung with wire on a lamp base I found on clearance a few years ago.

It feels much better already, but will I miss my printer? Only time will tell.

January Thaw Color Cravings

This time of year finds me out in our backyard looking for a little color to stash in our empty glass wall vases. This may be a bit challenging though, in our snow covered landscape.

Even my watering can is a welcome burst of color against the backdrop of melting snow.

Ahhhh . . . now we're talking! But, moss covered boulders are a little too heavy to carry inside.

But not so with these lichen covered branches!



And no water needed.

A few sprays of evergreen branches and a couple red twigs later

when paired with my 3 lovely dried hydrangeas, it suddenly becomes a feast for my eyes!

Mission accomplished and craving satisfied. Life is good in a Northern town.