24 Olive Street

hey there!

I realize it's been quite a while since I've blogged. I didn't realize just how long til I looked and...whoa, nearly 2 months??!! Although, I'm not sure if it matters. Anyone still following my little blogerooni??!!

Hello?? lol

If you're on Instagram you can find me @24olivestreet. I post there more frequently. And facebook here. But I really want to get back into blogging.

A couple weeks ago I was a vendor at the Fancy Farmgirl Vintage Market. Getting ready for that took up a lot of my time the past month. This show is a lot of fun and this year it was almost twice as big as last year. Great vendors, great customers, great time! And I was totally exhausted after!!

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Mother's Day was absolutely fabulous. I had mentioned to the hubs last week that I thought it odd that despite the fact that I love flowers and love to garden no one ever gets me flowers for Mother's Day {hint hint} So I got a gift certificate to my favorite nursery, great handmade cards, and a beautiful hanging basket.

Guess the hints worked ;)

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I've been working on lots of projects, like these for Noel Mignon:

More on my Disney travel journal here.

More on my "So You" mini-album here.

Noel's kits always have me inspired. They are filled to the brim with scrappy goodness (seriously, you won't find another kit club out there that gives you this much bang for your scrappy buck as these kits!). We have a Disney trip coming up this summer (so stinkin' excited!!!) and I'm planning on using some of the Pack Your Bags kits for another travel journal. We also have something pretty cool coming up this summer so if you're not following Noel Mignon head over to Facebook & Instagram to keep up with all of the latest & greatest news!!

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And these for Sweet Stamp Shop:

It's been so much fun getting back into card making & stamping again. I had gotten out of it a little bit over the last few years and it's been so much fun creating fun cards again!! Nicole always comes up with the cutest stamps every month. And the planner stamps...oh the planner stamps. Love them all!!

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So, despite the fact that we are in the middle of baseball season & counting down the days til summer vacation (and our summer Disney vacation!! Woohoo!!!) I have a lot more projects I'll be sharing here :)

Changes

I mentioned in one of my last posts that I was feeling the need to make some changes for 2015. Not 'resolutions' (I don't really do those) but just changes I need to make in the coming months to basically keep my sanity.

Unfortunately, one of those changes is that I've decided to leave Paint in my Hair. I love being a vendor there but I've found that I just can't keep up doing it all by myself and having 3 kids who are still relatively young (esp my little one who's just 3 1/2). It's especially hard when my husband has crazy hours at work...which seems to be the norm lately. I might still consign pieces from time to time but I won't have a booth anymore as of the end of this month. It's not something I wanted to do but rather something I needed to do. I began realizing just how much time I'm spending that is taking away from my little one. In just a year and a half she's going to be going to Kindergarten and I just don't want to waste that time with her. Plus, with having Crohn's it's just become too physically demanding for me at times and I'm finding that it's taking a toll on me health wise.

I will still do a couple shows a year, the next one being Fancy Farmgirl Vintage Market in Moses Lake, WA in May. I had a lot of fun at that show last year and I've become good friends with Shannon who runs the show. It's also a way for me to spend time with my son who comes with me to help. Plus, it's a 1 day shows and those are so much easier to do for me (esp when the show is out of town). This year the show is going to be over twice as big so I'm really looking forward to it! So that's what I'll be working on over the coming months.

However, I won't be doing Junk Drunk again this year. I love this show as well and Candice is just plain awesome. But with shows that are out of town I really need to start looking at what is feasible for me cost-wise. Yes, I do it partially for the fun of it. But I also need to make money. But you will definitely see me there as a customer for sure!!

This year I would really like to open my Etsy shop back up. It's been way too long. Part of the problem I've found over the past year is that my creativity is being zapped simply because I'm exhausted. And that is the main reason I need to cut back on having a booth and doing certain shows. It's quite a bummer to want to create but have no gas in the tank to do it so to speak.

So this year I'm going to spend more quality time with my little one. Spend more time being creative. Spend more time doing things that I love.

5:30am

Holy crap, that's early!

That's what time we have to get up to get my daughter to school for morning volleyball practices. Actually, it's more like somewhere between 5:15-5:30am.

It's not every day but a few times a week is more than enough to make my desire to quit Coke go on the back burner...at least a little. Need my caffeine!!! Try and try again, right??

I got back from Fancy Fall Fest Saturday night. It was a great show, met some great people, including a few people I'd met at previous shows...love that! Shows are always fun and exhausting.

My boy came with me to help :) As he gets older I'm finding he's a great help to me at these shows, especially the ones that are further away where my hubby can't help (cause he's home with the little one).

I picked up this adorable necklace for Addie from SKA Designs. Addie loved it! She wore it to church the next day and said it was her amulet so she could talk to animals. Oh my the cuteness :)

We even had a rainbow at the end of the show :)

We still haven't carved our pumpkins so today will be the day! We've had cold & rainy weather but today it's someone nice & clear. And since my daughter doesn't have an afternoon practice we're going to get to it right after school so we can have all that mess out on the back porch and not in my kitchen!

The kids actually got 2 pumpkins each (we all did)...one to carve and a smaller one to paint. I thought that'd be a fun thing to do this year!

Raindrops on leaves = pretty neat

I've been working on getting all of these apples cooked & canned. The first batch was apple butter cooked in the crockpot overnight, then blended with my immersion blender & canned. The aroma from apple butter cooked in the crock pot all night = heavenly!

Tonight I'll do a batch of applesauce. I still have some apples in the freezer bagged for apple pie so I probably won't do much of that.

I also just picked up my Zaycon order. If you don't know about Zaycon you can head to their website. I've only ordered chicken because most other foods I buy organic. But if you're interested I'll be doing a blog post probably next week about how I "process" 40lbs of chicken for freezer meals.

Oh, and I have a bunch of tomatoes that are about to go bad if I don't make a batch of salsa and soon!!

I'm not sure why I always do this to myself. I do it with flowers & gardening, too. I have all of these lofty plans of what I want to do without realizing just how busy my week is!!

By the way, subscriptions for Noel Mignon kits are open for Jan-June and if you sign up by Friday you get free gift(s) with your sub! You can head here to check it out! I've been receiving her kits for years and they are, by far, the best value for the money that you'll find out there. Plus, they're just awesome :)

I'm working on some fun layouts with the Early Autumn kit that I'll be sharing tomorrow!

Wow, has it been a month already??!

I can't believe it's been a month since I blogged last! Where did the time go?? I think with Typepad being down a bit this month it totally threw me off. Then I was getting ready for my next show so it was busy busy busy!!

Speaking of shows, last weekend was the Fancy Farmgirl Vintage Market in Moses Lake, WA. I was excited to take part in this show because there was nothing like it in the area and it was the first show for Shannon. That being said, most of us vendors had no idea what to expect.

I'm happy to say it turned out to be a fantastic show!!! People did not stop pouring in for the first 2 hours!!! And after that there was still a steady flow of people almost til the end.

I met so many wonderful customers all day long. And my vendor neighbors on either side were super nice & I had such a fun time chatting with them :)

Here's a few pics of my booth:

I made a new sign for the show since my other one is kind of a pain to drag along.

And my helper who came with me ;)

I think there was probably a few women who unknowingly were walking around with chalk dust on their bums with it being so crowded the first couple of hours ;)

My son and I stayed the night on Friday and ate dinner at Rock Top Burgers. The burgers were good but oh.my.gosh. the mozzerella curds were to die for. I could've shoved my face full of them til I got sick!!

I was thoroughly exhausted after the show (as I always am!) but it was such a great weekend.

I can't wait til next year!!

And now it's time to get ready for our trip to Disneyland that is fast approaching!

bad doggy

We've had a problem with counter surfing in my house. And the overall chewing of things when I'm gone. Never when I'm home...always when I'm gone. Even if I only leave for 15 minutes.

For the longest time I thought it was Copper (my golden). Because Tucker (my lab) has never done that before.

Until now that is.

I ran out for about 15 minutes the other day and came home to a package of flour on the living room carpet (that he grabbed off the kitchen counter).

And Tucker with his mouth & nose full of flour.

I have to say, it was the funniest thing I'd seen him do in a long time!!

I couldn't be mad at him cause I was laughing too hard!

Oh man, this still makes me laugh!

And thanks to this little fiasco I was able to nail down the real culprit...and he now gets to be in a crate when we're gone :(

But don't feel bad for him, it's only temporary. And honestly, he kinda likes it.

I also got some help cleaning up the flour :)

I sure wish that Minnie Mouse vacuum actually cleaned up the floors cause she loves helping me clean!

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I was up in Colville for Junk Drunk last weekend. Great show as always and I had great neighbors from Nebraska Lane. Check out this bag I bought from them.

Totes ma goats!! haha Had to have it!!

It was a great weekend. I wore my apron from craft weekend :)

My hubby made this bench for me out of a headboard. He's made a few now so he's getting pretty good at it! I painted it in Annie Sloan Duck Egg paint.

I got this old table from a sweet customer at Pickin' on the Prairie last year. She said "I know you can do something with it!" Yes I can!

I had my hubby chip away at some of the paint but I left some of it on there (hello, green & blue chippy paint?? Swoon!!). I sealed in the chippy goodness with some poly & added some old fence boards for the top & sealed those with poly as well.

I was a little sad to see this table go because I envisioned it as my new gardening table in my backyard but it went to a super sweet new owner :)

And my son came with me as my helper for the weekend so that made it even more fun :)

This is a dresser I dropped off at the store before heading up to Junk Drunk for the weekend...and my son's photobomb :) This piece actually used to be my oldest daughter's dresser and then we used it as an entertainment center before redoing the new one. I painted the exterior in a mixture of Provence & Pure White (Annie Sloan chalk paint) and it's sealed in clear wax.

After a few days away I couldn't wait to get back to this little one!

Cause these days of craziness and preteen hormones, this little one likes me best :)

And now it's back to baseball, soccer, flag football...and getting ready for the Fancy Farmgirl Vintage Market (name changed from "Chic" Farmgirl) on May 10th!!

this, that...and the other

I'm back from Craft Weekend. I literally had to take all of Monday to stay in my pjs and be lazy (with the exception of running to McD's to get the kids pancakes for breakfast). Cause I wasn't cooking after getting home at 1am.

The boy & I (and the pups) watched Back to the Future 1&2 and I fell asleep halfway through the 2nd movie. At, like, 2:00 in the afternoon. I was sooo tired. Spending 12hrs in an airport will do that to ya!

I don't want to share too many photos here cause I'm planning on doing a separate post on Craft Weekend....cause it deserves it :)

I had fun. And met a bunch of great people.

But as life goes I had to jump right back into things...soccer practices, baseball practices & lessons, vet appts...

A self-imposed time-out...cause that's apparently better than mom giving her one??! She screamed at the top of her lungs several times. At our vet appt. I'm sure the entire place heard her.

{sigh}

That's her latest "thing"...she's mad about something, doesn't get her way, you won't give her what she wants, whatever...she screams. And she.is.loud.

So now when I say "if you do that again you're getting a time out!" she pouts, shrugs her shoulders, crosses her arms, at puts herself in a time-out. Kind of like a "I'll show you" kind of thing.

Toddlers are fun!!! haha

Junk Drunk is coming up this weekend!

So excited for this show. I met so many great people last year!

My son is coming with me as my helper and we're gonna stay the weekend instead of driving back and forth every day like I did last year. That was too exhausting since it's over an hour just one way.

And they serve food. I love a show that has food ;)

I've been working on a lot of furniture for the show, my booth and my house.

Finished up the toddler bed for my little one.

Got this bed for 25 bucks at a consignment sale. But it was wood and the girls have white furniture in their room so I painted it with Pure White (Annie Sloan chalk paint) and used clear poly (I was not waxing all of those slats!).

Turned out cute! And Addie loves it :)

I also took a new vanity down to the store yesterday.

Originally this piece was going to go in my girls' room. But sadly it was just too big. It has a huge mirror on it which I just love! I sanded and refinished the top and painted the rest in Duck Egg (Annie Sloan chalk paint).

(I used the same paint & stain as I did with my entertainment center redo)

I also have a cute little vanity chair that looks cute with it!

So that's what's going on....lots of painting & getting ready to set up for the show tomorrow in between normal life stuff!!

planning & dreaming

In my family we're big Disney fans.

Huge.

We went to Disney several times when we lived in TN and GA...especially in GA because we were just 6 hours from the happiest place on earth!

The last time we went was in January '11 and I was about 3 1/2 mos prego. I've actually done 2 trips to Disney prego.

It's hard to believe it's been over 3 yrs since we've gone but in that time we've moved across country and had a baby...so we've been a little busy! ha

Our trips were usually every couple years for the most part. It's our one big family vacation that we save up for.

And while there are so many other places we'd love to visit, there's just nothing like the magic that only Disney can deliver while your kids are small!

We've decided that we're going to take our first trip to Disneyland this year and we're all super excited!

It's been a bit difficult trying to figure out when to take our trip. My oldest will be starting middle school in the fall so I really don't want to take her out of school. I also do not want to go during the peak season...having Crohn's disease makes it nearly impossible to deal with big crowds. I know my limitations. They were running specials for the beginning of this year but we just don't have the money saved up just yet. So right now it's looking like our trip might be in middle/late August. But nothing has been finalized yet.

But it's so exciting to plan and dream!!

And aside from it being our first time there it will also be Addie's first Disney trip.

So, of course, since we've been dreaming of our Disney trip we've been watching a lot of videos, reading travel books, looking online, and reminissing at old trips in our scrapbooks. There's just nothing like a Disney trip if you're a true Disney fan :)

I've also thought about doing some posts related to Disney trips, what I've learned, favorite must-do's, etc since I've had many friends ask me for advice over the years. So I've been pulling together what I want to share in a few posts...soon :)

Craft Weekend!!!

In other travel news...I'm excited to be going to Craft Weekend in April (you can read about it on Meg's blog here). I've been a follower of her blog for years and I think I've been on the waiting list for at least a year and a half. When I got the email the spots filled up super fast...I got the last one!

I had a little bit of guilt in deciding to go to this. It's a lot of money. And taking a flight halfway across the country - by myself - is a little unnerving. Don't get me wrong, I'm very independent. I've done multi-state road trips with just me and the kids. I've done plenty of weekends away without my family. But I always had someone with me (even if I was the only adult). This time it will just be me with a bunch of people I've never met.

But I'm excited. I'm excited to do something new. To meet new people. To make some fun crafts. And to go to an antiques store :)

And I know the weekend is going to be here before I know it!

I've also been doing a bit of planning for upcoming shows.

How I want to set up my space. How I want things to look. Working on projects. It's a fun job but definitely time consuming and exhausting at times!

So far this year I'm planning on being in Junk Drunk in April and Chic Farmgirl Vintage Market in May. If you're local you can click the links to get more info and I'll be sharing more when the dates get closer. Junk Drunk was a lot of fun last year so I'm looking forward to being part of that again. And Chic Farmgirl Vintage Market is brand new so that's pretty exciting! I'm not sure about Pickin' On The Prairie this year as it may conflict with our Disney trip. Kind of a bummer but I'm a bit limited on when we can take our trip for various reasons.

Like most junkers, my dream one day is to be part of The Farm Chicks. But since I have a little one at home and it's pretty much just me & the hubby with our kiddos here in WA and it's just not a possibility right now. Not to mention I just don't have the time that others have to work on stuff with having a little one at home. And I don't want to waste away the few years she's home with me.

But I'm hoping when my kids are a bit older one or both of my older kids can help at shows which they actually sometimes do right now. My son has already said he wants to come with me to Junk Drunk again this year! He enjoyed working that one with me last year :)

So you could say we're doing lots of planning and dreaming at our house lately!!

Pickin' On The Prairie // 2013

Another great show!! Brenda and Ron are such great hosts & all of the vendors & customers at the show are just wonderful!

Although I may have scared Brenda a bit since I showed up so late to set up! Let's just say it was a long day and leave it at that. But everything was set up in time and all was good :)

I made a new sign for the show out of some old fence wood I picked up last month and some fun rusty letters!

I have a couple signs out of those great rusty letters that I'll have available at Paint In My Hair later this week!

One of my other favorite things I worked on was this fun play kitchen out of a tv stand.

No kitchen is complete without a chalkboard!!

Tilley came by to visit my booth :) My kids just love her!

And they also had a guy doing amazing balloon animals for the kids!

It was a great weekend....and now I'm exhausted!

And it's time to get my house back in shape as it has been so neglected over the past few weeks!!

Junk Drunk 2013

Whew. Another one for the books so to speak :) It was another great show filled with great vendors (seriously, some super nice people!), great customers and...great junk!

As with every show, I learned a bit more about what I want to do next time. Each time I feel like my booth gets a bit better...still not where I want it to be but taking baby steps each time.

There's a lot of time spent loading up...

And then, of course, heading out to set up. This was a bit longer of a drive...about 64 miles one way. But it was a beautiful drive.

And then there's the unloading & setting up (excuse some of the blurry/grainy pics...all were taken with my phone).

Kids keeping busy with electronics...

Thank God for my Kindle so Addie could watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse :) It's not always easy doing this 'job' while having a little one!

And here's more pics from my space...

After the 1st day the idea hit me to add chalkboard paint to those trunks so I took them home that night & painted them. The next day...gone!

And one of my favorite pieces...

Here's a better pic before we loaded up that morning...

It was a lot of work but I was so happy with how it turned out. I loved how the color of the wood underneath peeked through when I distressed it.

I went back and forth as to what to do with the back of the hutch. I didn't want to paint it and every fabric I tried didn't work. Then it hit me - burlap! It ended up being perfect.

And now it's in a new home :)

I also picked up a couple treasures for myself, including this great old gumball machine...

I've been on the hunt for one for forever. When I saw it I knew it had to some home with me!

My son also found something from Pickin Daisies...

When he said 'I could put my nerf darts in there!' I knew he had to have it :)

And yes, it was filled with 'ammo' as soon as we got home :)

Today I'm going to rest up a bit from a very long weekend and spend some time with my favorite toddler :) I always need a day to recuperate from a show! Of course, there's not much time for recuperating since we have soccer and baseball tonight. Hopefully it won't be too cold like some of the other days or we'll be hiding out in the van!!

getting ready

My husband hates this...cause it's my kitchen table.

I've had lots to finish up before this weekend and when you have a toddler you have to work where she can play. So working downstairs in my craft area is out of the question...way too much for her to get into down there!

Ok, and my craft table is a mess right now :)

Pretty bags all lined up in a row. Playing with fun fabrics always make sme smile!

How cute is that camping fabric??! Fun stuff.

I shared this cute granny cart redo on facebook last week...

Ignore the yucky indoor pics...and the wheels that still needed to be cleaned.

Don't you love that printed burlap?? I really need to redo my own cart.

And in between the cold, rainy weather I've been trying to get some painting projects finished up.

Chalkboard spray paint...one of these days I'll wear gloves! At least I remember to take my rings off...that would be bad.

This old suitcase redo is going to be used for a display in my booth. I'm loving the blue paint on it!

You can't leave a toddler for 2 seconds...

Even if it's just to throw something away! Thankfully - THANKFULLY - she had only grabbed the paint & put one hand in it. Nothing dumped on her head or on her clothes. Whew...

I guess she was a bit bored since her doggy was a bad pup...

hehe :)

The dog lives to fetch...it's in his blood! Those cheap rubber balls are no match for his big mouth!

Another project I finished up...

I made 3 burlap pocket which can hold all kinds of papers, photos, momentos, etc. I'm working on another one with a yellow frame.

I think I need one of these for myself :) Of course, I say that about a lot of stuff I redo!

Ok, back to 'work'...