Been hittin' tha bottle

Well, last week I gave notice at The Pink Cabbage that I would be moving out at the end of May. I'd been thinking about doing it for a while hoping some sign would tell me to stay but the signs have kept saying to go. I have pushing this boulder up a mountain for eight years now and I think it's time to take a break. Oh no way will I stop doing art...I'll have a website or online store of some type...either way I'll be making art-I can't help it. So, since I've given notice, among other panicky things to think about, one is all the s...tuff I've been collecting over eight years that I'm trying to put together and get in the shop for an opportunity to sell them. I also had a few pieces in the garage that I'm finally getting to in our small breaks between rain and still cool weather. Yes-we were in the 90's weekend before last but then it turned right back to 50's and rain...not that I'm complaining-ha! So, as you can hear, I could be completely justified in hitting the beer bottles, but, instead I'm hitting the art bottles-it's actually way more fun and I'll still feel good tomorrow.

Late edition addition: It's almost 11 p.m. and I'm just back from the shop staging my new items and other things I took in to sell. Here they are in their, hopefully, temporary home. The bottles en masse. New mantle vignette. New top 'o bookcase vignette. A little moving around hoping folks will see some things they didn't notice before so they can take them home instead of me. I don't want to be greedy! My new jewels on display. I got a little lump in my throat taking these photos; I need a break but I know I'll miss all the aspects dearly...well...maybe not packing up after the DC Big Flea following a not-so-great show...everything and everyone else though. Gulp. My mom and I have always mused that if there was a real accounting of good taste that we so would be rich; so I'm a starving artist not, of course, by my own doing but there are so few of us who have this kind of fabulous taste-at least here in Mary Land...Round Top?...it's a whole nother world!

Since then...

...I've been getting back to life here. You saw that I had played with my Round Top toys and I'm still playing with them but also I had some commitments like the shop and a "drop show" with Hillary from Chicks Picks. Here are two photos she took of my art for her home show and put on her...

...email advert. I'd lost...no...I always say that something's not lost, I just can't find it at the moment...couldn't find at the moment the order Hillary had placed with me while I was at the DC Big Flea for this show so I winged it. I remembered the candles of which I made many more and I knew which of my things she had liked so I made more of those and pulled the ones I had that she'd admired. Anyway, I was up 'til the wee hours of the morning that I was to deliver said items but I got 'er done. I "drug" Nene along so we could stop in at Out On A Whim and Lucketts on the way home. Oh yeah, we had fun and picked up a few fun things...later on that.

And instead of doing laundry and cooking, as I said, I've been playing with my Round Top toys. I got the tin toy on eBay because this was one of the ideas I'd had in mind when I got the "Hoova" and scuba diver...to have the scuba diver "coming out of the water" and some kind of worldly fun thing on top.

Close up of the inside of my head, you think that's scary-I still haven't shared the latest in my powder room with you. Gently I show you.

Also, I've been playing with the shelf in my bedroom. Here I have new items from Hillary, Luckett's, and The Vintage Shoppes on Main Street in Ellicott City. And I missed signing up for Silver Bella this year! They moved the sign up time a couple of months earlier than in past years and by the time I found out it was open it was shut. Zennnnn...I've already been to Texas, a.k.a. heaven, twice this year and am planning another for the end of school so no complaining-truly.

Sound of Music | Central Station Antwerp (Belgium)

Mo random party pics from Texas

Souveniers of Round Top

This was my first purchase at Round Top, the car headlight. Yes, it spoke to me; it's round which is always a no-brainer, it's old-another n-b'r, and the color. There's no way to explain it to someone who doesn't get it and no need to for those who do.

My third purchase was this "Hoova". Yes, it's a Hoover but I have to say it like the British as, "I'm doing my hoovaing.". It's round, old, chippy, beautiful blue, yada, yada...it spoke to me.

This was my second purchase-I mean-come on! You know I do the 3-D collage art using just these kinds of figurines in my shadow boxes. Well this one is mine, all mine I tell you, mine I say! And is he too perfect on top of the Hoova? It's the first scuba diver figure they ever made, or so the woman told me. I can make up different stories about how they go together...it's perfectly normal and people do this all the time-really-I read it online. But seriously, he can be an alien and that's his space ship or he's a diver and that's the ocean that he can dive into-see, completely normal.

The pink lace tablecloth attached itself to my wallet. I knew it would be just another way for me to further infuse pink into the dining room just as I'm letting more and more pink creep into the house so the boys might not notice it so much. This did not come from Round Top, it came from...umm...my new secret place near home (the home that I physically live in). I love how it's Majolica-like and all the colors and I don't make up stories about it.

It loves living on top of the faux t.v. and I love it too. I brought home a couple of other prizes that I'll share. The coup de gras is being shipped; I'll share all when they get here. Most of all what I brought home from Round Top was endless inspiration which I've been using on the house this week. Oh boy!