Saturday, June 25, 2011

Catching Up to Summer

A new show Curious Sofa will be selling at; details below.

It has been almost two months since I have posted! So sorry.... Where have I been? Well, not resting as much as I would have liked to. The past month I have had a few projects going on and juggling these random events has put me in a bit of a spin. I am used to multi-tasking but it was always for one goal with the shop; now my hands seem to be in a million pots.

Signs I designed for the Estate Sale which helped to stop traffic.

- The most time consuming thing I have been involved with was managing an Estate Sale of the family home of a friend. She now lives in New York, so this winter I helped her get her father into a nursing home and then in April her mother died. Needless to say a hard time for her and many trips for us back and forth to the airport. I offered to take care of the family house; show it for the local realtor, condense and price everything for the Estate Sale, clean and prep the home for the new buyers and haul away leftovers for donations. My niece and I handled everything along with a few friends who helped during sale days. This week they close on the house so my work will be done, but it has been a l-o-n-g two months waiting for it to be over.

Piles and piles of stuff from the Estate Sale. How do people do this for a living?!!

- On May 1 I finished up a large styling job for Better Homes & Gardens Halloween Ideas magazine and a few weeks later the editor called wanting some help on their Christmas issue too. This time she needed me to prepare story boards for the cover images. I have to say I was loving this as I could sit at home, beverage and dog by my side and search online finding wonderful sources and images to help her pull the shoot together. Then in a panic she needed items made for the shoot, so as the weather hit 95 degrees outside I was buried in a sea of decorative papers, fabric and crafty notions making Christmas trees and red velvet pillows!

From Etsy, inspiration for Better Homes and Gardens Christmas Ideas issue.

- I have also been helping a friend furnish her mid-century home as well as a few other customers ordering sofas and other items from Curious Sofa.
The famous Barcelona Chair arriving to my friends home soon.

- I started listing items on Etsy, selling the same merchandise I have on my website just to broaden my customer base. And I still manage to post a little something on Facebook now and then too. It is so much easier than blogging so I hope you are following me there.


- New items for the website are piling up in my house but I have been too busy to shoot them for the site; but I will! I see now web sales work great when you devote as much time to it as you do your store. Most of these goodies will be for sale at the new show I am doing first before putting them online.

- My little camper sits in the driveway still untouched by white paint and new slipcovers. I promised myself I would take her out once a month but lately I've been too busy to bother. Maybe July 4th. I have been collecting a little this and that to redecorate and every once in awhile Pearl and I sit inside and pretend we are lakeside somewhere!
The design for how I want to paint the outside, eventually!

And on top of all this, I am itching to find a studio so I can start making jewelry, sew, paint furniture, take website pictures, do framing and projects and keep my artistic mess to one area. I could makeover my garage but I like to park in it- imagine! I could redo my basement but its creepy down there so I tried to load it all in my spare bedroom but I am suffocating! Any ideas???!! If only I had an air conditioned Quanza hut in my backyard! Now, that's a thought!

Wouldn't this be the coolest studio to have?

- I am also having some fun with Pinterest. I am still not sure what the heck it is but it is an inspirational place to just look and gather pictures, which is what I love. Somewhere in my new life I would love to be a photo editor!

One of the story boards I have on Pinterest titled White.

- Curious Sofa will rear her head once more since closing the store. My niece and I are hosting an antique event July 14-16 in Westport. We call our show the Schlepp Sisters. This was the very first name we gave our business when we opened a booth at Mission Road Antique Mall in 1996! Three other dealers will be involved too so stay tuned. It will be a good one as we all have different styles to offer. I am bringing many decor items from home, discounted online merchandise and lots of new antiques I acquired this year. I will show some of our items on Facebook days before the event. (Follow us!) Don't miss it if you live in KC!