(click any photo to enlarge)
Half the fun of shopkeeping is the perpetual decorating you get to do. The change of seasons, the sale of a key furniture piece, or just a creative whim are all common reasons for tweaking the look of your shop. I recently sold the big white china cabinet and side shelves that anchored the center of our space, so that led to some fun shuffling and re-staging. So I thought I'd share glimpses of some of the changes as well as some new goodies I have acquired at garage sales and junk stores...
The photo above is the bar/hutch I shared with you a while back - it holds a few new finds that have helped fill it out. LOVE this antique cookie jar...so cute!! It really fits with the retro-kitchen look I'm going for in this part of the space...
We did have a small hutch in this corner - but we moved it to give it a bit more visibility, and moved the round table and chairs there instead. They are graced with more vintage kitchen...
Love this Enamelware tray and McCoy vase - so sunny and cheery!
We moved the hutch out to the middle of the space, facing customers as they enter the shop - we're hoping this will give it more visibility. We moved all our "blue" merchandise previously on the round table into the hutch along with the linens we already had...
I love "accidental decorating" occurances like the one below - Mom was unpacking a box of glass and set certain pieces on the window sill for lack of a better place to put them while we were working - after a while we looked at it and loved how the milk glass vases and pressed glass cordials looked in the sun shine...and so they stayed...
As I mentioned, we sold the large china cabinet on the middle wall in our space, so we had to have a replacement. Good old Craigslist to the rescue! I love the lines on this French Country pecan finished Thomasville china hutch from the 60's...
Now that the smaller hutch was out in the middle of the floor, we simply backed the Duncan Phyfe table up to the back of the hutch. It still holds an assortment of garden-themed pretties atop a lace tablecloth...
I recently added a few of my licenced artwork samples from Universal Designs into the merchandising mix just to see how they would do - so far, so good...
And these bookmarks are on the "Valentine" table, which rounds out the back of our space. It is still pretty much the same as when I shared photos on this post, but with a few new touches...
This past Monday the 1st we closed the shop for a storewide workday as we had 3 new vendors moving in and lots of switching around and shuffling space to do. That's when Mom and I did most of our re-vamping. It was such fun to have all the vendors together at one time (we have 18 vendors). We had a potluck for lunch and all pitched in to help each other out with the work. It was exhausting but tons of fun! You can see photos from all the vendors spaces around the shop on the Whispering Willow web site. (click on any photo on the website to enlarge) Lots of beautiful things and really sweet people - I love the atmosphere at the shop!
And our brand new bakery at the shop is now open!!! See bakery photos here... If you scroll down, you'll see a hand painted chalk board that I painted for the bakery (click the photo on the website to enlarge). The bakery owner (sweetheart Chrstistian lady) loved the design and asked if I could incorporate it into a logo for the bakery - so I did a digital version of the artwork and added the name of the bakery. She'll be using this for business cards, brochures, menus, product labels and more. It was so fun and gratifying to do...I'm glad she liked the results...
I'm having a blast! It is a true gift to get to do what you were created to do and love to do! I hope you have a glorious weekend of doing what YOU were created to do!! Take care, stay warm, and be blessed!!
"For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."
Ephesians 2:10
"Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms."
1 Peter 4:10
