Surprise!

I got a phone call Friday night as I was leaving work. It was my sister Sarah asking if I had any plans that evening. Since she's been in Mexico for the last 3 months, I thought it was a strange question.

"Oh good, I'm glad you're free. I'm at the Hamilton GO station." What?! Awesome!!!

This is what happens when Sarah visits.....her stuff explodes everywhere within about 90 seconds. It's awesome. Art supplies, letters, collages, books, paper all over the place.

So we got to have a really fun surprise weekend visit. Sadly she leaves tonight, so it was short but sweet. Now she's off to Germany to be the road manager for her friend Miss Emily Brown (who we love) who's been touring around Germany for the last few weeks. Boring life, right?

Have lots of fun, Sarah! And hi, Emily!

New Treasures

I've come across some new treasures in the last few days, with no theme in particular, but all are worth checking out, especially #3!

1 - adorable little chandelier about to be painted some amazing colour, and of course loose the little lampshades...

2 - full 8-glass vintage serving set with wood and chrome tray. He-llo!

(photo credit to The Internet Movie Database)

3 - an 80's movie called The Big Chill. Most of you probably know about this already; I hear it's a classic. But I had never heard of it before this past weekend, and when it arrived in my mailbox from Zip I didn't even remember ordering it. I loved it so much I watched it twice. It. Is. Awesome. Seriously, I might need to own this one. A-mazing!

So Productive!

With such lovely weather yesterday we were able to get a jump on all that spring garden-prepping that usually gets put off indefinately - we were so productive yeseterday! While today's post isn't too colourful (since no plants have any strong signs of life yet) it show you all the work we did yesterday. It totally wiped us out!

Ilya hard at work trimming our overgrown hedges WAY back so they are sort of under control.

Bertha hard at work chewing up all the wisteria branches I throw down to her from the ladder. She was very tired after all this work!

I guess you can't actually tell in this picture, but this really old and beautiful wisteria vine grows like a maniac all summer - there are branches climbing the wires, into the eaves, even into the huge tree in our yard!

Now the wisteria is all trimmed up and compact - it's going to be covered in gorgeous flowers this spring (I hope), which I'll post photos of as soon as they appear.

More colour tomorrow, I promise!

This Week at Relish Vintage

Be sure to check out the lovely new things listed on Relish Vintage, my online Etsy shop!

Blue and Green Platter

Summer Floral Baking Dish

Shades of Grey Teacup and Saucer

Signs of Life

It's SO sunny and trying to be warm (relatively speaking), and I've even spotted some spring bulbs poking their heads out of the ground!

Daffodils (my favourite!) already poking their heads out in the sunshine.

There are tulip bulbs, and they've actually made their way through the glacier that's still sitting in our front yard. I think I added some extra bulbs in the fall, so we'll see over the next few weeks if they made it...

This time of year makes me so excited! It feels like we've finally survived winter, and now the lovely warm weather is coming. And the fact that there are even spring bulbs alive in OUR yard is a big deal! It's so shady that usually everything that grows here comes about a month later than everywhere else.

Spring is coming, spring in coming!

This Week at Relish Vintage

There are some great new items at Relish Vintage this week! Have a look.......

Retro Floral Serving Platter

Upcycled Retro Hollywood Glam Dresser

Retro Ironstone Floral Plates

Retro Silver Wire Tray

Project #3 Finished!

Remember that beat up dresser I intended to bring back to life a couple of weeks ago? Well it's finally finished, and looks so damn cute! Here's my progress....

This is the original dresser - cool shape, but looking a little beat up.

At this point, I've sanded it down and painted the body, and have just givel the legs their first coat of paint.

Here's a closeup of the drawers with the original drawer pulls after I've spraypainted them powder blue. I was skeptical, but they actually turned out really well. (And I'd rather use the originals than buy new ones.)

Ta-da! Just look at how damn cute that is!! Keep an eye out for this on my Etsy shop!

Pets & Art & Music

I'm working away today, so no design project to report on until tomorrow. This means my dog Bertha is bored because I'm sitting at the computer all day. This is what happens when she's bored...

She sits as close as she can to Atticus (notice he's sitting right on top of the heating vent? genius!), and then starts nibbling his toes and licking his head until he can't take it any more and runs away. Poor guy! But damn is it funny!

So despite the weather, we had quite an eventful weekend! My cousin Christina was participating in an artist talk at the ROM in Toronto, as her photographs are part of an exhibit that has been there since October. (If you get a chance, you've GOT to go see this - it's incredible!) The exhibit is called Position as Desired - cureated by Wedge Curatorial Proects - you can check out a press release from the ROM about it here.

So later that evening we went to Joe Mamma's on King St. Not a bad spot, and had room for the huge party of people we arrived with. And then the music started. Holy moly it was awesome!!! Not sure what the name of the house band was, but they were seriously great! What a great dose of live music!

Found Frames

In my opinion, the best frames are lovely old ornate ones that need a little TLC to be reinvented.

I've had these two little frames for a while, and although they are adorable, hadn't got around to doing anything with them yet. Now, I will admit that these, and the little paintings inside them, are really cute, but they had potential to be really stunning...

Well, yesterday I tackled them! They have a great shape, but that faux gold overtop of wood? Yuck.

Soooo, five coats of white spraypaint later (I've really got to use primer next time) they are looking fantastic!

And then I remembered that Ilya and I bought a pair of prints in New Orleans two years ago that are awesome, but they have no home on the wall yet because we couldn't find frames for them. (Don't you love these happy, rockin' out skeletons?)

As it turns out, these frames are perfect for the two prints. I've been waiting very patiently to find frames that worked for these, and I just accidentally found them. Yes!!!