Thank Heaven for Little Girls!

One of my passions is designing and decorating kid's rooms. About half of all my decorating books are relating to kids rooms and nurseries and I think I would still love kid's rooms even if I didn't have three of them myself. As my third daughter was born this last July, we had to add another bedroom in our house to make room for her. This means one thing to me - another room to decorate!! Luckily we were having another girl and since I had just started a children's boutique, I had plenty of inspiration. The hard part was getting it done a few weeks before I was due as I didn't have time to complete it with getting ready for the Farm Chicks show.

Using leftover paint from the shop and scouring sales, I was able to complete Summer's nursery for about $500-$600, including crib, dresser, chair, shelving, rug, equipment, everything in the room. While that is still quite a bit of money (at least to me), I'm not sure how else I could have done it any cheaper. I love sitting in there and rocking her! I tease my husband that it is the only complete room in the house (we are constantly working on projects)

My other daughter, Lily, got a room makeover as well. Since she is my little helper in the flower beds, she has a little garden room. My wonderful step-dad hand-painted the picket fence mural on the wall. Since Lily is 3, she is working on her ABC's and nothing is better than having her wall covered with floral alphabet cards to help her learn. I love these cards! I used to sell them in my shop and are available at Eeboo. I just punched holes in the corners and threaded ribbon through to hang them. Once again, I was on a tight budget and everything thing in this room only cost a few hundred dollars and most importantly, Lily loves it!






I have one more daughter that got a new room this year and I think her room is my favorite. More pics of those to come (I have to get her to clean it first!)

Barn Bazaar

My family went out to the Barn Bazaar out in Spangle for the first time this last Saturday. Those women do an awesome job! The cute pumpkins, mums, and Fall decor were everywhere, not to mention the adorable farmhouse. I didn't see a corner of the property that didn't have cute decor, old signs, etc. The store inside the barn was also great. Great vendors, great location, I will be back next year for their July show...hopefully as a vendor this time.

The Good Old Days

A few weeks ago, my girls discovered a few boxes of mementos that have been in storage for a long time in my mom's attic that contained some old 4-H and FFA fair ribbons, pictures, and my old dairy princess tiara and banners. The girls were thrilled like they'd found some old treasures and couldn't believe that this was their mom's stuff. They wore the tiara all over the place, of course! It is interesting that they found these items when they did as there have been many recent discussions with my 3 year old (Lily) about growing up on a farm. She's really big into farm animals right now and when I tell her that I grew up on a farm, her response is, "No fair, I want to grow up on a farm!" My oldest daughter has also said this same thing for years. I find it funny because when I was that kid on the farm, I didn't know what I had. All I knew was that I had five times as many chores as any other kid and we didn't get many vacations because dairy cows always need milking!

One of the things that I love about hunting for vintage finds is the connection to my childhood and the cool farm junk that used to be all over the farm. My whole family loves going to all the awesome antique shows in the Spokane area because many of them are located on someone's little farm. My daughters spent most of their time at the Vintage Barn Show catching grasshoppers in the tall grass and feeding them to Rolane's chickens!

After sifting through the boxes and going through old pictures, I realize that my childhood was pretty fantastic. I mean, how often does the average girl have a chance to be a dairy princess? The little dairy farm in Chewelah, WA had to be sold shortly after I graduated from high school as my Dad had passed away. On some days, I look at my beautiful growing girls and really wish there had been a way to keep the farm. If there is anything in the world I could give to my kids, it would be to provide them with the farm life I had. Anybody have an affordable little plot of land to raise some animals on? Maybe someday...

Summer Paige in Summer 2009

As mentioned in the previous post, the dust has settled a bit and there has been quite a bit of it to settle! Summer 2009 has been extremely busy, but the most important and exciting event was the birth of our 3rd daughter, Summer Paige Dobson on July 6th! Coming in at 8lbs 13oz, she was the smallest girl in the bunch even though I was huge. She's been keeping me very busy this summer and I'm just now getting back into the junkin' groove. Summer has officially been to two antique shows just in the past two weekends - The Vintage Barn Show in Rathdrum, ID and the Barn Bazaar in Spangle, WA. She's starting out early!

Welcome!

The dust has settled a bit and I'm finally coming back to getting the blog going. I've been discovering and following so many great blogs the past few months and I am completely inspired by them. I'm so excited to finally get started on mine. I only hope that I can provide an ounce of that same inspiration on my blog!

A little bit about me - I'm a stay at home mom with three little girls, Gabrielle-8, Lily-3, and Summer-2 months. I live in Spokane, WA and I love anything vintage! Although, I went to college and majored in accounting and started a career in that field, I have fallen in love with junkin, creating, decorating. I always savored my mom's decorating magazines and books, but the passion was kicked into full gear when I attended my first Farm Chicks show in 2004. I went crazy and practically furnished my whole house in the first few shows that I went to out in Fairfield. After the decision to stay home and raise the kids, I tried my hand at creating and have had the priviledge of being a vendor at the last two Farm Chicks Shows.

I look forward to continue creating, finding great finds, and sharing great junkin' adventures with you all!