Happy New Year!

Wishing you and your families a new year full of spiritual, financial and personal blessings. That is to my 9 followers and how many new friends blogland will bring me. Blessings,Marta.

Before and after

I love pillows, lots of them. I will post later the view from my bay window. I live across a closed army target field. They use it now for pastures for cows and horses, so I feel like I live in the country.

No more red, yellow or pink in the living room. I got taupe colored walls, cream tile floors and brown and cream furniture. The jar is full of a million mother of pearl buttons. I collect, no, I gorge buttons. I have a collection of mother of pearl items. I used shells in my decor too.

The cream cabinet with the pink dishes is no longer here. I moved it to the kitchen. I found the most amazing french gentlemen armorie in my last travel to San Antonio. I could not bring myself to sell it, so it now resides in the spot where the white one was.

The 8 feet German monster. At least my shrank got contemporary lines. It could be worst. Almost everybody else I know got the black forest style furniture, you know the heavily carved scenes, the hunter and the deer, The coo coo clocks etc. Thank God!

I stash away my pink and roses dishes and went for cream ware, ironstone and cream colored pottery. The biggest expense was a distressed french reproduction cabinet. It replaced the 8 feet German shrank. I tough about painting the German shrank but that would have been too labor intensive for me plus that piece is in mint condition. I took it to the shop and I'm planing on getting storage value out of it. Then again, they sold one not as nice as mine for 1,500 in another shop downtown. We will see, somebody ugly is somebodys pretty. Ah, I got the french cabinet without measuring the height of my ceiling. We got 3 inches left of space. That was a close call and there was no returns on it. I'm loving it, we are spending more time than ever before in the living room. Victorian furniture is pretty but not necesarily comfortable. My new chairs are super comfy. What do you think? Let's see how long the cream phase last. By the way, I don't know if you have noticed but most designers are doing the creams and taupes combinations. Brown furniture is back combined with painted pieces. I loved, but it makes me think that it really takes along time for certain areas to catch up with the trends. I was revisiting my old Victoria Magazines and Icame across a copy from 1994 featuring Carol Bolton's store in Frederiskburg, Texas. She was way ahead everybody else. It looked like Romantic Homes today. Amazing! That is what I need a magic ball so I can know what the next trend is going to be. Ok, I have drag this post long enough. You all have yourself a blessed New Year. Blessings, Marta.

My beloved family

My little brother Gerardo, my sister in law, Rosa and my three nephews, Geremy 13, Joshua 6 and Neithan.

My little nephew Neithan. He is the smartest 5 year old I have ever seen and does the craziest thing, he have an accent. Kids usually don't have accents. They ultimately choose a language, Neithan speaks both Spanish and English.

My mama with her three babies. Gerardo the baby, me and my other brother Junno. I'm the oldest one. My mom will be 70 next year and she is in tiptop shape, sharp like a knife.

Finally and most importantly my teddy bear Jose. We have been married for 23 years!. I love you baby.

Christmas day @ home

We are all exhausted. I cooked all day long yesterday. I managed to brown a red velvet cake too much, the bottom of it tasted burn so I cut that piece off and managed to fix it. I didn't know red velvet is chocolate cake, Is it? because the bather taste like chocolate and stained red really bad. Can you tell I loved cooking? I promise you won't see recipes or food pictures, unless they are somebody else food. I gave everybody extra sets of socks and money. Green really get people excited and been practical, is aside from love the second best gift. The kids received clothes, money and books . Instead of one big bill I change all the money to $1.00 dollar bills, they thought they were millionaires. The trick does not apply to the teenager, that one likes to see zeros attached to something else. I gave my older brother three seashells out of my collection that he have coveted for the longest time and a Susan Boyle CD. She is awesome and so sassy and he loved her. My mom received a radio with a cassette and CD player which was hard to find since nobody does cassettes anymore. That is our second or maybe third radio we give her. She have a big heart and eventually will give the stuff to somebody she feels needed more than her. We have an Indian guest of honor and we have to accommodated with the food because they don't eat pork, beef or eggs during this time of the year, actually I lied, they don't eat beef ever, you know cows are consider gods in India???. Anyway he is a hoot, just diet challenge for our culture. We Puertoricans live on pork specially on Christmas Eve. Our traditional meal is roasted pork, pigeon rice, potato salad and pasteles which is a version of the Mexican tamales made of Hispanic vegetables. The dress code is pajamas, even the guest wore them. So, we are a crazy bunch that fight like crazy but love each other even more. This year cost me a lot of prayers, no drama been the first. I got my prayers answered, it was amazing. For those of you who don't know, we Boricuas can be pretty hot tempered, so the fact that we are all Christians come really handy. We put God before tempers. Anyway let me introduce you to the people that I get to hang out a lot; my beloved family.

Merry Christmas to you all

As I celebrate the birth of my Savior Jesus my biggest prayer for the ones I love is that He will be revealed into their hearts and that He will shine in their lives. I wish you all a blessed one. Jesus is Lord!!!!

A very cream Christmas 2009

As I told you I completely changed my color hues. It's so serene and cozy in the living room now. I sold a lot of vintage cream Christmas at the shop. I'm not always able to afford some of the things I buy for the shop. Don't feel bad for me, I'm a selective joarder. We well see what Christmas 2010 will bring. For now I'm loving it. Blessings, Marta.

More Christmas 2008 @ home

More red and yellow stuff. I brought a lot of the red decorations to the shop, one of the biggest perks of having a shop. I used to donate and give the stuff away when I got tired, the bad thing about that is that you run out of money pretty quickly. These days my husband doesn't complain about my spending because he knows I can turn around and resale.

They said when you are in the military and lived in Germany you come back to the states with a baby and a German schrank. I did both. The monster is 8 feet long and takes an entire wall. When we first came back to the United States the realtors selling homes to the soldiers will specify in their listings that the home have a shrank wall. That was last year, you will not believe the turn around I did in regards to my decor in the living room.

Fake fireplace. In Texas real fireplaces do not make sense to me. I only see a decorative value in them.

Christmas last year @ home

I told you guys I love red. The walls look like a very bright yellow on the pictures but it wasn't that tweety yellow in person.

Just like the stuff in the store much of the red and yellow stuff is gone. Most of the victorian furniture have gone home to my mom's. She was delighted to take it off my hands.

The china cabinet and the secretarie are residing @ my moms too.

I received countless pieces of Royal Albert old country roses china from my husband. Sadly it is all residing behind doors in my kitchen. It no longer match my decor but I can't part with it because I love it and my husband make such a point of getting it for me. By the way, I'm a dishaholic. At one point and time I got about 12 complete sets of china. I'm down to 4. Most of them got a story attached to them. I need to figure out how to upload more than 4 pictures at a time under on single post. Somebody...help. I want to show you my 2009 Christmas at home. i do not know if you guys will stand so much info in just one night...humm.

More Christmas 2008

RED, RED and more RED. LOVE IT!!!

Last year Christmas @ Marta's Room

I lied, the first Christmas pictures were from 2007. Today pictures are from Christmas 2008. Most of the stuff is gone.

Charlene, here is Noel in 2008. I will used her all over the place.

I love the rabbitt coat. I actually sold it a couple of months ago to a sweeet girl that visited last year with her new husband. He remember how much she lovet it so he came back for it and for matching pieces to her grandmother's china.

Yes girls, I love red and hot pink, any shade of pink. I have been little by little integrating more whites, taupes and creams (like everybody else) but a drop of color can never hurt.

It's all about JESUS

I'm still working on my pictures uploads. This morning my computer came as close as can be to crashing. We don't know what is the deal. My husband restarted it and noticed that my Picasa folder was gone. I tell you we are computer challenge. Since I have to download more pictures I decided to take a break and check out some blogs. So many wonderful decorations, such a beautiful season. All that beauty got me to think about my most beautiful possesion in my life which is my love for God and His Son Jesus. I see people arguing about how precise this date and details about Jesus birth are. Honestly, to my it makes no difference. I do not care about the details. I care about the truth, which is the fact that he was born with a divine purpose, and that fulfilling that purpose meant He will have to give His life for me, unselfishly, no questions ask. I could have given Him a million reasons why it was not worth for Him to died in the cross for us. I don't think he would have change His mind about he was called to do. I do not know anybody that love me that way. I do not take His birth or His sacrifice lightly. Today and always I celebrate His birth, His life, His sacrifice and the fact that He is risen. I dream about the day when I will see him face to face. Today, for now all I can do is talk about Him, share the most amazing story ever told. Jesus is my Christmas and He shines in my heart. I love you Jesus. Marta

Christmas 2008 @ Marta's Room

I THOUGHT I WILL SHOW YOU SOME PICTURES OF THE SHOP LAST YEAR
MOST OF THE STUFF IS GONE, NO TIME TO GET ATTACHED.

Test, test,1,2,3
My beautiful friend Jessica from Sugar Moon helped me set up the blog last week plus introduced me to the world of Picasa. For a week I have been wanting to try but unable because of my job. An introduction is in order for the newbee. I'm an antique shop owner in Belton, Texas. We are pretty much 2 or 3 hours away from Austin, Houston and Dallas. I called it the best location in the World. We get to drive 1.5 hours to Rountop and about 3 hours to Canton. It just does not get better than that. Antiquing in this area is fabulous. I really love living here.
I figured I will go back to the past with my pictures and my postings and eventually will get to show you how my shop and my home look today. Wish me luck, here we go...