More Shops

We have some cool shops here in Belton, TX. Today I want to introduce you to Hosanna House and As Time Goes By.Humm, hats, one of my guilty pleasures. I pay a lot and mark them really high so I can keep them. These yummy ones are @ As time goes by. Both Hosanna House and ATGB are across HEB on 6TH street in Belton.

These beauty is the most beautiful framed portrait plate. I believe the owner have not price it yet, still researching.

Just cute stuff @ Hosanna House. The owners Mark and Laurie open the shop as a used book christian library since there was a need for a place where you can buy affordable religious books. They branch out into antiques since they are both collectors and were fast running out of space. Sound really familiar.

They have really pretty items and a good variety of them since they accept consignments. My friend Cindy from Chipped to perfection sells her wares there.

Some people should not be taking pictures. What is with me and blurry pictures? Arg.
This is a bedroom at As Time Goes By. The owner Jane Bugg have been in the antiques business for 12 years. She host estate sales too. You should see this lady's home. The shop is her home too and she keeps her doors to every room open so you get to drool over her collections which are many and all just amazing. Her collection of toleware trays is the best I have ever seen. What is supposed to be her living room, dining and kitchen areas is where she have the wares for sale. The house is a Victorian house from the turn of the century. I will love to have a home where I can run my business out of( hum.. maybe not).

She have an enclosed patio full of vintage gardening stuff, drooling...

Cutest kitchen ever. She have a large collection of wall pockets, vintage feed sack tablecloths, tins, pottery, red and green handled utensils and the biggest collection of spice racks.

Yummy, my pictures are the biggest injustice. Forgive guys, I love you and your shops.

More kitchen pictures.
Come and visit with us sometime. Salutations from Belton, TX.
If you need directions you can call me @(254)681-7752

Hello White Wednesday friends!

White Painted Furniture

I love painted furniture, any shade of white or cream. I love to distressed my pieces but at the shop I have noticed that its wiser to paint the pieces evenly. If the costumers decided they want the look I can distressed it in a matter of seconds while they shop.This one is in the shop ready for a new home. I think it may be finding one soon since a lady keeps coming back to visit with it.
This I was told is called a gentlemen chest. It's kind of bulky and too square for my taste but a lot of people have look at it. He needs to go to a new home. By the way if you are in this area and you see something you like just let me know.

This one I found last Sunday @ the flea market. Love the shape and I want to keep it but better not.

I painted this dresser and I fell in love with the size and the shape so I kept it and used it in the living room as a sideboard.

Another technique I love is to glaze. I use nutmeg brown acrylic paint as the contrast color. I hardly ever glaze pieces at the shop since is a little more labor intensive and I do not get the money I need for doing so. Every once in a while I get paid to do it as a costume finish. This little piece lives in my TV room, it doesn't really fit there but I can not bear to sell it.

This is my TVcabinet in my TV room. The other day my brother mentioned he could not understand the fact that we don't own a big plasma? Whatever, I don't like electronic gadgets all over the place. My big hump TV fits just perfectly in my cabinet and I do not feel pressure to own the latest gadget . I admit the picture is much clear but we are OK with what we have.

This cabinet I love. It is huge and is a reproduction. I love the convex glass door in the bread compartment and all the storage. I got so much of my china and pottery store there. I think I mentioned before that I got some contract guys working @ the house and they were so sorry because all my furniture was so nice but so damaged (ha,ha... they thought the distressed on all the pieces was actual damaged)

This piece was residing in my living room but it make its way to the kitchen since I found a brown piece to go there. I love furniture so much that at one point in time I got 5 secretaries in the house. I'm down to just one, but have added about 6 new pieces of furniture since then. Here is where having a store have come so handy.

Well, this is all for my third White Wednesday. Thanks again to our gracious hostess Ms Kathleen. Happy a blessed day, Marta.

Awesome store in town

I introduce you to Gracen's. If you love whimsical, elegant and just downright inspiring then you must come to Belton and visit with Ms.Willie Dean Bradford.
This lady is not aware of her immense talent so if you drop by let her have it. Maybe if we repeat it enough she will be able to accept the fact that she is immensely gifted. She offers estate sales services and let me tell you she is the one you want. She will clean, decorate and merchandise your stuff and believe me she will make it appealing to the buyers. I think I have been to estate sales were she have merchandise the pantry!.

Something else, her prices are so reasonable and her merchandise is unique and beautiful, no junk folks. She also have a booth @ Nellies, our local antique mall.

SOOO dreamy.

OK, I'm fortunate enough to do business in this little town called Belton. We are in the heart of Texas, 1 hour from Austin, 2.5 from Dallas and SA. It doesn't get more convenient than this. The shopping in town is really great. We have a lot of beautiful Victorian homes and a really pretty square of Main St. The shops in town keep springing everywhere and the economy doesn't seem to slow down many. We are really close to Fort Hood . The feel is cozy, down home country, simple life and very family oriented town. Being friendly is a requisite around here. We have some of the best barbecue (SHOEPPS) and Mexican restaurants.

I attribute the success of my business to this town and it's people. I have met some of the most amazing folks thru our business and the love of junking for most of us. Tomorrow I will introduce you to Hosanna House and As Time Goes By.

Pink Saturday ladies rock! and other stuff

Girls and boys forgive the out of focus pictures. Me and technology are not friends yet. Aside from that this first picture was of one booth were everything was pink and shabby. The picture do not do any kind of justice to any of this booths, the stuff in that shop is amazing.

This mess of a picture show the most amazing booth there, Susan the dealer have been at it for the last decade and have the look before anybody else did.

Love the hats, only problem there was none cheaper than 25$.

OK ladies, all of the sweet ladies that stopped by for my first Pink Saturday post and left comments, I'm so grateful for you all taking the time to visit and for all your kind words. I have been slowly but surely checking your blogs. There is so much inspiration out there that Home and Garden TV is fast falling into loser rating category in my book. I finding blogging much more inspiring and rewarding. I was asked what took me so long to start a blog. The answer is simple, I'm computer illiterate and fear of messing up. That was before, since I started to meditate on the fact that fear have never kept me from trying. I needed a mentor and I found one in my friend Jessica who took the time to do the initial set up for me. I'm still learning and you will hear me many times begging you to tell me how to improve, so if you know of some cool stuff you want to share so I can stop sucking at blogging just feel free to speak. Another fact is the reality of having to buy a new computer, ours is soo old, ancient. The only thing missing is the wood veneer around the monitor (I read the very first ones look like that). So I have to be gentle to my old girl until we find her a replacement.

Enough blah, blah. I will be blogging about some local shops this week. I will leave you tonight with pictures from my trip to Roundrock Antique Mall 1 week ago. Blessings, Marta.

My First Pink Saturday

Pink Saturday, my first one. So pretty, so pink. OK, I already have a million ideas for the next Pink Saturdays. Pink hats,pink jewelry, pink houses, pink pillows, pink toys, pink,pink,pink. At one point and time all I got in my closet was pink and white shirts, in every style, variations of each other. My then fiance and now husband never said anything to me until we got married. One day he just said, "Can you wear any other color? You might as well never buy any more shirts since I can't tell if you are wearing the same one, boring. Such cruelty. I complied and decided to buy fuchsia (Got it?)
I got cabinets full of pink stuff and will be more detailed later since some of the pieces got interesting stories behind them.

Dolls with pretty faces and hands; check. No pink dresses, we got a problem.

My Pink Staffordshire roses china, Royal Albert American Beauty and Lady Carlyle china are my favorite. Got stories to tell about them.

I'm a pink girl @ heart, any shade of pink. I wish I can have a pink house, humm, maybe not a whole house, just shutters or something. Then I will love a rose garden, mostly with pink roses, pink hydrangeas are OK too. I collect dolls and if they don't have a pink or lacy cream dress I don't want them. Not totally true, if I like them but they are not dress in those two colors I go and whipped up one dress in the "right color".

So, Pink Saturday makes me happy and I'm sure that as with White Wednesday, I"m not going to run out of options any time soon. My thanks to the gracious hostess of Pink Saturday, Ms Beverly@ http://howsweetthesound.typepad.com/my_weblog/.

I was MIA for 2 days. My computer keep acting up on me. Do any of you ever have problems with Picasa? I love that program but it slows down my computer down and eventually I got to a point I could not Open my blog or my bank info. So that was the only reason I did not blog for a couple of days, well,that and sales taxes due on Tuesday. On the positive, I was thrilled to have EIGHT comments waiting for me. I live for your comments, I think if nobody read and share with you why bothering having a blog. So my friends keep those comments coming, you girls and boys with those amazing blogs out there tell me how I can improve, I'm all ears. Let me know what you think.Blessings, Marta.

My second White Wednesday

Yuppiee. Second White Wednesday baby.

It's White Wednesday again! Where is time going? I'm still messing up with the computer, it keeps sending me error messages, enough off them to freak out my husband. It freaks me out too, I do not want to loose all my pictures or most importantly my business documentation. My teddy bear went ahead today and transfer most of the stuff to an external memory. To stay in the positive all this trouble is worth it, I love blogging but I feel like I'm going to have to become a brain surgeon in order to become proficient at this. Arrg...

You have seen her before. She have the pretties face and I made her dress out of a beautiful German lace curtain. I like the way it turn out.

I can't say I like the picture, It turn out so yellow. I love the 1950's wedding dress and my fav dolly sitting on the chair.

. This is my favorite picture in this post. This is Neithan and he is sooo cute. He loves to be photograph, can you tell? He got me @hello.

One of the table escapes @ the shop, I already move things around. Today a dealer from Georgetown came in and bought my main three pieces in the first room so before I know it is back to design something else. I was happy for the money, sad because of the fact that I only got to enjoy and display the items for one week. I do not carry two alike of anything, when is gone is gone. I like that fact but it posses such a challenge for me,since things are getting harder and harder to find.

I like this silver tray. I just throw some glass and silver items in it.

I sold most of the dolls that have this same style and I realize why, I sold them too cheap. I have been trying to replace them, there is no way I can pay what they retail for.

Now, even if you are not a doll collector, Can you appreciate the beauty in this dolly. I got her with a Victorian mini wicker chair. Pay too much, but dolls and china are my two weaknesses.
The beautiful pillow I got from Vintage sue and is not for sale.

Last, these is French bed I repainted white. It was that yellow and gold french provincial color. Much improved if you asked me. Just a little vignette in front of it. I'm missing the hole effect since the dresser in front is covering the footboard. I got that bed price so high because I want it so bad, I just don't have the space in the house and I don't want to give up the bed I have @ home. Greedy, I know. Well , this is all for today. Thanks again to Kathleen for the opportunity. Blessings, Marta.

Valentines @ Marta's Room

This is the second season I used this prop. It is an empty Victrola case. The logo in the back was so beautiful I could not pass it up.

This is the stuff in the black and white room. I made the lace wreath, it was a lot of fun putting it together. The lady in the old picture is a spit image of Celine Dion.

This is one of my favorite cabinets in the shop. My wedding couples sell really good. The only thing is they keep buying my favorites ones. I got 3 weddings albums from the early 1900s, with the dry flowers inside and the newspaper clippings with the announcements of the wedding.

More wedding stuff.

Just a little vignette.

Love how the red vignettes turn out this year. My favorite is the Valentines tree. I took off the Xmas balls and added small vintage valentines, red clusters of curly ribbon and red feathers.

Some cream yumminess (is that a word in the dictionary?)

This was Valentines last year. So many people find the heads spooky. I love them and I use them a lot in my vignettes. I called this two people the king and queen of hearts.

Mondays and Fridays are my days "off", no such thing, so much to do. I usually run errands and go to the shop for the not so fun stuff, like cleaning. I have started crafting again, which happen in the wee hours of the night. I used to go thru spells of insomnia, which were really creative spells. I will dream pillows and pretty stuff, if I was not exhausted I will get up and write it down or draw it. That is the reason way they said artists and creative people are all cookoos. We are not crazy, just sleep deprived. Anyway, it got so bad and lasted so long that I have to start asking God to take the inspiration away for a break. He did, for a long time, but I found my glue gun and the pretty stuff and here I am, insomnia spell, again. Have this ever happened to any of you? Please, somebody tell me I'm not crazy. Do any of you experience creative spells attached to insomnia? I hope you stop by and visit with me, looking forward to new friendships. Blessings, Marta.