Opening Day!

I am excited to announce to grand opening of Mr. Pickle's toy store!! Toys for all ages!! It's going to be great!!

The grand opening is February 19th!!! Come see us, I'm sure you'll find something for everyone you love!!!

For more info check us out on Facebook!! Just search Mr. Pickles!

It's really happening...

As long as I have known my friend Mistye she has always talked about opening a boutique store. I always talked along and loved the idea. We kicked around every idea in the book. Originally we thought about a plant store, well neither of us is exactly a great green thumb and well it just wasn't the greatest idea.

Fast forward to 2012, here we are we have the store. We have it painted, fixtures and merchandise coming in. It's official we are opening Mr. Pickle's toy store in Downtown Carrollton, right off the green line! We have picked out some of the neatest things- from 2 to 90 there is something for every age. We really wanted educational toys, and boy did we find some GREAT things. Talk about letting your inner child come out. We are really excited, really pumped up. We are literally just waiting on everything to come in and we are open for business.

I am overjoyed to share this information with ANYONE I know or will sit still for 30 seconds. If you are from Dallas, live in Dallas, know some one in Dallas, more exactly Carrollton. Come see us!! There will be more information to come as we slowly receive all the great products we ordered about opening.

Find us on Facebook, or get information from our blog!
Facebook link: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mr-Pickles/188017217893299?v=info

Blog Link: www.mrpicklestoys.blogspot.com

Budget Halloween Decoartions

My mom always says "Anyone can spend a lot of money and make something look great but it takes real creativity to do it on a budget" And that's just my motto on about everything I do these days. It's more fun, a challenge to me. So I give you my Halloween decorations! I had so much fun doing this, the husband got really involved too. We had fun naming and filling all the jars. That was the other tricky part, finding things to fill all the containers that wouldn't get funky sitting for long periods of time.

We've got poison berries, which are some potpourri strawberries I've had around forever
Night crawlers, which are from my husbands tackle box.
Eye of toad, vitamins
Frog warts, rice I died lime green with alcohol ink.
Fish scales, a whole bunch of sequins and beads.
Witches blood in the wine bottle is just coffee grounds.
Snake venom-floor cleaner
Poison-Mouthwash
"Petrified Butterfly Wings" are decorative butterflies from our wedding.
And flour, cotton balls, glitter and hot pink alcohol ink give you a love potion.

I've always loved bottles and jars, I tend to collect them for my studio. But all in all, this was a $6.00 project!! SCORE!!

So this is a bit more of what the table and all looks like.

In the other corner is this little get up....it looks so much better with the candles and lights on it.

I LOVE HALLOWEEN!!

we're back!

Oh my, so last weekend the hard drive in our computer completely croaked. I mean dead, no nothing. I lost a ton of pictures and files and such, this is what I get for not backing up my things. Boy did I ever learn the lesson now, that's the second time. But the computer is back from surgery, we are getting back to normal. Lots to do to catch up. We just got back in town this afternoon and there is nothing like being home. Details to come... right now to worn out to explain. IT'S GOOD TO BE BACK!!!

Abilene...

So here we are in Abilene, Texas. We've had a long day, we left Dallas about 8 this morning and drove to San Angelo to secret shop a furniture store and then onto Abilene to secret shop another store. We stopped along the way a few places but by far my favorite was Buffalo Gap, TX. We ate at this fabulous BBQ place called the Barbecue Barn and then stopped at this pottery shop that just took my breath away. Totally inspired by an artist who has made a living his entire life off of selling his art, it's beautiful. He does the pottery and his wife does the glazing, what a combo!! So following this wonderful mans advice we headed to the little town square and checked out the museum. I am a sucker for museums, I love history. The guy in there was about to close in 30 min and said well I can't really sell you a ticket but go ahead and check out what you want to. SCORE!!!! So I notice the print shop, guess who went running to it??!?! Yes, especially after mentioning my post last night... here's a few things we saw....

LINOTYPE MACHINE
Can you imagine sitting at this machine to write an entire newspaper or book daily...
wow, unbelievable piece of machinery.

this is the entire machine....

the beautiful little chapel, I loved the smell... it smelled OLD

I was mesmerized by the Linotype machine and gave Marcus a huge break down of how, and what and why this machine was used. (Someone paid attention in history of graphic arts class) To see one in person in full working order that you could touch, smell, use, and appreciate I was just over the moon. It was a beautiful place I wish we had more time to stay and enjoy it.

Tomorrow morning we head out, we will be leaving and driving to Oklahoma to do ANOTHER secret shop for the furniture store. So 3 hours there, and about 3 hours to get home. I am just itching to get home and work on my type tray. Of course along the way I have been looking for scrapbook stores or art stores, NOTHING!! It's so sad so many of these great places have gone under in the last few years.

I look forward to next weekend when we head to Houston and get to go to the store in Friendswood that I have always wanted to go to. Even though I made the pact with myself, NO MORE CRAFT SUPPLIES!!! The only thing I will bend the rule for is adhesive.

Let's hope we get home at a good time tomorrow so we can head to Plano for the annual hot air balloon launch! Good times!!

I love type trays...

I got this beauty at a yard sale for $1! It has a bruises but I do believe they will work in my favor. I learned my lesson on a smaller type tray a while back, plan plan plan. I have a particular love for these things, I grew up with them in my moms studio. The one in particular I always loved now hangs in my studio. She has given me many little trinkets, it's hard to photograph right now but I did my best...

And this is just a snipet close up ( my favorite button is in it though, my dad played football for the Naval Academy, this pin got stored away for probably 30+ years before I found it. The irony is, Marcus is a GIANT Notre Dame fan) Irony at it's best!



It's a treasure to me. So when I see these empty little shelves my brain thinks of all the little trinkets yet to find a home. So I came up with this idea... this is the layout of my next type tray collage...



As much as I love to travel part of me is bummed we are heading out in the morning. We are going to be secret shoppers tomorrow!! More to come, should be a good story with all the stuff involved!

How to create textured painting...

This is a slight repeat but with how to steps to create this painting for Tutorial Tuesday. I've learned so much fun stuff from these ideas, I am honored to share mine!

1

step 1. Spray Paint your canvas, or paint spray paint was just quicker for me.

step 2. Cut out harlequin pattern out of anaglyptic wallpaper, so I didn't make any mistakes I made a mark on the parts to cut out.

step 3. paint your desired color, for this step I mixed my greens. Very randomly applied the paint, used my heat gun to warp it dry. I also used some copper embossing powder to really punch it up.

step 4. using mod podge, apply paper to canvas. (This is the worst part) Now leave it alone and let it dry.

step 5. mix a glaze medium, I used 2 parts glaze to 1 part paint and a bit of water. Mix well, apply with brush into all the nooks and cranies and then wipe off with a damp towel.

step 6. allow to dry and then hang!

Here's a close up on the details...


If you are interested in purchasing some of the anaglyptic wallpaper leave a comment, email me, whatever and we'll work something out. Trade even?? It's a fun product to use!