Three Girls and a Mini Van

It’s Sunday afternoon, and we’re rolling along I-70 about thirty miles from our planned stop in Columbia, Missouri when my grand-daughter starts to fuss. My daughter, Jesse, and I exchange a look before she unbuckles and climbs into the back seat to see what she can do to calm her firstborn.

Olivia’s cries quiet upon seeing her Mommy, and then I hear the sound of a story being read.  Jesse starts with a book about Olivia the pig and moves on to one about Elmo and his Sesame Street friends.  As she does, I swipe at the tears that roll down my face while trying to keep the van on the road.

My mind is filled with memories - of other trips down this same highway - when it was I who read to a fussy girl, to try and distract her from the fact that she was strapped into an unforgiving car seat.

As the book pages turn, so turn the pages of my heart, and soon Jess asks me if I’m crying.  I confess my weepy cruise down memory lane, we both choke up, and then we laugh those sticky-wet-laughs that only two misty-eyed Moms can share.


Life has come full circle.

What brought us to this mile-marker on a dark gray ribbon of highway is a three generation girls weekend where the youngest of our trio, being a wise three-and-a-half months old, has not only dictated our moves but graced us with her lively brand of humor.  A year ago, who would have guessed that we two would become we three and we girls would have started a small business, been moderately successful, and would take a weekend road trip to dream, discuss and shop for that venture? Who would have thought that we would be on the eve of making the decision about whether or not we are ready to take our little enterprise to the next level?

[There was a smile on my lips as I wrote that last line because we didn’t set out to start a business, the business pretty much started us. Why, then, do I even imagine that we have a modicum of control over where it takes us tomorrow?]

And now that business, known as Poverty Barn, binds us together as no blood relation ever has.  Mother begat daughter, and business begat the deepening of a friendship that started in the womb.

We three girls spent a wonderful, albeit stiflingly hot, weekend in Kansas City combing vintage shops, antique malls, and retail stores for fun finds. Every time Jesse points at something old and beautifully time-worn, I grin at the irony. It wasn’t long ago I would have had to bribe her to hit up a flea market, estate sale or junk shop, and now she is the one doing the coercing.

It’s that full circle thing come ‘round all over again.

Our business-that-found-us is one that also suits us well.  Jesse has always been creative, spending hours as a child with boxes of crafty goodness.  Her taste in supplies has evolved from little girl fascination with pony beads and glitter glue to more grown-up fondness (obsession) for fabrics, patterned paper and ribbon. She sews, does machine embroidery, makes the cutest paper goods ever and her ability to mass-produces magnets is rivaled by none.

While Jesse works the soft-goods and baby angle, I tend more toward designing home decor via computer screen.  My vinyl cutter and I are very close, and I love to combine cuts with colorful canvas backgrounds.  Scripture, sayings, and word-collages are the mainstay of my creative day, but I also dabble in paper goods, magnets, and odds-and-ends.

Jesse’s tastes run her way, mine run mine, and somewhere in the middle, we overlap.  It’s a meshing of creativity hot-glued together with a mutual fondness and respect for each other.  I could have made no better choice for a business partner, and for that I am thankful. Truly blessed.  She is Rory to my Lorelei, and on our girls weekends, there are many Gilmore references.  We place orders and make reservations under our pseudonyms and talk about the romance of a thousand yellow daisies. We are silly, honest, mutually brought to tears by our realization of how quickly time passes when you are watching a child grow up. We are sentimental to a fault.

This is what makes our business work.  We share goals, dreams, and visions of not only surviving, but thriving. We want to help other visionaries reach their goals. We want God to be at the center of everything we do. We want our husbands to support us, celebrate our successes, and not chastise us for our failures.

We want to leave a legacy for the third generation Barn Girl.

It’s a simple concept:  Make what we love, sell it at a fair price, treat our customers like family and welcome the spirit of creativity that swirls in every breath we take. At the end of the day, celebrate with a slice of French silk pie.

Is it a coincidence that the pie is in the shape of a circle?

Most definitely not. 

Quick Saturday Project

Several years ago, I found this lonely red chair sitting outside of a re-sale shop, and I just couldn't resist.  I had no idea where it was going to fit into our home, but I just knew that it would.

Since then, it found a place in our Americana kitchen.  When not in use, it is home to a couple of pillows and a Teddy Bear.  When we have company, it gets put to work.

In the past year, I've fallen in love with my Silhouette Cameo, and while I make gifts for others, and create pieces to sell in our Etsy shop and in local retail spaces, I have done very little for myself.

Enter the chair.

It has been calling my name for ages, a blank canvas that I pass by dozens of times daily.  I just didn't know what I wanted to put on it, and I never made the time to actually do it.  Today I made time.

I hope you like my chair re-do as much as I do. Now when I pass by, not only will I smile at the cheerful red of this rescued seat, but my heart will be warmed by the verse that it bears.

Diving in for a Dumpster Dive Makeover

 A few weeks ago, while dropping our newspapers into the big recycling bin at our local grocery store, my husband spotted this magazine rack among the discards.  He pulled it out and threw it in the back of our van thinking that we could use it as some kind of display piece in our business.

It's been sitting in the garage ever since, but the other day, it occurred to me that this would be a great piece to use out by the pool for storing towels, lotions and toys.

I found some cute shapes that I cut on my Silhouette Cameo, applied them to the little metal front pieces, and voila!  Discarded plain Jane piece transformed into something very useful.

A small wicker basket in the bottom rack holds lotions, small toys and bug spray while the upper racks are perfect for the oodles of beach towels that we go through.

 With 100+ degree temperatures predicted for the next week or so, I'm thinking we'll be getting a lot of use out of the pool.  This little makeover will definitely come in handy!

First Fruits

 As kids, my siblings and I were always forced to work in my parents' garden.  Trust me when I say that their idea of a garden was no little 10x10 plot with a few tomatoes, some corn and a few bean plants.  Oh no.  This was (and still is) a HUGE plot with everything from green beans and peas to row after row of corn, zucchini, radishes, pumpkins and several types of lettuce.

At the time, weeding and later harvesting that produce, out in the heat and bugs and other skittering critters was definitely not how I wanted to spend even one minute of my day.  Looking back, I have to admit that I was horrible about it, whining and carrying on and usually a major slacker when it came to actual productivity.

I swore to myself that when I grew up, all of my veggies would come from the store like normal people.

Fast-forward many years, several homes and two grown kids later.   While I have to admit that I'm still not a gardener, I have made a couple of feeble attempts at home-grown.  Most of my labors were enjoyed by rabbits and squirrels, but every now and then, a sweet, succulent tomato actually made it to our kitchen and was thoroughly enjoyed. This, I mused, must have been why my parents did what they did.

We've been in our current home for nearly 19 years and up until this year, we've had this neglected side of the house that we've wanted to fix up.  Terracing has been discussed, stone steps to the back yard, and even a box garden idea was tossed around.

Leave it to my clever and amazing hubby to finally take the initiative to bring the box garden to life.  I have no idea what inspired him, other than the prices in the grocery store produce aisle, but in a matter of a few days, he "threw together" this wonderful little box garden, filled it with soil, put in plants and voila!  Veggies!

I love walking outside and seeing the vibrant reds and yellows of turning tomatoes, the greens of the peppers and the golden marigolds lining the edges, in hopes of keeping away some of God's hungry little creatures.

The other night, my hubby brought in this perfect little cherry tomato, and I just couldn't resist photographing it and sharing this, our first fruits of the season.  It's a beauty of a cutie and it makes my mouth water for more.

Maybe this time, the garden will inspire less grumbling and more appreciation.  Ah, the things life teaches us as we grow up!

Guest Appearance

Hey ya'll, we were selected as guests on Katie's blog, Dogtags and Diamonds!

Check out our Q&A session here:  http://dogtagsndiamonds.blogspot.com/2012/06/guest-post-by-poverty-barn-girls.html

Thanks so much for having us, Katie!

Pickin' Pics

A quick album of some of our favorite recent picks.  As you can tell, we've had a lot of fun, and our enamelware obsession is going to require an intervention soon.

Doll/baby-sized bed springs.

Enamelware colander, dipper and little pots.

Crayola chalk box.

A pyramid of benches and enamelware.  Yum!

A rusty green metal box becomes a sweet showpiece for our next event!

A slide box, whose slot are just the right size for a business card.

What's better than plain old enamelware?  Enamelware that stacks, of course!

A tall skinny cabinet that holds lots of goodies.

We love flea markets, garage sales, junk shops and Etsy.  Ahhh....

When a Door Opens

About a year ago, Jesse called me up and asked if I wanted to join her at a craft fair.  She'd been sewing cute wallets and billfolds and setting up at few shows and she was tired of going alone.  I had a few things of my own to put out, so I agreed.

On the morning of our first joint show, we were awakened by tornado sirens, and it was no drill. In a haze of sleep-induced grogginess, my husband and I did our usual turn-on-the-tv, check the radar-on-our-phones thing and realized that there was, indeed, severe weather approaching.  Fast.

We weren't frightened for ourselves, because we have decent shelter in our basement, but Jesse, Joe and the dogs have no basement, and, as it turned out, Jess was home alone, huddling with her hounds in the bathtub, praying that the storm would pass and staying on the phone with us for comfort.

Fortunately, no twisters touched down, no damage was done, and we made it to the show only a little tardy.  As was everyone else.

That first show was in a smoky VFW hall and the shoppers outnumbered the vendors by only a slight margin. However sparse the turnout, we made a few sales, had a lot of laughs and really enjoyed ourselves.  It was an inauspicious beginning to what was about to become an all-consuming passion.

What followed was a whirlwind of craft shows, farmer's markets, a web site, launch of our Etsy Shop, Facebook and Twitter pages, and eventually, we stumbled upon Pinterest.  Sigh.  It not only fed our creative lust, but gave us one more place to tout our rapidly-growing product line.

We didn't really set out to start a full-fledged business, but Poverty Barn had a mind of its own and before long, whether we were ready or not, Jess and I became more than two names on a checking account.  We became small business owners.

The last year has taught us a great many lessons.  We've been a part of two great shops and just really immersed ourselves in the experiences.  Those partnerships have inspired us to dream of having our own brick-and-mortar store some day.  And we mean that quite literally.  No modern strip mall will do for Poverty Barn. We need wood and exposed brick, wavy glass windows and tall pressed-tin ceilings.  Those things will be the perfect backdrop for us.  Eventually.

The best part about this business is that we are in it together, a mother-daughter team that works like a well-oiled machine.  Through this experience, I've gained new insight to the creative creature that lives inside my daughter.  I've watched her blossom not only with motherhood, but with the mindset of a true marketer.  She is brilliant and gifted and despite the way her room looked when she lived here at home and the way her office looks now, she really is organized.  We make a great team, and I will be forever grateful that she invited me to be a part of this.

It's funny because I mourned the passing of days as she prepared for her wedding almost two years ago.  I feared that once she left, her world would revolve around her husband, household and eventual children.  The empty nest, while appealing in some ways, held a certain trepidation over my being left to gather dust as I scrambled for any remnants of herself she might save for me.  Well, all I can say is that this Mom is definitely not gathering dust.  There's no way Jess would let me!  And honestly, I think we spend more time together now than we ever have. And with Olivia added to the fray, the mixture just gets sweeter.

As I look back over this past year, I find myself humbled by what has become of this little enterprise.  Not only have we made sales, but more importantly, we've made friends, and not just the Facebook kind.  I would like to say thank you to our families who have prayed for us, supported us and cheered us on.  I would also like to thank the fellow artists, shop owners and small businesses who have contributed to our success.  Without each of you, we would never have made it this far.

Most of all, I would like to thank Jess, for opening the door and inviting me along for the ride.  It may have started out on a dark and stormy morning, but it's been fair skies and smooth sailing for all the days since.  You rock my world, Sugarlump.  Never give up your dreams!

Rainy Days and Sundays

There is something cozy and warm about being inside on a rainy afternoon, especially on the weekend when we can take a little time to work on fun "rainy day" projects!

We've had our share of rain and storms over the last few days, and I have tried to put the hours to good use.  Yesterday I worked on this fun project with an old shutter from my corner stash.  My husband had suggested this a long time ago, but I just hadn't gotten around to doing it.

Originally, the plan was to leave off the kitchen part and make it an open and closed sign for our business, but since we decided that we didn't want to over-extend ourselves, we didn't move out on our own yet, so the sign wasn't needed.  It's going to stay on the back burner until the day comes that we are ready to take that step.

So here's how the sign turned out.  I asked for some input on the colors from my son, and I played around with various schemes until I came up with something I liked.  I did this with vinyl using my Silhouette Cameo, which I love, and I think it turned out pretty well.  Getting the letters to line up was a little tricky, but not too bad.

Besides this project, I'm also in the middle of another one involving glass blocks.  I've always wanted to try my hand at these but just never seemed to be able to catch them on sale.  Finally Hobby Lobby and my schedule cooperated so now I have a small stash to work on.  I'll get pictures of those later, after the lights I ordered arrive.

Finally, a few weeks back, my husband and I went "pickin'" in an old barn and came home with a van load of architectural treasures. Among the stash are six of these beautiful textured glass windows.  They measure 12 by 24 inches, and each has the wonderful, naturally distressed handle.  I'm still trying to decide on some good phrases to vinyl on these, but hopefully I'll have at least one done by the end of the day. By the way, this one looks really good now that it's cleaned up.  You should have seen it barn-fresh!

Anyway, here's to everyone else who is using this afternoon to play around with some fun new projects.  I hope you have a wonderful time!

Valerie

P.S.  Here's what one of the windows looks like now that I've finished it:

And here's where we're linking up today:

At Home at Home Depot

There was a time when the only reason I wanted go to Home Depot was to see Tony Stewart's picture on the Coke machine.  Those were the days when all I saw was boring stuff like lawn mowers, pvc pipe, and electrical supplies when I walked through the door, usually trailing my hubby.

Oh how times have changed!

Don't get me wrong, because I firmly believe that heaven might just be one big craft store, but Home Depot is a really fun place to find project supplies. It all started with spray paint and has moved on to washers, thumb tacks and sand paper.

Last week I went in for some of the aforementioned thumb tacks when I found myself in the tile aisle.  I've bought tile before, but it came from the Habitat for Humanity store and the selection was pretty limited.  Needless to say, Home Depot's choices are something out of a dream.

Previously, I've used 4x4 and 3x12 ceramic tile for applying vinyl lettering and sayings.  Those are fun, and I love how easily vinyl sticks to them, but I got a little bored with my colors (or lack of) since I bought only white and gray.

The tiles I bought last week are small, and the colors are oh-so-yummy!  Most of them are glass, but some are tumbled stone and I have yet to decide which ones I like best.  They come on a sheet and for this project, I just pulled them off the mesh backing, created some inspirational words with my Silhouette Cameo and stuck magnets on the back.

You can see here how they look.  It's a very simple project with limitless potential.

So even though Joey Logano has replaced Tony on the Coke machine, I still find myself gazing that direction as I leave one of my favorite stores.  And I still smile.

Linking up to this party today!

From Junk to Junque

Green does not describe me.  I am not a jealous person, I am probably the worst recycler on the planet, and my thumb is pasty white, causing only weeds to grow in the gardens and flower beds I touch.

Despite that, I absolutely love rescuing items that are destined for the garbage truck and making something funky and fun out of them.  Here's proof from my old blog that this isn't my first recycling rodeo:  http://studiovalerie.blogspot.com/2011/05/bubble-full-of-blooms.html

It's fun to take something weird, something that anyone else would think you were crazy for saving, and turning it into something useful, fun or pretty.  This is the story of our latest rescue.

So yesterday my husband walked into my office with this odd piece:

"What is that?" you're probably thinking.

It's the vent cover from an old upright freezer that had to be trashed several months back.  The first question, of course, is "how did we not see this when we hauled out the freezer?"  That question would be answered immediately if you've ever seen our basement.  It is wall-to-wall junk and boxes, collected over nearly twenty years of living in the same house.

This piece intrigued my husband, and he just knew that it could be turned into something fun.  His suggestion:  Use that fancy vinyl cutter and make a "cold drink" sign out of it.

So that's what I did.  First, I found this really cool (ha!) font and cut navy blue letters with a layer of white "snow" and created "ICE COLD DRINKS" in a size that would fit the piece.

Next, they were transfer-taped and applied, creating this one-of-a-kind sign that will some day grace the man cave that we hope to eventually carve out of the basement once the kids extract all their stuff.  We have two old Pepsi machines and one old Coke machine, so this should look great hanging on the wall above them...someday.

So there you have it!  My fun little Sunday afternoon project.  One less piece of junk in a landfill, one more piece of junque in my basement.  It's a treasure trove of pickin' paradise that Frank and Mike would love to crawl around in, that's for sure. Sorry boys, you're not invited.  We're going to enjoy all of this stuff ourselves, eventually.

Here's where we're linking up on this beautiful Good Friday: