The Junk Ranch ~ Twine and Washi Organizers

I visited the Junk Ranch in Prairie Grove, AR Saturday.  It's a fun barn sale with all kinds of neat junk!  It's probably a good thing that it's only held twice a year.

I bought myself some small ironstone bowls that are so adorable but everything else that I bought is for shows.  I went to the barn sale with intentions of finding some medium sized pieces to set on a table to use as a display for my smalls.  Needless to say, I was not disappointed and came home with my trunk literally stuffed AND the best part of all?  I barely spent $30!  I would say that was a success.  I loved this booth... well I loved all of them.

I've been working in my creating room, getting it organized so I can accomplish something.  My daughter didn't want this shelf in her room anymore.  I knew it would be perfect for my baker's twine.  It's great to finally be able to see all the colors now.  I was buying the sugar shaker jars at Dollar Tree but there isn't a store close to me.  It was quite a surprise to see that Walmart carried the exact shaker for 97 cents.  Since there is one just down the road from me, I picked up a shaker each time I was there for grocery shopping.

This is a 5 Tier Swing Arm Trouser Hanger from Bed, Bath, & Beyond.  It is $6.99 but I used my 20% coupon and paid $5.59 for it.  Perfect to hold washi tape!  Each arm swings open.  I can get around 25 rolls on each arm.  Just this one rack alone can hold up to 100 rolls of tape.  I've been looking for some kind of container to store it in but this works great!  Now that I have a place to store washi tape and see it all, I think it's time to buy some more ;) 

It's always nice to find cheap ways to store crafting supplies... especially when the supplies themselves can get quite costly.

I use regular string tags from Walmart for my price tags.  But I don't do white well so I tea stain them.  My friend has been selling Stampin' Up for 10 years now and forces me to buy when she places her quarterly order (hahaha, ok she doesn't have to twist my arm too hard).  SU has some really neat old world and vintage map stamps that I fell in love with.  I am incorporating them into my business and it's been fun to play.  My favorite way to stamp is randomly because if I try to get it just right, it never happens and frustration ensues.  Random placement looks like you did it that way on purpose... works great for me.

It's a busy time of year around the Berry homestead... football games and both boys have birthdays this month.  Throw in the fun things... fall festivals, pumpkin patches, bonfires, homecoming-- and there's lots of memories to be made.  On the business front, we have finally settled on our first shirt design!  When you work as a husband/wife team, that is quite an accomplishment lol!  Shirts have been ordered, Rich is getting the screen and ink ready, and I am super excited!

Thank you for following along on this journey with me.  I appreciate your support so very much!

~ Enjoy your journey ~

A New Journey...

Hi all, and welcome to my new venture, my new blog!  I am so happy that you are here  =]

I started blogging in April 2006 with a personal blog, Ramblings from a grateful heart.  Then in December 2009 I added a crafting and decorating blog, Berry Homespun Primitives .  Here I am in September 2015, starting my third blog.  I do treasure blogging and the wonderful friendships that are made!  I have integrated my other 2 blogs into this new blog to keep the posts going.  I have also kept both of the other 2 blogs open.

After all the years that I've been crafting, I have finally started and registered a business with the state of OK.  I am SO proud!  Back in my high school/college days, my business was named "Homespun Treasures".  This past decade, my crafting business was named "Berry Homespun Primitives".  Now here I am on a new venture with a new name "A Vintage Journey".  And what a journey it has been-- I've been creating and crafting sometimes a little and sometimes a lot over the past 30 years... but only as a hobby.

Here I will share with you projects as I'm working on them, pictures of my booth set up, boutique-style shirts that my husband will be printing, and eventually the fun vintage shows & barn sales that I will be attending!  Thanks for your friendship... be it old or new.  I adore you all!

National Park Map Canvas Prints

While antiquing with my daughter one day, we came across some old maps.  I loved this one of the National Parks.

On the back of this United States map was maps of the individual National Parks.  They were REALLY neat and I instantly knew that I wanted to put them on canvas.  I bought a bunch of these gold & silver canvases from Michael's when they were on sale for 70% off, then I used a coupon on top of that.  The 4-pack cost $2.29.

I used the silver ones. I started by painting the backs with an ivory acrylic paint because I wanted all of the silver covered.

Because the map was going to be centered on the canvas, I only painted a strip around the front of the canvas.

To give it a little character and an aged look, I went around the edges with brown ink.

I tore all the individual maps apart which was very easy to do because of the creases.

And because I am still totally in love with my vintage paper trimmer that I bought at The Junk Ranch Country Barn Sale in Prairie Grove, AR, I use it as much as possible!  To give the edges a worn look, I tore them with the paper trimmer.

Next, I used trusty 'ol Mod Podge as a glue to adhere the map to the canvas.

Then another coat of Mod Podge on top to seal the map.

These were a lot of fun to make, I really enjoyed creating them!  I made 11 of them in one afternoon.  And here are a couple in my booth at Homeward Bound in Claremore, OK.

It's been great fun to be back to creating again!  I'm grateful that I have a little more extra time now to do something I love to do.  Getting paid for it is even better.  =]  

Thanks for stopping by friends!  I'm still reading through my blog roll, trying to catch up with you all.  I have missed out on so much and have missed YOU!

Have a delightful week~

Turquoise & Burlap Vases

Hi friends!  Funny thing happened... the next day after my last post, my laptop died.  No saving it but it was time for it to go.  I was so disappointed though because I was ready to get back to blogging.  It's really, really hard to blog on a cell phone so another break from blogging was my only option.  I have a new laptop (thanks sweet hubby!) and back in business again.

I've been doing a little upcycling on some pieces for my booth.  I had a couple of left over vases from a garage sale that I had awhile back.  So I decided to pretty them up rather than send them off to goodwill.  Here is the before:

Turquoise and burlap are popular right now so I added a touch of each to create this:

Another before:

The after (which already sold, I was surprised at how quick it went):

The kids went back to school last week.  It's time to finally do some deep cleaning around the home as it's been put off for a couple of years.  But the best part of all is that I'm back to creating and blogging.  I'm grateful for the time I had to focus on my family and thankful to be back doing what I love so much!  Thanks for stopping by, have a delightful week~

Remember Me?!

Hi friends, remember me?  I've been hit and miss for the past couple of years and MISSING you all like crazy!  I've been cleaning up my blog this week.  Got rid of the Feedly reader, that thing was more of a headache than it helped.  I see that some of my blog friends have closed their blogs or have been absent for a long time like I was.  It saddens me, but I'm VERY grateful for you that are still here.

I've had to take an unintentional break to tend to my family.  Family first always.  After just a few weeks of my youngest's 2nd grade year in 2013, we had to pull him with issues we had with the school. We've been homeschooling him for 2nd and 3rd grade.  That elementary school was only for those two grades so he moves on to a new elementary school for 4th grade.  I met with the principal recently and he's set to go back to public school for 4th grade.  I'm pretty excited about it because I get my life back and the little guy is excited to be with his friends again.  I APPLAUD you homeschooling moms.  Whew, this is time consuming stuff.  I'm just not patient enough for this but when it comes to your kids, you do what needs to be done.  My older two kids went to these same schools (there are 5 total in our district) for all their lives so I'm confident in putting Robbie back into public school.  It ended up being a blessing in disguise though because I was able to work with him so much to get his reading back to where he should be (actually above grade level now, thank you Jesus!).

My oldest son has been home from Army training for 3 months now.  He's been getting back to civilian life.  Ryan is a chaplain's assistant which works well with what he wants to do... youth ministry and sports chaplain.  No job yet but he is doing some networking with some area youth pastors and getting his resume out.  Once he gets a job and gets established, he's planning on moving out.  His Guard pay alone is not enough to move out yet.  I told him that he needs to make sure he is ready to move out because once he's gone, rooms are being arranged, and I will finally have a crafting room again!  Haha!  If you follow me on Pinterest, I've been pinning room ideas like crazy and already organizing my things.

Well, I wasn't planning on a family update but might as well finish off with the middle child.  Amariah just turned 16 but she took driver's ed at school which put her behind on getting her license on her actual birthday.  She'll be getting it next month.  My babies are growing up!

Anyway... crafting and creating has taken a back seat for the past couple of years.  It has always been my way to relax.  No wonder I'm so uptight, lol!  I rented a booth with a friend at The Grapevine in Claremore, OK last year.  It was hard to keep up with it though while working part time at the Lodge, homeschooling, football, basketball, and golf was going on.  We just pulled out last week but it was a neat place and a fun time.  This picture was taken when I first moved in, my friend wasn't in here yet.

I'm going back to Claremore towards the end of summer to get another booth.  My Etsy has taken a break also so I'm planning on opening it back up.  I have seriously missed crafting so very much!  My dslr camera is broke so I have only been taking pictures with my phone.  They're decent but it sure is hard to blog without pictures.  =/ 

It sure felt good to get back to blogging.  I have always loved it.  Even when others were leaving to go to facebook, I knew I'd always be here.  I might have to take some leaves of absences, haha, but I will always come back.  If you still follow me, THANK YOU so MUCH for staying with me while I was gone!  Looking forward to getting around to everyone's blog and seeing what you've been up to these past couple of years.  I'm grateful for our friendships that God has blessed me with~