Antiques & Boutiques Tour of Abilene, Texas

I had four days to power shop my way through the West Texas town of Abilene and it was so much fun. The city of Abilene first came on my radar as a antiques and vintage mecca about tweleve years ago and it did not dissappoint. Listed below are the stores that I shopped. If you would rather watch then read, click here to watch my Instagram Stories about this trip or watch the YouTube video below. A link to my Google Places map of Abilene can be found at the end of this post. There are about 47 places on the Google list. I only made it to 17.

Day 1

  1. Hen Shack Boutique and Salon – Funky, Fun and Bright – this place rocks. I actually went twice.

2. Al’s BBQ – Good and quick. Much needed after a very long day of flight delays.

Day 2

1.Front Porch Coffee Shop – Any antique shopper knows that you’ve got to get fueled up beforehand and this place was a score. The biscuits and gravy were really good and I grew up on good homemade biscuits and gravy so I’m kind of an expert. The coffee was legit and there was no shortage of Authentic Texas Cowboys in creased jeans, tipping their hats and greating every lady with howdy ma’am. I will never take offense to that behavior.

2. The Antique Station – Well curated store with seasoned pickers and vendors. The owner was a very nice gentelman with great stories of a long history in the business. He only works on Mondays, so I was lucky to have gone on the right day to meet him. There were some lovely Quarter Sewn Oak bedroom sets that I was swooning over. Huge armiores, with good provenance were abundant.

3 .Frontier Flea Market – this place was packed with stuff. At the opposite end of the spectrum from the last store, it packed a punch with a fun, quirky and thrifty vibe. I loved it and found a lot of items that I would have purchased if I had already worked out the shipping situation. The ladies that were running it were great.

4. The Furniture Junk It & Junkers Alley – WOW! I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what I said when I walked in the door. This amazing place is a must see. It is more of a vintage market with multiple vendors that are excelent pickers and merchandisers. I found so much stuff here and this was the exact moment when I relized that I would have to find a pack and ship store. SO MUCH good junk. I could go on and on but I will just post the pictures instead.

5. Living Chic – Words cannont express my love for this store. It’s more of a upscale antiques design center with truely lovely items, inculding custom designed Christmas Trees. The shear quantity of luxuriuos antiquties was mind blowing. Just layers and layers or goodness. The owner was the sweetest and most talented lady that I think I’ve ever met. I didn’t purchase anything, although I would have loved to, if I had any other style of home than my current Mid Century Modern home. Here are some of my favorites from the store.

6. Vintage Marketplace – Super fun and LARGE market with lots of vendors and a ton of painted furniture and a couple of different paint lines. Lots of fun stuff.

7. Rust & Roses Antiques – Great store with some very nice painted furniture and some fun Texas gypsy style clothing companies.

8. Moose Mountain Coffee Bar – this was a great mid-day boost.

9. Gypsy Rose Antiques – More traditional antiques with multiple vendors and a huge hidden warehouse.

Day 3

  1. Big Country Coffee – great drive thru coffee
  2. Tres Chic – this store was beautiful. Watch my YouTube video to see the inside and all of the goodness.
  3. Laura’s Boutique – This store carries a lot of the same lines as my moms store and I got the idea of doing the Facebook Live fashion shows from them.
  4. Urban Relics – Another great market with a good amount of industrial antiques. I really enjoyed this store.
  1. Elmwood Antiques Center – This is a more traditional antique mall with lots of good finds.
  1. La Villa – the is a fun and funky place to find unique metal art.
  1. The Arrangement – another great boutique with lots of cool clothing, bags and gifts.
  1. Bunny Run – I wish I would have taken more photos inside of this store. There were som great painted pieces in this store.

Day Four

  1. Ya Ya Gurlz – this is one of the stores that I discovered way back in 2011. It was so much fun and I should have bought more but I had already bought so much and since they don’t open until Thursday, I was already tapped out by then.

Click Here for the link to my Google Places List for Abilene, TX

First Installment – Friday Favorites of The Week

Welcome to Friday Favoites where I showcase my favorite things found on the interweb this week. I spend an inordinant amount of time shopping, or maybe I should say browsing since I don’t buy everything I see. One might even go as far to say that I have been a professional shopper most of my life. As a shop kid and an only child, I went everywhere that my parents went to conduct business, including buying for their stores. Subsequently, I learned from a very early age to inspect products for qaulity and how to make descision on what should or shouldn’t be stocked in their stores. This could be considered a blessing or a curse. In my early twentys, it was a curse to my skinny budget. Now in my fortys…good taste and an eye for quality, well… I have a love affair with AfterPay.

Anyway…here are this weeks favorite finds.

  1. The Turqouise Iris Journal – Dionne has been my mentor for the past few months and while kicking my butt (and19 other creatives) into shape (a full time job), she still managed to do all of her normal wonderful things AND start a magazine! It launched TODAY. Go check it out!
  2. Worn To Whimsy – Mermaids Galaxy Sky Secretary – Llewellyn is an amazing artist and is so sweet. I would love to have this piece since I treated myself to her mermaid painting.
  3. Worn To Whimsy – Speaking of mermaid painting! I absolutely adore it and it’s hanging in my studio for inspiration.
  4. Iron Orchid Designs Brick Roller – I purchased this from my local IOD retailer Bluebird Mercantile in Winter Garden. Go to her webpage to see the tutorial on the amazing things this tool can do.
  5. Callan Abstract Blouse from Anthropologie – I’m a sucker for prints and patterns. This one got me.
  6. A.S. 98 Markie Shoes – Debi Beard of Debi’s Design Diary was wearing these at the workshop in Georgia and well…I was sitting in the front row and was stuck staring at them all night long. They are amazing!
  7. Green Monstera Lucite Charm Necklace Set – Yes, my obsession with the Monstera plant even flows over into my accessories choices. This set is so cute AND lightweight. (I’m old and get neckaches, lol)
  8. Leopard Love Beaded Clutch – I can think of so many outfits to wear this with. A classic little black dress or go with a IG scroll stopping streetwear style paired high waisted jeans, chunky sweater and lug boots.
  9. The cutest little Lucite Palm Tree Earrings – Ummm…this is stating the obvious…super cute and lightweight.
  10. Farm Rio from Anthropologie – The Danette Slim Midi Skirt has been on my crush list for a while. Not sure that I can pull this look off but maybe, just maybe.

Thanks for

The Bohemian Blues

If I could only plug you into my brain for a moment, the chaos would be overwhelming to most. This chaos exists every second of my life, but when I’m trying to reimagine a piece of furniture, I go into hyperdrive. It is pretty maddening and most of the time the piece never goes as planned anyway. So, when I found this petite Art Deco china hutch on Facebook Marketplace the madness began. I was already in planning mode on the way to get it. I had a glimmer of an idea or at least a color planned in my head, but I just couldn’t see it fully. I went over to my Pinterest boards for inspo (I have things pinned via category from ages ago) and scoured through all things art deco. I wanted a deep, yummy mint color and I knew I wanted gold accents. I really racked my brain over this piece way too long and wasted too much time thinking about it because when I finally picked up the brush and started, it resembled nothing of what I had saved.

Painted Furniture Peacock

Going With The Flow

I was going to custom mix a color and then I just decided to slap on some DIY Bohemian Blue, starting at the top and just dragging the brush down. I haven’t really used this technique before and just left it at the stage. I usually get cold feet and continue to paint. The self-doubt and questioning after a decade of painting still baffle me. One would think that I would just do it and say it is what it is but that inner dialogue of doubt about if someone “gets it” just keeps tapping me on the shoulder. Well this time I said, this is it. If no one likes it, it can go to my house. Funny fact…I very rarely have any of my own work in my house. I’ve never painted anything for my own home. Every piece has always been for sale and moved to a booth or on the sales floor, so having this little jewel at my house was a novel idea. I kind of liked the fact that I was painting for fun this time and that there was no pressure to pump out furniture for sale. I could take my time (maybe too much time) and really get it just the way I wanted it which by the way I still don’t like the drawer lining, but it was handy (during COVID) and the right color scheme so I rolled with it.

Art Deco Arch

To Paint or Not To Paint…That was the question

It was the arch that I loved the most about this piece and I almost wasn’t going to paint it, but I just kept going and low and behold, its even more so my favorite part now that it’s painted. Sometimes I worry that I won’t like it painted, but I just let it flow with this one. It really turned out so much different than I planned, but I love it. It is probably in my top ten all-time favorites. I love the drips and variegations in the color which comes from using multiple colors. You can check out the studio recording of me painting it here.

This piece is available and is currently at Ruby & Rust in Downtown Winter Garden.

Beachy Stripes Tutorial Sneak Peek

There’s just something about stripes that makes me think of the beach. Is that really a thing? Beachy stripes? Maybe its beach umbrellas. They have stripes, right? I have seen it on beach bags, beach balls, and beach blankets. How did this beach stripe become a thing in my head? Who knows! Anyway, in this tutorial, I will show you my trick to painting those awesome beachy stripes on almost any piece of furniture. It’s super simple and a super fun way to update the furniture you already own to have a beachy feel.

Surf Shack Coffee Table

This is the coffee table that I used for the tutorial. It basically recreated the design from the chest of drawers from above. BTW, the Surf Shack book is great and has been a catalyst for a lot of my inspo as of late.

How to upcycle a cheap table

Just to prove how fun stripes can be let me show you this super cheap table that I picked up for $20. I painted the legs in a cute teal and then painted the table with black and white stripes. I sanded the paint back to distress it some. This sold out of my booth in less than 10 minutes of me staging it.

Beachy Stripes Dresser

I did this piece back in 2013 and it sold almost instantly and has been repinned thousands of times. A super simple way to add instant character.

Note: Drawer liner tutorial coming soon.

I just finished this cute little Ethan Allen table and chairs. (July 2020) It would be so cute in a beach house or coastal cottage. This piece will be at my mom’s store Maxine’s Fashion Labels in Leesburg soon.

Hey Everyone! I’m Back

To painting that is…I mean, I did leave the Orlando area and moved to Melbourne for a couple of years, so I’m kind of back from there as well. Well, that’s not entirely correct either…I still go there most weekends, but during the workweek, I’m grinding it out in Clermont (a suburb of Orlando). It really is insanely hard for me to stay put. It’s not that I’m a feather in the wind as much as that I’m into everything and I’m not afraid to take chances and follow every opportunity that comes my way. It hasn’t always worked out, but that makes life interesting doesn’t it? It also creates lots of interesting stories for me to tell. Like the one I’m about to tell you right now.

Many of you know that I’ve had a few studios, booths, and stores from Howey In The Hills, Tavares, Mount Dora, Ocoee, Winter Park, Altamonte, and Clermont. I’m sure that I left many of you wondering “where the heck did she go?” Well, I took some time off to help my husband open a couple more businesses and that’s actually how I ended up in Melbourne, Florida. We opened a boat dealership there and really enjoyed living on the water and I even restored a small sailboat while there. We lived in the cutest neighborhood named the Eau Gallie Arts District and met so many cool people and made great friends with other local business owners.

And then…we decided to open a second location in my hometown of Clermont, FL. So here I am back in South Lake County and just like Cross Canadian Ragweed says you’re always 17 in your hometown. It’s really true, isn’t it? People that you haven’t seen since you left, well…they only remember you as you were at 17, Your last days in high school, your last hoorah before leaving for anything other than the small town that had its grip on you.

So here I am, just killing time until I sail away into the sunset on a beautiful catamaran, lol. This girl has plans, not just dreams. Anyhow…I think I will paint some furniture and make some tutorials in the meantime.

Boho Beach

Tootles ~ Denna

Adjectives Booths 50% OFF

We are closing down our booths at Adjectives Market in Altamonte and Winter Park for a little while. All merchandise is 50% off until December 29th, when we will move the remaining items back to our Ocoee store. We just have to simplify our lives for a little while and we hope to return to the Adjectives family once life is back to normal.

The items below are now on sale…plus a lot of small items that aren’t pictured here.

Henredon Campaign Chest Was $129
Henredon Campaign Chest
SOLD

 

Art Deco Black Beauty Was $349 NOW $174.50
SOLD 

 

Was $299 NOW $149.50 *until Dec 29th
SOLD – Adjectives Winter Park Village

 

Silver metallic armoire WAS $349 NOW $175 Altamonte
SOLD Altamonte

Was $199 Now $99 Winter Park Village

Currently Available

These items are currently available at either our booth at Adjectives Market or at our Ocoee Studio. Feel free to contact us via the contact form below if you would like more info

 

 

 

Henredon Campaign2

Ocoee Studio $199

 

 

Chevron Bed

At Adjectives Market -Altamonte $79
At Adjectives Market -Altamonte $79

gypsymarqueesign
At Adjectives Market – Altamonte $399

retro table and bright painted owls
Retro Side Table and Painted Owls at Adjectives Market- Altamonte

Gypsy Dreamin
The Gypsy Wagon French Twin Bed at Adjectives Market- Altamonte $299

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Thank you for your response. ✨

$20 Vintage Industrial Office

Most of you know that I will paint pretty much everything in sight if it hangs around too long. Even stuff that other furniture painters will pass on. My favorite saying is “paint hides a lot of ugly” so when we bought a ton of office furniture from a machine shop auction I ended up with some extremely cheap (practically free) items that I wouldn’t have normally chosen. These items sat in storage for a couple of months until we got the studio and then I had an ah-ha moment…paint all of the ugly, boring office furniture crazy funky colors. It’s an art studio so pretty much anything (and color) goes.

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So here is what we started off with…

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Desk $5

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Shelf FREE

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Credenza $2

PLUS…4 cans of spray paint $13…

Not a bad little makeover for $20