Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Our name up in lights?

My friend Jennifer sent the shop information to "Buzz on Biz" a local show about new businesses. I got a call tonight from Marie that our info was on a lighted bill board on Washington Rd. So, even though we were all in our jammies we headed out to see our name in lights.

This is what we found. We are Quilt Shop on the Corner at 5th and Telfair. *sigh* so close and yet so far.

The Castle finally makes Beth smile.

The castle has been a little
challenging for my friend Beth, the background and floor were causing her to be cranky. But, today after we went shopping and she had a little break and Robert got the turret up, she found her groove and was motivated again. Anyway, look for yourselves and can I just say WOW! The floor and the brick behind the chair look FANTASTIC!!!!



The curtain adds a great little touch.

See, what I mean there is so much demension and depth. It looks GREAT. We are going to have the best kids area in a quilt shop ever.

With a little help from my friends.

Robert and I saw this bag boy's grocery cart on Sunday. He thought it was perfect for moving fabric around, especially since our building was originally a grocery store. I don't know why I didn't get it then, but Beth and I were waiting at the antique store this morning when it opened, and thankfully it was still there. (I remember playing with carts like this when I was a kid, which makes it even more fun.) The cart found a home with us.
Here's my friend Sami holding some fabric to be moved.



Sami and Jason putting price tags on "Thangles".

Marie's son Jonathan, came by to talk to his mom and got called into service to help finish putting up the turret.


Jenifer, hanging the perfect red velvet fabric up as a curtain for the castle. This is fabric she just happened to have and was willing to share. Amazing what can be done with yards of velvet and a staple gun.

Marie, Sami and Jason moving more fabric around.
Not pictured, Robert and Don setting up the computer and hanging stuff, and.........



Always happy to see Beth.

Tallulah always loves to have Beth come and stay a few days. (me too)

Hmmm.

This made me chuckle.

Did you notice which of the thress boxes wasn't opened first?

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

No more getting locked out of the house.

So, here is our fail safe don't get locked out of the house and have to break a window to get back in device. Ask Drew about his "funny" story.

Feeling a little stressed today.

I spent some of my day today, scraping the crazy blue paint from the three paned windows on the outside. It was a pain and feels a little like "trying to make a silk purse from a sows ear", but it was bugging me. I really want the outside of the building to be as great as the inside. So, hopefully people will want to stop and actually come into the shop. But, the majority of it will have to wait for the grant to replace the windows and the siding. *sigh*


Marie brought a great jar with some shells in it from the beach for the beach.





Marie and Sami continued to work on the pricing the inventory. All the batting is in place. Yea, I do love this product.

The "one sidedness" brick of the castle was bugging my mural painter friend so we painted the right side of it today. I will admit it does look better. Beth also, got more angle and perspective on the throne room arch way which I love. She has such a great eye for these things.

Robert bless his heart, got the turret cut out and ready for Beth to paint. (I, personally hate butt shots, but oh well .)
Jennifer came over again during her lunch hour and scraped the second to last window.

Robert got the trim on the counter and I got two coats of stain on it.

Lest, I sound cranky and ungrateful, I am truly not. I am blessed to be working hard to follow a dream. Thanks everyone for all your support and help.







Monday, December 29, 2008

The finishing touches on the bathroom mural.

Mitzy with her cap, bag and flip flops.
Click on the picture to see the "blush" in her face, from being surprised and the great details of her cap, and bag.


A sea gull mobile mural, on top of the door.

Gus with his name "carved" in the post and a sea shell on the beach.


The flying sea gull.
I did manage to get the "grass skirt" on the sink.
Now, if the last mirror would come in before Saturday.
*sigh*


5 days and counting.

Jennifer came by today on her lunch hour and scraped windows and then came back tonight for more!
I worked on staining the top of the check out counter two coats on, one to go and the trim to be added.
This is the baby fabric area. Beth, was bringing me her old crib, but found out that it didn't have all the parts it needed. So, she found this one on craigslist and bought it and brought it. So, here's what it looks like.



Saturday, December 27, 2008

Today felt like a really productive day.

I started the day off finally finishing the painting in the office break room. Then I got the wooden pieces of Beth's mural "mudded" so she could paint them without the groves where the wood didn't quite line up. I also got the last "I" beam in the classroom painted red. It was good to feel like I actually finished a couple of things. Robert diligently worked on his list as well. He got the molding up in the kids area. It is part of the old wood from the building that he cut down into 1x2's. I love it .
He also got the corrugated tin on the counter. And the wood one the windows outside that were missing the middle pieceand the windows caulked. So, no more breezes blowing the curtains. Yee Ha.

Here's the counter with the tin, on it I really like it. I want the shop to have some antiques and some urban looking pieces in it as that's really a mix of who I am or who I am becoming an antique in an urban setting. I still have to figure out the top of the counter. We also found out that we need to get our shelving units out from where we were storing them, so we did some rearranging to try to figure out where all of them are going to go.

I only have one widow on the Telfair side left to scrape. Hallelujah! The curtains and the clean windows make me smile. Which is a nice off set as the scraping was making me curse.

More from the productive day.

After cleaning and scraping one window Marie's elbow was screaming for her to do something else. So, while I was painting and unpainting. Marie was cleaning and organizing. This wooden box was in the building when we bought it. We like it and would like to try and use it. So, Marie braved the spider webs and dirt and gave it a good cleaning and shined it up nicely.

We also found this old tape dispenser on top of the old walker cooler while we were
demo-ing it. Marie cleaned it up and added the roll of tickets which we start using when we open and my business cards. Very creative. I really like when we can use things we found in the building.
Lo0k we can see the top of the cutting table!

Marie and Sami working on POS to label the inventory! Yea!
Thanks ladies.

Friday, December 26, 2008

Let the scraping begin...

Today Marie, Sami and I started scraping the windows. We used tempra paint on the so it would wash off fairly "easy". However, the spray on primer we used on the sill had to be scraped. Can, I just say we have a lot of windows.
We did get two on the Telfair side completely done. I think it has probably been years since the widows were this clean!
Marie washing off the tempra paint, with a nosey Tallulah checking things out. It is fun to look into the windows and see fabric!

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Thoughts on stripes and circles.

So, here's some shots of one window done in circles and one done in stripes..........




2 1/2 hours and one bottle of conditioner later....

So, Drew decided that the dread locks were just too much work and the hair was coming undreaded and......so, this was a surprise to all of us when he got up this morning.

This may be over sharing but here is the hair he combed out, after taking all the rubber bands out and using a bottle of conditioner.....

Some Colorado people that did not get mentioned, but mean a lot to us.

Andy, Marcie, Andy and Jessie graciously let us bunk in their spare room. The whole week. They were flexible (esp. since Mr. Organization (Robert) wasn't on the trip and Miss Organization (Megan) was finishing up rotations and taking finals, so I called Marcie the week before to let her know we were coming. Anyway, we had a blast hanging out with them. "Young" Andy and Jessie have grown into great young adults. They love Jesus and are funny and gracious. It is funny how I see my kids grown into adults, but don't think that other people kids are doing the same thing. Also, a couple of times Andy, Marcie, Megan and I would be having our quiet times all at the same time. All four of us with our Bibles and lap tops. Thanks Stewarts.
We also got to see my brother, and his family for a short time while we were there. We met them for dinner. Mike and Karen and Karen's mom Verna were moving their boys Michael and Shane from Ft. Collins and Greeley to Denver. I don't envy them as the high the day they were actually moving them was supposed to be 5. We enjoyed our time, though short with them as well. What you don't get to see in the picture is that just before this was taken I was backing up and taking the picture and tripped backwards and sat right down on a short wall that had a couple of inches of snow on it. So, everyone got a chuckle out of it and I got a cold bum.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Here's where we landed at the end of the day.

The notions wall.
Looking back toward the windows after all the shelves have been moved, and the cutting table is in the center-ish of the room.
The view from the front door.
Same view, different angle.











Curtains, mirrors, and shelves oh my.

I need some shade from the sun.,,,it is really intense on this side of the shop. Of course the windows are all odd and different shapes and sizes so I can not order standard blinds.....So today I went to Target and bought one of all of the curtains that I liked and hung each of them up to "try" them out. Here is the first set. I am leaning to the red circle one on the right. I don't like the full length one and the other is boring.
Here is the second set, I am leaning toward the one in the middle, again the other two, are boring.
And here is a shot of all of them I actually am thinking of doing one set of windows in the circle and the next set in the red stripes. Thoughts anyone.

Also, because I like "funky" I am thinking of these round mirrors int he bathroom. I mean it is not a place that people get dressed, or put on make up or anything and the circles kind of look like bubbles....

Here's a shot of the thread display and part of the batting section.