Saturday, January 11, 2020

{Post 1,701} Booth Happenings


I am loving working on items for my booth at the antique mall. My husband, Wes, and I made 3 display pieces, and I bought four more items very inexpensively.

We built a folding screen with chicken wire in the center. This is great for runners and table mats. Then we made a ladder with 36” wide rungs. It is attached with a wood piece at the top of the ladder. We always have to think of safety. Then I took a junky piece of scrap wood in our garage and sanded, routed, and stained it. We added four hooks, and that’s where I hang the baby/kids’ quilts.

I was fortunate to get an antique hutch at a thrift store where I often get real steals. I paid $30 for it. It is not a first-class piece of furniture, but makes a great display piece. The side doors in the bottom have issues. I don’t know what they are, but I am not using it for storage. I asked Wes to permanently seal them closed, and he did. I painted the back of the hutch “birdsong blue”. It is lovely.

At the same thrift store, I secured a children’s-sized wooden ironing board. I bought a basket for a dollar to add some height and interest. I also got two wooden quilt racks from the same store. I hope to sell them. There is only room for one of them in the booth. It is 8’ wide by 6’10” from front to back.

Here are some pictures from a few days ago. This was after I added a few Valentine items.




My goal is simple. I want to keep the ladder and the hooks full. I have one baby quilt that is a top right now. I hope to finish that tomorrow and take it over this coming week. I want to have a few seasonal items around major holidays, too.

Tonight I cut out and painted a wooden quilt block. It has as many decisions to make as a regular quilt. I could literally make any quilt pattern, any size, any color...it can be paralyzing. This one turned out cute, but it is larger than I would like (about 18” across). I painted it pink, grey, and white because the booths are painted grey inside, and I wanted a touch of pink for Valentine’s Day. My future ones will be smaller. I also want to make some that are glued to a background piece of square wood, then framed. So. Many. Decisions.




I am going to add some picture ledge shelves to the white display piece on the left side of the booth. I bought that from another vendor who closed their booth. I want to make some more wood quilt pictures and wooden signs like the Valentine ones in the hutch. Two of them say “bless your” and have a corrugated metal heart at the bottom.