A New Journey...

Well friends... it's time for a new journey.

I started my first blog Ramblings from a grateful heart in April 2006.  It was pictures only for I was afraid that I would lose the few followers I had with my ramblings.  Then I got a little braver and started telling stories along with the pictures.

In December 2009, my second blog was born-- Berry Homespun Primitives.  This blog was for crafting, decorating, and my Etsy shop.  While I kept my personal blog going, I decided in July 2013 to integrate the 2 blogs.  What a hassle it was to try to keep up with both blogs... I didn't do very well.

Little did I know that the beginning of the 2013 school year would bring craziness to our life as we pulled our youngest from public school.  We have home schooled him these past two years.  Then this past month, the little guy went back to public school into the same district but a new building that houses 4th-5th grades.  He has done tremendously well and for that we are very grateful.  So while all the creating and crafting was put completely on hold... the time has finally come for me to get back at it.  Yay!

So now that I have caught you up to speed, I want to share a new venture that I am starting.  I created and registered a new business with the state the past couple of days and I am now the proud owner of "A Vintage Journey"!  My husband has had a screen printing business for a few years now so we are going to utilize this and start printing boutique-style shirts for me sell along with my re-purposing pieces.  For now I will do business through facebook and my booth at Homeward Bound in Claremore, OK.  The rest of this year will be getting the business set up, advertising pieces printed, and display pieces bought so that I can hit some shows next year.  I'm pretty excited about it because it's been so very many years since I've done the show circuit.  I LOVED it back then... meeting new people, making new vendor friends, visiting with customers.  It was such a joy.

While the excitement abounds for the journey ahead, I'm actually sad to leave this blog for awhile.  I won't close it down, it will be here as long as blogger allows it.  I even exported all of the posts of both of my old blogs into my new blog.  I do hope you join me at my new blog.  For it is very lonely with no followers yet, lol!

My love for primitives has not dwindled.  I still love the deep, dark colors of barn red, mustard, burnt orange, rust, and black.  But I am slowly starting to fall in love with aqua, red, and yellow.  I feel like just using the word "primitives" limits me to prim pieces but I love so much more than that... antiques, vintage, retro... just anything old.  Thus the new name, new business, new direction.  

It's funny the direction life takes you.  You never know, you can never guess.  But one thing I do know for sure is that I truly treasure my time blogging and the wonderful friends that I've made that I have never met.  

Over at my new blog, I will be sharing as I create... projects, good deals, shows... all that fun stuff.

Now, won't you please join me on my new journey... A Vintage Journey

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~