Please Welcome Our Guest

we are so honored to have a guest with us today. melissa is a mom of 3 boys, founder of

'beautiful feet global outreach', lifestyle photographer, but most of all she's our friend & we should also add a gifted writer as you're about to find out...

Vintage Heart

The first time I heard the word “vintage” that I can recall was in my early 20’s. Some clothiers had popped up in town touting vintage clothing. Everything was unique, slightly worn…from a previous time. Only certain people could really pull it off from a style perspective. I wasn’t really one of those people. Instead of the clothing making me look cool and interesting, I made it look awkward. I supposed “vintage” was just not for everybody. Certainly not moi.

These days we drool over just about anything vintage. Cars. Jewelry. And oh my blessed stars…vintage furniture. I love old farm houses and anything that looks like it came out of an old “vintage” farmhouse. My beautiful friends, The Vintage Shabby Chicks are in business together pulling together glorious wonders with the masterpieces they find and finish in stunning vintage style. I’m so proud of what they do, why they do it, who they are and the ways they love. When they asked me to write a guest post for their blog…all I knew was this internal draw in my spirit to the word “vintage”. See, I’m a word girl. So I went to my nearest dictionary to make these discoveries.

Vintage - denoting something of high quality, esp. something from the past or characteristic of the best period of a person's work.
Shabby ~ in poor condition through long and hard use or lack of care.

What if we all worked on the restoration of our hearts? What if our hearts could recover from the long and hard use, or lack of care? What if our hearts only reflected that which characterizes the very best period of the love we’ve shared? I bet we’d all be willing to pay high dollar for that. We’d all have vintage hearts.
I know a way. The Lord God of all creation made a way when He sent His son into this world. Sweet Jesus. I love the example of David in one of his many beautiful psalms. Psalm 51:10 “Create in me a clean heart, O Lord, and renew a right spirit within me.” David was a man after God’s own heart ..according to God Himself. And yet David had the sense to know when his heart was in a shabby state. He knew that only the Lord of All could restore his heart back to the characteristic of his better days. He knew that being indwelled by the Spirit would restore him, renew him and that he could live as a masterpiece.
May we all have a vintage heart. Now, that idea ain’t too shabby.



thank you melissa & thank you to our readers for joining us once again.

What Keeps Us Going?

we have so much to be thankful for every day & so often we fail to give thanks to the One who gives us every good & perfect gift.

we are so blessed to be able to follow our passion & have fun doing it

thankful for husbands who love us & support what we do

friends & family who've encouraged us along the way

we enjoy saling, junking, painting & the satisfaction of a restored piece given new life

but what we really keeps us going is our love for the children at the 'rose of sharon' orphanage in zimbabwe, africa

every piece we paint, every item we place in our booth is really for them, see our 'blessed to be a blessing' tab at the top of our home page

at least 10% of everything we sell goes to 'beautiful feet global outreach'

we are so blessed  & thankful to be able to support 'rose of sharon'
'every good & perfect gift comes from the Father of heavenly lights...'james 1:17
thank you for stopping by

The Red Monster

when you were a child did you ever have a monster under your bed?
i don't remember having one then, but i have a monster in my garage right now...
i know i shouldn't say this about a custom piece of furniture, especially since it's going in a sweet newborn baby boy's nursery,

but this dresser has been our nemesis

'the red monster'

it was a solid wood dresser that had been painted white at one time

our client wanted annie sloan chalk paint (ascp) 'emperor's silk'
we've used many colors of ascp, but this would be our first time to use this color.

our friend, denise, had painted her bar stools with this color & was ready to scream by the time she was done

she warned us to stay away & "don't even go there"

she was so over 'emperor's silk'  & we thought we were up for the challenge

so we got the rest of her can of paint... which was the birth of the 'red monster'

emperor's silk got the best of us...

it doesn't show well in the pic, but this is after 2 coats of paint

it wouldn't go on smoothly (streaks upon streaks)

the color is so uneven

 the old white paint & other marks were still showing thru

& we were almost out of paint! 

so on to plan 'b' except we had no plan 'b'

we've used other color's of ascp numerous times & never had a problem,
we love this paint...

we needed a red that would give us better coverage.

so, we asked our client to  pick out a new color of paint at home depot

she chose martha stewart's 'vermilion' & we had home depot mix the color in behr, paint with primer.

it turned out that it was a nice thick paint that gave good coverage!

thank goodness the monster was somewhat tamed...

it's still not the best piece we've done & our client hasn't seen it yet in person, so we'll see... as a matter of fact it's being delivered to her home at this very moment & i'm a little nervous...

julie talked to our local ascp stockist, tawnya, at

 c'est moi in brentwood, tn

she said that we should not have had that problem, this is one of her favorite colors

so, we'll take the little bit that's left & let her look at it. hop on over to her blog to meet tawnya  & if you live in the middle tn area please stop in her shop, you won't be disappointed.

we're so glad to have this project behind us & have already moved on

it may be a while before we do another red piece, memories of  the 'red monster' are still too fresh.

we'll let you know what our client thought of the piece & will try to get a pic of it in the nursery for you to see

thank you for stopping by & sharing in our latest adventure

Mr. MarbleTop

it's been awhile since we've posted a furniture before & after
so please join us for our latest re-do

we have so many favorite pieces that we've painted, sometimes it's so hard to let them go...

here's one of my(sharon's) latest favorites

i'm only calling him mr.marbletop because we forgot to name this piece when we took it to our booth & it looks like a 'he' to me

so it's mr. marbletop for now

we took it off before painting, but he has a piece of  gray & white marble on the top, thus his name

here's his before

it's a nice old oak washstand, but nothing to take home to mom, right?

his only must keep feature (besides the marble top) are his squeaky old wood casters... it's caster love when he rolls across the floor...sigh...

first on the agenda for his make-over, get rid of those awful brass handles!

love on him with some oops paint, add some handsome (oh, they're almost pretty) glass handles,  fleur-de-lis stencil, a coat of clear wax, replace his marble  & the  fabulous mr. marbletop is ready for his public debut...

after his vintage shabby make-over here he is...

so what do you think? good enough to take home to mom?

you betcha, but can we please give him another name?

he's too handsome to be a mr.marbletop...

hope you enjoyed our latest before & after

thank you for stopping by

linking up to
 'piece of work wednesday

Another awesome honor...THE LEIBSTER BLOG AWARD!!

What a nice surprise Sharon and I had when we read we had received another blog award!! Deb at TwiceNice was sweet enough to nominate the Vintage Shabby Chicks with this awesome Leibster Blog Award.  Thanks Deb for following us and encouraging us to "keep on blogging" and doing our thing:-))

The Leister Blod award is presented to up and coming bloggers who have less than 200 followers.  Leibster is a German word meaning dear, sweet, kind, nice, good, beloved, lovely, kndly, pleasant,valued, cute, endearing and welcome.  Oh to be all those things!!

Here are the rules for participating in the Leibster award

1. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you
2. Reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog
3. copy and paste the award on your blog

4. have faith that your followers will spread the love too!!



Sharon and I have selected these awesome up and coming bloggers:

Elisa at HomeSweetNest Love the way she restores and lovingly creates"so called junk"

Melissa atMelissashoots  Melissa is a good friend of ours that is turning a photography hobby into a business.  Please go visit her blog and enjoy her amazing portfolio.  And if that isn't enough, Melissa is the founder of Beautiful Feet Global Outreach  a ministry to spread the love and hope of Christ into the hearts of orphans worldwide

Erin atSalvagedWhimsy  She has the talent of taking old treasures and putting her own unique spin on them.  Lots of tutorials and eye candy to follow also!

Bonnie at aweemeenit  This is such a fun blog to visit....we're always getting inspiratiuon and ideas from Bonnie!    Grab a cup of coffee and go spend some time getting your creative juices flowing!

Chrystal at theshabbiestchick  Get out a hankie and prepare to drool!!  Sharon and I just love the redos featured on this blog. Chrystal is such a talented gal!

We hope all of you out in blogland will be full of inspiration and creativity after visiting these blogs!!  Have a wonderful, blessed week and stay shabby!!  Julie and Sharon

Blogging 'Whenever...'

if you're a regular reader here, thank you.
it has been said that confession is good for the soul, so we'll see, because we have a confession to make...
we're not so sure about this blogging thing...

as you have noticed we're not the best blog writers

 we don't  do tutorials (gives us a headache just thinking about it)

 or have the best photos, nor do we carefully 'stage' our finished furniture pieces.

 we talked about reading some of the good blog tutorials on how to improve your blog, making a schedule of which of us will blog when,
keeping a list of subjects to blog about & even getting a logo to 'brand' ourselves.
 got advice from our photography friend, melissa www.melissairwin.smugmug.com,about buying a good camera to get those perfect shots...but you know what?
ok here comes the confession,

that's just not us...

we'd rather be searching estate sales, thrift shops & old barns for the next 'treasure'

painting furniture

(see what we mean about staging)

working our booth at the antique mall

or getting inspired by many of those other truly good blogs out there.

 oh how we love to  sit down with a good cup of coffee (or glass of wine depending on the time of day) & search thru the blogs done by truly dedicated, talented  folks.

they so inspire us !

so here we are & here we'll stay, just being us...

making posts 'whenever' about 'whatever'

using not so perfect photos, staging our furniture right where it was painted, we think we'll call it 'garage chic' 

& being thankful that we can do all of those things that we love.

oh confession is good for the soul!

as always thank you for stopping by & stay shabby,

sharon & julie

It's Beginning...

it's beginning to look like Christmas...

after several hours of moving furniture, unpacking boxes of goodies, arranging & re-arranging we finally got our booth at the bellevue antique mall ready for the Christmas shopping season...

one of our holiday sale specials is this beautiful pine, drop-leaf table with four chairs

italian plates with hand-painted pine on the rim & amber liquor glasses

an adorable carved nativity, i love the angel as part of the set

'hark the herald angels sing...'

pine cones are a holiday must, natural & sprayed silver

flannel & quilt stockings hung on a chippy door

 the newest addition to our booth

a yummy, red, old ,chippy door...

we 'll have more Christmas to share in the days to come...

 we'll show you some of the fun things we did using old sheet music in our Christmas decorating.

thank you for stopping by