Wine & Crafts & Blogs

I've been blogged about again (!) by local blogger Shenandoah Living. There's a really nice write-up about gathered on this website, so check it out if you're interested in reading about my shop from an outsider's perspective. Gathered was also recently written about in an article in the local Warren Sentinel paper. They're a small, old-fashioned kind of paper and don't have too much of a website, so I'll scan the article and post it in the next couple of days. In the meantime, here's a pic of what my block looks like during the Virginia Wine & Craft Festival...

See my nifty new sandwich sign?

(Thank you David & Ann and Sally Mae & John Foster!!)

The hand is pointing all the drunken shoppers down the street to my store.

Extending the Definition of Embellishment

After spending a few weeks getting the feel for being a new business owner, I decided I finally needed to make time to craft some things for the store myself. Nothing extremely exceptional, but I thought they'd be a good fit for the shop. Besides, where else in Front Royal are you gonna find hair embellishments like these?

Beaded Leaf botanical hair clips in varying hues.

Find them on Etsy or the gathered website.

Vintage button hair clips.

Each bobby pin-style clip combines multiple vintage buttons or has one vintage button worthy of standing alone.

Spring Happenings

I think this might just be the first real spring I've ever experienced. Down in Savannah, we would have a window of 2-3 weeks of azalea-blooming weather (just nice enough for the sand gnats to swarm...) in between the 39 degree and the 109 degree weather. Then, after moving up to the Virginia mountains, it was one "out of the ordinary" spring after another. Either extremely dry, or floods, or late blizzards, or exceptionally short. But this year I'm thinking, So this is what spring is like...

See more photos about spring on my other blog post, Immortal Mountain, here.

Home improvement projects! I have been wanting to build this towel rack for about a year and a half now, and yesterday was the day I finally did it.

Salvaged wood from garage + old hooks + sweat + tears = pretty!

Drew's mom and I planned a surprise birthday/retirement party for David, my step-father-in-law/all-around-family-handyman. He deserved something special!

(It fell on Mother's Day, so the party was kind of for Ann, too... I wish my mom could have been here!! Happy Mother's Day, Mom!)

David's granddaughters twirling their hearts out.

And on another note...

I love love love this building, and it turns out some friends of mine are rehabilitating it and turning it into a coffee roasting shop. The best part is it's only a block away from my shop! I know where I'll be going when I flip that Out to Lunch sign... They're keeping the mural, of course.

Some recent finds during thrift store scouring...

OK, look at every aspect of this cover. The eyes! The screaming coming from the box! The little rabbit by the tree! The title alone!

I almost bought this. Almost. It's holographic! And they're carelessly chasing a butterfly on the edge of a cliff!

A Blog Post About Blogs

gathered has just been featured on a fellow blogger's site: Life, In Points of Light (above)! Read the article here, and stay tuned for her upcoming more detailed review of my shop on her other blog, Shenandoah Living.

I'm loving the ease of self-publication we all have at our fingertips now; technology has definitely allowed me to instantly get out information about my shop, and I really enjoy this whole blogging thing. No to mention reconnecting with friends I haven't been in touch with in over ten years. We just have to be careful and make sure to find that balance between spending hours connecting on a virtual level with getting out in the wild-- exploring streams, rocks, trees, sun, moon, and air.

Things are blooming...

I finally caved into modern technological social networking and joined Facebook. And I went all out-- I made a personal page AND a business page! Mainly because it's kind of difficult with the way it works to network with people as a business, so I created a personal page to cross-connect. It's all way over my head now, but my sister (a Facebook veteran) promises to give me a tutorial soon.

If you're interested in following it, or liking it, here is a link for gathered on Facebook:

facebook.com/GatheredShop

I just picked up these chairs that date back to the late 1800s-- they need work, but new seats will bring them back to life again, I think. I'm sort of in love with them, but I'm going to put them up for sale when they're done.

 Drew and I went on a hike recently, and I know dead trees aren't exactly something that blooms, but they were just beautiful.

 Moi, at our future swimming hole.

... and I'm open for business!

I think I promised some photos of what the shop looks like now that I'M OPEN! So here ya go...

Come one, come all, to gathered !

Gettin' Ready...

Oh boy, does it take a lot of work to open a shop. But fun work! For the most part. Is that an oxymoron? Here's the latest and greatest...

Pricing. And pricing. And more pricing.

My parents came up for the weekend! I couldn't have been happier to see them. And they helped A LOT.

The lists. Oh, the lists. I'm definitely saving the master list, but I kind of wish I had been saving all the little in-between lists for the memories. Good memories? Bad? Probably good in hindsight.

 It takes an entire in-law family to raise a sign. I think I read that ancient proverb somewhere... Thank you, thank you, thank you Ann and David (and Drew of course) for all your hard work!

Hand-screened reusable shopping bags!

And now it's time for the displays. I'm sure I'll be continuously moving things around as I get new artwork to fill in, but here are some in-progress vignettes... 

A Whisp of a Vacation

I couple weeks ago I had a brief window of time between two major life stages: Stage One- working for an employer, satisfied, but not necessarily working towards a greater goal; Stage Two- owning my own business, fulfilling a deep-seated dream of mine. I am now officially immersed in the dawn of this Stage Two, with the grand opening of my art & craft boutique, gathered, a mere eleven days away.

Here is what I did in that glimpse of unemployment bliss...

Got talked into walking the St. Patrick's Day parade route in downtown Savannah with my sister and her friend Becca. I did not wear green, let the records show.

But this man did. He's my new boyfriend. Sorry, Drew.

Ran into my best friend from elementary school, Lauren! We haven't seen each other in at least ten years, and I swear she hasn't changed a bit. In the best way possible.

Watched Rip watch Dad watching some fern fronds popping out of the ground.

Pepe the Peacock has not made an appearance in quite a while. But this wild(?) hen has mysteriously taken his place.

Went on a wet and wild boat ride.

Walked around Forsyth Park with the fam.

And then Drew and I took a short road trip out west, through West Virginia, Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana. Drew had mapped out a route involving sacred ancient Native American mounds, waterfalls, hikes, and camping. I made sure we knew where all the Whole Foods were along the way. We had an amazing and mystical journey, and here are some highlights...

A choppy panorama of the inside of an overhang, looking out. We magically managed to both be in the photo (see Drew on the far left and me on the right?)

We learned that Ohio state parks are possibly the country's best kept secret. Look at this hardscaping on the trails! Right out of the Labrynth or Never Ending Story!

And we stumbled upon a billboard on the highway advertising THE WORLD'S LARGEST WIND CHIME. That's right. We pulled off onto the exit, needing gas anyway, and I casually asked the clerk if she knew where we might find a really, really big wind chime. I hear a voice pipe up from down the aisle: "If you want to know about the wind chime, ask this guy here." The son (and his friend) of the man who BUILT the wind chime were RIGHT THERE, RIGHT THEN. Needless to say, they happily gave us the behind-the-scenes tour, including a sneak peek at the World's Largest Golf Tee in progress.

The last and largest of the mounds we visited near St. Louis: Cahokia Mounds. During a thunder snow storm. I repeat. Thunder snow. Pretty darn magical.

Then we got a visit from my college friend Jocelyn! She makes the most amazing felted finger puppets, which I am honored to carry in my shop. Check out her full site here.

And a quick Easter visit to Drew's mom and David for lunch. This is their dog, Simon.

An Almost-Spring Surprise

100% snowed-in today! We awoke to a view of a toppling pile of snow on the latticed rail of the deck, and upon closer inspection, a seemingly infinite world of leafless trees with similar toppling piles. A couple varieties of our feathered friends weren't afraid a little snow. They boldly took turns flying in and out of Guthrie's chicken lair to snatch up unspoken-for bits of feed.

Okay, maybe it wasn't just a little snow. A lot. I very scientifically measured a few different areas around the house with an old measuring tape, with numbers ranging from fourteen to eighteen inches. Finally, the snow storm we've been waiting for all winter! With spring right around the corner.

And I thought I'd throw this in-- my future shop, gathered! Not much to look at now, I know, but picture a couple of urns for flowering herbs, a welcome mat, a hanging sign, and some bad-a#% (is it tactless to say ass?) window displays...