Birch + Bird Vintage Home Interiors

What a weekend! I feel exactly the same way as Rachel…completely overwhelmed by how wonderful our day at the schoolhouse actually was and exhausted, but in a very good way! We still can’t believe that everything came together without a hitch and feel so blessed by the crowds of visitors who came to see our amazing vendors and their lovely wares. Each display was gorgeous and unique and obviously struck a chord with customers because everywhere we go we’re still hearing rave reviews and requests for when the next market day will be. As tired as we are, we can’t help but be excited about the next edition of The Old School Market and will be keeping you posted along the way, after a much needed spa day on Wednesday to work out the kinks!

With no extra wiggle room in our market day budget, we made all of the decorations and signs for our event ourselves. As you well know, we have a big thing for vintage maps and what better way to use up our stacks of old atlas’ than to make map bunting. It looked so cheerful strung along the blackboards of the schoolhouse! We’ll be posting more pictures in the next few days so you can get a closer look. But one of our favourite projects (which also happened to be the most time consuming!) were our homemade sandwich boards. We placed two at the main intersections leading to Clayburn Village and placed the largest in front of the schoolhouse. I came across Katie’s fabulous idea of using an old crib to create an easel on her blog, Notes from a Very Red Kitchen, and we thought it would be the perfect way to recycle an old piece into a sign board fitting for our vintage market. What do you think?

Lovella At Home

So here’s what we did. After scouring a few thrift shops and even putting a shout-out on Facebook for old cribs, we found one by chance at the back of a dingy junk barn stall. It wasn’t pretty! We left the rails behind and took only the headboard and footboard home with us.

1. We gave them a good hose down, scrubbed them with TSP and gave them a light sanding (Katie recommends another great product that we didn’t have time to source) before priming them with a stain blocking primer. 2. Once primed, we painted the frames with 2 coats of semi-gloss white paint. 3. Then, we taped off the frame and gave the centre square 2 coats of black chalkboard paint. Already looking pretty spiffy, right?

The detailed painting part was by far the most tedious and time consuming. First, we enlarged and printed off our logo in sections and taped them together to fit the chalkboard. Then, we rubbed chalk on the entire backside of the paper and shook off the excess. We carefully taped the image to our board and used a bamboo skewer to trace the entire image….be warned, it sounds as horrible as you would imagine! Once we’d traced all of the details we wanted (we left out the date and a some other wording so that we could use it again) we removed the paper and, voila, we had a chalk outline of our logo! (Sorry, it was late and I was cross-eyed and didn’t think to take photos of these steps!) Next, we used a fine tipped brush (use a good camel hair one) to paint over our chalk tracing with 2 coats of paint. And many hours and 2 sore backs later, here is the result…what do you think?

For our other two sandwich boards, Rachel had the great idea of using cabinet doors from our local Habitat for Humanity ReStore. We used the same process as above, but just printed off words to transfer with chalk and painted the flag bunting freehand. All of the paint that we used was leftover from our own homes. My handy hubby attached the hinges for us and we saw more than a few happy customers posing for pictures with our crib sign outside of the schoolhouse on Saturday! The crib easel would be the perfect project for you to make for your own kids or even as a special gift, don’t you think?

Now it’s back to getting some order back into our lives and getting back into the domestic groove of things. It feels good to finally have food back on my shelves again! We’re so thankful to our families and friends for pulling up the while our focus has been on market planning and projects. From bringing kids home from school to babysitting and impromptu play dates….Thank You!

PS…I cannot believe that I failed to credit someone very important in the making of our signs when I was writing this post at midnight last night! A huge Thank You to Jessica MacDonald of Trove Vintage Rentals for getting into our heads and designing the perfect logo for The Old School Market…we LOVE it!

Lily and I couldn’t be more thrilled with how The Old School Market turned out.  After 3.5 months of planning and preparation, the market went down without a hitch.  The vendor displays were absolutely stunning and there was something of interest for every single person that walked through the door.  We were not quite expecting the continuous crowds of people and we literally had to shut the doors to keep them out at the end of the day.  We’ll be grinning for weeks.

Birch + Bird

Last year, we participated in the Ivory Vintage Market, in White Rock, B.C., put on by a good friend of mine, Michelle and her partner, Maureen. Lily and I have always dreamed of having our own brick and mortar shop so the market gave us the pleasure of fussing with displays and chatting one on one with customers rather than through email.  We quickly realized after the first market, that within our own circles we knew enough talented people to pull a market together in our own home town.  And that’s how it all began…

1. Raggy Girl Vintage by The Lovely in LIFE 2. Jen’s Dream Decor by Family Trees May Contain Nuts

I’ve been so humbled by all the wonderful encouragement and support from friends and family throughout the planning of The Old School Market.  People we had never met before who were so excited, willing to help and be there for us along the way.  We spent a few days asking local businesses to display the market posters or handout postcards, not one shop owner turned us down.  We chatted about the market wherever we went and left postcards all over the place, in change room lockers, hiding amongst the magazines at the doctor’s office, or slipping one to the checkout lady at the grocery store.  Word started getting out and after awhile we’d mention the market and the person we were chatting with already knew about it.  We couldn’t have done this all by ourselves, we had a great deal of help from blogger friends and the vendors too.  All their blogging, Facebooking and Tweeting paid off.  It was so great to see the market poster somewhere we hadn’t got to yet.  The vendors spent more time than we know, working on their inventory and fashioning their displays for market day.  And judging by all the happy, smiling faces, we think it all paid off.

1. Sparrow’s Nest by Groovy Glass Girl 2. Birch + Bird

1. Trove Vintage Rentals by Family Trees May Contain Nuts 2. Urban Harmonie Design by Groovy Glass Girl

Back when cassette tapes were all the rage,  I would take out the cover and read it front to back.  For some reason, I always found the credits so very interesting.  Here’s my market version…First of all, I would like to thank my husband and children who put up with my absence and lackluster dinners.  The Grandparents who played with and fed my children so Lily and I could check a few more things off our to-do list.  The most talented vendors we could ever ask for.  Jessica, who designed our pretty market logo.  All the local businesses, newspapers, websites, radio stations and blogs who make it their business to spread the word for folks with small budgets, like us.  Our sisters, who are our first employees.  Gourmet Gallery, The Pink Spatula and Booster Juice for keeping our energy up all day long.  The talented Jayme, who captured the day with her camera.  The curious market visitors who came from near and far (Merrit!!!) to see for themselves what The Old School Market was all about.  The local bloggers who took the time to visit, snap some photos,  and stop by to say hello.  And the best business partner, I could ever hope for.

1. & 2. Twig Home 3. Vintage Home images by Family Trees May Contain Nuts

We are now craving a day at the spa and after a little down time, we’ll start dreaming up the next market.  So, please stay tuned.

Well folks, tomorrow’s the big day! The Old School Market will be up and running bright and early tomorrow morning…woo hoo! All of our hard work and planning has fallen into place so well (knock on wood) and, as we’ve said before, Rachel and I have been completely blown away by the huge amount of public support, not only from our family and friends but from so many others in our community! She’ll hate me for mentioning it, but Rachel will even be broadcasted on a local radio show this morning! They contacted us earlier this week for an interview and she did amazing (I completely botched the first try…bad memories of grade 9 public speaking all over again!),  just one example of the community reaching out to help support our little market. We’re beyond excited to see our lovely vendors in action and to finally meet some talented blog friends and other contacts in person too…yes, Janis, we’re talking to you!

We’ve been brainstorming our own display and decorations for the schoolhouse for months now and I’d thought I’d share with you a few Etsy favourites that we’ve saved along the way. We’ll be posting many market photos next week and will be sure to let you get a big glimpse of how it all comes together…

1. Vintage Pickins 2. La Pomme 3. Elizabeth St. 4. Peg and Awl

1. AM Radio 2. Unexpected Partie 3. Niftic 4. PNW Nesting Co.

I was hoping to post some pictures of our signs and sandwich boards that we painstakingly painted all day Wednesday, but unfortunately my husband had to spend yesterday installing a new hot water heater instead of attaching hinges to our boards. Our old one chose the night before last to leak all over our basement, just one small glitch to add to several others in my personal life over the past couple of weeks! But at least I’ve had the Market to keep me busy and it’s definitely helped me to keep my chin up. Hope to see many of you tomorrow!

Yesterday, Lily and I spent the afternoon sipping hot coffee and painting our sandwich boards and I have to say they look mighty nice.  We can’t wait to share the whole process with you in the next little while.  I’ve got a few projects that have been piling up and I hope to start ticking them off my list next month.  Starting with painting my girls’ rooms once and for all!  I’m always looking for inspiration and I came across this pretty room on Ohdeedoh.  I’m fairly certain it doesn’t look this pristine all the time but I do love all the glamorous Moroccan touches.  What do you think?

Ohdeedoh designed by Sissy + Marley

Eek!  Only one more day until the market!  I can’t wait.  We’ve been planning and waiting for so long.  I’m really looking forward to meeting all the talented ladies and seeing their goodies first hand, not to mention all the hustle and bustle of the market visitors.  Today is another busy day!  Thank goodness for Grandma’s who live close by!

Well, the days are just flying by and it’s hard to believe that The Old School Market is just days away…ahhhh! That’s not a freak-out “ahhh” it’s and excited one…well, with maybe just a tiny freak out at the end! Rachel and I have paced ourselves pretty well and spent last night stringing miles of vintage map bunting while the rest of our town watched a nail-biter of a hockey game. Today we’ll be finishing up our sandwich boards and a few other little details, like maybe a twilight mission of taping signs to every telephone pole in town!

While we were stringing decorations last night, we had some time to talk through our plans for the coming months. This past year has been quite the learning curve…from opening our shop last June, to starting our blog in November and now to hosting our first market…all while juggling family life! Although not without it’s challenges, this year has been so fulfilling and it’s amazing for us both to look back and see truly what a difference a year makes. While we haven’t checked of nearly as much of of our to-do lists as we’d have liked, Rachel and I each have several DIY projects that we’re determined to tackle…after this weekend. And maybe after an afternoon at the spa…

Canadian House & Home

The Marion House Book

We’re all on a budget of some sort and ours is a little snug these days, as we’ve closed our shop to focus on the market. But it doesn’t take a lot of coin to get creative decorating ideas for your home. Some of our favourites are vintage bottles and tins but how about looking a little outside the box. We’ve come across a couple of lovely porcelain sinks lately that could easily be incorporated in a powder room or ensuite…isn’t the utility sink above gorgeous? It’s just the perfect amount of unexpected and would be oh-so-practical for a family with young kids! And using colourful tins a fridge magnets? Of course Martha would think of that…brilliant!

Martha Stewart

1. Canadian House & Home 2. 100 Layer Cake

Now, this is actual wallpaper from the Swedish company Carma, but it got me thinking about all of those colourful pads of scrapbook paper just sitting in my closet, begging to be used. I’ve seen vintage maps and book pages pasted onto walls so why not colourful squares like these?

Carma

Skona Hem via Emmas Blogg

Repurposing items is the best way to recycle. Using old wood stumps and planks as seating or framing fabric as art are just a few examples. Feeling handy? Turn a vintage music stand into a lamp or freshen up worn globes with chalkboard paint, the opportunities are endless.

Canadian House & Home

1. The Painted Hive 2. Blue Bell Bazaar via Design*Sponge

As Rachel spoke of yesterday, we’ve got a big soft spot for vintage souvenirs. Looking for unique but cheap party plates? Hit up your local thrift store where you can often find single dishes for under a dollar. Your guests will love them!

Style Me Pretty

What are your favourite ways to decorate on a dime? Please share and we’d love for you to send us Before & After’s of your own DIY projects too!