Christmas at The Nest

In case you're wondering where we've been... I'm a Bamaw!

Meet Kali Elizabeth, born 11-10-11, 8lb 11oz and 22" long!

Take a look at The Not So Empty Nest all ready for Christmas.  We have tons of chalkboards, large mirrors  - and now even dry erase boards!  Come visit us and do some Christmas shopping!  All our proceeds will be towards getting Ayla home from China.

We have some window panes that look cute to display Christmas cards.

 

 

Wouldn't this vintage steamer trunk make a great Christmas gift?  It's priced ready to sale at $399 and would be a great surprise for that special someone on your list!

All ready for Christmas at The Not So Empty Nest

We have these cute dry erase boards as well as our chalkboards!

More cuteness!

Vintage birdcage and sweet manger scene

 

 

 

 

Christmas Open House

I just became a grandma today!  I'll post pictures later, but I wanted to let you know we have an Open House at Encore Resales this Sunday from 1-6.  Everything in our booth will be on sale!  I'm having trouble uploading pics from my camera to laptop, and quite frankly, we're getting ready for the open house right now, so it's kinda on the back burner.

Come see us!  Tiff & I will be there most of the day!  I'll get back to blogging soon, but Granny is moving slower these days (not really, but it's a great excuse).

Look what we made . . . a play kitchen!

We have been busy around here this week!  We worked hard to get our first play kitchen done, hoping to sell these for Christmas and put a huge dent in bringing Ayla home from China.  We had seen these kitchens on other blogs and we decided it might be a good thing to sell at Christmas.  There's a LOT of TLC put in these, so they're not the cheapest thing we've ever sold.  We spent well over 30 hours on this one, but hopefully we'll get faster. So instead of buying something "made in China"  buy something "made for China"!  The elves can probably only get around 10 done, so let Santa know soon!

Without further ado, here's the grand reveal of our Vintage Play Kitchen. 

Isn't this the sweetest thing ever?  There's a side by side refrigerator, oven, stove and counter space.  Don't you love the retro feel of the appliances?

Debbie has 2 granddaughters coming soon, and can't wait to cook with them!

Close up view of the "tiled" counter and stove top.  Cute little curtain helps make it even sweeter!

 

 

 

 

Loved the knobs!  Hey, does anyone know how to make them turn without unscrewing them?  Tiff's quite the engineer, but hasn't figured this out yet.

We are finding some great kitchen accessories at yard sales.  But these aren't for sale, they're for my girls!

Here's a big view.  So cute!

 Here's some more items at "The Nest"!

Nice little chest of drawers

Love this end table!

The planters are from Anthropologie

Frames are a hot item right now, especially for gallery walls

Awesome antique buffet we painted.  There's a drop-leaf on each side for even more serving.  The chalkboard above is a great piece too!

Good look at all our goodies!

We re-purpose for a purpose . . . to bring Ayla home!

If y'all are in the Birmingham or Pelham, Alabama area, come visit our booth at Encore Resales.  See the sidebar for a link to directions.

Meet our cutie pie from China!!

Meet Ayla!  Tiff & Steven finally got their match "Made in China".  There's still more of the adoption process to go through, so hopefully she'll be home in about 5 months or less!  We can't wait!!  She is why we are doing "The Not So Empty Nest"! 

Can you tell we've been a little busy lately?  For the first time in 25 years, I've been baby shopping!   Our son and wife should have grandbaby #1 or 2 (depending on who you're asking) delivered in November and that's another reason we're called, "The Not So Empty Nest"...

It's almost been a month since our last post - but we are back!!  In the last month I (Debbie), along with the hubs,  have been to Wyoming for a week with over 20 college friends and then a week after that we went on a 7 day cruise!  In between trips, Tiff & I tried to get caught up in our booth.  I'll share some pictures of our trips a little later, but wanted to show you what our "Not So Empty Nest" looks like.  Actually, many of these items have already sold so we're working hard this week to resupply.  We went to a neighborhood garage sale Saturday and hit about 50 sales! 

These 2 nightstands sold really quick!

Tiff & Jocelyn made these.  Aren't they adorable?  These will be easy to ship, so we can take orders and do a different color scheme.

We always have something on sale!!

3 candlesticks that we distressed.  They have pink undertones and look amazing!

Isn't this bistro adorable?  Tiff's friend gave us this and we painted and restained.  SOLD!

Great 48" table that we distressed with grey.  It's only $129!

This is one of our favorite pieces ever!  It's a 9 drawer Drexel dresser and boy is it heavy.  We were going to change out the hardware, but once we painted and distressed it, the hardware enhanced it.  We have it priced at $429 since it's so heavy and top quality.  It's actually 10% off right now!  We've also been told people are using these as buffets in the dining room.  Hmm...  I just might have a place for it myself.

 

We have sold the heck out of these distressed grey frames.  We can't believe these shutters are still in our booth.  They enhance it, so we're fine with them "hanging" around!

This was another great dresser we had.  It sold in 1 day!

This is what it looked like when we left Saturday!  We'll be adding more this Friday, so stay tuned!

 

Latest Nest Finds

Here's some of our latest finds.  Since it's been awhile since we've posted, many of these have already sold.  We are busy getting some new pieces ready.  We are having so much fun with our hobby turned business.  Our "Nest" is truly blessed!

Our frames are very popular and we love this dresser

Take a guess at what the box used to house?  It's bees!

We took this window that was missing a pane and made it into yet another chalkboard!  We replaced the missing pane with cork!

This writing desk turned out great.  We used gray and old white on this.

Love this distressed candlestick!

Don't you love the frame and this gorgeous oil painting?

I put a high price tag on this, hoping it wouldn't sell... but it did.

"Aged" cheese box

Found this great army locker to hold signs and put a high price tag on it - GONE!

We bought the birdie for .25 and got the mirror out of the trash.  Not so shabby now, are they?

I love our banners!  We are having fun with them!

If you're in the Birmingham area, come vising our nest!

Awesome Stain Remover

Only 3 more Saturdays without SEC college football!   In the state of Alabama, we are proud of our football!!  In the last 2 years the National Champions and Heisman winner have hailed from here.  No other state can lay claim to that.  We are die-hard Alabama fans and love our Crimson Tide!

Here I am at Bryant Denney Stadium "posing" right after Mark Ingram got the Heisman.  In fact, Coach Saban was supposed to be here for the event we were at, but instead was in New York for all the Heisman hoopla.

Here's Jocelyn, my daughter-in-law and me.

Don't be jealous, but we got a tour of the locker room.  On the way out of the tunnel to the field, all the players jump up and touch this.  My son, Brandon, did a great job making it look like I touched it too!

With that said, I have a great opportunity for all my Birmingham peeps!  A former Alabama player, who played for Bear Bryant on yet another national championship team, needs our help to launch a product of his into even more sales.  Below is what Steve Dean, has to say and it's where you can help.

"We have been given a fantastic opportunity to do a test “Road Show” sale event at the Hoover Costco store (Galleria/Patton Creek) on Aug 25 – Aug 28 (Thur – Sun).  Costco will be selling our ESPRO SPORTS CLEANER Gallon Bottle and 32 oz Spray Bottle as a co-pack for $14.99.  That is a tremendous price ($30 value) on a great product.

 

If you are not familiar with the product, check out our website (www.esproclean.com).  It is not only the best athletic uniform cleaner on the planet (used by over 70 colleges and several pro teams, including Alabama) but it works great on everything you can imagine (carpet, car upholstery, furniture, food stains, blood stains, you name it).  Read the testimonials on the website to see how passionate people are about the product.

 

Thank you in advance for helping to make this a successful event for us."

Steve is a great guy.  He coached Brandon in Little League.  Wish we had this product back then.  I tried bleach once, but when it didn't work on all the grass stains and red mud, I just had to be satisfied that at least the stains were clean!

Hope you'll go by and get some (or order online)!  Tell them "The Not So Empty Nest" sent you!

80th Vintage Birthday Party!

We just threw an 80th birthday party for my in-laws, Dick & Peggy.  Thanks to Peyton, a young 20-something year old friend, we copied her vintage theme.  It was so easy and fun to do with mason jars, a photo booth and candy table.  Everyone had a great time.  We weren't sure if the older party goers would enjoy taking pictures, but as you can see, they definitely got into it and our photo booth was a big hit!

Outside, we used this "vintage" bike to direct party goers!

One of the biggest hits of the day was our photo booth.  Isn't this a cute banner?

These were our centerpieces.  We put a baby picture of each of them in a mason jar and added some hydrangeas.  Don't you love the vintage microphone too?

Notice the chalkboard?  We used these to let everyone know what we were serving.

We had candy invented in the 1930s.  UMMM!

Since our party was from 2-4 on a Sunday, we opted for cupcakes and bite-size Texas sheet cake.  Don't you love the camera?  It was fun doing a vintage birthday.  It could work for any age.

We also had fritos (Peggy's favorite snack) and a yummy dip.  My son's collection of vintage cameras (that we got at garage sales for about $2 each) added just the right touch.

The banners were so cute!

Some of the party goers!  We probably had between 150-200 guests!

Aren't they cute?  Two of these ladies are in their 80s!!  Don't they look fabulous?

We had the guests write messages or just their names, and this sign revealed an unsolved mystery.  My father-in-law is a die-hard Alabama football fan and many Sundays he would find Auburn souvenirs in his pulpit.  They were signed by "The Ultimate Eagle" aka our rival.  After 25 years, he finally revealed his identity!

Aren't they cute as a button?  Love those vintage suspenders!

 

These are some of the grandkids.  Dick & Peggy have 17 grandchildren and 12 greats with 2 more on the way!

This is me, Debbie and the hubs, Rick.

Has anyone else that has turned 50 had the urge to commit a crime?

Here's Tiff & her hubs, Steven.  It just occurred to me, we really need to get some good pics done.

Here's my in-laws, the party honorees.  My father-in-law preached that morning and was still going strong!  By the way, I wrote their sign for them...

A good time was had by all.  One of the party goers who is well into her 80s said it was the best time she had in a long time and she felt like the party was for her!  Young and old, we all had fun!