Posted: February 2nd, 2012 | Author: Sarah | Filed under: Shopping Sherpa | Tags: 30's, 40's, beret, cowl, Elizabeth Bauman, fashion, fur, Ginger Root Vintage, oxfords, painting, shoes, softspoken, vintage, woman, zaama | No Comments »

Clockwise from top: { A Cold Day for a Drive Limited Edition Print from Elizabeth Bauman } { Vintage 40′s Oxford Heels from Ginger Root Vintage } { Bubble Beret in Charcoal Grey from softspoken } { Upcycled Fur Cowl from zaama }
We’ve been blessed with a few new readers as of late (hello, new readers!), and I realized that they may not know the Shopping Sherpa yet! It’s been a while since he’s come to visit, so I figured this the perfect time to reintroduce him.
So who is this Shopping Sherpa? Well, he’s mysterious and a little hard to nail down. I think he’s really a little part of all of us, like a little shopping conscience.
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Posted: January 23rd, 2012 | Author: Sarah | Filed under: Giveaway | Tags: Giveaway, handmande, sweepstakes, tassel, turquoise, vintage | 21 Comments »

GIVEAWAY TIMEZ!!! I’m giving away THREE (count ‘em) necklaces made by my own little hands! Why? Well…. responses to our Reader Survey aren’t coming in quite as quickly as we’d like, so we thought we’d give you some incentive.
What you’ll win:
One of the three necklaces above. You pick your favorite!
Please note: the winning necklaces will be made-to-order, so to speak, so they may differ slightly from those pictured above.
Posted: December 1st, 2011 | Author: Brian | Filed under: A Westervin Wedding | Tags: bar, choose your own adventure, cocktails, decanters, diy, embroidered, handmade, mixology, pickle platter, self-service, vintage, wedding | 1 Comment »

What’s a wedding without refreshments? Well, I guess it’s still a wedding, but the point is everybody loves a good wedding bar. It took us a while to figure out exactly how we wanted to handle drinks at the wedding, and we’re pretty happy with how it all turned out.
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Posted: November 30th, 2011 | Author: Sarah | Filed under: A Westervin Wedding | Tags: Blumen Garden's, bridal, brown, garden, good luck, gown, industial, rain, rustic, storm, suit, umbrellas, vintage, wedding | 2 Comments »

Time for the wedding party portraits! These don’t need too much explainin’…
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Posted: November 29th, 2011 | Author: Sarah | Filed under: A Westervin Wedding | Tags: Blumen Garden's, diy, Elleson's Bakery, embroidered, Little Rock Crate & Basket, Marina Lampropoulou, To The Metal, Truman's Ridge, vintage | 4 Comments »

Let’s just get right to it! Here are the photos of the ceremony and all our wedding decor. Above is the “altar” made from a giant metal trellis and a vintage dresser scarf, on which I embroidered the word ‘happily’. Because that’s how we married–happily.
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Posted: October 4th, 2011 | Author: Sarah | Filed under: Swell Dwelling | Tags: bedroom, cat, country, cozy, decor, decoration, home, mod, vintage | 2 Comments »

The whole reason we got married was to get a new mattres. Ok, well, that’s not true at all, but we really wanted to update our late 70s model mattress with something a bit nicer! But we didn’t stop there. We used the new mattress as an excuse to buy new stuff for the rest of our bedroom, to make it feel cozier. Below are some highlights from our progress thus far.

We’ve got a whole new sleep system: mattress, duvet, cover. We still need new pillow covers for the throw pillows, though. It’s quickly become Fitzy’s new favorite place. He just loves that fluffy pillow top!
We’ve also tried our hands at arranging some new/re-positioned wall art.

Here’s another view of said wall art… and new curtains! We need to steam out those wrinkles. We’ll also be painting in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for that (and please ignore the messy nightstand).

More curtain wrinkles! And a peek at our fave rug.

We also got a vacuum, so now we can have rugs. Well, rugs that aren’t covered in dirt and a layer of black cat hair!

More wall art. Please ignore messy dresser. Do not ignore silly cat.

More silly cat. Fitzy’s not the only one who loves our new bedroom.
Posted: July 19th, 2011 | Author: Sarah | Filed under: A Westervin Wedding | Tags: arrows, Barrel Maker Printing, cards, cards of wood, country, ecofriendly, handkerchief, invitations, mountain, ozark, repurpose, romance, Sycamore, vintage, wedding, wood | 4 Comments »

We did it! We finally finished and mailed our invitations! Hopefully, all invited parties have received theirs by now, except for some overseas friends. But I just couldn’t wait any longer to share. We are so pleased with ourselves.

Let me give you a play by play. We started with the same French Paper Co. envelopes in four different colors: slate blue, grout grey, packing paper brown, and a darker brown (pictured above). We also used the custom return address stamp, which featured a typewriter font.

Now comes the good part. Open the envelope and what do you find? A delicate vintage handkerchief invite, designed by Brian West and screenprinted by Barrel Maker Printing.

Arrows!

Inside, the hankie was wrapped around a wood card, made of Sycamore wood and printed with our logo (above) and instructions to visit our website for more information (below).



Our vintage typewriter came in handy once again when it came time to address the envelopes.

I had to keep a few of my favorites. They’ve come in handy in other ways. More on that to come!

The real fun part was collecting all the vintage hankies. We searched every antique mall and flea market from here to Timbuktu and found a few winners in Etsy and Ebay lots. It sounds tedious, but you know I enjoyed every minute of it! The real challenge was finding ones that fit our color scheme and general aesthetic but weren’t more than $1 each, give or take.


You like?


Envelopes: { French Paper Co. }
Return Address Stamp: { Note Trunk }
Screenprinting: { Barrel Maker Printing }
Wood Cards: { Cards of Wood }
Handkerchiefs: vintage, various sources
Graphic Design: Brian West!