Honey Bend

I'm doing it~

I have always dreamed of having a flea once a month offering vintage finds, handmade goods and some gift items.  Since I can't do that in a brick amd morter, I am doing it at Honey Bend Vintage .    We will be closing on Sunday November 23rd and we will reopen on Sunday December 7th for one week only.  Going forward we will reopen the second week of every month.  We will offer some our favorites vintage horse ribbons, five and dime and ribbon by the yard.  We will try to change it up monthly.  We will offer a new category  "The Farm Fresh Market" .  There will be a few spots monthly for fellow merchants to share their wares.  Kind of like renting a booth, but you don't have to rent it is free.  The one catch is you have to have a blog to advertise Honey Bend Vintage's Farm Fresh Market button.  If your interested pop me an email to bristol@honeybendvintage.com  .   I will pick up to 5 ladies a month.   We will need pictures from you of product, we will post those with the name of your business and a little bio and link to your site where they can purchase your merchandise.    Sunday evening we will upload new horse ribbons and by Monday some fun burlap wine bags and sleeves.

See you soon~

Pink Pretties For Sale

I just added a cute little addition to Honey Bend Vintage .  A cute little bag filled with pink glass marbles included in the bag are some cute pink extras.  This one has a ballerina.  We will be adding one with some other baubles soon.  These are perfect to add to a gift or just a little pink gifty to a friend.  Add a cute tag  with the perfect note.  I also need some advice from all you sweet girls in blog land. I have been toying with the idea that I would start after the holidays.  I have thought about opening Honey Bend Vintage just one week out of the month, kind of like a virtual flea market.  It is so difficult to run an online shop and work a full time job, this way I could plan it out.  I have been thinking about doing this in a brick and morter in our community every couple of months as well.  Send me a little shout out with your thoughts and I will put you in a drawing for a bottle of german glass glitter(fine silver)  If you have any other ideas send me a note bcottage@hotmail.com .  I love comments be sure to leave one by Sunday.  Have a great weekend~

Bristol

                                                  

                                                

                           

                                               

Lil' Cowboy on Halloween

   My name is Griffin and I am 5.  This is my Halloween on Grant Street.  For some reason I am not into trick or treating. I like to pass candy out with my Dad, I visit neighbors and this year search for my horse.  Do you think I will find him?

                     

                   I took off down the Grant St. trail to find him~

                        

                                  Look what I found on my travels~

                                             

 

I hope you enjoyed your HaLlOwEeN as much as I did!

Ribbon Love

I love ribbon~ To decorate with~ To craft with~ To tie in pretty bows~   On Saturday we will be adding theses lovely ribbons to Honey Bend Vintage.  There is some pink burlap string, pink leaves, and textured ribbons.  We will continue to add new ones~

                                                       

                                                

                                              

New things at Honey Bend Vintage

I  have been working on adding new items to the "the little shop" by next week we should have them all up.  I received some new items for the five and dime a ferris wheel and animal train candle holder.  They would look so cute spruced up with some glitter~

      

We have been putting together something cute that includes these~

 

And this lovely burlap has some paint and ribbon added to make this a lovely holiday treat~

 

We are waiting on some fun new ribbon that should be in the shop by Friday~ And I have found a new batch of vintage horse show ribbons, cute pink ones!  If you could see how many vintage horse show ribbons I have in my workshop you would scream.  I need to update the site, beacuse they are everywhere.  If you don't see one you like on the site,  just ask.  I often send out photo groupings for you to choose from.   

We are also adding a new category to the Print Shop~ Honey Bend Farm Poems.  Wonderful vintage poems written by my great grand dad.  They have been replicated on quality cardstock.  For those girls going to Silver Bella we have included one in your goody bags~  

Our vintage finds category is going to change a bit.  We will be focusing on vintage storage pieces (freshened up a bit) Pantina and vintage bottles.   So be on the look out we will be sure to tell you when Honey Bend Vintage  is Farm Fresh!!  

A Good Meal

My Mom tried from an early age to get me in the kitchen, I always resisted.  I am at the ripe old age of 39 and it has been in the past years I realize I can cook and kinda like it~  I was in the mood yesterday to make a yummy meal using two recipes from two of my favorite people.  The first is a recipe created by my dear sweet Dad.  He went Morel mushroom hunting every year in Michigan with his buddies. To showcase these tasty treats he  came up with a wonderful recipe.   Everyone in the family makes it and we all have different versions, here is mine.

 Morel/Veal Recipe~

4 thin slices of veal~ if your not a fan chicken is good too

Capers

Fresh or dried Morels~ you can substitute any mushroom variety.  Because Morels dried and fresh are expensive I use a dried and fresh variety of shitake mushrooms.

lemon

a nice bottle of chardonnay~ for drinking and of course the recipe.  Might I suggest  a

Frei Brothers chardonnay, my favorite~

Garlic~ as much as you like, my brother adds way too much.

First tenderize and drench your veal in flour, brown in a skillet.

In the skillet add veal and chardonnay~ I usual add a cup and maybe more, its all in your taste, squeeze in half a lemon, half a bottle of capers(again more if you like),  mushrooms and garlic(as much as you like) I don't add any I am not a fan.  Now if you head over to my brother Jay's you will stink for a week~Stirring get this liquid to a thicker consistency, like a sauce or gravy.  Once your done serve with pasta drenched in butter and Parmesan cheese. 

The last addition was from my favorite Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa.  I am a huge fan, it is good she lives so far away I would probably be a stalker.   I recently found this 3 disc set at Target for 15.99, I love it.  

I made a bib and tomato salad with her  Creamy Mustard Vinaigrette.  I am so addicted it is scrumptious. Because champagne vinegar is hard to fine, white wine vinegar is a good substitute.  May I suggest cutting a tomato up and marinating in the Vinaigrette, it is so good~

Bon Appetit!

Club Little House

 Hooray for Club Little House~ Miss Amy over at Inspire Co. is such a sweet and is beyond creative.  I am super excited to be a member of club little house.   My contribution, a Birthday party theme.  Included will be a gift, pinata, banner and party hat.   Here is a picture of the pinata and banner, still needs some finishing touches.  Amy had a couple spots still available if anyone is interested.  Hurry over to her place before there gone.

I am Five

We just celebrated Griffin's birthday on Tuesday, it was the big boy 5 birthday~  We had my Mom over for dinner and cake.  Griffin asked for quite a variety to eat, chicken, steak, boneheads (his name for wings) apples and mac and cheese.  The grown ups added wild rice and sauteed asparagus and mushrooms.  And for dessert our usual 8" round cake from our favorite bakery the Cookie Jar.  This year was a baseball theme,  Griffin asked for all new big boy baseball equipment.   The celebrating continues with a sleep over at MeMe's Saturday with all his cousins, he can hardly wait.  I just can't believe he is 5!

Little Pieces

I am not a huge jewelry person.  But what I do have I like to keep out on my dresser.  I can easily sift through to find what I want to wear and it doubles as a nice vignette.  I used one of my grandmother's platter and added little pieces that are special to me.  How do you display your jewelry?  If you keep your pieces tucked away try putting together your own personal vignette~

Changing things up

                                                   

This Little farm house sits on acres of farm fields.  The size is not grandiose and the design is quite simple.  But in my mind it is grandiose and quite magnificent.  I can picture my Dad running through the fields with his sister, my great grandfather working in his print shop and my great grandmother sitting on the porch.   My Dad lived a short drive down the road but spent a lot of his time here.  It is my heritage and my Dad instilled that in us.  The farm has become a visual point to remember my Dad. He passed away very suddenly in April 2007.  The blog and shop were started from this memory and fittingly named after this beautiful farm.

I have been thinking lately about these reasons why I started the blog and store.  I worry so often how many or who is going to comment on blog or if anyone will purchase from my shop.  These are not the reasons why I first started.  It is very important for me to be authentic and to use this as a creative outlet .  So we are getting back to basics,  back to the drawing board.  When I first started "the little shop" I put a lot of what I thought "should" be there instead of what I "wanted" there.  So in the weeks  to come we will be CHANGING THINGS UP just a bit.

And for the whole reason I am here, the blog.  We have neglected it just a bit and I miss it.  So we have changed the name up a bit you can see above.  Weekly we will be bringing you Farm Fresh Ideas including decorating and craft pics, recipes, family pics I adore and a little shop talk.  So for me it is very important to be genuine to myself and that is what I am off to do.  Stay tuned for some Farm Fresh Ideas~

Bristol