Ever have those times when your to-do list is longer than a summer day, you blink, and a month’s vanished? Then two? You know, when you’re left wonderin’ where the weeks ran off to? That’s been me since early May. I can’t believe I’ve neglected the blog since my Great Gatsby Table post on May 2. My goal to churn out at least 2 posts a week fell to the side and bombed big time!
You would think since I no longer teach, May wouldn’t be so crazy! Those teachers out there you know what I’m talking about! May is always a non-stop blur! This year for me, it’s been just as nuts, and I’m not in a classroom!
So why was May so crazy? Let me tell you why…
Dish Room Revamp
As I had shared, my estate sale finds for March and April were crazy good! I had piles and piles of treasures on the floor of my dish room and NOWHERE to put them. Yes, my dish room was full! And this was only 1 area!!
I had to take a step back and realistically ask myself what needs to be done. When we were planning the room, my hope was to put a fancy “secret door bookshelf” into the back storage room. It was something we had planned out, watched a lot of videos on, okay well actually my hubby did the planning and watching of videos, but I never had him pull the trigger and start. Even when he asked if I wanted to work on the secret door, I’d be like, no, let’s do it later. Something was holding me back! I was standing in the dish room looking at the wall that had been waiting and waiting on the secret door and realized that there was a lot of space on that wall. There was even room for another Kallax shelf! I didn’t need the door into the storage room; there was already one off the bathroom.
The curtain is where the secret door was going. Confession: we decided not to cover the opening with sheetrock. That way future buyers could turn it into a bedroom if they choose. Since we add plywood to the back of the Kallax for stability, it hides the opening.
Here’s the updated space… and yes, it’s full, however there is space in most of the cubbies for more dishes!
I also added these inserts, stackin’ cups, saucers, and bits from the storage room (which I need to share, but I warn you, it’s not pretty!) for each pattern. That freed up some more room in the storage room as well!! Win-Win! You gotta stay flexible in space design! You need to be able to change a space as it needs changin’. I just didn’t think I’d need to change so quickly. Ha!
BTS Bash- Wetumpka
While we were adding the new Kallax, I was also prepping for a presentation on storage and organization that I was giving at the Beautiful Table Settings Bash in Wetumpka, Alabama. It was my 3rd time attending, 2nd time presenting (my first was “Using Color and Pattern in Tablesetting” and you can see it on YouTube or below.
Since I I like to have “stuff” when I present and show examples, I had to get all that ready! I treat my presentations like I was teaching, essentially that’s what I try to do with my presentations. I want people to learn at least one new thing! I had presented already at the BTS Bash-Vicksburg, so it was pretty much ready. Just needed to tweak a bit and add some new things I’d found and new pics of my updated space If you’d like to see my presentation, you can see it here or click to see it on YouTube.
I had the best time at BASH. It is such a positive experience! Sometimes gatherings that are predominantly female turn catty, which is sad. Too often, we are tearing each other down, instead of building them up. Not at BASH, it’s such a wonderful experience full of like-minded people who all just want to set a beautiful table! My husband tends to joke that I’m socially selective and he’s not wrong, lol. I am selective about my people (shout out to my BABES) but the people who attend bash I consider to be part of my social circle!
Here are a few pics from BASH. I brought home lots of treasures or as many as I could fit in our vehicle with the stuff I packed for my presentation.
I’m trying to get better at taking pictures. It really isn’t my strong suit. I actually took more with people than I normally do, but then didn’t take many venue and vendor pics! Maybe next year I’ll have a balance of both!
Dish Camp and Beyond
After Wetumpka I started focusing on a HUGE project that will be released in January. I’ll have more on that later, like Fall. It’s a labor of love and I can’t wait to share!
As I was working on that I was also getting ready for “Dish Camp.” What is “Dish Camp?” you might be asking? Well… I have to give you a little back story to explain how it came to be…
In January I received a message request from someone from the Beautiful Table Settings group asking a question. I answered and then we started messaging back and forth on FB. She was fairly new to the tablesetting world on social media even though she had been setting tables forever. A month or so later, she asked if I’d be at Wetumpka for BASH and expressed an interest in going, which I encouraged! We shared our finds, hers from thrift stores in her area and mine from estate sales. We eventually exchanged phone numbers and texted pretty much every day. We had so much in common! We were both Melissa. We were just a few years apart with me being the elder. She was a teacher. I retired from teaching after 20+years. Her husband’s name was Jeff; my first husband’s name was Jeff. We also later discovered our mom’s even had the same name, Diane. We both like to write. So much in common!
At some point during our messages she tossed out coming to my town and paying a consulting fee during the summer. That turned into “Dishology Camp” and eventually just shortened to “Dish Camp.” Our messages often included, “We could do that at dish camp.” We decided to see how we hit it off in person when we met in person at Wetumpka. Wetumpka was a success and we selected a date.
It was 4 whirlwind days of estate sales. Normally I go to the 50% off days but we started on the first day of sales and racked up each day.
We had planned for “classes” like keeping inventory, florals, sewing napkins, lamp shades, and such. We only got to make lamp shades and create florals, lol. We didn’t account for the time needed for packing up the treasures Melissa found! I’ve had a few people reach out or comment about how they’d like to attend “Dish Camp” and I’m seriously thinking about the possibilities for a Dish Camp, kinda like summer camp, but with dishes, lol.
Here we are at Mexican…
One of the questions Melissa would ask revolved around my floral arrangements. The thing about my arrangements is I’ve been arranging flowers since I was 8. I even did the flowers for my wedding to Rodney, with help of family members.
Judging from the boxes of goodies Melissa went back to Ohio with, I’d say Dish Camp was a success.
This is the arrangement I created while Melissa was here. I had found the tureen from a nearby antiques store. The next town over, Monroe, is known as “The Antiques Capital of Georgia” because it has the largest concentration of antiques stores of any other county in Georgia. I didn’t even know that until I was looking at things for us to do during dish camp.
We picked up a couple of bouquets from a nearby flower farm, Wellsprings Flower Farm and I added vintage jade/distylium and hydrangeas from my yard and roses from a fading arrangement.
I wound up setting two tables around this arrangement, it was so fabulous! Not to be braggy, lol, but I loved it! I’ll share those tables this week! You may have already seen them on social media but I’ll give the backstory and sources in my blog post!
I also did this fun table that I’ll be sharing soon.
So that’s what I’ve been up to… jugglin’ everything in the hours I got! Really just trying how to figure out how to balance it all! It’s tough keeping up with TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and the blog. I’m not doing a very good job at all. Something gets neglected, but I don’t want to miss out on all the avenues out there! Each one provides exposure to different people, so I’ll just keep trying to figure out how to balance it all. If anybody has any tips, I’d love to hear them… and I know “quit trying to do it all is one,” but I’ve never been good at following that advise!
From My Table to Yours,
Melissa
