I so cannot wait for Monday…although this weekend has a lot of fun things in store. Friday night we are having a group meeting to hopefully select an intern. Then we are setting up a photobooth for our friend’s 30th birthday. Saturday morning we have an awesome engagement session, followed by our tattoo appointment! I’m getting our skeleton key on my arm, and Steph is getting Jasper’s baby feet (that will be SO cute…I can’t wait to see it)!
But yeah, Monday!
Shortly after we expanded into our new space, we had a gentleman contact us about his collection of 3 thousand records from the 60s-80s. He had collected since he was 4! He was moving across country to LA and couldn’t afford to move and store them. A week later we met him at his storage unit in Guntersville to haul them all back to our store. Along the way we stopped at a couple of places for a mini photo excursion.
The first was Windmill Gardens. Apparently they’ve been around for over 20 years! As much as I love Bennett Nurseries, I’m glad to have another place to buy plants…cause Windmill Gardens had some pretty unique varieties.
I’m obsessed with these super tall, bright, happy flowers! We spotted them in our neighborhood the day before and wondered what they are called. When we got to Windmill Gardens they had a HUGE patch of them. What luck! They are called Alabama Sunflower and they are a native perennial…perfect for our yard! The owner dug us up a clump and we planted it along our back fence. Apparently the root system spreads fast, so hopefully we’ll have them covering the back fence in a couple of years!
I love this idea! They took a couple of old computers, and turned them into planters!
There were Bonsai trees 40 years old!
back on the road!
The next stop was at this Railroad store we used to pass all the time when we would go out to Scottsboro…this time we finally stopped!
yay White Rabbits!
We finally met Steve at his storage unit, and started loading the records. Who would have known that three thousand records would fit in the back of a van? It was definitely a low rider with all of that junk in the trunk.
wahoo!! this stash of records was amazing! Both Andy and I are finding a lot of albums we’ve been looking for. Our personal collection has grown by at least 300! One thing I’m still on the hunt for is a Boney M. album…
I think my obsession with estate sales started at the beginning of the 2009 year when I made a resolution not to buy anything new (mainly clothes) that was more than $20. Every weekend Andy and I go to estate sales, and now they are like crack to us. My resolution has lasted a while, and now it’s actually hard for me to shop at traditional retail shops.
Here’s what our dining room table looks like after a weekend of shopping:
This was actually after a light weekend, with only one sale.
I found this after digging through a box within a box within a box. Something told me to keep digging, and lo and behold, I found this little gem. Obviously I’m a huge Alice in Wonderland fan and this just made day!
It’s hard to find square frames, but I scored all of these for fifty cents!
I found two boxes…hopefully they aren’t “too expired”
yay! The Lemon Pipers!
Our garden is still producing a lot more peppers than we can eat, so Andy has taken habit to roasting some of the red peppers.
Since we got lazy about building our omg-we-have-to-have-it fire pit (one day we’ll do it!), S’mores in the oven will just have to do…wonderfully, that is! Just thinking about it makes me start craving!
And this is the only time Maple and Tiny really get along – when they are chirping at wildlife in our backyard.
hehe I made a gif of their tails!
*When Andy was a baby he used to call the “kitchen” a “quitchen” 🙂
This month has flown by! With a wedding every weekend (well, except last Saturday – it was an engagement session in Birmingham), October has been filled with wonderful smiles of love and delight! We have a super awesome wedding on Halloween and then the first two weeks of November are filled with some highly anticipated events (a badass engagement shoot, a 30th birthday photo booth, a gorgeous backyard wedding, and a new tattoo!) Once all that excitement has settled I’ll have a little bit of breathing room to make sure Hi-Fi Weddings Fest is on target.
Thankfully among all of the White Rabbit Studios fun, I was still able to snap some shots of some of my favorite subjects…and general life. Here’s a start to another series of “catch up” posts!
Stephanie introduced me to the lovely and wonderful Elka of CasaSugar and she’s been running a story on our house…room by (completed) room! It was weird to look back and see the ‘before’ shots…I forgot how gross it was hah!
Kitchen
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Dining Room
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Living Room
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Bedroom
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Bath
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Foyer (a rarely photographed area)
This room wasn’t featured or anything, but we’ve recently changed it up a bit. There is still much work to do in this area: take off the vinyl floor (and hopefully restore the wood underneath), strip the front door, and strip the staircase.
We stopped by the 1892 East restaurant to see what photos they wanted to use for the walls and how they would be arranged, etc. It was perfect timing because the chef had just baked 70 loaves of bread for people to stop by and taste! There was a yummy white bean spread with orange and bay leaves…it was delicious! I can’t wait for this place to open!!
While we never really thought it would happen so soon, we expanded our store again – without having to move out of Lowe Mill! Unless you’ve been to the mill, it’s kinda hard to explain this. The spaces are rented out pole to pole (which is roughly 220 square feet). Our friend Emily had a single space at the far end of our store (she was part of Virago – the art group that had the space before we moved over). When Virago closed, Emily wanted to keep her space, so we built a “wall” between us. It was kinda awkward, but when a new space opened up a couple of weeks ago, she decided to move in.
So last week we re-arranged the store and took over Emily’s former space. Now our store has three huge windows and overlooks the parking lot…I know that part doesn’t sound exciting – but trust me, it’s prime real estate at the mill. The best part? We now have 1000 square feet!
It took us about 6 hours to move everything around and get it situated. We lost a part of a record shelf (after it fell on my foot) and a peg board broke in half (over Andy’s head) but all in all, it went pretty smooth!
I snapped some ‘before’ and ‘during’ shots of the store. I haven’t had a chance to do the ‘after’ shots yet, but I’ll get around to it!
BEFORE
it was so crowded before!
DURING
the “wall” between us and Emily
this was her former space…on the other side of the wall
windows!!!
first customer in the “new” store!
There’s a new restaurant opening in Five Points and they are interested in using some of my shots of the neighborhood for art on their walls! It’s going to be called 1892 East, which is the year Five Points was established as a neighborhood! The food will come from local sources, and will have a full vegetarian menu along side a “normal” menu. I also love the idea that the menus will change seasonally…not to mention local brews on tap – all within a five minute walk from our house! We’re so stoked! Here is a small selection of some of my favorite neighborhood sightings!
I’m definitely a bit behind on writing about this, but boy was it FUN! Over the summer Crash Boom Bang Theatre did a series of skit shows (remember this? and this? and this? and this?), and we had a big finale on August 26th. This show was pretty intense. We had a lot of filmed parts interacting with the live action on stage, so it was a challenge we all welcomed. Not to toot our own horn, but we did a damn fine job that night with hardly any technical difficulty (there was a bit in the final scene, but nothing that ruined the show or anything).
While it was nice not having to memorize a ton of lines, there was a lot of filming and production planning to do before the show. Of course the filming led to some great shots!
Rough plot explanation: Knucklehead wanted to get revenge against Crash Boom Bang Theatre for not inviting him to be in the Short Shorts season. He plots with S.D. Stubidge on how to kill the members of Crash Boom Bang. Thus begins the chaos!
Bill and Sara’s Death
We had a night of filming in our house…upstairs, where it had to be 100 degrees.
Sara being Sara 🙂
Chris (Knucklehead) meditating before the shoot
sweet digs
fight scene between Sara and Knucklehead (I love her pigtail!)
more fighting
Chris takes a breather and cool down…and then it’s back to filming
Bill accidentally knocked himself in the head while falling out of the shot!
Cap’n Todd
Matt and Ben filming my Cap’n Todd segment
I’ve had that blue dress for some time now, and finally got a chance to wear it!
Matt trying out a wig for a segment of the skit
prepping Alex with the wig!
Extras
Matt doing sound
Ben being Ben, but transforming into Dong Silverstein
Matt being a creepster in the bathroom
pretty skies at Lowe Mill
Unfortunately I couldn’t be around for every bit of filming. These photos were just the tip of the iceberg. The show had a REALLY great turn out and everyone seemed to love it. They laughed at all the parts we hoped they would, and got rowdy during certain parts (we looooooove our audience!) We did get one hate email, which was pretty amusing…especially because he didn’t stay the entire show, and some of his “critiques” were actually answered at the end of the play.
One night we had a ridiculous idea to get together with some friends and fry up a bunch of stuff! I mean, a bunch – pickles, okra, onions, chicken, asparagus…basically everything except some stuffed peppers Ellis made. While definitely not the healthiest dinner party, but it was loads of fun!
prepping peppers
Tiny helps!
YUM!
Meredith (wo)manning the onion rings
first onion ring!
Meredith and Ellis
Tiny doesn’t mind the hustle and bustle in the kitchen…as long as she has her rug!