Birch + Bird Vintage Home Interiors

Playing with Scale

Birch + Bird — Wed, 30 May 2012 07:01:36 +0000

Like Rachel said yesterday, we’re both recovering from the busyness of our weekend at Scout and unfortunately we’re also both sick…too many late nights! But we’ll hopefully soon be on the mend so that we can get some more visiting in before she and her girls head back home to Florida. I’ve gotten pretty used to having her nearby again so I’m thinking it may be twice as hard to see them go this time! But I’m excited to see more photos of their new house (it’s amazing!) and to watch from afar as they make it their own. We had a very cool unfinished space to use for our market…all concrete floors, huge windows and lofty trussed ceilings…and I was so impressed by how many of our vendors maximized the height of their booths. I’ve never been a fan of following to many “rules” in decorating and love seeing homes that push the limits when playing with size and scale…

Mike Hammersmith Inc.

Design*Sponge. Photo by Liz Daly.

Vtwonen. Photo by Dennis Brandsma.

Over-scale lighting and art are equally effective in drawing the eye up and giving the illusion of more height and it’s no secret that I’ve had my head turned by many an oversize pendant, like some of the ones here and here. How do you feel about super sized accessories in regular sized spaces?

Better Homes & Gardens

Martha Stewart. Photo by Matthew Hranek.

Thuss+Farrell via April and May

We’ve got a few loose ends to finish up before we put Scout Handmade + Vintage Market fondly behind us and move onto future plans and goals. But we’ve had many an email in our inbox over the last couple of days asking us about certain vendors and we would love for you all to read more about their personal stories. Tamara and Cynthia of Delish Magazine worked hard to put together some truly inspiration interviews with many of our vendors and it was so fantastic to read through them as we prepared for Scout, hearing their creative stories and how they balance life with work, behind the scenes. So pour yourself a coffee (or two) and take a few moments to read more about these talented ladies who joined us this weekend (in order of feature) over at Delish Magazine. Thanks again to Tamara & Cynthia for all of the time they put into these interviews and for joining us at Scout with their new venture Delish General Store…some great goodies to be had there!

Hello Fletcher! / Local Grain / Jen’s Dream Decor / Whatever Lola Wants Lola Gets / Opechee / Bookas / Vintage Cove / Carmen West Creative / Bee’s Knees Bodyworks / My Brown Bag Studio / Home Sweet Nest / Divina Denuevo Pieces of II / Sharalee Prang Photography / Creekside Country Home Decor / Clayburn Comforts Soap / Crystal Clear Boutique / Groovy Glass Girl / Champion Jack’s / Vintage Home / Westcoast Baby / Pink Gargoyle Design / Hopscotch Goods for Your Home / The Pink Spatula / Tiny Seedlingz / What Wood You Say / Raggy Girl Vintage / Karla’s Specialteas / Twig Home / Jayme Anne Photography

Enjoy your Wednesday!

Mid Century in the Desert

Birch + Bird — Tue, 29 May 2012 07:44:11 +0000

Phew…what a weekend! Did all that really just happen? My head is still spinning and I think Lily and I still need a few days to recover. An escape right about now sounds very dreamy, maybe in a place like this…

Set on the 14th hole of the Eldorado Country Club, this mid century gem was artfully restored by Interior Design Emily Summers and her crew of handpicked architects and craftspeople. Originally designed by an unknown architect, the home was slightly neglected and altered over time until Emily brought it back to it’s former glory. After the restoration and a carefully selected coat of white paint, Emily filled it with her incredible collection of mid century furniture. The golden gondola sofa under the Qing-Dynasty screen is to die for.

photographed by Nikolas Koening for Architectural Digest

I have to echo everything that Lily said yesterday but I also wanted to thank her for all the extra foot work she had on her plate because of my absence. So, thank you, Lily. I appreciate you and your friendship so much.

Our Weekend at Scout!

Birch + Bird — Mon, 28 May 2012 07:01:18 +0000

Wow, what a weekend! Scout Handmade + Vintage Market was a huge success and we couldn’t be more proud of our amazing vendors. They truly pulled out all of the stops with each and every display. The one repeated “complaint” of the weekend was that there was just too much eye candy to be taken in all at once! As with each market we’ve hosted, I wish I could have had much more time to explore and shop from each booth but thankfully Sharalee Prang took some gorgeous photos for us to share of our market weekend. Rachel and I are utterly exhausted but feel so overwhelmed and blessed by all of the positive feedback that keeps streaming into our inbox. It makes all of our hard work feel very much worth while! Come take a peak through Sharalee’s lens…

Sharalee Prang Photography

We started the weekend with a sold out wine + cheese night for ticket holders and invited guests, a 1st Dibs evening of shopping ahead of Saturday’s crowds. Despite a few hiccups like blown breakers (we only had 3 power outlets to share between all 50 vendors, sound system, espresso machines and washroom trailer, ack!), it was such a fun and relaxed evening…we may have even had a local celebrity join us too! A huge thank you to Shape Properties for providing us with the perfect venue for our event and especially to Katie and Jessica for seeing our vision of a pop-up style market and believing in us!

Sharalee Prang Photography

Trove Vintage Rentals provided a gorgeous vintage lounge, complete with an amazing handmade “chandelier”, which was the perfect centrepiece to our space at The Parallel Marketplace. The live performances by husband and wife due Coalmont and jazz vocalist Sharla Sauder were fantastic and I can’t wait to hear more from them at other local events like Jam in Jubilee this summer!

Sharalee Prang Photography

Our guests sipped on delicious wine from Hester Creek , sampled gourmet cheeses prepared by Formaggio Fine Foods , and nibbled Tracycakes cupcakes (in our Scout colours, no less!) and yummy handmade marshmallow s’mores from thePink Spatula while they browsed. They also had a chance to enjoy hot coffee from Clayburn Gourmet Gallery, chilled tea from Karla’s Specialteas and took home some sweet gift bags supplied by Paper Nation, with samples from many of our vendors tucked inside. It very much felt like a girls night out…with some lucky men in the mix too!

Sharalee Prang Photography

Some more important thank you’s go out to Thrifty Foods for providing a delicious lunch for all of our vendors (and for being so patient with the parking lot craziness on Saturday!) and to all of our other generous sponsors for their donations to our silent auction benefitting Life Recovery . On Saturday, Parallel Yoga offered afternoon classes (one was even outdoors in the field!) by donation to Life Recovery and we are so excited to include their generous cheque with the rest of the admission and silent auction donations later this week!

Sharalee Prang Photography

We headed back to The Parallel Marketplace on Saturday for more vintage + handmade fun! There was a long lineup of excited faces well before the doors opened at 10am and the lineup wrapped around the corner for almost 2 hours! We had to keep holding the line to give customers inside some breathing room but thankfully it was a gorgeous sunny and breezy day for the waiting visitors outside. Thank you to everyone who came out and patiently maneuvered the parking lot, the crowds and even their strollers to get a look inside at Scout! Come and get a small taste of what they saw inside…

Sharalee Prang Photography Sharalee Prang Photography

Sharalee Prang Photography

Overall, I think it’s safe to say that Scout was a huge success for our vendors…many booths were looking positively sparse by the time the doors closed! Between the sales of the weekend and the networking opportunities between sellers with customers and local business owners, we are so excited to watch our vendors and their small businesses grow. There was such a sense of community amongst all of the vendors and we all learned a lot over the weekend. Rachel and I definitely couldn’t have pulled it off without a TONNE of help from our family and friends so we’ll take a moment to give some well deserved shout outs, if you don’t mind…Thank you so much to our parents, families and friends for helping us take care of our children (they didn’t see much of us last week!), to my husband Brad for building the stage and being our overall handyman extraordinaire, to my sister Becky and Rachel’s sister-in-law Angie for manning the Birch + Bird booth, to my brother-in-law Stephen for doing the sound, to Sarah of Hester Creek and our friend Andrea for pouring wine on Friday night, and to all of the friends and vendors who brought us coffee, food and treats to keep us going in the long days and nights spent setting up last week. Not to mention Wade at Shape Properties for his help and for answering more than a few panicked phone calls this weekend! There are so many other hands who helped us decorate and cleanup as well and we truly appreciate all of your efforts and kind words of encouragement ever so much…we couldn’t have done it without all of you! Now to get some rest and hug our sweet families…

We Heart Handmade…and Vintage, of Course!

Birch + Bird — Thu, 24 May 2012 07:51:21 +0000

Oh my goodness, what a day! It’s 12:40 am as I’m writing this and Rachel and I spent a full 14 hours at the market space yesterday cleaning and decorating and we still have a whole lot more work to do not to mention trying to get some sleep! But we are so thrilled by how things are coming together and cannot wait to share pictures of our crafty decorating adventures. Although, the DIY’s that we chose took waaay more time than we’d anticipated, but so it goes sometimes! We also have a winner of the last 2 Scout wine + cheese night tickets from the giveaway over at Poppytalk….JUDY KLASSEN! Hurray for Judy! Please contact us and we’ll be in touch with the details right away.

Since we’re about to view the talents of all 50 of our amazing handmade + vintage vendors, I thought I’d inspire you to dig into your own small projects with these beautiful DIY’s and vintage treasures…

Katie’s Pencil Box

The Marion House Book. Photo by Kristin Sjaarda.

Diary of a Mod Housewife

Vintage Eclecticity Green Wedding Shoes. Photo by Jess Graham.

Ruche tutorial on Design*Sponge

We’ll be spending today and tomorrow setting up tables, finishing decorating and diving into setting up our own display so we’ll be skipping out on Friday’s blog post. But wish us luck and we hope to see you this weekend at Scout Handmade + Vintage Market! And away we go…

Oh, and be sure to visit my guest post over at Poppytalk today…plenty of lovely patios and stepping stones to inspire you to get out in the garden this weekend. Yay for sunshine in the forecast!

Powder Rooms: Small yet bold.

Birch + Bird — Wed, 23 May 2012 07:17:25 +0000

Yesterday, I felt like things were all under control but today is a different story. So, like Lily said, posts are going to be short and sweet around here until we can fully recover from the market. Market planning is very similar to wedding planning, where you do a tonne of planning up front, a little in the middle and then all of a sudden it’s go time. And that time is now! The space we’re using is fabulous although it’s just bare bones. So, the next couple days leading up to the market, we’re making it pretty. Then the vendors will roll in, set up and the market takes on a life of it’s own. I wish you all could join us but we’ll be sure to fill you all in next week.

Traditional Home

In between visits, working, blog posting and resting (???), I’ve been dreaming about the house that’s waiting for us back “home”. It’s got this cute little powder room with crazy Chinoiserie wallpaper and I think it’s from the original owners. I’ve always heard that there are no rules when it comes to decorating powder rooms so except for a few modern updates, I think the dragons will remain.

Architectural Digest via Truly Felicia

Have you picked a favorite? My pick is very fitting and rather embarrassing. Happy Hump Day!