Brimfield, Part Two: When there's never too much of a good thing!

I hadn't intended on going back. I was going to spend 1 day at Brimfield. But I couldn't keep away... I wanted to reconnect with this wonderful, talented group of designers, stylists, decorators and friends... I wanted to go back and look through all the treasures (and the good bit of trash too, to be truthful!) and I wanted to go back without a schedule, without an agenda... armed with just a camera. And that's what I accomplished... I plodded through the fields at times alone and I plodded through the fields at times with friends... looking, laughing, marveling, wondering... I see the world around me very different when I look through my camera. I'm not looking at the overall picture, I'm looking at the details... the threads of our lives. When I go to the country, I won't shoot the entire farm - cattle, barn, horizon - I'll focus on the cow's face, a part of a bale of hay... there's so much beauty within that we completely miss...

I hope you enjoy my stroll through the Brimfield fields...

As you can see, the entire Brimfield experience is one for all the senses... it's visual, it's textural and, it's aromatic and flavorful!

I hope you all have a lovely weekend, and a fantastic Mother's Day!

I'm headed into the city (New York) today... with my camera, of course!

XOXO

Jessica

#brimfield or bust! {Part 1}

What a day... I'm still reeling... I'm still on a high...

I haven't had such a phenomenal day in a very long time!

How wonderful it was to be reacquainted with old friends, to meet new friends to be a part of such a wonderful and talented group of people... to come across some great finds... to be inspired...

I'm crazy enough to want to hop back into the car and drive another two hours (each way!) to reconnect with these fabulous people and walk around the fields some more.

I'm tired... bone tired but I have this terrible habit of pushing myself to the limit.

Take a look at my pictures below and you'll understand why I'm headed back for more!

We arrived at our tent sponsored by Aubuchon Hardware, Benjamin Moore, Company C and hosted by Fashion + Decor and The Daily Basics to find Warren Bobrow, aka The Cocktail Whisperer, setting up shop...

I mean look at this bar... phenomenal, n'est ce pas?

I know you're surprised to hear this... but I restrained myself. Having just gotten over a pretty nasty case of strep throat which knocked me off my feet for a few days, I thought it was better to stick with the basics, water - at least on an empty stomach!

Now come stroll along and see some of my kind finds...
My camera just loves Brimfield!

They made an error in the above photo... the glass to the left should say "ours" and
the large shaker in the middle should say "me" ... ;)

You just have to get a little silly every now and then! 

I'm just wild about big, fun costume jewelry!

I bought the above necklace for a mere $30... seriously this could be a Stella and Dot for nearly $70!
Right after I bought it someone else wanted it. HAH! I have a habit of doing that to people... what can I say? I have fabulous taste! (Yes, I am being sassy... don't take me seriously. I don't!)

 If I could only remember where the heck I saw this one!

If you're a regular reader you know I love love love LOVE old typewriters!

Ahhh, our old friend Pandora de Balthazar, with the best linens, bedding and pillows... ever! 

Howard's was a new find for me this year... a fantabulous fantastical one...
picked up a couple of thing for my boys' room!

I have a couple of these chairs... they're much more fun painted, n'est ce pas? 

Here I am debating, contemplating... agonizing whether to get this or not! It was a steal

... no need to twist this girl's arm!

After all, the necklace would be a perfect accessory to the dress I'd be wearing to the dinner sponsored by our favorite paint company ... EVER! {Benjamin Moore... Duh!}

Cheers everyone!
And thank you so very much to all the people,
friends and sponsors who made the day truly special!

MWAH!!

XOXO

Jessica

A visit to Abigail Fox Designs in Old Greenwich, Connecticut

I had the wonderful opportunity to visit my friend Abigail's store in Old Greenwich yesterday. I first met Abigail last Spring at the famed Brimfield Antiques Show in Brimfield, Massachusetts. I've been wanting to stop by for quite some time but our busy lives and often conflicting schedules have not permitted such until yesterday.

If you are in the area or near the area and have a passion for beautiful things for your home you simply must stop by. You will not be disappointed! Abigail apologized in advance for her low inventory. "Christmas wiped me out!" She told me. Yet, I saw goodies galore... on the walls, on the floor, on shelves, ceilings... Every nook seemed to house something more delightful than the next. I wandered through her shop over and over again, each time my eyes caught something new, more wonderful than the next!

image via The Entertaining House, Abigail Fox Designs

Many wonderful nautical items grace her walls and table tops...

image via The Entertaining House, Abigail Fox Designs

These delightful lamps sit on top of wonderful tables that were created by re-purposing old circus carts that Abigail picked up from Brimfield last year!

image via The Entertaining House, Abigail Fox Designs

image via The Entertaining House, Abigail Fox Designs

Wonderful brass detail, also from Brimfield, re-purposed into this wonderful lamp!

image via The Entertaining House, Abigail Fox Designs

detail...

image via The Entertaining House, Abigail Fox Designs

I fell madly in love with the cabinet beneath the re-purposed lamp... wouldn't it be simply divine as a liquor cabinet?

and while we are on the subject of alcohol...

image via The Entertaining House, Abigail Fox Designs

Look at these wonderful nauti bottle openers! I've developed a love for mermaids lately... and there were plenty to be found!

image via The Entertaining House, Abigail Fox Designs

image via The Entertaining House, Abigail Fox Designs

I know it seems corny but...

image via The Entertaining House, Abigail Fox Designs

I may seriously consider switching my beverage bubbles just to be able to use all these wonderful bottle openers... What a fun collection one could have with these!

Abigail has a wonderful Men's Nook as well so that we don't overlook the men in our lives. There are some absolutely wonderful treats to be found in here. But my eye always seems to revert back to the small wooden rack here... there are several in the store. And I thought, out loud, how fun they might be in a bar area - to hang wine glasses from! Ah, yes, I do have a one-track mind indeed...

image via The Entertaining House, Abigail Fox Designs

image via The Entertaining House, Abigail Fox Designs

 I love these cocktail napkins!

image via The Entertaining House, Abigail Fox Designs

You could give them the boot... or serve some wonderful finger sandwiches with these!

image via The Entertaining House, Abigail Fox Designs

image via The Entertaining House

These matches and I... a match made in Heaven, don't you think?!

image via The Entertaining House, Abigail Fox Designs

Oh really! Where can I hang this?!

image via The Entertaining House, Abigail Fox Designs

Not your typical bar fly...

image via The Entertaining House, Abigail Fox Designs

I made Abigail hold this for me because I wanted to pin it on Pinterest! (Can you see her?!)

image via The Entertaining House, Abigail Fox Designs

I am so upset I didn't capture this amazing gem of a chandelier better, alas, iPhone cameras are not always perfect.

image via The Entertaining House, Abigail Fox Designs

Isn't she beautiful? She is a weather-vain!

image via The Entertaining House, Abigail Fox Designs

Abigail's store all began with a few pieces of jewelry...

image via The Entertaining House, Abigail Fox Designs

belt it out with these amazing belt buckles!

image via The Entertaining House, Abigail Fox Designs

image via The Entertaining House, Abigail Fox Designs

I think I need to return and get this wonderful ring!

image via The Entertaining House, Abigail Fox Designs

Love this charming garden snail!

image via The Entertaining House, Abigail Fox Designs

image via The Entertaining House, Abigail Fox Designs

image via The Entertaining House, Abigail Fix Designs

image via The Entertaining House, Abigail Fox Designs

I think these plaques would make lovely dishes... perhaps something on which to toss your rings on at the end of the day... this last would be a lovely place to toss your wedding rings!


Thank you Abigail, for showing me around your wonderful shop! I hope many of you will stop by as well to see all the wonderful delights that simply would not fit here!

Also please visit Abigail's blog Foxtrot Musings!

XOXO

Jessica

Perhaps Brimfield's most fabulous find of all!

My regular readers, and those of you who have been with me over the past couple of years know about my love and fondness and respect for my grandmother whom I refer to as La Jolie Grandmere. She was all about beauty and grace, intellect, charm, creativity, independence and living... She was my greatest inspiration and still is to this day, 8 years after her passing. For anyone who can rebound from paralysis from Polio at the tender age of 29 and survive the loss of her first husband in her 40s and still manage to see the beauty in the world around her is certainly my idol... While in her wheelchair she picked up and moved to Paris where she renovated an old brownstone to create a desirable Pied a Terre on Paris' magnificent Ile de la Cite. This magnificent transformation was photographed in Maison et Jardin. She captured the hearts of many, including famous American playwright Thornton Wilder. It is because of my grandmother - it is because she never for a moment considered herself to be handicapped... because she never for one minute stopped to doubt or to hesitate...because she knew all about living... because she truly walked (or, in her case rolled) on the sunny side of the street... that I still miss her terribly and respect her so. I think of her often, still, to this day. I often wonder what she would do if she was in my situation...and, I still turn to her for advice... There is a terrible and vast void in my heart. It is my hope and dream, as many of you know, to publish the wonderful and charming stories of her life. This is no secret.

Bettina Bachmann, @ early 1970s

Somehow, through the marvelous marketing and networking application that Twitter has become, I followed and eventually befriended the lovely Shelley Caroe aka "Wykeham Girl." Somehow, Rochester, NY must have worked its way into one of our conversations. Shelley asked me whether I had known the Durand or the Strong families. I had known the name Strong in its affiliation with the highly acclaimed hospital bearing the name, Strong Memorial Hospital. The other meant nothing to me, but I wasted not a minute and immediately sent my mother an email asking her of these families. (I had grown up on the Upper East Side, my mother in a Rochester, NY suburb.)

Both names, I was told, were established and terribly important in Rochester's history. The Durand family was responsible for bringing the railroad system into Rochester and connecting that area to the Midwest. Old society. Surely they would know La Jolie Grandmere and her family. Shelley's relatives were friends with George Eastman. So was my great-grandfather. He was George's next-door neighbor. Their lives must have crossed! Surely they must have interacted and socialized with my family!

Not long later I got a wonderful email from my mother. In it was a clipping from the local paper, a picture of  6 young women on horseback. Look closely... Can you read the captions? There they are right next together on horseback - La Jolie Grandmere (Betty Jane Hart) and Virginia Durand! Isn't it wonderful?!

A few days after sending this clipping to her, I had the absolute privilege of meeting Shelley at Brimfield in person! We hit it off immediately. She is very much like me... little in stature but huge in personality!

Below Shelley and I... she had just learned that I was there in the Benjamin Moore tent with her! Her nephew is in the background... Isn't he adorable? (The pictures could be more flattering, but alas it's all I have and I shall put my vanity aside for this!)

Shelley and I will meet up for lunch again tomorrow at Bergdorf's along with the wonderful Gretchen Aubuchon, Mindy Lockhard, Quintessence, Ridgely Brode, Liz Lange and her sister Jane Wagman... I can hardly wait!

Brimfield's kind finds - decadent eye candy

Today's journey will be a visual one... Today's journey is told through the lens of my camera and not the written word. (Oh you see, I am quite the talented one!) Please join me as we walk through the kind finds of the Brimfield Antiques show.

and we all know there is nothing cookie cutter about me ;)

my eye is drawn to groupings and collections...
I love the patterns that happen naturally within...

Such beauty in the simple and ordinary

Alexander's room is all Firehouse themed... a mix of old an new

This rocking horse Dalmation would be perfect in it!

Makes you wanna say, Oh Dear!

I just loved these old beaters...

turned into light fixtures!

Then from old to new... the lovely luxurious linens at Pandora de Balthazar!

Yes, my camera has a sense of humor too!

Well, the fabulous weekend is over... the images and memories and friendships created at Brimfield will remain with me forever... but it's time to get on the saddle again and buckle down and get to work!