Paper Cowgirl Retreat 2008

Last weekend I attended the first Paper Cowgirl Retreat held in the beautiful historic downtown Waxahachie. Shannon and I drove down early on Friday so we could spend some time shopping in downtown Waxahachie,little did we know we would spend 2 hours at one store and 1/4 of that time was spent having the girl cut the trim we were buying and 1full hour was spent waiting for her to ring us up. Next time we know better, but the trim was fabulous and at 75% off the decorator trim prices it was worth the wait of course later we realized we could have snuck off to the store next door while she rang us up and have her call us when she was done, but oh well if we had done that we would have never met the sweet lady buying vintage jewelry who ended up giving us a mini lesson on how to buy,clean and what to look for in quality vintage jewelry. Boy did we feel dumb when we realized many great pieces of vintage jewelry can still be bright and shiny and it not be made in China! We met the sweet lady at Grans antiques and I think we both ended up buying great vintage jewelry pieces because of her. I know I did. I later checked out some of the vintage pieces I bought to see if any had signatures on them and low and behold what I thought was a cheap piece of jewelry was a designer piece and there is no way now I can break it up and add it to any collage piece. See the square rhinestone piece, she said it was great piece from the 20's and was probably worn on a dress. it has all of it's stones. The butterfly is also a Liz Claiborne piece from the 70's I think she said.

Later we headed on over to vendor night held at the cutest Pink Cottage in town. I wish I had a picture of this sweet house. Vendor night was so much fun! The pieces below are all from Sea Dream Studio by Dale. her work is fabulous! I fell in love with all of her pieces. So much detail in her work. Shannon and I made a packed that we were only going to buy supply type items, boy did that go out the door when I got a load of Dale's work and all of the other ladies work for that matter, Dale just had something I could buy for my home. For some reason the piece I bought is it not in any of the pics below, but it was one of her bird in a nest pieces like the on below but in olive green and it is now sitting on my bar/counter area until I can find the perfect home for it. Ok it is getting late and more pics of Paper Cowgirl to follow tomorrow.