classic midwestern vintage

Over the past few months, I've been busy researching vintage markets that I felt Mick & Rita's would be a good fit for. In the process, I discovered a pretty amazing one I'd never heard of before. I printed out the application, checked all the necessary boxes, and sent that baby off in the mail. I waited, with fingers crossed, for that email to find its way into my inbox saying that I'd been approved to be a vendor at my very first show. When that email finally arrived, I have to admit, I was absolutely on cloud 9.. There was finally a date circled on my calendar to work toward. Its given me more motivation than I had before, and there was a lot of that to begin with.

The market is called 3 French Hen's Country Market and its located fairly close to home, in Morris, Illinois. The show I'm signed up for is June 11th and I can hardly wait. While I was applying, I had to sum up in words what my "style" was and what types of items I would be selling. Putting into words what Mick & Rita's "style" is was harder than I thought. I could see a vision in my head but wasn't quite sure where it fell in terms of the usual style buzz words people like to throw around when talking about vintage ( i.e. shabby chic? industrial? retro? kitsch?).  After making a brainstorming sheet, ala' 4th grade, I wrote out the words "classic midwestern vintage".

A lot of the items I gravitate toward as they sit on hayracks at estates sales had previous useful lives on farms- whether the item served its purpose in the barn or in the farmhouse kitchen. The majority of the furniture I purchase to refinish would look great in your average midwestern farmhouse. Furniture that's sturdy and strong, with design that's no-frills but appealing & classic in its simplicity.

In relation to my handmade items, most of the reclaimed materials I'm using had previous lives in farm kitchens and feed bunks, seed sheds & farm shops-- old aprons, feed sacks, seed sacks, ticking, quilts. Or as the structural sides of barns & corncribs.

Filling out applications for shows has allowed me to really hone in on what my vision is for Mick & Rita's. A few applications required pictures, so I went out in the cold and started grabbing items out of my garage and staging them. So here's a small sampling of some of the treasures I've compiled & constructed thus far. I hope you like what you see!