The Retro Flamingo Studio

As you can probably surmise, we didn’t move right along, my mom, whom we had been collectively helping to take care of, sadly passed away last year. We had some wonderful trips with her before her passing, fulfilling most of her bucket list trips, except Hawaii, I’m sure she would have loved to have made one more trip there. But, we did make England, Alaska, the Caribbean, and the Bahamas, as well as Key West, and New Orleans. The last trip was just weeks before she passed. She held on to the end, and was a super trooper! And we miss her horribly, but she would want us to move forward, so that’s where I am.

After almost a year of estate items, and getting Dad settled into a new routine, I am hopefully in a position to push forward with a business. I tried this once in the spring, then covid hit, then Dad fell and fractured his hip, so , I’ve had lots of time to think, and ponder, what might be the best business type, given the continued state of the covid epidemic, and Dad’s health. I have decided that an online business, with local pick up or shipping, with an occasional pop up shop, is the best solution, at least for now.

As the name indicates, I am a lover of all things, vintage and retro. I hope to include both some fun inventory from bygone eras, new fabric and crafts, handmade creations from myself, as well as other family and friends, and eventually, some tropical plants, and succulents, which we are currently growing at our farmhouse. This spring, I’m planning on starting a curated monthly subscription sewing box, with a mix of both new and old fabrics, trims, etc, with which we can create.

The first box will ship or be available in January, and will be Valentines themed. It will include a valentines pattern that I have designed! All box subscribers will also have exclusive access to a private facebook group where I will share the box tutorials, and patterns, and where we can share our craft projects. I’m hoping it will be a wonderful supportive creative space!! And all subsequent patterns will be released to that group first before the public, so you will get a behind the scenes sneak peak into my latest creations. All of the new items have been ordered for the first box, and I’m so excited about the contents. All projects are designed with the hand stitcher in mind. So they will be adaptable for both hand and machine sewing. Over the years, I’ve spent a lot of time in the hospital, with different family members, and had it not been for my sewing bag, those times would have been much more stressful, I really enjoy take along projects!!!

That’s all for now, we are still nailing down the legalities on the name, but as soon as I know what it is I will share it!!! Stayed tuned for more information, and email or message me if you would like to be included on our email list for updates on our new adventure.

 

Hello there, I’m back!  I know I’ve been absent from my website for a while, but we haven’t been just sitting around at the beach soaking up sun, well, ok, maybe a little!  I’ve spent most of the last year learning!!!  I know old dogs, new tricks, yep!  I’ve been out of the loop techy speaking, but I’ve learned a bunch about how to take our new business online!  Now it’s time to implement!  This is our temporary studio, it’s in  the entryway to our home, and one of my favorite rooms!  From here I will be creating gardening, home décor, and craft projects, recording our facebook live videos, and posting our finished products and kits, for sale.  I’m very excited for the upcoming fall, as I will be launching the first of our quilt patterns!   We also have our ongoing Lavender Cottage Project……which we will be working on in the upcoming months.  So there are tons of projects, to keep us busy, just ask my hubby!!!  This will be all be coming your way on this page!!!  We would love it if you would follow us on facebook,  instagram, or pintrest, for daily updates, and I’m going to try to post here at least once a week to highlight how to’s along the way.  I hope you enjoy the rest of your summer, and we look forward to meeting you in our forums!!!

I realized today that it had been a month since I had published an update.  It has been a busy month, mostly behind the scenes craziness!  My Dear Hubby got the front steps rebuilt on the Lavender Cottage, yeah!!!  Unfortunately we now have to wait for the rain to stop long enough for the wood to dry, before we can paint it.  We still have so much to do on this project, but I’m excited to have made one small step in the right direction!.  Ok that wasn’t my step, it was Frank’s, but I count it as a win either way!

On other projects, we now have a pathway down the middle of the greenhouse!!  Ok, yes, it is almost covered in grass, but it is there nonetheless!  It has rained a lot this month, and hubby was lucky to have a day off last week, to mow, weed eating will have to wait for another break in the weather!

And part of the fence that will hold our perennial cut flower garden is underway (another hubby project), and you might wonder……what has Mrs. Flamingo been doing this month.  Well, not a whole lot outside, but, I now have a makeshift office area in the downstairs of our house, which is also within the range of our internet!  Somehow I managed to eat up most of the data usage from our cell phone plan listening to videos from my wonderful business mentor, Jennifer Allwood this month, because my office and studio upstairs are not within range of our internet modem!  Until my internet guru son, figures out how to increase the range, this is where I will be, working off of a plastic table, with light from a clip on light from my antiques booth, I’ve learned to improvise!

Speaking of Jennifer, one of the most exciting things that I’ve done lately is joining her private facebook group, the Inner Circle.  If you haven’t met her, and have a creative business, check out her podcasts and facebook page The Magic Brush.  Her approach to teaching women (and men) about how to launch and sustain an online business presence, is the most nurturing, encouraging, honest, and helpful business information, that I have found.  There are no big words, there is no big hype, just simple, clear, useful information delivered in a format that is easy to understand and to accomplish (even for a women over 50!)! She has a God given talent for making her whole audience feel at ease, and she has created a group where members share freely and openly about both business problems and solutions. I can’t imagine a better business mentor to take creative people through the steps from their ideas to a fully functioning and productive business, than Jennifer Allwood. I am thankful from the bottom of my heart to have found such a wonderful business mentor, and look forward to learning much more from her in the future.  I’ve recently signed up for her Mastermind convention in Kansas City, and I am so looking forward to attending, and to meeting some of the other people in our Inner Circle group.

So that just about sums up the accomplishments for this month.  I’m hoping to get our new product lines loaded into the shopping cart in the near future!  This web page is a lot of trial and error, but I’m learning!   So for the beginning of July on the balmy gulf coast!  Happy Crafting and Gardening!

Hello, from The Retro Flamingo Studio, where we are Creating in the Breeze on the Balmy Gulf Coast!!

Over the next few months, we will be transitioning all of our Broad Street Market website information over to our new business, The Retro Flamingo Studio, where we will also offer a new shopping cart system!!!  We are still not sure what we are going to do in the building downtown, for right now cleaning and straightening, and getting rid of stuff, we have toyed with the idea of opening it, again………that’s still in the discussion stage. For now we will be out and about on the road, participating in several antique shows and events, some of which will be alongside our daughter and her hubby, Sarah and Nick McIntyre, with Exaggerface!

In the coming weeks, I will be blogging about a cottage that we have been referring to as the Purple House, and is now lovingly dubbed,  The Lavender Cottage.  Its a lovely old two story duplex, which was moved onto the site of the Old Hospital in the 300 Block of Broad, in downtown Freeport, several years back.  We have finished the structural phase of moving and putting in new supports, and porches, and Mr. Wonderful(Frank) is replacing the front steps this week (I hope, there’s lots on his to do list!!).  Now comes the fun part, picking colors and flooring and landscaping…… once completed it will be available to rent for events and as a vacation rental.   We will be asking for suggestions and opinions on paint colors, and furnishings, along the way as we work through projects, so there’s lots to do there.  We are hoping to have that up and running by the spring if not earlier, I’m pushing for earlier if my Mr. Wonderful and I can get it all finished, I have visions of sugarplums dancing around and perhaps a Christmas Party if it’s ahead of schedule!!

Lastly, over the next few weeks, if you drive by, our yard is getting a much needed update, to make way for a new urban flower and plant farm.  It may take me several years to choose the best type of flowers to farm for cutting, but hopefully it will evolve from the hot mess of single pots set into the beds for watering purposes, to something of beauty….. and the fins are up for our new greenhouse so hopefully that will be finished by the winter!

Retirement from corporate life is grand,  I plan to take those who follow along with us on the ride that is our life… of family, and business, and travels, all of which we love.  So welcome to the next stage of our lives, I’m sure, as always, it will be busy!