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Birch Candlesticks and New Friendships

Birch Candlesticks and New Friendships

This time of year is busy. Busy for everyone.

Finding extra time to do anything is almost out of the question. In addition to taking care of our families every day needs, we are all running around buying the perfect Christmas gifts, wrapping said gifts, sending Christmas cards, decorating our homes, menu planning for guests, and working. Can’t forget about going to work. 🙂

I find myself in the same holiday busy theme as everyone else.  The birch candle holders are selling so well, that I was running low on good, dry branches. So when I needed to actually purchase some birch branches, I turned to a local Craigslist ad.

Laura was the person behind the ad and she lived about 5 miles from me. Perfect. I can just zip over to her house, grab some new branches and get back to work filling orders.

But Laura had other plans.

When I arrived at her house, she was outside doing the evening chores of feeding all of her rescue animals.

In my mind rescue animals are dogs and cats, maybe a horse, possibly an old goat.

Laura had the rescue dogs but she also had this beauty.

This is Thanks. No joke and better yet, Thanks used to have a female mate named Giving, but she passed away last winter prior to Laura taking in Thanks. Sad. What is a Thanks turkey without a Giving mate? 🙂

Thanks is a Royal Palm Turkey and is a very endangered breed. Laura had to promise that Thanks wouldn’t end up on her table before she was allowed to take him in.

As I mentioned, I was in a bit of a rush. Laura had also come from a full days work but asked if I wanted to take a little walk on a path around her six acre property. Thanks would come along.

My initial thought was, No, but thank you for asking.

And then I thought, how many more opportunities will I ever have, to go and walk with a turkey. ( I did actually think that.)

Laura and I started to chat and walk and Thanks followed.

He followed us on the path as we walked past her pond and beautiful birch trees,

He followed us as Laura showed me where she had planted her garden and where  she was working on a green house made from her collection of free doors and windows.

Everything was so rustic and eclectic. And yet somehow natural and calming at the same time.

When the three of us finished our little walking path tour we ended at the dilapidated barn where she stored all of her birch.

I was not allowed to walk past the Moosehead doorway because the barn was severely leaning and was only being supported by scaffolding on the left hand side.

If that barn could tell stories. I can only imagine.

After risking her life to retrieve 5 long branches, we carried and loaded them into the truck. For someone who was soooo busy, me, I spent another hour talking to Laura about….well almost everything.

What started out to be a quick run to get some supplies turned in to a relaxing, out of the ordinary routine and the start of a new friendship with Laura and Thanks.

Happy Monday All. See you Wednesday,

Wendy

 

 

Guest Post: A Year of Transition

Guest Post: A Year of Transition

Well, hello there. You’ve read my name roughly 100 times on this blog and probably know I take pictures but I have the honor of knowing about all the behind the scenes things that happen at Old Lake George. Wendy asked me to start helping with the shop about two years ago, back in the Pooh Pooh Pillow days and since then I have gotten to witness the dramatic transformation that this blog and business has done.

In the early days of the shop I would help design banners for the shop or take a few pictures when I was in town, I lived 4 hours away at that point. A year ago, I moved to Minneapolis and Wendy asked me if I wanted to take a larger role in helping create the face of the shop and what would become the blog. In the last year Old Lake George has gone through a dramatic transformation.

The Photos

The transformation really started with the renaming of the shop and with a focus on the product photography. Together, Wendy and I spent hours talking about a new name for the shop. (She covered the story here.) When “Old Lake George” was settled on and a new logo designed, it really started a whole new era for the shop.

We also started photography days. Wendy and I had long talked about how important the photos for the shop were. She took the plunge and had me do all of them. Once a month I make the trip to Wendy’s house and we spend the morning taking photos, laughing, rearranging her house, and usually breaking something. Yes you read that last one right. We have broken candle holders, decorations, and completely dissembled fake flower arrangements. Its all for the perfect picture.

Our photo shoots usually take over the whole living room area. We move couches, carry tables down stairs and just generally destroy the beautiful utopia you can see in the house tour photos. We take great care to create great pictures every time and the light in her living room is perfect for photos throughout the day. The photos below show the great length we went to make a fake bedroom within her living room.

At this point we have taken over 10,000 photos. Many of these photos will never see the light of day, but they are part of the Old Lake George story. We are doing a big shoot this coming Friday. I can’t wait for everyone to see whats to come.

The Blog

I’ve always known Wendy as my Aunt but also never one to shy away from telling a good story or sharing her opinion. When she brought up the topic of a having a blog last spring, I knew she could do it well. She was nervous at first, like anyone would be when you start sharing your life with the internet. We talked on a daily basis during the first few months. She wanted to do it right, she wanted to make sure the blogs made sense… she cared that she was “doing it right.”

Now, after 50+ blogs I would say Wendy is doing it right. Wouldn’t you???? 🙂 Its been fun to see the progress the blog has made. (For the record she said I could write whatever I wanted in this guest post… so Wendy… take the compliments and enjoy them. I know you struggle taking positive feedback.)

As the blogs have been published, I have seen the writing become more fun to read but have you seen the pictures??? Sometimes I have caught myself thinking, “Did I take that photo?” Nope, Wendy has gotten 10000% better. I may be out of a job soon! 😉

What’s Next

I knew when I started working with Wendy that she would push me to help do great work. She is never sitting still and waiting for the day to just drift by. Her mind is always running and thinking about what’s next. We talk often about how to do bigger and better things. In the last few months I made the jump to working full-time for myself and helping small businesses like Wendy’s. I would never have been able to do that without her support and that of my friends and family. (If you’d like to work together… you can contact me here. Shameless plug!)

Old Lake George will always be trying new things. I look forward to what Wendy will dream up and pitch me. I know when a big idea is coming because I hear…. “Spence… what if we did this….”

 

Who knew a set of rustic candle holders could be so exciting!

Who knew a set of rustic candle holders could be so exciting!

I shared with you in the recent past that I bought a drill press!  Well, I have been putting that drill press and miter saw to work again. And this time, I have to say that I have totally outdone myself.  How could that possibly have happened you wonder?  Hold on.

Our neighbor Jimmy works at the local tree farm.  His wife Nikki wanted some new pillows.  I needed some trees. So just like an old fashioned trading post, we traded some white birch trees for some red geometric patterned pillow covers.  Win-Win.

At the tree farm, they periodically thin sections of trees to encourage the best and strongest trees to thrive. These reduced trees are then recycled into mulch and used at the farm greenhouse. Jimmy rescued these trees so I could repurpose them into candle holders.  He dropped them off the other day.  He even cut off the twiggy branches that I don’t need. What a guy!

Each tree was between 2-3 inches in diameter. A few in the 3 1/2 to 4 inch range. My next step was to simply cut them into 2, 4 and 6 inch heights and set them aside to dry.

My drying time frame wasn’t exactly scientific.  I moved on to other projects and when those were completed, maybe two weeks?, I returned to the drill press to complete the candle holders.

Each birch holder has a spot drilled in big enough to insert a tea size candle. They fit snuggly down into the wood, and are replaceable.

Each and every candle holder is unique to the section of branch it came from.  No two sets are alike. They are not polished or disturbed in any way, giving them a true rustic appearance.

Fall decorating anyone?

Winter decorating?

I could go on and on….one simple set of candle holders and so many options.