around age twelve i decided that someday i'd open a shop with my mother and sister, full of old and neat things.

at some point in the glorious and awkward pre/beginning-teen years i started realizing that i could buy old things instead of new things to use in every day life. one day i put on an old cotton 1960s dress with a pair of black converse and went to our little town's hot pepper festival downtown with my grandmother. i found an antique suitcase for $1 and brought it home where it became a victim of decoupage. at this second it's sitting in my bedroom, having recently been used on a trip to maine. even though it's covered in a weird mash of cut-outs ranging from disney's robin hood characters, hank williams, books of the bible and 60s magazines it's a very pleasant reminder of the start of a love for owning and finding old things and making them my own.

my siblings started having a lot of children and so that gave me an excuse to venture over to the section of small clothes when i went thrift shopping. sometimes there would be a cute dress but no niece at the moment to fill it - but i would buy it anyway, just in case someone had one soon.

several years later i heard about etsy.
and here we are.