Rachel Ashwell Shabby Chic Interiors Giveaway Winner

Welcome friends and Happy Halloween to you! How fun that this holiday falls on a Saturday this year. Are you doing anything special? For us here in the "Fufu" household it will be a quiet day, as the nest is now empty and we have no parties to attend this evening. Our plan is to have a quiet dinner and then welcome the hoards of trick or treaters that are expected at the door. Our sidekick Murphy really enjoys greeting everyone and the love is mutual, as how can you resist this face!

Thank you ladies so very much for the lovely comments and emails about my last blog post with Rachel Ashwell. You guys truly rock and I am working on visiting everyone who has left a comment. I wish that there were more hours in the day to both post on my blog and visit your blogs. Since I am a shop owner first and foremost, and have been since wayyyyy before there were ever such things as blogs~ biz has to be tended to. I am most times pretty much a one man show around here....with shopping, creating, filling special orders, photo styling and shooting, packing and shipping, phone calls, emails, working with the other artisans on Shabbyfufu.....filling up 12 hr days at this time of year~eeeeeks! Not complaining though as I head into the eleventh year on the web, it's what I love to do and I am truly blessed to be able to follow my bliss. I know that the other girls on Shabbyfufu feel as I do, and they are a wonderful group of artists whom I dearly love.

Now....a winner has been selected from a random number generator and is FAIRMAIDEN.

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

48 

Timestamp: 2009-10-31 13:56:45 UTC

Congrats, and if you will kindly email me (through the contact form on the website) with your mailing address I will get your signed copy of Rachel Ashwell Shabby Chic Interiors. BTW....I have a second book to giveaway, and this contest is through my website at SHABBYFUFU, you will see details on the front page of the site.

With that, I leave you today with a little Autumn slideshow of some photos that I had taken.........and will talk to you again soon.

~xoxo~

Janet (and doggie kisses from Murphy)

Rachel Ashwell Shabby Chic Interiors Giveaway

Be sure to read down to the bottom of this post, we have a GIVEAWAY for you!

Hi friends near and far....today I have a little post about a very sweet lady that unless you are living under a rock someplace you are SURE to know of!

Excuse the quality of these photos, taken with an I~Phone. Rachel foofing up a table before speaking.

I went to a book signing that was held locally here at Books and Books in Coral Gables, which is a lovely spot that has several outlets and is a small business. I totally support small businesses and artists and hope that you do too!!!!

Rachel Ashwell of Shabby Chic is an icon that I have long admired, as many of you have. I am not the starstruck type, and went to hear her speak and had no preconceived notions as to what she would be like. She looks just like she does in her books and hasn't changed much in her appearance over the years, and amazingly will be turning 50 shortly. She came out in a familiar looking outfit of belted jeans, a pale pink button down shirt, vintage (I think) silver lurex type blazer, and very pointy high heels. No make up (as opposed to me, who at around the same age NEEDS it~lol) and little jewelry other than a tiny gold necklace. Turns out that the outfit she wore was the very same one that she wears on the cover of her latest book, Shabby Chic Interiors ~ My Rooms, Treasures and Trinkets.

A coffee table book that is yummy, as are her others....and abundant with exceptional photographs and personal stories. She did a Power Point presentation (which she admittedly was a bit uncomfortable with)...and spoke about the book, her business, her life and family and her homes.

If you have read her blog, then you may get the feel for her genuine demeanor, and it truly is genuine....despite her Los Angeles status amongst the stars. She is not affected I assure you, simple needs and wants and as a recent "empty nester" myself I can surely relate to many of her feelings. She has gone through some rough patches this past year in her business and life, but is emerging and taking the attitude that "everything happens for a reason" in her faith.

Myself and the lovely Rachel

I was so happy to have some time to chat with her after the signing, quite a treat! I asked her about her future business plans and she said that at this point in her life she is happy to have some more simplicity. She wasn't ready to totally give up her hard earned brand after falling into bankruptcy, but has no plans to take it back to the level that was originally planned (by some bad advisors). She has her new Shabby Chic Couture shops now open in Los Angeles (same location) and in New York (new spot) and is getting ready to open a new shop in London. That's probably it (she said) and is excited to be filling the shops with one of a kind pieces mostly.....back to her roots. Of course there will still be the Simply Shabby Chic brand at Target that we all love for it's affordable and feminine design!

I have a gift for you from Rachel....an autographed copy

of her new book Shabby Chic Interiors! Just leave me a comment here at the blog and a name will be drawn randomly on the 31st (yes, Halloween!).

That's it for today~ love to all from me down here in Miami!

~xoxo~

Janet

Lightning Sometimes Strikes Twice

Hello to all of my sweet friends from wayyyy down here in Miami, where not to complain....but it's about 93 degrees outside right now! I mean PULEEZE, someone turn off the heat pump~it's given me a heck of a migraine today!

Just a quick post, I have been somewhat of a slack blogger lately due to other obligations in life and work.

It seems that lightning sometimes DOES strike twice, and I am so excited to share with you that my home has another magazine feature decorated and fufu'ed up for the Holidays~this time in Romantic Homes Magazine! I have written several tutorials for Romantic Homes Magazine and have had products and designs featured over the years, and always enjoy working with them. I honestly did not know that this piece was actually going to be published, until I was called by the writer for the interview a few weeks back. This feature was styled and photographed (by me:-) in a different year then the Romantic Country Holiday Issue was.....so it's a bit different. I hope that you like it ladies, eight pages (blushing here:-).

Good things are happening around here, and last week out of the blue I was contacted by a fashion editor to design something. I can't say much right now, but it has to do with some of my millinery designs. I was sooo excited and it's been sent for review. Maybe lighting will strike three times, who knows?

Well, that's it for today, I am going to go ice my head and rest and hopefully this headache will subside. I hope that you are enjoying your weekend and will talk again soon~

Lots of love from here

~xoxo~

Janet

This And That

Hi friends and blog readers all over the world. For those of you who have your own blogs, don't you find it so very amazing that we actually do connect with people in countries that we may have never visited ourselves...or for that matter, even heard of!

A quick post today to let you know that I am still around (lol!) and a bit of what's been going on around here. Lots of comings and goings in the Fufu household, and today is the first quiet day that I have actually had to myself in a couple of weeks.....so I am working on the "back end" of the website at Shabbyfufu to open up the Holiday Shoppe tonight! There will be lots of pretty things listed....including "the houses" that you have been asking for:

and these:


and some of these:

So sweet younger daughter did move over to her SoBe (this is what the locals call South Beach) studio apt and started back at school. We had a family celebration dinner this past Saturday night to toast her success at a lovely bistro close by. I don't have many photos, but I like this one of the two of us taken right before we went out and may have to frame a copy for her to remind her of ol' mom!

Older daughter was here for a week from Tampa where she lives with her guy and these three lovely critters. I have to say that I am growing fond of gineau pigs....they are such truly sweet pets and all have their own personalities! Meet Fallon, Amaretto and Pebbles.....my fur "grandbabies"~ lol! I am not ready for the real thing yet and neither are the kids!:


Do you remember this?

I blogged about it way back on March 29th (Junk In Her Trunk) and finally have had it redone! I was saving my pennies to have this French sofa professionally reupholstered, as with the button tufting it would have been a tough job for me to handle.....so over six months later we now have this beauty!

This past Saturday I went to an Estate sale and found this French chair. Oh la la....dontcha love the faded bleu velvet and the barbola rose swags? It needs a paint job, so I think that I will redo it the same way that I did the wood on the sofa above. I layered several coats of paint until I had a chippy French grey that I was happy with and then waxed it up a bit. It will be more more challenging to paint the chair, since I am not changing the fabric...so hopefully I won't pull my hair out over this one!

Well that's it for today, my lunch is calling me and then back to work. I love to hear from you and will pop over to read your blogs this weekend. We will be off to the beach and to do some antiquing.

I am editing this post because I forgot that I wanted to include my dear friend Fifi's Oh La La Contest info! If you have a piece of furniture that needs a drastic makeover...click below to participate:

Lots of love from here,
~xoxo~
Janet