AntiqueWeekend: October 2013

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Big Letters

An AntiqueWeekend show trend we love:
BiG LeTTerS

The big letters showed up at the April 2013 show at many vendor booths throughout Warrenton, and appeared in even greater numbers at the Fall 2014 show. Expect to see that continue. New metal letters have been available at several booths (we bought ours in Bar W) in several sizes.

The “new” metal letters are raw unfinished rusty metal. The vendors we visited had them in three sizes. Also available are arrows and other “punctuation” symbols. Vintage letters, box letters, lighted letters, plastic and metal are available throughout the show sites. Good vendors know their inventory and if you are looking for a hard to find letter, like we were (“M”) they could tell us if they had one or not.

Big Letters are a fabulous decorating tool. A child's first initial in a bedroom or surname initial in a family room, or a rustic accent in the garden. Our giant “M", painted sage green, decorated the outdoor area at our daughter's wedding, and will now transition to her back yard. We did learn one lesson. If you want your guests to “sign” the big letter as a keepsake, choosing a “medium” sized metal letter is probably better…. Don't be intimated by the rust, it was easy to spray paint. Start your hunt at Bar W and Northgate Field in Warrenton.

Our Story

In 2000, with his temporary job in California coming to an end, David asked me where I wanted to live next.
I said Fayetteville (Texas), a charming town of 266 people in central Texas. And so we came. We moved into a loft above a commercial building on the square in Fayetteville. It was there that AntiqueWeekend.com was born. My husband had visited Fayetteville many times over the years, visiting his parents and grandparents. He told me wonderful tales of the antique shows held twice a year. It was hard to imagine that the fields of grazing cattle could be filled with tents and booths full of treasures. (They do move the cattle!) We love garage sales, prowling through antique stores, flea markets and thrift stores. In California we attended some legendary flea markets including the Rose Bowl and Long Beach. We spent our Saturday mornings driving through the greater Claremont area finding some wonderful treasures at garage sales.
With time on our hands and treasure hunting in our souls, we decided to utilize David’s computer skills and develop a website that would serve as a resource with information about the semi-annual Warrenton and Round Top Antique Weekend and a directory for the ever-increasing number of show sites and vendors. It was a different world 13 years ago. Few show sites and even fewer vendors had websites. And social media was unheard of. With smart phones and tablets the world has changed and we can see it in the visits to our website. And we have changed, too. The website now has a clean new look. We are on facebook and twitter, have thousands of photos on twitter and instagram, send a periodic newsletter and have recently launched an AntiqueWeekend blog.
We have changed, too.
We bought our own old farmhouse, planned weddings and have wonderful granddaughters who love to visit Mimi and PopPop at the farm.
We bake cookies and do crafts and many of the pictures you see on the blog are projects we have done together.
When you are making your plans to visit Antique Weekend we want you to have all the info you need and great photos of what you can expect to see. Between shows we want to inspire you. We’ll share ideas, memories and information about events that happen here “the rest of the time” so you can plan to come back more than just twice a year.