Fun Stop at The Found Cottage

Hudsonville, Michigan is the site of the cutest little shop, co-owned by one of my favorite bloggers, Liz of Liz Marie Blog. I've been following her blog now for a while, and I never miss any of her social media posts or Insta stories.

Liz just seems like the sweetest person. She's my age, and I remember following her blog as she was in the middle of taking interior design classes, and I became hooked. She has such a knack for making things look pretty, and I love following her new journey of life on a farm. Seriously, check her out if you haven't already.

Since I knew Liz was in Michigan and that's where we were going for our vacation this year, I had to look up where her shop was, so that we could hopefully stop there during our trip.

The Found Cottage is actually right outside of Grand Rapids, which was on our way to where we were staying in northern Michigan. We didn't have time to stop on the way up from Illinois, but luckily we had time on the way back home.

I was so excited to check out the store. It always looks so pretty from her photos, and after stopping and looking around, I was not disappointed.

There is a mix of antiques and home decor, along with some clothing and jewelry, too. I just snapped a couple of photos, but everything in the store is just so cute! There are so many unique vintage, rustic, and handmade items. It all looks so pretty, it's hard not to want everything!

I was of course wondering if Liz was going to be at the store working that day, and she was! I saw her there but didn't talk to her. I think she smiled at me, but I was too scared to say anything. I didn't want to make a fool out of myself! Haha. She did seem really nice though, and she sounded exactly like she sounds on her Insta stories. I was kind of star struck, I have to admit!

There was a necklace there that was so cute and I thought about getting it, and there were SO many other things I considered, too. In the end though, I ended up taking home this framed print, which we hung in the hallway:

And this throw pillow, which is now on the living room couch:

Are those not super cute?

I'm so glad that we had time to stop on our trip, and if we ever get back up there, you know I will be stopping there again!

Birthday Weekend

Hello all! Today is my 29th birthday. I took the day off work today, so I could sleep in and stay home, and get some things done around the house. So far today, I've watched a movie and got a visit from Trent this morning, who delivered my new shoes. :) I plan on doing the dishes and cleaning around the house.

I can't believe this is the last year of my twenties! I better live this year up, huh? Today I wanted to share with you a little about my weekend and how I celebrated my birthday.

Saturday, Trent and I took a little trip to Bishop Hill - a historic, little Swedish town with cute shops and restaurants. We did some eating and shopping - I had never really been there before, and it turned out to be a really cool place that's right in our backyard!

The first place we went to was the Bakery - a cute, old-timey restaurant and bake shop. 

They played some old style music, and as soon as you walked in, you felt like you just stepped back in time.

All of the old buildings here have the old style, country decor inside. Even the tables and chairs feel like they're from the 1800's.

The food was delicious and all tasted homemade. Since they're a bakery, their specialty is the bread, and it was amazing! It was so soft. We ended up taking home a loaf of the wheat bread.

The weather was gorgeous, too. So bright and sunny out, and about 65 degrees. We had a perfect day for shopping and exploring.

We also went to Sweet Annie's, an antique and gift shop.

My favorite thing there was the homemade soy candles. We spent at least 10 minutes just smelling them all. Haha.

There were so many different scents. I ended up getting the "Brown Sugar" scented one.

All of the buildings in this little town are so old and historic. There's an old hotel there, and a Colony Store, that we stopped in and bought a few things at. I picked out some things that Trent got me for my birthday, too, like some yummy Fudge and a few little decor items.

We didn't go into any of these buildings, but I thought they all looked cool, so got a few pictures:

All in all, it was a great afternoon and was nice to get away and go shopping for my birthday!

Here are all of my treasures that I ended up getting on the trip:

I love these Bee coasters - aren't they cute? There were a ton of different coasters that you could mix and match. I went with the "bee" theme for all of them. I love the little sayings!

We brought home some Cheesecake fudge, which was amazing. And I found some really cool old wood blocks at a place in Altona on the way back, with our initials. I want to display them somewhere - just need to find a place for them!

I also have a thing for coffee mugs these days, and thought this one was pretty cool!

We burned my new candle yesterday, and it made the house smell amazing! It has kind of a buttery smell. I kind of just want to eat it. Haha.

Yesterday, my parents took us out to eat for my birthday at a new place in Moline called The Steel Plow. They are becoming famous around the Q.C. for their burgers and crazy delicious shakes!

Don't they look awesome? They taste just as good as they look. And the rest of the food was good, too. It was a nice, early Sunday dinner at a cool new place.

When I got home, Saleen wished me a Happy Birthday, too! Isn't she adorable in this picture?

Well, I am going to start cleaning around the house and enjoy spending my birthday at home today! And just for "kicks," - Here are my new shoes that just got delivered. :)

They're my birthday present to myself! (From DSW - get them here). Happy Monday everyone!

Wedding Antiquing and DIYing

Hello friends. I will try to keep this short, because my To-do list is about a mile long and constantly growing. Not only have we been crunching to get all of the last minute things worked out for the wedding, we're also working on getting the house all clean and nice for when we have company over in a week and a half for the bachelor/bachelorette parties. So we're back and forth between wedding stuff and cleaning!

It's been a busy couple of weeks, and each one gets busier as we get closer to the Big day. Last weekend I did almost nothing but wedding prep. Friday night I worked on my DIY chalkboards that I originally made for my sister's wedding last summer. I put a whole new spin on them for ours:

Saturday we went to Geneseo to meet with our photographer in the morning, then hit up a couple of antique stores for some last minute vintage decor. I picked up a few new finds at C&S, which I love. And we also found this other store called Antique Asylum [Antiques and Fine Junque]. I loved this place, too!

They had a lot of cool items here. I was seriously debating on getting one of those old antique typewriters - I saw two here. Would have looked so awesome at the wedding, but I knew I already had too much stuff! I got a few vintage-y things here, too.

Check out this booth with all of the clocks...

There were even more on the other side. All you could here was crazy ticking in this booth.

When we got home Saturday, the village Fun Fest was going on, but we had to use our time to work on more wedding DIY adventures. We started on our ceremony backdrop, which will be three french doors standing up behind us. We picked up all of our doors at the Habitat ReStore. The only thing is, the middle one is not actually a door, but was originally a built in cabinet. So it's not exactly the most sturdy. Therefore, it needed support. I helped...ok, watched, Trent cut boards and screw them into the door to frame it out and give it support.

It was hard work supervising, let me tell ya. I had my patio chair to sit on and everything.

He got it pretty much done, and we stood it up. It seemed pretty sturdy. Now all we have to do is attached the two doors on both sides of it with some hinges, and fix some supports onto the back to help stand it up.

After that we have the doors at the front of the aisle to build a frame for (which we also picked up from the ReStore). A little paint and some wood, and we'll have all of our ceremony "props" complete.

More to come for our next wedding adventures!

Antiquing and New Wedding Finds

Another Sunday, another beautiful day for antiquing! Today we did some more antique shopping in Galesburg. We hit two new shops we'd never been to before. And we came out with a few goodies. (I did anyway!)

First we went to the Antique and Craft Depot in the Galesburg mall. You would never think the tiny mall there would have a cool store like this one. There was so much stuff! Especially the smaller, knick-knack type of stuff. I saw lots of bronze statues that I thought were pretty awesome (I have a thing for bronze and ceramic animals I guess). Like this Pegasus...$40 was a little much for me, though.

Then there were these. I really wanted these giraffes - and only $18..not too bad. But it was really tarnished - lots of green in all those cracks. I thought maybe I could clean it up, but I don't want to ruin it. So...I passed. But I still think these guys are pretty awesome.

What I did end up getting from this store was a cake stand to add to the wedding collection...it's pretty unique - square, and the glass is heavy! This guy was only $15. One of the cheapest antique stands I've seen lately. So I had to pick it up.

I also got this small plate, which was only $3. It can be used for the wedding to put a smaller bud vase on.

Then I got these earrings which I thought were pretty, and I like the style of...only 2 bucks! Can't go wrong. For the most part, that store was pretty cheap and had a really large variety of items. I think I'll be going back in the future!

The second store we checked out was called Second Time Around. We'd never been here either, but discovered it the other day..it was closed then so we came back today during business hours. They have mostly used and antique furniture - a lot of really nice oak pieces. Most weren't really our style. But they had some smaller antiques too.

And I ended up finding the final cake stand to complete the collection! The second I saw it was $25, I was sold. We've seen so many antique cake stands but a lot of them were upwards of $50, which is more than I want to spend for using it really one time, on our wedding day.

We now have a total of 5 large cake stands, which I think should fit both our cake and all of our cupcakes. I really have no idea, but it seems like they all would, right? Maybe we'll get some cupcakes and test them out! :)

Along with the cake stands above, we also have this one below, which is hanging out in the kitchen at the moment....

I set most of them up on the bed upstairs just to see what they look like together, and it seems like we have a nice eclectic mix of both antique and modern looking stands...I'm really excited about how the dessert display will turn out!

So today was a good day to find the last of the cake stands we needed!

And I think we have plenty of milk glass vases and vintage decor for the reception...

My ever-growing collection of mismatched antique dessert plates will also help to create that vintage, eclectic look for our centerpieces.

I mean, my China hutch is pretty much overflowing these days due to my plate obsession...

But I think with all of our DIY flowers too, the reception is really going to have that feel of "Vintage garden elegance" that we're going for! It's definitely been fun to start to see everything coming together. And I have another wedding flower-related post for you tomorrow. Stay tuned!