Look what I found at Elizabeth & Co.!

One of my favorite things about our tag sales is chatting with our customers and hearing about how something they found at Elizabeth & Co. now has a happy new home or just makes them smile! At our summer sale, newlyweds Stephanie and Derek stopped by to say hello. They are so cute! 

And Stephanie brought along her beautiful brooch bouquet to share with us. And of course it has a great story to go along with it! It all started when Stephanie's great-grandmother passed away last December. She left Stephanie a big box of brooches. There really was no plan for them until one day when Stephanie saw a photo of a brooch bouquet in a magazine. That was it. She knew she was meant to have a brooch bouquet for her wedding.

In spite of the large collection, Stephanie still needed more brooches to round out the bouquet. Well if you've ever been to one of our sales, you know that Karla always has a lovely collection of vintage jewelry. So she started collecting brooches for Stephanie. Then family and friends heard about it and and they wanted to get in on the fun too.

Stephanie did not need to purchase a single brooch. They were all given as gifts. And each one is from a special person in Stephanie's life or has special meaning. She attended WVU, hence the Flying W. Her granddad was an optometrist. Did you spot the little eyeglasses? Stephanie had a poodle named Pepper and you guessed it, there's a poodle pin. ... Each one makes Stephanie smile!

Through a whole lot of trial and error, Stephanie's mom figured out how to put the bouquet together and she was sweet enough to share the details. The base was created with a bunch of pink silk hydrangeas. Then she used floral wire to create stems for each brooch and tucked the stems down into the flowers and adjusted them to form a nice round shape. Then she slid a toilet paper roll (love that!) around all the stems, cut off the ends and covered it all with white silk. Then to make it more sturdy, she put a pearl stem wrap around the bottom. ... Now that's my kind of DIY gal! ... And even after the wedding and a whole ot of traveling, it still looks as perfect as it did on day one. And how sweet is this photo of Stephanie and her mother on the wedding day!

And the brooches aren't the only connection Elizabeth & Co. had to Stephanie's wedding. At one of our first sales, I was telling her aunt Beth (one of our very favorite customers!) about all the chalkboards we used at Megan's wedding. Well next thing I knew, Beth was buying up all of our chalkboards and requesting more white ones. Stephanie and Derek used one of them for their save the date announcement.

And just a few weeks ago, they tied the knot. Just look how much fun they had with all the chalkboards!

And now Stephanie and Derek are using the chalkboards in their home as a sweet reminder of their lovely day! We are so honored to have had a little part in it and appreciate them sharing their story with us!

*If you have something from Elizabeth & Co. in your home and would like to share, just send me a photo! I'd love to make "Look what I found at Elizabeth & Co.!" a regular feature. Or if you'd like us to be on the lookout for something special for you, just ask. We do our best to make our friends smile!

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No Minimalist Here Open House Party

Jennifer Rizzo

Making Monday Marvelous at C.R.A.F.T.