Saturday Spotlight: Tania from Little Vintage Cottage

Hi, everyone!   Kris from Junk Chic Cottage and I wanted to do a regular feature on our blogs, something unique that hasn't been done before.   So we came up with an idea to 'spotlight the real life behind the blogger' in a more personal way.

There is so much talent and inspiration in blogland, and we thought it would be fun to bring you a closer look at the person behind the blog.

Every week on Saturday we will spotlight a blogger and have them tell us a little bit about themselves and their blogs.  You will be able to see and read about each of the bloggers on both Kris's and my blog. 

      

Today I'd like to introduce you to Tania from Little Vintage Cottage.  On Tania's blog you might find her showing off her latest 'junkin' treasures, or upcycling an old piece of furniture.  She has a fun, vintage style that I love!

Please sit back, relax, and enjoy getting to know Tania better.

Hi everyone, I’m Tania (pronounced Tonya) from Little Vintage Cottage. I am a regular follower of Susan’s blog so I was very excited when she invited me to be a part of her Saturday Spotlight features! 

My blog is about my decorating and DIY projects, junking trips, and my efforts to grow my small business.

My parents have always had a love of antiques and vintage (my mom – furniture and home décor; my dad – old cars and motorcycles) so I grew up surrounded by beautiful, well made things and grew to love them myself. We are also a very creative family and we love building and creating art in many forms. I started out, following in my mom’s footsteps, with decorative “Tole” painting and added other forms of art that interested me later like creating artist bears, altered art, and sewing.

My mom and I participated in several local craft bazaars for years selling our art and even put on our own show in my house for several years as well! We cleared out a couple of rooms in my house and set up our own bazaar and we did quite well at that for a while but it was a LOT of work! Then we discovered eBay and started selling together there. Unfortunately, as many of you probably know, eBay started going all crazy town with their rules and prices and now it seems the big box companies have pretty much taken over. So in our search for another venue to sell our things we discovered Etsy and fell in love! We opened The Vintage Dresser  Etsy shop and we still share that shop today.

We both ventured out and started our own shops, separate from The Vintage Dresser, as well. My other shops are:

Little Vintage Cottage - My love of antiques and vintage is showcased in this shop where I sell cottage, farmhouse, industrial, and boho-chic items!

Little Cottage Crafts – The “sister” shop to Little Vintage Cottage offering upcycled, recycled, repurposed, and reimagined goodies I’ve made!

Something Special Bears – This is my newest shop, it is dedicated to my love for creating artist bears and is a work in progress offering my original designs. Here are a couple of my little bears.

Aside from all this I work a regular day job at a government facility (boooorrrriiiinnnngggg) :o) and I just finished up my schooling and received my bachelor’s degree last August (I'm 45 so it's never too late)! My dream though is to run my small business full time and I’m working toward that goal with my fingers crossed!

In my free time (when I’m not at work or working on my Etsy shops) I enjoy DIY projects and decorating and fixing up my house. Remember I said I work for a government facility? Well, the town I live in was built back in the 1940’s basically to support the workers that came from all around to work at this very same government project. They built houses and an entire town for them and I now own one of those houses! When they built them they assigned each one a letter and they are now referred to as The Alphabet Houses! Mine is an ‘F’ house which is a two-story with a basement, built in 1944.

I live here with my two dogs, Roxanne and Pongo. 

My daughter who is now almost 24 is off on her own and has also got the “vintage” bug :o) I am at a good time in my life right now as an empty nester where I can do what I want, when I want. In fact, I’ve always wanted a vintage travel trailer so when I became single I bought one!

My dad and I spent an entire summer fixing it up. I’m looking forward to taking her out camping this year!

I also enjoy thrift shopping and going to garage and estate sales on the weekends looking for things for my shops and my own home and lately I’ve been working hard to create a little personal oasis in my backyard complete with a fire pit and awesome patio lounging areas.

My newest hair-brained scheme is to sell this house and purchase a fixer upper... my family and friends think I'm crazy... I think it'll be fun :o) I hope you'll follow my blog and join me in that adventure... starting soon! 

Tania, thanks so much for sharing!  LOVE that sweet little trailer! (And what a cute pic of you and your dad!)  Please visit her at Little Vintage Cottage then head to Kris's blog to read about another great blogger, Alessandra from My Romantic Creations.
Have a great day :)