Pop over to Downtown Belleville this weekend for Art on the Square! The event is this Friday through Sunday (May 18th-20th). Be sure to stop by the shop and say hello while you explore Art on the Square and visit our fellow Main Street businesses. We will have extended hours for this weekend, open Friday-Sunday 10am-7pm. We hope to see you there!

About Art on the Square:

Belleville’s ART on the SQUARE has been ranked the #1 fine arts show in the nation by The Art Fair Source Book 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012.
Begun in 2002, ART on the SQUARE has risen to the top of fine art shows. In 2004 it was named the Best Small Town Art Fair in America and by 2006 it had climbed into the list of the top ten shows in America.

Each year about 1,000 artists apply to Art on the Square. Through a blind jurying process, 105 are chosen to participate. During the fair, a panel of judges considers the exhibited work and $30,000 of prize money is awarded.

Also, prior to the show upwards of $90,000 of pre-purchase art cash is sold. This cash is used by patrons to purchase art at the fair. For the past several years, more than $1,000,000 of art has been purchased and participating artists are very pleased with their experiences. Several refer to Art on the Square as a “gem of a show where they do everything right.”

Thank you to everyone who stopped by the shop Friday night to help us celebrate our Grand Opening! We had a blast! Special thanks also goes to KDHX DJ Cat Pick for the tunes + my mother-in-law, Joan Chesley, for her delicious treats. I was happy to save a few chocolate-caramel-cookie-bars for myself at the end of the night (my favorite!).

We spent the rest of the weekend re-stocking the shop with new, fun vintage finds- including a collection of vintage gold necklaces that I’ve been coveting. Among the many visitors in the shop this weekend was Mary Nasser, photographer extraordinaire. She shot a few (amazing!) pics of the shop for her blog, so stop by + check ‘em out. Thank you, Mary!

Get ready for some dessert-fueled crafting this Friday at our Grand Opening/Open House! In addition to homemade baked goodies and tunes by DJ Cat Pick, we’re filling a table with everything you can imagine to use to make your very own friendship bracelets. Make one or an armful, make one for a friend, and take ‘em home for free! Stop by the shop between 7pm-10pm this Friday for celebratory craftiness.

We opened our doors for our first official day of business this morning! Thank you to everyone for their hard work helping getting the shop ready. Check out a few of our photos of the shop + don’t forget to follow us on Facebook for the latest. Have a happy Cinco de Mayo! ~

It’s official! We will be opening for business Saturday, May 5th at 10AM. We are just a week away and busy, busy, busy packing the store with fresh vintage finds! We have an amazing group of vintage hunters + crafty creators whose goodies will be available in store in time for our opening. A week after we open our doors we will be celebrating our Grand Opening with a little shindig in-store Friday, May 11th. Enjoy a little shopping, homemade baked goodies, and tunes via KDHX DJ Cat Pick. Check out the event page for details. We hope to see you there!

Say hello to Steve, our new (vintage!) mannequin dog who finally arrived this afternoon. We adopted Steve via a random Ebay score and thought he would love to make his home at MVA. He’ll be cruising our window displays, and lucky for us- mannequin dogs are pretty easy pets. We can’t wait for you to meet him in person. The shop will be open in less than two weeks and we are hard at work filling the space with our favorite hand-picked vintage goodness.

Once I hit the high altitude of Denver’s skies, I began planning my “hit list” of vintage shops my fellow vintage addicts had suggested to visit. The first day there, we hit ‘em all. The strip on Broadway in downtown Denver is home to all of these amazing vintage shops, which made my hunting super convenient!

Lee Alex + Boss Vintage were by far my favorites from the trip. Lee Alex is a gorgeous shop, showcasing a huge amount of mid-century furniture and housewares. Boss Vintage is packed wall-to-wall with clothing from every era-gone-by. The mullet wigs alone make it worth the stop.

I also found a ton of modestly priced vintage clothing at Buffalo Exchange. I had to borrow another bag to check so that I could get all of it home! (Thanks, Lauren!)

[TOP: Lee Alex, MIDDLE: Boss Vintage / Decade, BOTTOM: Buffalo Exchange]

I’m baaaack! After my flight back to St. Louis from Denver this morning, I hit the ground running. Today we will jury our consignor applicants and choose our Summer 2012 Vendors. This will be a tough, but exciting process + I want to thank all of you who applied!

My four days in Denver were jam-packed, so I will have to recap the trip over the next few days. Probably half of the trip was spent shopping, buying amazing vintage pieces for the shop (yay!). While vintage hunting, I stumbled on two adorable shops featuring handmade items/crafty goodness. Check out a few of my photos from those shops. More to come later this week!

[top: graffiti outside My Brother's Bar, MIDDLE: Fancy Tiger, BOTTOM: SEWN]

This morning I’m off to Denver, Colorado to visit my BFF Lauren, her hubs (Dave) and explore the city. I met Lauren the very first day of high school our Freshman year, and we’ve been sharing a brain ever since. This is my first visit to their place in Colorado and I cannot wait to be a fly-on-the-wall of their world.

I’m also extremely interested in the vintage + thrift shop scene there, and have been digging through Yelp and searching Twitter for suggestions. Big thanks to @AnnieMac for the tip to check out Lee Alex! (If you have a favorite haunt there, let me know in the comments)

On another Denver note, I’ve never seen a mountain. Well… I’ve been to the Smokey Mountains- but they were a bit foggy and not-so-pointy. I’m ready to check out that gloriousness and Instagram the crud out of it! Evidently, I’ll be taking a train up Pike’s Peak. Now, that’s a mountain.

Photos + a recap of my adventures when I return at the beginning of next week!

Yesterday was our first day working on the shop. We started out by ripping off the old decals off the storefront windows, which was no easy task. In the hour or so it took for us to scrape + peel these suckers, we met a gob of interesting Belleville folks enjoying the sunshine on Main Street. One of those interesting folks was Dr. Bob Brunkow, historian and member of the Belleville Historical Society.

For my mother and I, it was like meeting Santa Claus. We were almost drooling as he began telling us stories of our neighboring buildings along East Main Street. We invited him in to check out our building and he was extremely helpful in pointing us in the right direction to find out more about our storefront’s history. Dr. Brunkow also discussed the mission to save Turner Hall (the old downtown Belleville YMCA), which is where I spent many an afternoon in my childhood.

Dr. Brunkow leads walking tours via the Belleville Historical Society, and we hope to make it to the next one. Mark your calendars for the 2012 Historic Downtown Walking Tour Dates: April 28, May 12, May 26, September 8 (full), September 15, September 29, October 13, October 27, November 10, and November 24; and the West Belleville Tour Dates: May 5, May 19, June 2, September 1, September 22, October 6, October 20, November 3, and November 17. Tours start at 10am. $10 per person. Reservations required–Leave a message at 618.236.7481 or email rdevb [at] earthlink.net.

Photo from “I Grew Up in Belleville And I Remember When“