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"I
like old things. I like to find old items and figure out a new way
to use them. I just don’t like contemporary things – the old
pieces make me feel at home," she said.
Although
her business is only in its second year of operation, she has
enjoyed great public appreciation and success. Cline, who works
full-time as a bookkeeper for her father’s trucking company in
Heyworth, has dreams of one day making it a full-time business with
a retail shop, expanded product line that includes furniture, an
herb farm and workshops. But for now, she’s busy preparing for her
first open house, June 3 at her home at 906 S. Race St., and for a
full schedule of craft shows and festivals this year.
[Tracy
takes a stroll through her "Garden of Thyme."]
"I
started by doing a few shows and just went from there. There was a
lot of interest in my items, and people really liked my stuff and
told me there was nothing else around like it. People said my
presentation was great and my items were unique," she said.
"It’s sort of like the Shabby Chic look. Architectural pieces
are really popular here now."
Her
artistic ability is evident in every nook and cranny of her
antique-filled home – an old, color-tinted picture of two children
having a tea party with their pet dog hangs delicately from a dried
lavender wreath on a living room wall. Tea candles perched in
weathered terra cotta flower pots are scattered on tabletops. A
large stained glass window turned into a mirror casually sits
propped along a wall on the enclosed front porch. Primitive painted
furniture mixes with stamped Victorian ceiling-tin fragments which
hang artistically from curled wire on walls and above doorways and
wrap around wooden planter boxes. Iron garden gates are hung as wall
art.
It’s
not just the interior of her home that’s been given her design
touch. Her fenced-in back yard on the outskirts of town is filled
with whimsy and character. A weathered white picket fence in a
corner of her yard, now enclosing her herb gardens, once bordered a
local business, but Cline offered to take it away when it was being
torn down. Two large porch pillars, salvaged from her brother’s
house, anchor the fence, which is dotted with the primary colors of
antique sap buckets.
Along
a curved gravel path leading to the herb garden stands a pergola,
which forms an outdoor "garden room," already decorated by
a hanging bird-feeder which started out life as a metal chandelier
and a handful of china teacups.
Commanding
attention in the center of the yard is a potting shed, made entirely
of salvaged wood from various sources, from the windows and doors to
the cedar plank walls, which were rescued from an old barn. An
antique washing machine sits nearby, waiting to be filled with the
heady scent of mint. Antique china plates which she inherited from
her late grandmother now perform a new duty keeping a garden within
its boundary on the side of the house.
She
also tends a medicinal herb garden, culinary herb garden and two
vegetable gardens and is in the process of extending her theme
garden collection with cottage and moon gardens. Charlie and Hondo,
the resident Labrador puppies, not only enjoy romping through the
yard, but help pick and eat tomatoes and strawberries.
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Yearly
visits to an aunt and uncle in Texas who make dried flower
arrangements and ironwork sparked her interest in this arena, and
once she began gardening and crafting garden accessories from
antique materials, she was hooked.
"I
started herb gardening four years ago and it just grew from there.
I started gardening on my own by planting a few containers of
annuals and a few herbs," she said. Cline is now an active
member of the Logan County Herb Guild, gives lectures about herb
gardening at local nurseries and recently completed a local Master
Gardener program.
"I’ve
always like antiques and my mom, and I go antique shopping a lot.
I like architectural salvage stuff," she said. So it was only
natural that Cline, who graduated from Illinois State University
with a degree in interior design, would take her newfound love of
gardening one step further and fulfill a need to decorate her
gardens. Even though Cline learned how to weld, her boyfriend and
business partner Reggie Kirby, soon took over the welding and
buildings tasks as the couple began ordering iron pieces and
making more garden ornaments. Cline concentrated on selling their
wares at local craft shows, making soaps and searching for pieces
of wood trim and ornamentation culled from old houses.
[Tracy
Cline offers unique decorative pieces
for the garden and home.]
Their
inventory now includes Victorian ceiling-tin planter boxes, iron
gates, trellises, garden edging, hummingbird and butterfly garden
stakes, candleholders, crosses, architectural pieces, handmade
herbal soaps and bath products. New items offered this year
include garden apparel, gloves and wall pockets.
"My
hummingbird stakes go like crazy; they’ve been great
sellers," she said. "Someday down the road, we’d like
to find a place in the country and open an herb farm, just open by
appointment," she said. Other future goals include a retail
shop, seasonal open houses and teaching about gardening at
workshops.
Cline
and Kirby will be displaying and selling their products May 21 at
the MayFest at Jubilee State Park in Peoria and the Glorious
Garden Festival at the David Davis Mansion June 17 and 18 in
Bloomington.
[Penny
Zimmerman-Wills]
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