Gathering Dust

A Brutal Day

 

I know that with the Olympics just finishing up last week, we tend to think of athletic achievement in terms of Michaels Phelps' amazing eight medal win,  the perseverence of Dana Torress making the Olympic team at age 41, or the dedication and training of young girl like Shawn Johnson, but let me tell you....going to a flea market with the temperature in the 90's is no picnic.

Karla and I headed up to Sparks and White Cloud KS for their semi annual flea markets yesterday.  The sun and the heat really took it out of us, but we still managed to find some goodies.  I tried to be efficient so I've already taken some of my loot to my booth at the antique mall.

I did run into a little button greed- that's what I call it when I spot one pretty button in a group and decide I need the whole bunch without really looking them over.  I saw this pink button with rhinestones (on original card), and decided I had to have the whole bag. 

Luckily I only paid $3 for the bag- because besides the stuff I put on this tray- it was kind of thin pickings. (Note the reflection of the camera & hand on the tray).

And there was a bag of THESE- does anybody else remember what they are?  I do - my Mom used them.  Can anyone think of a present day use for them? They're such a sweet pink color.

I found some funky green bakelite buttons on the original card.

And one of my favorite 19th century calicos.

One of my biggest purchases was this collection of French jet trim.  The original jet beads were mourning jewelry in the Victorian era, and came from Whitby England.

In the 1920's, jet was reinvented by the French as deco looking glass beads that were used for jewelry and trim.

(Sorry those beads are a little dusty.)

You know how much I like box lots- going through the little bits and pieces hoping to find a treasure.  I saw a few fun things in this box and asked for a price for the box.

We'll go through the box on my NEXT post (if you want)

Heavy Metal

You just never know what you might find when you go to an auction.  Saturday's auction had guns, tools & animal horns among other things I'm not really interested in.   It also had RUST- lots of chippy and peely and sometimes broken pieces of architectural salvage, light fixtures, lamp parts, ornate pieces from old stoves.  Most of it looked like it had been stored in a barn, a lot of it was DIRTY- but underneath it all, I knew there was some serious coolness going on.

I was completely intrigued by this cast metal "fancy lady" with the voluminous skirt- what did she used to be- part of a lamp?  She has many layers of paint- there's yellow, gold leaf and I'm not sure what that top layer is- it looks like dirt and I'm dying to get a finger nail under it and start chipping away- but first I should get a tetanus shot.

I picked up some brass tags for my cattle's ears.  Now instead of yelling "Hey, you, you, brown cow, over there, brown cow", I can just yell "Number 291, come here!".

Next on my shopping list- a group of presidents that you can look through and see the neighbors tree house.

What time is it?  It's 25 gallons- {chuckle}- something about dials and faces whether on a clock or not that intrigues us.

And here's an elephant that used to be part of a lamp- what a light that must have been!

A good start on a shoe horn collection- does anyone use these anymore?  I can't imagine wearing shoes that were so tight I needed to pry my way into them being comfortable enough shoes to wear for more than 5 minutes.

It wasn't all rust, though- I got this interesting wicker seat chair-  Notice that it's sitting on NEW DECK, and you can see my NEW GRASS in the background.

Here's the "no longer that fancy " fancy lady resting in a begonia.

Another picture of my NEW DECK and NEW GRASS- oh, and this big (like 3 ft tall) drawing of a sharp little guy with a walking stick.

The picture came with a box of earrings- usually I'm buying the jewelry and taking whatever comes with it, but this time, I wanted the drawing of the boy, and the earrings were a bonus.  Well, I really didn't think they were a bonus when I got them- the looked kind of cheap and cheesy.

But when I sorted them out- I found these candy colored pieces looked fun together.

And the white and sparkly earrings looked ok together.

And I was rewarded by finding this Victorian enamel pin at hidden among the 1960's earrings.

Books That Inspire

 

For about as long as I've been interested in antiques, collecting and collage, I've had a favorite "go to" book for inspiration.  One of my current favorites is The French Inspired Home by Kaari Meng.

Although the  book has a lot of craft and decorating ideas, my favorite pages are the collage pages at the front- just a collection of pretty things- the kind that would catch your eye at a flea market or antique store.

I've scanned a couple of the pages here- without permission, I'm afraid, but I hope that if Kaari Meng ever makes it to my blog, she doesn't mind and will see it as good press ( unlike a LYS )

So, I tried to make my own "French General" collages- of course, mine took about 5 minutes a piece and the only items in them are things I could reach from the floor of my craft room.  If I had to stand up to get something, I didn't use it.

I have a lot of inspiring books on  my shelves and have a had a number of different favorite as my style changed.

As far as decorating books, one of my favorites has been Rachel Ashwell's Shabby Chic Treasure Hunting and Decorating Book.  She's written quite a few inspiring books, but this is the one that I really like almost every  page.

Another favorite was Leading The Artful Life by Mary Engelbreit .  This was the book that introduced me to Carol Bolton.

  

Other favorites are Better Homes & Gardens Flea Market Decorating and  Flea Market Style by Emelie Tolley and Chris Mead.  And of course, I love the "Junk" books by Mary Randolph Carter- a pioneer in decorating with junk.

  

What are some of the books that inspire you?

Thinking Ahead to the Holidays

 

The end of August seems kind of early to be showing Christmas cards, but I've been working on projects for the upcoming holidays for The Vintage Workshop. 

I made a Halloween Coin Roller fan last year for a swap, and thought it was fun, so here's another one.

 

Pull out the tags, and they make a picture.

 

Here's a Thanksgiving Day placecard made using a paper mache box lid.

And some greeting cards.

An altered Altoid tin used to hold gift tags- this would make a nice little hostess gift.

Now I'm going back to August and working on some vintage wallpaper journals.

When Did I Have Time to Make All This Stuff?

I know- everyone says they don't have enough time to get it "all" done.  I'm pretty sure this is because we all take on at least one more thing than we can comfortably complete- and if we didn't take on that one (or ten) extra thing, we'd be bored.

 

Anyway, I was sorting through my craft room and realized I had a LOT of finished projects.   Most of them were done one at a time in a few minutes here and there, but that just goes to show that most projects are doable if you take them a little at a time. 

I realized that I actually have enough handmade items that I could update my Etsy Shop and give it some personality instead of looking like a thrift store.

 

So, since I had the pictures taken, I thought I'd do another post- because my Mother in Law, Nana, loves to read my blog :) Bless her heart.

Can you spot the places that I cuttled (embossed?)

 Maybe I've run across all this extra time today because I haven't watched Law & Order at all today...because I've pretty much seen them all...

As a matter of fact, I think I've pretty much caught up on all the TV I missed in the 90's.  I was working full time and taking classes at night, so I missed a lot- Friends, NYPD Blue, Judging Amy, Law & Order, Everybody Loves Raymond, Sex and the City, ER.  But I've done my best to catch up thanks to Netflix, reruns & Amazon.

Any suggestions as to what TV show I should get hooked on next? 

 

Because if I didn't watch TV, can you imagine how much I might get done?

Ok, I'm off to watch some TV- the Olympics, and that only comes on every four years----and do a little knitting.

How to Cuddle

Actually- it should be this is how to "Cuttle" as in "Cuttlebug". 

When I went to Karla's  for a craft day, Shawn brought her Cuttlebug.  I had never noticed them before- I had always kind of written off the paper cutting machine aisle at Michael's as "too gadgety", but once I tried the Cuttlebug, I wanted my own "gadget".

The Cuttlebug will both emboss and cut.

 

To emboss, you just slip your paper, tag, chipboard, whatever into an embossing folder...

...and crank it through the Cuttlebug.  It reminds me of a pasta maker as you turn the handle.

And a plain shipping tag gets a fancy feel.

All you have to is add a little ink to the embossed tag and add a pretty picture- this is Flower Girls from The Vintage Workshop, and you have a ready to go tag.

 

Besides embossing, the Cuttlebug also CUTS.  Look what you can do with a handful of wallpaper scraps...

...you can turn them into a handful of tiny wallpaper tags that will make you swear as you try to tie string to them.

NOTE:  I'm not a paid spokesperson for Cuttlebug, I just think they're pretty cool.

Did you notice the cute baby quilt that's under my Cuttlebug?  From a church rummage sale- only $1

 

And the felt needle book- another $1.  I love the French Knots embroidered on the needle book- wouldn't they make a fun quick gift- assuming you don't get your floss tangled when you make the French knots...

 

I'm Having Withdrawl Pains

I haven't been to an auction or estate sale in almost a week.  That has left me with some time to do some reading, crafting & knitting. 

Yesterday I met Shawn and her darling daughter Bethany at a very pretty yarn shop.  I took some pictures of the wonderful displays of yarn, but was asked to stop by someone working there.  I was really surprised- if I had a shop, I'd love it if I could get people to my store because someone saw pictures on a blog and decided they wanted to visit. I apologized and said "don't worry, I won't ever tell anyone I was here".  That probably wasn't the most gracious thing I could have said.  Has anyone else ever had this happen? 

However,  I can totally understand why you wouldn't want pictures taken of patterns if you're selling them.

The plan was that I was going to teach Shawn how to knit and she was going to teach me to crochet.  Shawn caught on to the knitting pretty quickly, but we found out that it's hard for a left handed person (Shawn) to teach a right handed person (me) how to crochet.  I'm going to check out the how to crochet video on the Lion Brand yarn website.

So, I didn't get any crocheting done, but here are some knitting projects I've been working on.

I finished this lacy shawl wrap.  As hot as it's been here lately- 100+, it's hard to imagine I'll need it anytime soon.

 

This is the first "complicated" lace pattern I've used.  It has YO, SSK, K2tog and a 16 row repeat. (I'm just throwing those knitting abbreviations around because it makes it sound like I must really be a master knitter- I'm not). I have to write the number of the rows on scratch paper as I finish them, or I'll lose my place. 

I saw these clipboards in the back to school section at Wal-Mart and thought they'd be great for altering- at only $1 each, you can't go too far wrong.

 

I got the idea for these keys & tags after seeing Joy's locks & keys.  Joy is a talented junker and has  great ideas about what to do with her finds.

 

And of course, I have some "pretty" crafts to show you, too.

(But sorry, no yarn pictures...)