Special News and a Few Fun Finds

I'm so excited about some special news; I've been published!!!!

Amy Powers, a very creative crafter, contacted me after seeing my Sewing Wreath on Pinterest {thank you to whoever Pinned me}. She asked me to do a tutorial to include in her online publication. Well it is finally finished and the publication, Inspired Ideas, is awesome and so beautiful. I am just so honored to be featured among such illustrious designers such as Charlotte Lyons and Jone Hallmark, {two designers in particular that I've always admired}. I'm still pinching myself. Amy has done an amazing job of showcasing ideas and tutorials that you won't find anywhere else. Visit her site to purchase an issue. I promise that you will be inspired!

The rest of my weekend was filled with family activities. My son had another motorsports event {his competitive driving skills are gaining positive attention} and we also had a family birthday party but I was able to squeeze in one estate sale.

My favorite find was this torn card mixed in with some vintage sewing notions. I first saw the word "Barbie's" and the picture of Midge and wondered what could be on the other side.

Then I turned it over and found these short zippers that were probably used to make Barbie clothes. It is dated; 1963.

I also found an old Lotto game with wooden number pieces. I plan to use the pieces for altered art projects.

It was a busy weekend filled with exciting news and family events but a rather quiet weekend for estate sale hunting. That's okay because there are always more sales to look forward to. Please don't forget to check out the Inspired Ideas publication.

This is linked to:

Coastal Charm, Her Library Adventures, Hey What's For Dinner Mom? and Mod Vintage Life

Tiered Records Candy Display

A while back, I had bought a tiered, silver-toned, serving stand at a garage sale. The silver coating wasn't very good but I liked the fact that the stem could be removed.

Then last week I was at an estate sale and found a stack of old records of various sizes. I noticed that there were some unusual old 33 1/3 rpm records that were only 7" across plus some that were only 9 3/4" across, both of which are smaller than the full-size records.

I decided to combine the smaller records and the stem of the tiered serving tray to create a fun and unusual tiered candy display. Wouldn't this be great as a centerpiece for a 1950s themed party!

I am honored to be featured at:

Sumo's Sweet Stuff

Reduce, Reuse, Upcycle





The 36th Avenue




Saved By Love Creations

Cut Out + Keep

This is linked to:

504 Main, A Little Knick Knack, Between Naps on the Porch, Beyond the Picket Fence, Blue Cricket Design, Cherished Treasures, Coastal Charm, Creating a House of Grace, FaveCrafts, Finding Fabulous, Frugalicious Me, Home Savvy AtoZ, Homemaker on a Dime, Keeping It Simple, Life Made Lovely, Lovely Crafty Home, Making the World Cuter, Marvelously Messy, Mod Vintage Life, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Not So Simple Housewife, Passionately Artistic, Running With Glitter, Sew Can Do, Sew Much Ado, Simply Designing, Singing Three Little Birds, Somewhat Simple,  Sugar Bee Crafts, Sumo's Sweet Stuff,  The 36th Avenue, The DIY Home Sweet Home Project, The DIY Showoff, The Girl Creative,  The Shabby Creek Cottage, The Southern Institute, The Trendy Treehouse, Thrifty Decorating, Vintage Wanna bee and What Allie's Making Now

A Good Karma Sale Day

We met a lovely, old woman while waiting to go into an estate sale today. She said that she had never been to a sale like this before but there was one thing that she wanted so badly that she woke up early and used her gasoline to come there. She said that she had even done a "dry run" the day before so as not to get lost. The dear lady even had her fingers crossed that no one else would buy the item before her. I told her that if she found what she was looking for then she should hold on to it or someone else might take it.

She was right behind me when they called the numbers to go into the house. I skirted from room to room and came across her as she was looking at a sewing machine. I asked her if that was what she came for. She smiled like a little girl and said "Oh, yes!" I told her to put her hand on it and not let go while I got someone to help her. She was the happiest person at the sale.

So often I go flying through a sale hoping to find some special treasure. This time it was the sweetest thing to see someone else get the treasure they had been seeking.

But we didn't do too bad ourselves. My favorite find was a bunch of yardsticks and rulers. I'm saving these up for a future project.

I found a lot of large and small wooden spools. The larger ones are carpet thread and about 3" tall.

I liked these heart-shaped Candlewick glass bowls. The seller said that they were ash trays but I think they are candy dishes. I think they are from the 40s or 50s and have that slight old-glass, purple tint to them. Wouldn't they make a cute Valentine project.

The same seller also gave me a bunch of her grandmother's hankies. Because I bought all of her grandmother's sewing notions and Candlewick glass, she said that her grandmother would probably have wanted me to have her hankies as well. I think she gave me about 12 of them for free. Thank you grandma!

We had a fun day, did a good deed and received some lovely treasures for free. I love thrifting!

This is linked to:
Apron Thrift Girl, Coastal Charm, Common Ground, Creating a House of Grace, Her Library Adventures, Hey What's For Dinner Mom?, It's a Very Cherry World, Mod Vintage Life, Savvy Southern Style, Tales From Bloggeritaville, The Brambleberry Cottage, The Colorado Lady, The Thrifty Groove and Very Merry Vintage Style

Combining a Couple of Thrifted Objects

Years ago, as an art student in college, I once found a box full of shoe trees at a thrift store and used them for a project. Since then, they have always held a nostalgic creative spot in my heart.

Flash forward to today and another pair of thrifted shoe trees. I decided to create something useful by combining them with parts from a photo tree.

I used the shoe trees to form a sturdy base then added the wire arms from the photo tree. The images displayed are from the Graphics Fairy. 

I added burlap rosettes and buttons as accents. These are such a playful, decorative display solution while being extremely thrifty at the same time.

I had so much fun turning these beautiful Found objects into useful, decorative items.

This is linked to:
504 Main, A Little Knick Knack, All Thingz Related, Between Naps on the Porch, Beyond the Picket Fence, Cherished Treasures, Chic on a Shoestring, Common Ground, FaveCrafts, French Country Cottage, Frugalicious Me, Homemaker on a Dime, I {heart} Naptime, Keeping it Simple, Lovely Crafty Home, Making the World Cuter,  Marvelously Messy, My Romantic Home, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Not So Simple Housewife, Paisley Passions, Passionately Artistic, Rook No. 17, Running With Glitter, Savvy Southern Style, Sew Can Do, Sew Much Ado, Simply Designing, Singing Three Little Birds, Skip to My Lou, Someday Crafts, Somewhat Simple, Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Tatertots & Jello, The 36th Avenue, The DIY Home Sweet Home Project, The DIY Showoff, The Girl Creative, The Shabby Creek Cottage, The Shabby Nest, The Southern Institute, The Thrifty Home, The Trendy Treehouse, Thrifty Decorating, Truly Lovely, Twin Dragonfly Designs,  Type A Decorating, Under the Table and Dreaming, Vintage Wannabe and What Allie's Making Now

Back on Track for Estate Sale Hunting

It felt great to be back on track with a day of estate sale hunting and no car trouble {explanation here}. Yay!

My favorite find of the day was this vintage, red and white, glass spice rack. We had to wake up pretty early this morning to be one of the first few people in the door for this sale but this made it worthwhile. It is just so adorably vintage.

Another great find today was this doll's suitcase. I love vintage suitcases and this was sitting on the floor, in the middle of the room, on the third day of a sale! It was meant to come home with me.

We also found this vintage canister that is very similar to the green bread box I found a while back.

I love vintage Christmas decorations so I was thrilled to find this large, red, bottlebrush wreath and several strands of mercury glass beads.

I also found a box of vintage Bubble Lights. I might have Dear Handyman re-wire the plug before I attempt to plug this in.

The last thing I found was not the kind of thing I normally buy but I have a beach-themed project in mind and this was perfect. I found a good-size piece of real coral. It has so much texture and adds a lovely beach feel.

We also saw a lot of amazing things that we didn't buy because of the price. We saw a library card catalog drawer set for $750. That was hard to walk away from but I couldn't justify the price. There was also several yards of vintage barkcloth in a tropical print that was so beautiful but it was $125 and I had to walk away.

Honored to be featured at:

Very Merry Vintage Style

This is linked to:
Brambleberry Cottage, Common Ground, Creating a House of Grace, Hey What's For Dinner Mom?, It's a Very Cherry World, ModVintageLife, Savvy Southern Style, Tales from Bloggeritaville, The Colorado Lady, The Thrifty Groove,  Type A and Very Merry Vintage Style

Fused Bag Art

A few months ago I had seen a technique of fusing layers of plastic grocery bags together but I didn't have any idea of how I would use it. Recently I experimented with a lot of Tim Holtz's products and a little idea started to grow.

I started with eight plastic grocery bags, cut open and laid flat into layers. I will be posting a tutorial on how to fuse the plastic bags but this post is about adding art on the plastic before fusing.

Because the plastic bags are non-porous it was the perfect surface to use alcohol inks. I applied the inks directly onto one layer of plastic. Next, I used permanent black ink and rubber stamped several designs. Here is how the art started off.

Since the plastic is translucent, I used French ephemera from the Graphics Fairy printed onto vellum and layered it behind the inked layer.

Once I had the art completed I fused the plastic layers together to create a large piece of Fused Grocery Bags. "Fusing" involves ironing eight layers of plastic between sheets of parchment paper. I highly suggest practicing with scrap plastic until you know the correct temperature to use. Too hot and it melts the plastic. Not hot enough and the layers do not fuse. Most tutorials suggest the Rayon setting on your iron.

My original idea was to add a layer of plastic over the artwork so that the finished piece would have softer colors. Looking back, I love how vibrant the original artwork was that I wish I hadn't covered it with the final layer of plastic. 

Once I had the large piece of Fused Grocery Bags, I cut it into a folded rectangle, sewed up the sides, added a gusset, sewed seam binding along the top edge and added a handle. Here is the finished piece both front and back.

It has a distressed look which is created from the fusing of the plastic. Perhaps if you use the perfect heat setting then it might not wrinkle as much. Now I'm thinking that maybe the muted colors work better with the distressed plastic. This was my first attempt with this technique. It is a great way to recycle your plastic bags and create some unique art.

I am honored to be featured at:

Thrifty Decorating

Rook No. 17

This is linked to:

504 Main, A Little Knick Knack, Be Different Act Normal, Between Naps on the Porch, Cherished Treasures, Chic on a Shoestring, FaveCrafts, Finding Fabulous, Frugalicious Me, Just a Girl, Homemaker on a Dime, Keeping it Simple, Life Made Lovely, Lovely Crafty Home, Making the World Cuter, Marvelously Messy, My Romantic Home, Not So Simple Housewife, Paisley Passions, Rook No. 17,  Running With Glitter,  Sew Can Do,  Simply Designing, Skip to My Lou, Somewhat Simple, Sugar Bee Crafts,  Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Tatertots & Jello, The 36th Avenue, The DIY Home Sweet Home Project, The DIY Showoff, The Shabby Nest, The Southern Institute, Thrifty Decorating, Truly Lovely, Vintage Wanna Bee and What Allie's Making Now

A Good and Bad Estate Sale Day

To start off with the good part of today's estate sale finds; This is an early 1900's Japanese ceramic plate. The pattern is typical blue and white but in an Art Deco style. It is marked "Nippon" on the back.

I also found this hobby case. It it made from oak and has multiple drawers to hold tiny parts. I plan to store buttons and costume jewelry bits in the drawers. {The drawers are lined with felt and there is a flat panel that can either be lifted up to cover all of the drawers or left open at the bottom as a work surface. This was another one of those super-heavy treasures that I had to carry to my car. OMG this thing was heavy!}

I found two silver trays. The oval one is marked "Waverley by Wallace 9592, Silverplate, Made in USA" and the round one is labeled "Castleton International Silver Company 4872". They are both in beautiful condition.

At one estate sale I found lots of floral frogs of all shapes and sizes. I bought only a few that can be used as paper holders. The largest round one is 4 1/2" wide.

These are inexpensive costume jewelry pieces but I loved the pink and teal pearl colors and the rhinestone earrings. These will be used for a future project.

And the bad part of today was that we had trouble with three cars; my car battery died, Dear Handyman's water pump went out and my son's distributor cap malfunction all in the same day! Luckily these events happened at slightly different times so we were able to fix one problem before the next problem occured.

It was a day filled with good and bad happenings.

This is linked to:
Apron Thrift Girl, Brambleberry Cottage, Coastal Charm, Common Ground, Creating a House of Grace, French Country Cottage, Gypsy Fish Journal, Her Library Adventures, Hey What's For Dinner Mom? Savvy Southern Style Tales from Bloggeritaville, The Colorado Lady, The Thrifty Groove and Very Merry Vintage Style

Designers Craft Connection Blog Hop - Travel

Welcome to the Designers Craft Connection Blog Hop for the month of July. This month's theme is Travel or Vacation. I chose to highlight the fact that every day is part of a journey that we travel.

So I'm a little late posting because my Travel project was set up at the office. It is a vignette to welcome someone who always encourages crafters to "Enjoy the Journey".

I used an old suitcase and filled it with vintage items one might use on their travels. There is an old camera, binoculars, alarm clock, maps and postcards.

Along the back of the suitcase I created a bunting design using the Paper Rosette die and old, tea dyed seam binding.

In front of the suitcase, I used a page from an old atlas and printed directly onto the page. I adhered it to a piece of Grunge Paper and then die cut the word "Journey". To hold this, I used an old floral frog.

Because this was a "Welcome" display, I added vintage alphabet blocks and used silver sugar bowl lids (see example here) to hold letters of our guest's name. I used alcohol inks and Tissue Tape to embellish the clear acetate letters.

Besides having so much fun designing this display, I had an absolutely fabulous day learning new techniques from our guest, Tim Holtz.

Thank you for sharing the journey Tim!

Please use the Designers Craft Connection Blog Hop button to the right to see what other projects the wonderful designers have created.

I am honored to be featured at:

The Southern Institute

This is linked to:
504 Main, All Thingz Related, Between Naps on the Porch, Brambleberry Cottage, Cherished Treasures, Chic on a Shoestring, Coastal Charm, Common Ground, Finding Fabulous, French Country Cottage, Frugalicious Me, Homemaker on a Dime, I'm Topsy Turvy, Inspiring Creations, It's a Very Cherry World, Just a Girl, Keeping it Simple, Life Made Lovely, Lovely Crafty Home, Making the World Cuter, Marvelously Messy, My Romantic Home, Passionately Artistic, Rook No. 17, Running With Glitter, Savvy Southern Style, Simply Designing, Skip to My Lou, Sugar Bee Crafts, Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Tales from Bloggeritaville, Tatertots & Jello, The DIY Home Sweet Home Project, The DIY Showoff, The Girl Creative, The Shabby Nest, The Southern Institute, Truly Lovely, Type A and What Allie's Making Now

4th of July Thrifted Decorations

Happy Independence Day! It is one day early but I plan to be celebrating with my family and friends tomorrow so I wanted to post a day early.

I created these table decorations using all thrifted elements or supplies used in other projects.

I started with vintage large spools. I wrapped some with white felt to cover the color of the thread still on the spool. I used bits of burlap to add texture and a little bit of lace. There are also two pieces of vintage, hand-crocheted elements used.

I wrapped one spools with Blue Chip Stamps and it became "Red, White and Blue Chip Stamps".

There is so much more you can do with these. I just had fun using so many thrifted supplies. Here is one idea on how to use these as a centerpiece.

I would also like to take a moment and thank Bree at Coupons on Caffeine. She did a wonderful Feature on my blog. And besides being so sweet to feature me, she also posts money-saving coupons which you can't help but love. So if you have a chance, visit her blog and Follow her for some great money-saving offers. Thank you Bree!

I hope everyone has a safe Fourth of July celebration.

I am honored to be featured at:

This is linked to:
A Little Knick Knack, Between Naps on the Porch, Cherished Treasures, FaveCrafts, Homemaker on a Dime, I {heart} Naptime, I'm Topsy Turvy, Itsy Bitsy Paper,  Keeping It Simple, Life Made Lovely, Making the World Cuter, Marvelously Messy, Paisley Passions, Passionately Artistic, Rook No. 17, Running With Glitter, Sew Can Do, Sew Much Ado, Singing Three Little Birds, Someday Crafts, Somewhat Simple, Sue Loves Cherries, Sugar Bee Crafts, Sumo's Sweet Stuff,  The 4Rs, The 36th Avenue, The DIY Home Sweet Home Project, The DIY Showoff, The Girl Creative, The Thrifty Home, The Shabby Chic Cottage, The Southern Institute, The Trendy Treehouse, Thrifty Decorating, Type A and Very Merry Vintage Style