Thank You Giveaway Winner

What a wonderful response to the 300 Follower Giveaway. Again, I want to thank all of my Followers both old and new for making this blog so much fun.

And now to announce the winner of the ATC Artist's Emergency Inspiration Kit through the use of the Random.org number generator...

The winner is: Tammy from Tammy Loves Dishes.

Congratulations Tammy! Please contact me at Lynda_Creates@yahoo.com so I can send you your prize. 

Thank you again to everyone who entered the Giveaway. 

P.s. I didn't do much thrifting this weekend. My son had another driving event in which he did exceptionally well. My only thrifted treasure this week is the picture/memo holder in the photo above. 

Thrifted Pin Cushion Tote

I decided to create a practical project this week. I seem to be doing a lot more sewing lately. For many years I've kept my sewing pins in a little wooden box which was not always convenient. I decided to make a pin cushion using something thrifted. I have a lot of found items so I started looking for the perfect base to begin with.

Here is my new pin cushion sewing tote.

I began with a small, old wooden tote. It is 6" wide by 7" deep so it isn't very large. I used Cosmo Cricket papers and Mod Podge to cover the outside.

I used a piece of fabric just slightly larger than one opening of the tote. First, I loosely gathered around the edges of the fabric then glued it with hot glue to three inner sides of the opening. I left the side closest to the handle open so that I could add stuffing. I packed a lot of stuffing so that it would be well-formed and then glued the last side closed.

Now I can keep the pins handy as well as have a place to store a pair of scissors, threads or buttons.

Here is what the tote originally looked like together with the papers and fabric that I used.

This is linked to:

All Thingz Related, Beyond the Picket Fence, Coastal Charm, Confessions of a Stay at Home Mommy,  Creating a House of Grace, FaveCrafts, Hey What's For Dinner Mom?, I {heart} Naptime, I'm Topsy Turvy, It's a Very Cherry World, Keeping it Simple, Life Made Lovely, Making the World Cuter, Marvelously Messy, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Passionately Artistic, Rook No. 17,  Running With Glitter, Savvy Southern Style, Screaming Sardine, Sew Can Do, Sew Much Ado,  Singing Three Little Birds, Someday Crafts, Southern Institute for Domestic Arts and Crafts, Sugar Bee Crafts, Sumo's Sweet Stuff, The 36th Avenue, The DIY Home Sweet Home Project, The DIY Showoff, The Girl Creative, The Thrifty Home, The Trendy Treehouse, Thrifty Decorating, Twin Dragonfly Design,  Type A, Under the Table and Dreaming and Very Merry Vintage Style

300 Follower Milestone GIVEAWAY

I am thrilled to have reached 300 Followers!!! Thank you! To show my appreciation to all of my Followers, I am having another GIVEAWAY. 

I wanted to do something for both the Thrifters and Crafters who follow my blog. I started with a 1950s cigarette tin (not endorsing smoking but the box was so cool). I wanted to fill it with as much vintage goodies as it will hold. Since an ATC card will kind of fit inside, I started thinking of it as an ATC artist's "Emergency Inspiration Kit".

Squeezed inside of this tin are the following:
Two embossed ATC cards (new)
Handmade, vintage lace square
Several vintage buttons
Mercury glass beads
Plastic numbered game tiles
Bingo numbers,
A wooden domino
A heavy plastic domino
Yard of vintage lace
Small floral pick
Mini-folder (new)
Blue Chip stamps and
Several old postage stamps.

Also included but not inside of the tin:
Vintage Bingo card
Handle With Care label

Vintage millinery leaves

Everyone has up to two chances to enter this giveaway. If you are a new visitor then please leave one comment on this post to enter. And if you become a Follower then leave a second comment letting me know and this will be your second chance to win.

If you already are a Follower then leave two separate comments (one stating that you are already a Follower and a second comment to enter. This way everyone will have two chances to win if they are a Follower.

This is an international giveaway for our friends all over the world who are so kind to Follow my blog.

I will have this giveaway open for one week, ending Wednesday, June 29 at 9:00pm Pacific time. At that time I will randomly select a winner. Good luck and thank you to all of my Followers

This Giveaway is now closed. Thank you to all of my Followers.

This is linked to:
Bacon Time with the Hungry Hungry Hypo and Type A

Sewing Bobbin Necklace

I love vintage sewing notions. Recently I found an assortment of metal sewing bobbins at an estate sale. I already had a bag of thrifted thread spools that weren't vintage enough to be collectable but I didn't want to waste good thread.

I combined the bobbins and thread to create jewelry.

I added the bobbins between some beads on my Pandora necklace. This idea would work with most beaded necklaces.

That's my thrifted mini-dress form modeling for me.



Honored to be featured at:

Singing Three Little Birds

This is linked to:
A Little Knick Knack, Bacon Time,  Between Naps on the Porch, Blue Cricket Designs, Brambleberry Cottage, Chic on a Shoestring, Confessions of a Stay at Home Mommy, FaveCrafts, Finding Fabulous, French Country Cottage, Homemaker on a Dime, I'm Topsy Turvy, Inspiring Creations, Just a Girl, Keeping it Simple, Life Made Lovely, Lovely Crafty Home,  Making the World Cuter, Marvelously Messy, My Romantic Home,  My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Paisley Passions, Passionately Artistic,  Rook No. 17, Running With Glitter, Screaming Sardine, Sew Can Do, Sew Much Ado, Simply Designing,  Singing Three Little Birds, Skip to my Lou, Someday Crafts,  Somewhat Simple, Southern Institute for Domestic Arts and Crafts, Sugar Bee Crafts, Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Tater Tots & Jello, The 36th Avenue, The DIY Home Sweet Home Project, The DIY Showoff, The Girl Creative, The Shabby Chic Cottage, The Shabby Nest, The Thrifty Groove, The Trendy Treehouse, Thrifty Decorating, Truly Lovely, Twin Dragonfly Designs, Type A, Under the Table and Dreaming, Vintage Wannabee and What Allie's Making Now

I May Have a Lot of Explaining To Do - Estate Sale Crazy Day

I was on my own today as I headed out to some early Garage and Estate Sales. Dear Handyman hasn't seen what I bought yet. I really should have actually tried to lift the thing before I bought it but the seller was just so nice to offer to carry it to my car for me. Or maybe I should have noticed the huge chain that was holding it up on display. But no, I only saw the lovely vintage green color, the super cheap price and fell in love with it. So now I have to explain why this large (but lovely) scale followed me home. The scale face is 15 3/4" in diameter and has a State of California, Weights and Measures seal from 1965. There is a scale face on the other side as well.

Luckily, I never need to explain my fondness for Shiny Brite Christmas ornaments. I found several boxes and it wasn't until I got home that I realized all of the boxes had lids, yippee!

I also found some Mercury Glass Beads in two sizes. I've never seen the larger size beads before. 

Then there was this wonderful Christmas tree topper still in its box. This is my favorite tree topper so far.

I love old embroidered dish towels. I found a 7-day set of bluebirds.

And this 6-piece set of embroidered towels with black terriers and kitchen items. Both sets of kitchen towels are going in my Stuff to Treasure Shop.

I found a box of Legos from 1963. I haven't poured everything out to count the pieces but the box is full and I love Legos.

I bought some Blue Chip stamp books a while back to use in some crafting projects. They brought back fond memories and are such a nice icon of a past time. Well, I found the motherlode of Blue Chip stamps this time. It is a book of unused stamps that a retailer probably used to tear out stamps for their customers. Pages of pristine, uncut, stamps!

Another treasure that I found is this vintage Child's 45 rpm Record Holder Book. It is filled with records from the 70s but I plan to turn it into a different project. The cover graphics are absolutely adorable.

Another fun day of estate sale hunting. And please check out my STUFF TO TREASURE shop to see the new vintage kitchen items that I added.



This is linked to:
A Little Knick Knack, Apron Thrift Girl, Blue Creek Home, Brambleberry Cottage, Cherished Treasures, Chic on a Shoestring, Coastal Charm, Creating a House of Grace, Finding Fabulous, Frugalicious Me, Her Library Adventures, Hey What's For Dinner Mom?, It's a Very Cherry World, My Romantic Home, Tales from Bloggeritaville, The Colorado Lady, The Shabby Nest,  The Thrifty Groove, The Thrifty Home, Type A and Very Merry Vintage Style

Celebrating All Kinds Of Fathers

Fathers have all kinds of interests and hobbies. I wanted to find a way to celebrate all of the interests a father might have. Everything used has been either thrifted or repurposed for this project.

I started this project with bottle caps that I painted white. I used Rust-oleum paint so that it would adhere to both the metal and plastic inside the bottle caps.

While these were drying, I painted a wooden 3 1/2" x 5 1/2" frame with acrylic paint and sanded the edges once it was dry. Because the bottle caps would be white, I chose a dark piece of scrapbooking paper for the background. I trimmed it to size and placed it behind the glass and assembled the frame.

When the bottle caps were dry, I glued these directly onto the front of the glass.

The fun part was gathering little icons of things that reminded me of my father. The star represents both his military career as well as the fact that he was the guiding star in my life. He was also a DIY kind of guy as well as a car guy. He enjoyed gardening and taught me to enjoy the outdoors.

This project made me stop and think about the many interests that my father had. Go For Broke Dad!

Honored to be featured at:

This is linked to:
A Little Knick Knack, All Thingz Related, Between Naps on the Porch, Beyond the Picket Fence, Blue  Cricket Designs, Chic on a Shoestring,  FaveCrafts, Homemaker on a Dime, I {heart} Naptime,  I'm Topsy Turvy, It's a Very Cherry World, Inspiring Creations, Life Made Lovely, Lovely Crafty Home, Making the World Cuter, Marvelously Messy, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Paisley Passions, Passionately Artistic, Rook No. 17, Running With Glitter, Sew Can Do, Sew Much Ado, Simply Designing, Singing Three Little Birds, Someday Crafts,  Somewhat Simple, Sugar Bee Crafts, Sunburnt Cow, Tatertots and Jello, The 4Rs, The 36th Avenue,  The DIY Home Sweet Home Project, The DIY Showoff, The Girl Creative, The Thrifty Home, Trendy Treehouse, Truly Lovely,  Type A, Twin Dragonfly Designs, Vintage Wanna Bee and What Allie's Making Now

Vintage Kitchen Treasures

We had originally planned to spend the weekend painting the bedroom but I started going through "estate sale withdrawls" so plans were changed to allow for a morning of treasure hunting. So here I sit, posting to my blog while Dear Handyman (my wonderful boyfriend) is painting the bedroom. Did I mention that he is a sweetie?

{Just to clarify so that you don't think I'm horrible to leave Dear Handyman working while I went off playing: he came with me to the estate sales. Afterwards he painted while I posted. And after I posted, I painted as well.}

So today's hunting was filled with a lot of vintage, metal kitchen treasures. My favorite find is this metal sifter with red tulips.

On second thought, my favorite find is this pair of Catherine Holm enamel bowls. We found these sitting on a top shelf, overlooked by everyone on the second day of a sale.

I also found this yellow, metal kitchen container.

And this Cake tin.

Remember the Fuller Brush man? What a strange concept today to think of someone going door-to-door selling brushes. I found this dust pan and brush that is marked Fuller Brush. The brush appears to be boar bristle.

I also found another metal dust pan (that needs some serious cleaning). I thought the cheery red pattern probably made sweeping chores a little nicer.

I guess I better go check on how the bedroom painting is going. Knowing my Dear Handyman, he probably has it completely painted and put up the new wall covering as well.

This is linked to:
Apron Thrift Girl, Blue Creek Home, Brambleberry Cottage, Cherished Treasures, Chic on a Shoestring,  Coastal Charm, Common Ground, Creating a House of Grace, Finding Fabulous, French Country Cottage, Her Library Adventures, Hey What's For Dinner Mom?, It's a Very Cherry World, My Romantic Home, Savvy Southern Style, Tales from Bloggeritaville, The Colorado Lady,  The Shabby Chic Cottage, The Shabby Nest, The Thrifty Groove, The Thrifty Home and Very Merry Vintage Style

Designers Craft Connection Blog Hop - Patriotic

Welcome to the Designers Craft Connection Blog Hop for the month of June. This month's theme is Patriotic (our next Blog Hop is on July 7 which will be too late to highlight a Fourth of July theme).

I chose to decorate for a patriotic, Fourth of July, outdoor party. Many of the items used in these projects have been thrifted.

I created several projects for this table setting. The first project is a variation of the old fashioned bunting (banners that were hung from buildings). I created a small version using the Sizzix Paper Rosette die. Instead of gluing the ends together to create a circle, I glued each end to a thin strip of paper and created the half-circle bunting shape. I attached these to the edge of a tiered display. (Sorry, cupcakes are store-bought. I didn't have time to actually bake anything.)

On some of the rosettes I glued a strip of contrasting blue along the edge. The tutorial on how to do this is here. As a final detail, I glued a vintage button in the center of each rosette.

I created party favors to look like firecrackers using the Candy-Shaped Box die. I tied red tinsel on the ends to give it a firecracker sparkle.

And any outdoor summer party needs pinwheels. I used the pinwheel die and attached them to dowels using flat thumb tacks.

The last project is for drink coasters made out of recycled magazine pages. Here's how the final project looked followed by a short tutorial.

To begin, tear out 8 pages from the same magazine so that they are all the same size. Since this is a red, white and blue theme, I chose pages with those prominent colors.

Step 1. Fold each page in half lengthwise.
Step 2. Unfold and fold each long edge towards the center using the first fold as a center guide.
Step 3. Fold each long edge towards the center again so that you have a long, narrow strip (approximately 1" wide)

After you have 8 of these strips you can begin to weave them together starting from the center. Use four strips as the horizontal and four strips as the vertical. You should end up with something that looks like the image below (without the numbers). Keep tightening the weave as you work. 

Select which surface will be the top and fold back the ends as you weave them into the back side of your coaster. The image below shows the order to follow. In this case you would begin by folding edge #1 back and weave the end behind piece #12. Remember to tighten the weave as you work your way around the edges.

Hope you enjoyed these decorating ideas for a Patriotic Party. Please be sure and continue through the Designers Craft Connection Blog Hop clicking Forward or Back in the DCC Blog Hop button on the right. And be sure and check out the Blog Hop Giveaway here.

I am honored to be featured at:

The DIY Home Sweet Home Project

Passionately Artist

This is linked to:
A Little Knick Knack, All Thingz Related, Between Naps on the Porch, Beyond the Picket Fence, Blue Cricket Designs, Brambleberry Cottage, Bugaboo Mini Mr & Me, Cherished Treasures, Chic on a Shoestring, Coastal Charm, Common Ground, Craft Envy, Creative Everyday, Designer Garden, FaveCrafts, Homemaker on a Dime, I {heart} Naptime, Inspiring Creations, It's a Very Cherry World, Itsy Bitsy Paper, Just a Girl, Keeping it Simple, Lovely Crafty Home, Making the World Cuter, Marvelously Messy, My Romantic Home, 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, Someday Crafts, Somewhat Simple, Southern Institute for Domestic Arts and Crafts, Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Sunburnt Cow, Tater Tots and Jello, The DIY Home Sweet Home Project, The DIY Showoff, The Girl Creative, The Shabby Chic Cottage, The Shabby Nest, The Trendy Treehouse, Thirty Sixth Avenue, Thrifty Decorating, Truly Lovely, Twin Dragonfly Designs, Type A, Under the Table and Dreaming, Very Merry Vintage Style and What Allie's Making Now

Frequent "Estate Sale Shopper" Miles

Estate sale listing descriptions can be very deceiving. For example, I read a description that said "Saturday only. Family run estate sale. Everything must go." Sounded great so we drove quite far and quite early to be at this sale. It appeared that the family had already taken everything and what was left were a few pieces of furniture. :(

The next sale was described as "Friday and Saturday. Lots of vintage items." Usually most things that I like are gone on the second day so my expectations were low. We were surprised to find lots of fun stuff (probably because their prices were high and there was no bargaining).

There are several items that are my favorite finds this week. Suitcases are always tops on my list and these are smaller than my other ones. These were from a garage sale where the owner said that they had once belonged to her grandmother.

I rarely find any old Halloween items so these are special. The seller had a lot more but he was asking a lot of money for each piece.

This doll suitcase isn't in perfect condition but it is so adorable and I love the pattern on the inside as well. It was filled with bits of doll clothing and lots of mis-matched doll shoes.

I don't usually pick up aprons but the fabric caught my eye and I fell in love with these.

I like finding board games and was fascinated when I found this cardboard version of Chinese Checkers. The copyright on the board is 1937.

We drove far and wide and had a lot of fun. Finding good treasures at estate sales is such a hit-or-miss adventure. There is just so much to discover.

Don't forget to check out my Stuff to Treasure Shop. I add new items regularly.

This is linked to:
Apron Thrift Girl, Blue Creek Home, Brambleberry Cottage, Coastal Charm, Common Ground, Creating a House of Grace, Finding Fabulous,  French Country Cottage, Frugalicious Me, Her Library Adventures, Hey What's For Dinner Mom?, House on the Side of the Hill, It's a Very Cherry World, Me and My Shadow, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Savvy Southern Style, Tales from Bloggeritaville, The Colorado Lady, The Thrifty Groove, The Thrifty Home, Type A and Very Merry Vintage Style