Crafty stuff: Glittery vintage cookie cutter ornaments

One type of item I see frequently at thrift stores, estate sales and antique malls is aluminum cookie cutters.

 

Every housewife at some point in the 1940s-70s must have had some in her kitchen, so they're usually easy to find and inexpensive. I've picked up quite a few, but stopped myself from bringing home more when I realized that other than putting them all in a big jar, I couldn't think of anything else I could actually do with them.

I did make these Christmas cookie cutter garlands a few years ago, using a combination of new reproduction cutters and vintage cutters from my collection. To make the garlands you need to use cutters with two holes in the front so they can be strung on the ribbon.

Most of the cutters in my collection are the ordinary type without the wooden handle and the accompanying pair of holes, therefore unsuitable for garland-making so they've still been sitting in their jar, patiently waiting to be turned into something fun.

Enter the Christmas issue of Inspired Ideas! If you're not yet familiar with Inspired Ideas, it's a wonderful online magazine put together by the fabulous and charming Amy Powers. In my opinion, the 2010 Christmas issue is the best yet! There are 170+ pages of yummy eye-candy and crafting and decorating inspiration, all for free! The feature about cookie cutters that caught my eye is on pages 157-159, by Heidi Woodruff, who has an appropriately-named blog called Everyday Cookies. Heidi used doll-sized vintage aluminum cookie cutters to make cute charms, but the suggestion that got my wheels turning was to cover cookie cutters in glitter and make them into Christmas tree ornaments.

Since I needed more ornaments for the Jolly Green Giant tree anyway, this was the perfect solution! And it was simple enough that Maren could help, so it would also fulfill the requirement of keeping her busy while she's been on her school break. (12 days and counting...)

I used Heidi's instructions from the magazine article, so I won't give a tutorial here. I chose the Christmas-themed cutters from my collection and used a Cropadile to make holes in the tops for hanging. I had originally intended to use coarse silver German glass glitter. Maren used pink and red glass glitter on her two ornaments (the pink flower and red heart) and the coverage wasn't great, so for mine I switched to Martha Stewart glitter. I tried the tree and a heart in Tourmaline, a lovely aqua color, but by far my favorite was the Antique Silver. It looked like the original color of the aluminum cutters, but sparklier! For glue I used a bottle of Martha Stewart Glittering Glue that I had in my stash. The bottle lid had an attached brush that was very handy for painting the glue all over the cookie cutters.

Once they were dry, I used Heidi's method for making beaded hangers. I used long head pins from my jewelry making supplies and glass beads cut from vintage beaded Christmas garlands.

The glittery ornaments are incredibly sparkly in real life and look so pretty on my tree! I was sad that I ran out of Christmas-themed cutters before I could make more. I've scoured the thrifts looking for bags of cookie cutters, but haven't been able to find any (figures--the rest of the year they're plentiful, but I need them for a project and they disappear.) I saw tons at the antique mall last weekend, but didn't want to pay antique-booth markup when I know how much they cost at the thrift stores! I'll have to keep my eye out this coming year and stash away a few to make more ornaments next Christmas.

Photo swiped from Rebecca at Thrifty Goodness

I knew that I wanted to make these for our yearly Goodness Girl ornament swap, but as I was out of Christmas-themed cutters, I used hearts instead. For these ornaments I punched a hole in the bottom of the heart as well as the top, and used more glass garland beads and a piece of a chandelier crystal to make a little dangle. I've yet to find anything that didn't benefit from even more sparkle. :) I packaged them in little muslin bags stamped with the year.

I've always wanted to have a "kitchen" tree, and I think these would be darling on one, hung from a piece of polka-dot ribbon. Thanks to Heidi Woodruff for the cute cookie cutter inspiration, and be sure to check out Inspired Ideas if you haven't already!

Good Junk: Gurley Santas

Don't forget to enter my giveaway for a copy of No-Bake Gingerbread Houses for Kids by leaving a comment on this post! Giveaway closes Friday, December 10 at noon!
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My favorite time of the year at the thrifts! I haven't found anything stellar yet this year (although this trio of Gurley Santas is pretty darn cute), but that is partly because I can't go as often as years past. I'm still holding out hope for a late-season thrift bonanza like last year. There's still time! I've been good this year, Santa, I promise!

And speaking of Good Junk, I've been working my little fingers to the bone to get vintage Christmas treasures added to my etsy shop, The Merry Magpie--go check it out! I've already listed a bunch and just when I think I'm just about done, I find another box of stuff squirreled away to list. I think I'm going to set a limit for myself and if it's not listed by this Sunday, it will have to wait until next year. I've got other things to do--like figuring out a tree skirt and tree topper for the Jolly Green Giant. And decorating the rest of the house. And buying presents. And basically, everything else--I'm a little behind this year.

Crafty Stuff: Button Ornaments

I've got my eye on January 4. It's a long time from now, but that's the day that Maren goes back to school after having been out of school for nearly six weeks. She is on a year-round schedule and her last day was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, so she gets the three day Thanksgiving break, three weeks of standard off-track time and the two weeks for Christmas break all stacked together. I love my daughter and I enjoy spending time with her, but six straight weeks of zero Mommy-alone time during the day is enough to make me shed a few tears.

To keep us from going crazy, I'm going to try to have fun activities planned for us to do while Porter is napping. We have a new-to-us Christmas tree this year and it's a biggun'! I'll show it in another post when we get it all ready to go (it needs a new strand of lights) but one thing is for certain--I don't have nearly enough ornaments to fill all 8' of Tree-zilla. Let me be more specific: I don't have nearly enough unbreakable ornaments to fill my tree, so I thought Maren and I could get our craft on and make some fun things together. Ornaments for the tree + fun activities to keep Maren busy=killing two birds with one stone.

I looked through my files and found this cute Martha Stewart project that I'd saved from a while back.

Since I have no shortage of buttons

and plenty of pipe cleaners, I pulled them out while Porter was napping yesterday.

Basically, you fold a pipe cleaner in half and string the buttons on in increasing and decreasing sizes.They really were pretty easy, and Maren needed only minimal help. She loved digging through the bowls of buttons. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree on that count!

We made two Santas, a pair of cute snowmen, a red and white toadstool and a candy cane.

I have a lot of brown buttons so I'd love to make a reindeer but I don't have any brown or black pipe cleaners to use for antlers. I have plenty of white stems, so maybe I can think of a way to dye them. My favorites are definitely the snowmen!

I already have plans for more ornaments for us to make! I'm going to try to only use my existing supplies and not have to buy anything new. Since I could practically outfit a craft store with the contents of my closet and desk, I don't foresee that being too big of a challenge. Next up: sequins and styrofoam. Whee!

Estate sale booty: vintage Christmas

One of my favorite things to find at estate sales is vintage Christmas stuff. In fact, I think it's my #1 favorite thing to find, and the past few weeks of estate sales have yielded some goodies!

At the last sale I snapped up this old tulle tablecloth for $2. I have another one like this that I found at a thrift a few years ago. They were handmade of tulle and adorned with sequined appliques, and made to go over a solid-colored base tablecloth of felt.

This one has really pretty jewels and sequins. The big tree is in the middle and there are smaller appliques of bells around the edges, and there's a scalloped green felt border.

I think this one is much larger than my table so it will probably end up on etsy later this year.

Another prize is this handmade felt tree skirt. I've always loved these, but don't find them often while thrifting. This is probably the most elaborate example I've seen yet.

It's gorgeous! An incredible amount of handwork went into sewing all of the beads, jewels and sequins on each ornament.

Each ornament is tied at the top with velvet ribbon and adorned with a pair of glass ornament balls. A few of them are broken, but I think I have some in my stash that I can use as replacements.

Isn't the pink one pretty? Unfortunately, there is quite a bit of damage to this tree skirt. Can you see the big brown blotchy stain up there at the top?

There's one other large stain, near the yellow ornament. I'm not sure if there's anything I can do to get the stains out of the felt. I'm afraid to really wash it in the machine because of the delicate sequins, beads and other trims. Perhaps I could try a gentle soak in the bathtub with some Woolite? Or should I just leave it alone and make sure to use wrapped presents to cover up the stains? I'd love any advice or suggestions! Normally I wouldn't buy something that was irreparably stained but this tree skirt was so elaborate and the price so reasonable I couldn't pass it by!

Christmas leftovers

Just a few leftover photos I haven't blogged. Although I didn't do much decorating this year, I did manage to make a few new displays.

This one was inspired by Jane, who also used thrifted ice skates on her front door. Those are my skates and I poked in some greenery and junk that I pulled out of a old floral arrangement. I've wanted to do something similar for several years, ever since I saw a photo of blue vintage skates in an old Matthew Mead holiday publication. I've never been able to find a pair of those blue skates, but the white ones work too. Cute, and I can just pull the stuff out of the top when I want to use them to go skating!

One of my favorite vintage Christmas collections are my beaded mercury glass picks. I haven't thrifted many--most have been purchased from antique shops, though I did manage to find a few really neat ones this past summer at a garage sale. I happened to have polished my silver champagne bucket for the Christmas dinner I decorated earlier in this month, so I combined the two and came up with this:
There are some lumps of floral foam wedged in the bucket and I simply poked the picks into the foam. I love how it looks, and I was surprised at how many picks I've amassed!

Back tomorrow to share the goodies I received in the Sweet Goodness Sparkling Winter White swap!

From amidst the wrapping paper carnage...

"The closest thing to heaven on this planet anywhere,
Is a quiet Christmas morning in the Colorado snow."
-Tennessee Ernie Ford


Merriest of Christmas from

Yes Heidi, there is a Santa Claus...

...I know this because who else would have left all these treasures at the thrift for me to find on Tuesday evening, and at 50% no less?

The biggest, fluffiest bottle-brush wreath I've EVER seen...A kitschy-cool plastic wreath in non-traditional colors...
Two unused linen tea towels, still sporting their labels...
A length of vintage patterned yardage...
Felt + beads + sequin goodness...
Vintage plastic ornaments, perfect for next Christmas when I'll have a 15-month-old little boy on the loose...
A bag full of the type of vintage ornaments that make you literally catch your breath and sprint to get the bag in your cart before anybody else spots the treasures therein...

Ornaments that will make it hard to decide whether to keep or sell...
The most perfect shade of aqua... (speaking of which, did you see this? WORD.)

And tarnished silver for which the cashier gave me 50% off, even though it isn't strictly Christmas decor...

The Fat Man came through for me this week in a big way, and I hope he pays a visit to you tonight!

Vintage Christmas Monday (on a Tuesday)

If my life right now was to be represented by me swimming, I'd barely have my nose above the surface of the water. I feel like I've been operating on a stress level of 13 (on a scale of 1 to 10) for more than a month now, and it's definitely taking its toll on my mental state. My memory is like Swiss cheese lately and I feel like I'm constantly moving in slow motion--no matter how much I run around, I hardly get anything done. I'm most definitely overloaded--some of which is my own fault, and some that I can't help. I caught myself this morning thinking, "If I can just get Christmas over with, I'll be fine and I can rest." Over with? What? I need an attitude adjustment, stat! So even though I still have a To Do list that's a mile long, I'm going to try hard over the next few days to let go of perfection and enjoy the moment (thanks for the much-needed reminder, Jane!)

So, then. Onto Joan's final Vintage Christmas Monday party, to which I am a day late. For this last installment, I thought I'd show my very favorite vintage Christmas decoration, my tree!I know that I'm not supposed to love material things and all that jazz, but I think my beloved aluminum pom-pom tree and my collection of beautiful vintage ornaments may rank up there in my Top 5 Material Possessions. I love my tree so, SO much. I say it every year, but when the afternoon sun comes in through that window and hits the tree, the *SPARKLE* just blows my mind!

My crazy stressed-out end of November and most of December meant that I only put out about 25% of my Christmas decorations this year. A bummer because I love my vintage Christmas pretties that are packed away most of the year, but maybe a blessing because now I don't have to put so much away, right? However, the first thing I put up and the only thing I really care about was my gorgeous tree and all of the hard-won ornaments that I've found by searching through the crap at garage sales and thrift stores. You can see some of my favorites in this Flickr set (I'd post some of the original photos for you to look at, but I can't find where I filed them on my computer!)

And my thanks to our lovely hostess Joan for making Vintage Christmas Mondays possible! I hope she does it again next year!

It's Rednesday and Vintage Christmas Monday (two days late)

I've been out of town so I'm a bit behind at blogging. Actually, I'm a bit behind in life in general right now, but I'm doing my best to get out of the weeds...

For Sue's Rednesday party, I have this to share:a vintage Rudolph story book that I bought on Monday at an antique store. It's not in great shape (taped spine, ick) but it was el cheapo and it's cute and I can read it to Maren. It's flanked by two vintage flocked red reindeer, both found this year in my thrifting.

I'm two days late but I'm going to join Joan's Vintage Christmas Monday for this week anyway. These photos are of some of the vintage Christmas lovelies at my parents' house. It's fun to share an addiction, although I suffer a far more severe case than they have!

I believe this neat Santa candy container came from a garage sale, lovingly stored in its original box:

Another set of St. Nick and his coursers, this one I found at a thrift and gave to my dad:
This snowman ornament belonged to my great-grandpa and my dad found it in his shed. It has a hole in one side (about 1.5" diameter) and was found with red cellophane sticking out of the hole. We can't figure out what it is--does anyone have any ideas? My first thought was a candy container but it seems a bit impractical for that because the hole is so small. We're stumped!

I bought this tree topper from an antique store. Love the graphics and bright red and green!
And some favorite ornaments from the tree:

It's Rednesday--vintage apron, pin bead Mrs. Claus and gratuitous cute baby photos

Yippee, it's Rednesday! I'm joining Sue's Rednesday party today.


I love this pin and bead Mrs. Claus! She's a Walco craft from the early 1970s and is reminiscent of the pin bead fruit that I collect as well.
I found her at a thrift a few weeks ago, but sadly there was no Mr. Claus to be found. I now have a mission: locate a pin bead Santa and reunite him with the lovely Mrs.!

Found at a rare weekday garage sale when I was out visiting my mom in Utah, I think these are actually from 2008 but I never blogged about them. The crocheted apron is a child's size and somebody turned the vintage tablecloth into cute red-hemmed cloth napkins.

And a favorite red (and blue) thing around here:
Would you just LOOK at that hair? Hee! It's like Muppet hair.This one's blurry but Porter is just the happiest, most smiley baby! He'll be 12 weeks tomorrow (HOW?) and is an absolute delight!