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.

Vintage chic Halloween platters

I've had such fun lately making these cool Halloween decor pieces. I used vintage plates and platters, vinyl decals and rub-ons and I LOVE how they turned out! I'm keeping the raven with the chandelier, but all of the others are for sale in my Etsy shop.

I'm still up to my eyeballs in Halloween decorating, but I'm nearing the end. Thank goodness, because trying to keep the baby out of the boxes is nigh unto impossible! I'm having fun putting together new vignettes this year but I'll be relieved when I can put away the boxes and enjoy the decorations without all the mess. What are your plans for the weekend?

etsy Treasury love!

I'm just tickled! An item in my etsy shop, The Merry Magpie, was just featured in an etsy treasury on the front page!! I don't know how to post the photo of the treasury, but here's the link: bellalulu's red & turquoise retro treasury. Thanks for including me, bellalulu!

Mushroom mania, continued

And the mushroom love continues at my house, this time with a trio of cute fungi. The ribbon was just procured from the $1 bins at Michael's and the vintage embroidered pillowcase and silver and bone ring are both in my etsy shop right now! For more mushroom love, check out Laurie's recent post.

Sweet and Sinister Swap--sent

Check the post below to see what lovely things I received in the Sweet & Sinister Halloween swap. I must admit that I had a tough time sticking swap guidelines to use chiefly black & white with "a touch of orange." I used a heavy hand on my touch of orange but I just can't do Halloween without it! I didn't take photos of all of the things I sent to Julie, just the things I made.

This little jar started life as an old milk glass cold cream jar, sans lid. I used some fun bat rub-ons on one side and some velvety letter stickers on the other. Around the neck of the jar I hot glued some gorgeous black velvet scalloped ribbon and a bit of bling (a vintage earring).
This poor pumpkin went through several iterations before it was finished. I started out by painting it with a black harlequin pattern, an idea I saw somewhere online. Great plan, except I couldn't figure out a way to draw nice straight lines on my bumpy, round pumpkin so I just sort of free-handed it...and it turned out horrible! Laughably bad, really. I'm not so good with a paintbrush.

I then found a forgotten can of black chalkboard spray paint in my basement, so the next plan was to make it into a cute chalkboard pumpkin, an idea I saw in a magazine this year. The chalkboard paint took several coats and when it was finally done, I tested it by writing on the pumpkin with orange chalk. Great, but when I tried to erase it the chalk smeared all over and left an ugly mess! On to Plan C...paint the whole thing white again using a can of spray paint from my basement. But I forgot that I hated that particular type of paint, as it seemed to come out in droplets rather than a nice fine spray, resulting in an ugly, mottled black and white pumpkin that looked like it had a bad case of mildew.
At that point I employed Plan D: Give up and buy a new pumpkin. I decorated it with a big vintage velvet leaf, and now that I look at the photos I wish I had thought to coat the stem with silver glitter! Maybe Julie can do that part. :) I also decorated it with a big feathered crow that I adorned with a necklace of vintage seam binding, metallic fibers and of course, more vintage jewelry bling.By far my favorite thing that I made for Julie was this collage. I was inspired by the collages from the Bits & Pieces swap that Jenny Holiday hosted a year ago. The base is a 9" x 12" canvas which is then divided into a dozen roughly 3 x 3 squares. I had such fun creating all the little individual collages! That's what I was making back when I posted these photos.

In fact, I had such fun making Julie's collage that I kept going! I created two more collages, and both are available now in my etsy shop.

October Giveaway winners & Embellishment kits!

Thanks you all for entering into the BIG October giveaway! Time to go drag the Goblet of Fire from its shelf in the basement...
Phew, it's dusty! Let's reach in and find the TWO winners for the giveaway!

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

26 9 

Timestamp: 2008-10-03 23:53:37 UTC

Comment #26 is....Jenny in Maine! Jenny has a gorgeous blog of her own...wish I had design skills like that!

Comment #9 is....Heather from Party in Pink! I love what she did recently to dress up one of those plastic drawer things we all have.

Jenny and Heather, please email me at stampinfraulein AT yahoo etc. etc. with your mailing address so that I can get your goodies in the mail to you ASAP! To everyone else who entered, thank you so much for stopping by and taking the time to comment. It means so much, really--and now I have a whole bunch more new blogs to look at! I tell you, blog reading is like a full-time job. LOL

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And my other exciting news for today... I've put together three special Trick or Treat Halloween Embellishment kits, stuffed full of great vintage goodies to inspire your Halloween crafting! I'd like to offer my blog readers first dibs on them, and anything that hasn't sold by Monday October 6 will go into my new etsy shop, The Merry Magpie!

What's in these kits, you ask? Well....

3 vintage cream and black Bingo cards
1 chandelier image stamped on vintage ledger paper
3 packets of vintage trim (seam binding, rickrack etc. Each kit has one each orange, black, yellow)
1 skein matching embroidery floss
24" orange and black tissue festooning
all of the Halloween Dresdens & scrap shown
a bag of pure silver German glass glitter, fine grade
Scrabble letters that spell out BOO, EEK, GHOST depending on the kit
vintage black buttons, a mini orange clip, acrylic gems
a vintage shoe clip
2 black and white birthday candles

Here are the photos of each kit's contents. The Dresdens & scrap in each kit are the same, so there's only one close-up photo. The main difference in the kits is the color/type of vintage trim, the type of vintage shoe buckle, and the Scrabble letters.

The 'Boo' Kit

The 'Ghost' Kit

The 'Eek' Kit
The Dresdens and German scrap included in each kit

Cost for each kit is $14.50 and Priority Mail shipping is $4.80. If you're interested in purchasing a kit, please email me at themerrymagpie AT gmail DOT COM and we'll work out the PayPal details. I absolutely adore everything in the kit! The Dresdens can be tricky to find (especially in an assortment!), as can the festooning so I'm happy to be able to include some in these kits.

Have a wonderful weekend! My grand plans include listening to Conference, getting out my Halloween decorations and working in my craft room--all things I love to do. Hope you're able do do some things to make you happy as well!