Vintage baby dress valance

After I graduated from college I moved home and lived with my parents for almost 2 years before I got married, during which time I repainted the walls of my bedroom in a periwinkle blue. After I moved out, my mom finally got to have a craft room all to herself. Just recently she found some darling furniture and redecorated, and it's so cute! One of the things she did that I love the most is make this window valance out of vintage baby dresses, and I wanted to show you all because I'm always looking for useful things to do with the vintage goodies I collect.

The dresses are beautiful--simple cotton shifts decorated with lovely hand embroidery and crocheted hems. (click on the photos to see the details) I'm not precisely sure of their age but I know they were made without buttons--a special pin was used at the back to hold them together. My mom found these at a garage sale several years ago and I think she paid at most 25¢ for each one--it might even have been 10¢. Either way, they were a total steal. To make the valance, all she did was purchase a white wooden curtain rod and slide it through the arms of the dresses--easy as pie! There is already a heavy wooden blind on the window to block the light so the valance is purely decorative, and I love how light and airy it looks! Wouldn't this be such a cute idea for a little girl's or a baby's room?

Condensed Milk

see more pwn and owned pictures

Seriously, this makes me laugh SO hard! Can you imagine what it must have looked like when the driver was getting the cows IN that little car? That is funny for DAYS. From one of my favorite daily reads, the FAIL blog.

Vintage postcard garland and Valentine's wrap-up

Oh, my poor little abandoned blog! I'm not sure I've ever gone so long without posting but truly I haven't had much to say. I've been sick for quite a long time now due to germs Maren toted home from preschool and I'm just now feeling a bit better. At the same time, The Mister has been recovering from surgery and even the dog has an ear infection, so productivity levels around my house have been hovering around 0%. If it couldn't be done while laying on the couch under a blankie, it didn't get done at all.

I know we're two days past Valentine's now but I did want to show the one and only thing I've crafted in the past three weeks. My mom and I saw some cute garlands in a boutique for around $35 each and we knew we could do them ourselves for much cheaper. We were right--we already had everything we needed! So nice to do a project without having to run to the craft store first.
First, I found a few vintage postcard images from this awesome Flickr group. Next, I resized them and printed them out onto matte white cardstock. I just guessed on the size, making sure to get the approximately even (the original files were different sizes). Next, we ran them through the Xyron and adhered them to sheets of chipboard. We covered the backs with pages torn from a very old dictionary just to make them a bit more finished.

We punched holes in the top corners using a Crop-a-dile, then embellished the edges with sparkly red pipe cleaners, which we glued on using Zip Dry glue. We tried a few other glues (hot glue, tacky glue) but the Zip Dry was perfect because it dries quickly and is a bit thicker in consistency so it didn't run all over. As a final touch we embellished the images using a glue pen and some sparkly iridescent glitter. I tied mine together with pink Martha Stewart seam binding ribbon.

It was an easy craft with satisfying results, perfect for a gloomy day and not so involved that we couldn't visit while we glued. This garland could easily be adapted for any holiday you can find vintage postcard images for, which thanks to Flickr should be just about any of them! I don't normally decorate for St. Patrick's day but I think I have some sparkly green pipe cleaners kicking around my craft room, so maybe I need to make a St. Patty's garland just for fun!

Our V-day was nice, even though we weren't feeling well. We beat the crowds by going out for sushi on Friday night, the Mister brought me an enormous, gorgeous bouquet of flowers and Maren got a balloon that is bigger than she is.

Now that I have a bit more energy I'm hoping to get back to doing something interesting enough to blog about! Until then, take a look back at the cute thing I received for last President's Day. It's still one of my top 5 favorite things I've ever received in a swap!

Pink Poodles on Parade

Patience is a quality that doesn't come easy to me, but boy am I ever glad when it pays off!

There's a large antique mall that I visit every once in a while. One vendor was apparently getting out of the business and had everything reduced 50%. Antique store kryptonite, right? So of course I checked out the goods but the problem was that this vendor a) had only a huge locked glass case and was b) way in the back of a large store. The giant hassle of having to go hunt down an employee to open the case and then hover over me while I shopped kept me from ever purchasing anything. The vendor took several months to go out of business, and each time I would check the case just to see if there was anything new. One item in particular caught my eye each time but it was priced quite high, even with the discount, and eventually that vendor's lease ran out and his goods were gone.

Here's where the patience part comes in: last week I happened to be at a thrift that I rarely visit, due to it being a bit out of the way. Whoever does the pricing at this thrift knows what to look for in terms of vintage stuff--anything remotely interesting is immediately put in the locked glass case in the front of the store and priced far beyond what a reasonable person would pay even at an antique store. I always look but am usually turned off by the high prices. That day, though--that day I got lucky, because what should I find in the case but the EXACT object of my affection from the antique mall!
You can see why I love it, right? The perfect shade of pink, the jaunty hat and bow, the spaghetti fur, and best of all, the black cat-eye glasses with rhinestones! Pure 1950s perfection. She even has her original Napco foil label.I image that vendor just dumped the unsold merchandise from his booth at the thrift and took the tax write-off. It was priced higher than I like to pay at the thrift but still a fraction of the asking price at the antique mall. And I think that after all those months of admiring it, it was meant to be! Thrift seredipity, if you will.
Pinky the Poodle Planter joins Pinky the Poodle Pincushion, another thrifted treasure that has a place of honor on my desk. Pink Poodle Perfection!

This is what a box of Happy looks like

Little Yellow Houses

For as much junk as I have in my home, my walls are surprisingly bare. I have very few photos hung (but big plans for those soon) and almost no artwork. I was thrilled then to finally purchase a couple of pieces that I've had my eye on for a long time now and hang them on my formerly bare walls!
These gorgeous paintings (really, mixed-media pieces if you want to be precise) were made by my dear friend Jodi. I first saw them several months ago when Jodi posted about some of her work being displayed at a local shop against a red wall. Normally I'm not much of a yellow person but the combination of the yellows, blacks and grays against that red was just so striking that I've never forgotten it! I have similar red walls in my front room so I knew that they would look right at home here too.

I was right--they're just beautiful. I loved them from the photo online, but they're even better in person! It makes me happy to look at them because they're so pretty, but also because they make me think of someone I've really admire because of her hard work and commitment to her creative dreams. :) Jodi has an etsy shop if you'd like to see more of her work!

Crafty inspiration from Blogland

Even though several of my beloved magazines are folding, thank goodness there's still more than enough inspiration to be had in blogland! Last week I saw these Bookmark Bijoux from Andrea Singarella and was smitten! I already had all of the materials and I spent a happy hour playing around with two of my favorite things: velvet ribbon and vintage bling.
I love an instant gratification craft! Fun, easy, and pretty results.

More great craftiness from blogland last week:

• This gorgeous pearly heart from Heather Bullard. Aren't the colors of those pearls just gorgeous?
  
• Joli Paquet is back! I loved their Christmas projects so I can't wait to see what they have cooked up for Valentine's Day. Tiffany Kirchner posted this darling vintage-style pop-up card.
• I swoon over these velvet-and-pearl strawberries from Holly Doodle Designs! I want to learn to make these; I don't think they're too difficult, I just need to find a pattern and some pretty velvet.
  

What about you, friends--have you been doing any crafting lately?

It's more contagious than we thought

Well, crap. Not another one! I will admit that I let my subscription run out last year because I haven't scrapbooked a page in oh, longer than I can remember--but I always liked this mag and I'm really very sorry to see it go.

At this rate, I'm not going to have anything to read while I eat my breakfast. I might even have to start reading ~gasp~ my scriptures!

52Q 4 ME

I've been thinking a lot about journaling lately. This really isn't anything earth-shattering, as in my church we are encouraged from a very young age to keep journals--I've just never been very diligent about doing it regularly. I do have my journal that I kept while I was on Study Abroad in London; I knew that it was important to do so then and I was right as it's priceless to me now. I've also journaled about a few significant things that happened like 9/11/01 and the death of this dear man.

When I saw Natalea's post about the 52Q project she was doing, I immediately knew it was something I wanted to try! 52Q is a year-long journaling project designed by Emily Falconbridge with a new question available on her blog each Monday. I decided against the 'art journal' angle, only because I know that it will keep me from getting it done each week. Instead, I pulled out some hand-painted paper that I've had in my stash for probably 8 or more years and cut it into a cute shape using the very cool Big Shot die cutting machine I got for Christmas.
To keep the cards together, I punched a hole in the corner and will thread them onto one of those big binder rings from the office supply store. I had the brilliant idea to clamp the whole stack together and use my electric drill to go through all the cards at once so the holes would be in the same place on each one. Great idea in theory, but in practice it didn't work so well. I suspect that I used the incorrect drill bit for the job, as it chewed up the paper around the edges of the hole. I had to go back through and repunch each card by hand, which is exactly what I had been trying to avoid in the first place! Oh well, now I know better.

I'm looking forward to this little project for 2009! I'm subscribed to Emily's blog via Bloglines so every Monday when her new topic pops up, it will be easy for me to just grab a card and write my answer and string it on the binder ring. I'm still thinking about other journaling ideas I can implement, like making a journaling jar or writing monthly letters to Maren. If you're looking for a fun and different journaling idea for you or your family, check out what my cute friend Angie just did with her family!

Isn't it Ironic? and Tablecloth Tuesday

This is the envelope that came with my latest issue of Country Home on Saturday, one day after the magazine's sad demise was announced.The irony isn't lost on me. I'm really disappointed that yet another of the magazines I love is biting the dust. I've read that with the problems in the home-buying industry, ad revenue for so-called "shelter" magazines is way down, which is the reason that Country Home's publisher gave it the ax--not lack of subscribers.

I also find this ironic, because in a time when retail spending is down, it seems to me that people are more likely to look to sources that tell them how to reuse things they already have (or can get inexpensively) rather than telling them to go drop a bunch of coin on brand-new shiny stuff to fill up their McMansions. While Country Home isn't necessarily all about doing things on a budget and regularly features spreads of gorgeous homes full of expensive antiques and fabulous kitchens and reclaimed heart pine flooring, I do think it advocates decorating with vintage, thrifted and antique items or making over furniture that readers might already have.

It seems then that Country Home is exactly the kind of magazine that would be popular with home decorators on a budget and that advertisers would figure that out and buy ad space accordingly. I guess the problem there is that thrift and antique store don't have big advertising budgets like the fancy furniture and flooring companies do. Country Home and Mary Engelbreit Home Companion, RIP. Maybe we'll get lucky and they'll pull a Victoria on us and return somewhere down the line, we can only hope. All I can say is that if someone tries to mess with my Country Living, I'll be on a rooftop with a rifle. Publishers, you've been warned.

So, on that slightly psychotic note, let me move on to the thrifting portion of my post. I stopped into a thrift with Maren the other day for the ostensible purpose of finding more Madame Alexander Wizard of Oz Happy Meal toys for her collection. We did score a pair of Cowardly Lions and a Pinocchio who'll have to stand in for the Tin Man until we find one, but Mommy found a few treasures as well.My first thrifted quilt! It's no gorgeous feed-sack beauty like the kind that seem to leap into Sarah's path, but red and white polka-dots are more my speed anyway.I don't think it's particularly old, but I like it. The backing fabric cracks me up because it doesn't match at all--that must have been a stash-busting maneuver by the quilt's maker. I do quite like the pink and green, even if it totally clashes with the red and blue on the front.

I also picked up this fun vintage barbecue-themed tablecloth. Love the bright colors! Thrifting bright vintage fabrics is perfect antidote for dreary January skies, isn't it?

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.

January Flower Garden

Happy 2009! The Christmas decor is finally down--whew! It took me three whole days and halfway through day two I was really hoping that the Clean-Up Fairy might make an appearance and spare me the rest. I persevered, and was rewarded with an empty house and a storage room where I can once again see the floor. Normally in January I put up my "winter" decor--glittery snowflakes, a gorgeous Wendy Addison glittery Winter banner, etc. but for right now I'm just enjoying the emptiness.
When I was in Utah over Christmas I visited a favorite antique mall and did a bit of shopping. I've read of other bloggers who buy vintage hats just to take apart for the old millinery flowers but I've never found a hat that was inexpensive enough to make that worthwhile--until this trip, when I found THE HAT. I should have taken a 'before' photo, but imagine a small net cap (6.5" diameter) absolutely covered in every conceivable type of millinery flower. Now, I'll never be accused of being too subtle--I generally think a smidge over the top is just about right--but the woman who wore this cap must have looked ridiculous with such a concoction on her head! There's over the top and then there's whoa, and this hat defintely fell into the latter category.Lucky for me, I saw the swan under this ugly duckling of a chapeau! I bought it for the princely sum of $5 and just spent the last 3o minutes rescuing almost 40 millinery flower lovelies from the clutches of the most horrid glue I've yet to encounter. I have to wonder if this hat was a homemade affair, because I can't imagine any milliner worth her hatpins would abuse a bottle of glue and a pile of flowers in such a manner. After the first ripped flower I got wise and used my trusty heat gun to melt the glue so that I could pull the flowers apart from the hat and each other.
There's still quite a bit of that heinous glue stuck to the back of each flower but I'm optimistic that I can find ways to use them so the glue won't show. I'm love my little vintage flower garden and I'd like to thank the lady who, 50 years ago, put every flower she could get her hands on onto one hat. I'm much obliged to her!

Christmas Card Confession

I have a confession to make.

Those are my Christmas cards, still unsent. I did get a few out on Christmas Eve, but the rest of them I wrote this morning. Nothing like a bit of procrastination, eh? One year I actually did send New Year's cards; I have a neat rubber stamp of an hourglass and I use sparkly colored glitter for this sand. This year, I'm just late! When I addressed the envelopes back in early December I purposely put the stamps on them, so that I knew I couldn't just shove them back in the box until next year. See, I know my weaknesses.

No big plans for us tonight. Once we had a baby I finally got over the feeling that if I didn't have some fabulous New Year's Eve plans, I was a total loser. Now I don't even care if I stay up until midnight! I don't even want to make special food after all the overeating we did last week, so we'll just have a normal dinner and watch a video. Low-key, but sounds good to me! Tomorrow I want to start de-Christmasing but I need to get the new toy mess cleaned up before I'll have room to make another mess.

Goodbye, 2008! And now I'd better run to get the cards in the mailbox before the postman comes!

Soldered Santa #2

I think I'm finally getting the hang of this soldering thing. Sure, my pieces are still a bit rough around the edges and my technique could use improving, but at least I'm to the point that I'm pleased with what I've made and don't want to throw it immediately in the trash.
This is a little ornament I made for my friend Shara. The Santa is a vintage gummed package seal and the back is a vintage Dennison label and lots of twinkly silver German glass glitter. The bead on the bottom is from an old earring. I'm pleased with how it turned out and I hope Shara likes it too! Once I clear the mounds of Christmas crap off my desk and get some glass ordered, I'm hoping to make some Valentine pieces. On one hand I hate to put away all of my vintage Christmas pretties but on the other--as I expected--I'm just ready for the mess to be gone. From the slew of organizing post around blogland, I know I'm not the only one!

Christmas Leftovers

Hello again! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with lots of good memories--we did! We spent the week in Utah visiting our families and just got home last night. Now begins the unpacking, laundry, and cleaning up the mess we made when we were getting ready to go! Before I get started I wanted to share a few more photos of Christmas stuff before I forget and move on.
These fun treats are the Snowman Hats I made to take to Maren's preschool party. I used the same idea as these Pilgrim Hats, (I used chocolate bark instead of chips) and decorated them with a strip of Fruit by the Foot for ribbon and cinnamon candy holly berries (I wanted to use mini M & M's but they're not peanut-safe). They were a huge hit with the other parents and teachers and they were yummy too! If I'd remembered when I was doing my shopping, I'd have used a little tube of green frosting and made a little holly leaf to accompany the berries, but they were still pretty darn cute even without it.

I mentioned earlier in December that I'm a bit obsessed with red and white toadstool ornaments. I must not be the only one who loves mushrooms because I found them at Pier One, World Market, Wal-Mart, Anthropologie, and Macy's this year! Here's a photo of some of of the shrooms I've collected:
Kkeep in mind that this photo doesn't show the 5 toadstools I found at Macy's (including a few giant Martha Stewart versions) or the really neat vintage toadstool guy I bought at an antique store in Utah on Saturday.

I also found this kitschy decoration at a thrift store earlier in the month:It's a little wooden crate with a few flocked toadstools, plastic greens and vintage glass beads. I totally dig the red velvet ribbon and it's even painted my favorite color of shabby aqua blue! It's like it was made just for me!To go along with the toadstools I found these little wooden gnome ornaments (in a bag from the thrift) and some of these glass guys like Sarah found at Macy's. More toadstool love can be found with Sarah's woodland tree, Suzy's mushroom tree, and Hannah's giant sequined toadstool.

Just before I left for vacation I received a delightful box from a dear friend which included this little glittered house in my favorite turquoise and red that I just had to show you! Isn't it darling? Shara even included some little brown toadstools! Does she know me or what? Thanks again Shara, I love it!

And now, I have a couple of overflowing laundry baskets calling my name!

Holiday Decor at my house

We're here in Utah at my parents' house but I still had a few more photos I wanted to share with you of the decorations in my home. I'm short on time so I won't give descriptions but hope you enjoy--click on any photo to make it bigger. I have a few left to share tomorrow as well! Hope things are beginning to feel a lot like Christmas wherever you are--they certainly are here!

Soldered Santas, a beaded bouquet and crafty links

A few weeks ago I had an opportunity to make some ornaments for a few lovely friends and wanted to show you what I came up with because I'm pretty thrilled about how they turned out! I knew that I wanted to try soldering again--I'm determined to get good at it, by golly. I rummaged around in my supplies and found a few scraps of one of my all-time favorite scrapbooking papers, some metal Making Memories snowflakes, and the cool Tim Holtz tags I bought in Phoenix at Mystic Paper. I soldered a jump ring on the top to hold the ornament hanger and also on the bottom, where I hung a pretty iridescent bead taken from a vintage earring. I tied on a bit of matching red seam binding and tucked them into organza bags. I love how they look and hope the recipients like them too! I definitely feel a bit more confident in my soldering abilities now as well.

Along with the vintage glass bead garland yesterday, another vintage Christmas item I always look for when thrifting or antiquing is glass bead picks. I covet them so very much, but for me they have been just about impossible to find locally and they are pretty pricy on eBay--I guess I'm not the only one out there who loves them! When I walked into my favorite local store, Patina this was the first thing I saw and truly, it was love at first sight:I've never seen anything like this and I probably never will, as it was handmade. It's a bouquet made of all different shapes, sizes and colors of mercury glass beaded picks, tinsel, and vintage glass ball picks. Oh, it is glorious! I love it so, so much (like everything else I've ever bought at Patina) and I'm not sure I'll be able to bear to pack it away after Christmas--it might have to stay out for a while so I can look at it more!

Looking for something cute, vintage-style and crafty to do with the kids? How about these darling little snowman scenes from Holly Doodle Designs or these neat vintage-inspired chenille candy canes from Jerusalem, via Vintage Indie.

Tonight Maren and I are going to make snowman hat cookies for her preschool class party in the morning. We're going to use the instructions for Pilgrim hats but forego the yellow buckles for something a bit more wintry. If they turn out hopefully I'll have a picture for you tomorrow!

The most wonderful time at the thrift store redux and a Christmas catalog link

Still loving the great vintage pickins' at the thrift stores now that all the Christmas stuff is out! I made a stop at the thrift last Thursday while Maren was in school and was rewarded with these beauties.
They were stuffed in a bag with some other ugly (new) beaded garland but when I flipped the bag over and saw these I think I might have gasped out loud! This might be just the prettiest vintage glass bead garland I've ever seen and certainly the most elaborate in my small collection. Wow! What a treasure.
Vintage glass bead garland is one of my Holy Grails of thrifting. I find it so rarely that every strand I've managed to turn up is absolutely precious to me and I hoard it jealously. The problem is that I don't have a good way to display it--it doesn't work on my tree and when piled in a bowl or on a cake plate it just looks like sparkly spaghetti. I've seen so many neat handmade items embellished with these glass beads that I'm trying hard to get over my hoarding tendency and my fear of actually *using* it. I'm trying to remember that I'd get a lot more enjoyment out of the garlands if I used them (even if that requires cutting them apart) as right now they're just tucked in a plastic tote out of sight. I did manage to unstring a few beads from one to use on a project I'm working on right now. Baby steps!

If you still have time to waste after yesterday's Betamaxmas link, how about checking out this very cool online compendium of old Christmas catalogs? The earliest is from 1940 and the most recent is 1988. I've been loving the 1986 Sears catalog..I was 8 that year and I've already found several of the toys that I remember hoping Santa would bring. Just the Barbie pages alone have me squealing!