Busy, Busy, Busy

From the looks of the date on our last post, you can see we have been busy, busy, busy getting ready for weddings, shows, and other summer time events. I love that school has started again because it gives me a few hours in the day to work on things.

 I love to look at magazines for ideas and I save them to leaf through the pages again and again. This magazine is from March 2012, and there was an article about a farm in Illinois that belongs to Polly Hood. I loved how she decorated and as part of the article she showed us how to make a paper garland. I marked the page thinking it would be fun to make one some day, then added the magazine to my pile to get back to later. 

Well, here we are, later, much later, and I was leafing through it again and reminded of the paper garland I wanted to make. No time like the present.

 You only need some twine, old book pages and some scissors. You can really use any book pages but I have boxes of older ones for various crafts so I dug out a couple that had the pages the patina I wanted.

You have to remove the pages from the binding, which is easy enough, and goes quickly if you are watching a show you are interested in. :)

Next you fold the pages in half (not a hard fold) just enough to be able to cut about a 1 inch slit in the middle of the page. You can cut several pages at one time.

Next, you gently crinkle each page, kind of gently gobble it, but not tightly, and thread it onto your twine, that you have cut to the length of the garland you want plus about an extra foot to make a loop on each end. Loop the first end, string the pages onto the twine and gently guide them to the looped end. Keep going until your twine is filled with pages.

 For a 6 foot garland I used about 500 pages. When you get to the end with about 6 inches of twine left, make the second loop. You will use the loops to secure your garland to wherever you are going to hang it. I wanted mine for the fireplace mantle. We currently live in a rental so we are limited in what we can do. I want to make a bigger mantle, and paint the bricks, but can't so decided to dress it up with this garland, and I love it.

So easy and such fabulous results. If you don't want to make one yourself, I will have a couple for sale at Junk Barn Girls Sale in Stanfield the end of September, and at Shabulous in Cove Oct. 5th. I love getting my craft on!

Second Annual Shabulous Show

Shabulous is back! 

Our second annual fall Shabulous Show is Saturday Oct. 5th, 2013. It's not too late to sign up to be a vendor or to show off your vintage trailer.

See you there!

Pretty Pots

I have been busy catching up on my scrapbooking since the start of the new year.  I am happy to report I completed 2010 and 2011.  I haven't been crafting as much as I'd like, as a result.  I do spend much time on pinterest looking at crafting ideas and I saw this one recently.  I have done this project in the past.  My other sister (Suci) doesn't think she is crafty.  In fact quilting is her speciality and she is awesome at that but she did decoupage on terra cotta pots many years ago.  She used paper napkins. I searched on ebay for some pretty ones and got them in the mail this week.

I painted the inside and the top edge.

Tearing napkins and gluing is the next step.



Layer on the mod podge.

They are all lined up to dry.

Pretty pots!

Happy Valentines Day

I really do love old postcards.  I collect them for all the holidays.  Pinterest is a nice source for seeing a lot of cards all in one place.  Here's a pretty one I found today so I am sharing it with you.

I hope you have all had a lovely day.

Fancy

I had a very nice day sitting down in my Shabby Shack yesterday.  The weather was warm for early February.  I had my Valentine's Day Sale and it went very well.  It was fun setting up and decorating with a new theme for a little change of pace.  I looked through a stack of magazines I hadn't gotten to yet. I watched a couple movies on my kindle.  I listened to some good music.  It was a nice day.

The dress form usually wears aprons but I had a couple old slips so I fancied her up a bit.

They just don't make slips like they used to.

Memory Box

I had time on my hands today so I finally got my memory shelf put back together.  It was fun looking at everything up close again and thinking of each item and where it came from.  I also see I have some holes yet to fill.  Time for some new adventures.

Here's how it's been sitting since November.

I found a casualty in the pile.  One of my favorite things on the shelf.  I suppose I'll have to go to Disneyland to pick me up another one.

Each section up close.  I already added in a few more items.  I have several of these printer drawers.  I've got one for each of the kids and their memories.  Then I have a couple others I want to use for items from the parents and grandparents on both sides of the family.  I should get busy and get them together so I can enjoy them like I do this one.

How many days 'til Christmas?

I just finished my first Christmas craft for next year.  Is that weird?

I started noticing these at sales a few years back and began picking them up.  For some reason the bases looked like a fancy victorian Christmas tree stand.  I had in mind I could figure out a way to make trees.  Last year I tried a couple kinds of ribbon but wasn't happy with how they turned out.

See...tree stand.

I saw an idea on pinterest.  Paper trees. Although I think theirs were on dowels.  I got busy and cut out squares of dictionary pages in 4 sizes.

And here we have the finished product.  Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve

This Christmas Eve I am spending the whole day in the house.  My own little celebration.  Working in retail has a tendency to burn me out on the holiday rush.  Make a little fudge, watch a movie, finish my 12 days of Christmas reading, wrap a few presents, get crafty, drink hot chocolate, take pictures and blog, and maybe even clean the house a little just to make me feel better about neglecting it for the last month. Have whatever kind of day makes you happy!

Transformation

     You can find sewing cabinets just about anywhere.  I got this one at a thrift store in The Dalles.  There were 5 or 6 there that day.  This one was a little bigger and heavier than most so I got it.  I had something in mind to do with it.

     It has possibilities.  What do you see?

    These handles are a bit outdated.  Old but not vintage.  I thought I could find some others.

     I added casters (well, Gareld did).   You can see here I also painted it white.

     I didn't make it up to Simply Sandy's for new handles so a little black spray paint gave them a new look that matched the new "feet".

    I sanded the old finish off the top and the bare wood looks like a cutting board.  So now I have a handy little kitchen island.  It will be for sale at the open house.

Burlap Ornaments

These are how they turned out.  I can't wait to decorate my tree this Sunday.

My theme is Burlap, Blues and Bling.  I have lot's of blue.  I needed to mass produce some burlap ornaments cheap and easy.

First I tried heat and bond.  I wanted to glue the burlap to cardboard.  This didn't seem to work very well.  I wasn't getting a good hold over the whole piece so I went to plan B.

Good ol' spray adhesive.  I use this for many things and it was just the thing I needed here to pull off this idea.  Spray the burlap and the cardboard for a stronger hold.

For the next step I traced shapes on the cardboard side.  Then I cut them out and punched a hole for an ornament hook.

Stacks and stacks.  I hope it is enough to get the effect I'm looking for on my tree.

Now I just have to figure out what the bling is going to be.

If a tree falls in the woods....

I really love bottle brush trees.  The good old ones.  I try to find them whenever I can.
This season it seems I am obsessed with all kinds of trees.  Here are just a few to enjoy.

This fabric panel I got at Ikea is so realistic looking.  It's beautiful.

These little "tomato cages" make a nice simple tree.  I don't know what their real purpose in life was but as soon as I saw them I saw a tree.  There are 5 stacked up here but I will separate them and I made a star for each one.

I remember these little trees from my childhood and I have always liked them.  I also have Gurley candles for all the holidays.  They are easy to find at antique shows and shops.

A friend gave me a tree similiar to this a few years ago.  I made up quite a few for our bazaar.  The spool trunks go well with the button and lace decorations.

Book pages over craft store cones.  They looked a little plain until I figured out a star for the top.  I bought a star punch and that did the trick.

Last year these were in the christmas department at work.  They look more like the real thing than the cheap ones in the village section.  I bought all of ours and as I went to stores in Pendleton and Wood Village I got all they had too.  We never get in enough of the good things so if you see something you like, snatch it up.

And finally my funnel trees.  I first saw this idea two years ago so my hunt for funnels was on.  Last year I had two sitting on my counter during the holiday.  Mom and I have been collecting funnels so we can both have some of these unusual trees.

Shamelessly Stealing Ideas

I look for new ideas everywhere I go.  I saw these in one of my favorite booths.  I already love old, seasonal postcards.  I have quite a few christmas ones on hand.  As soon as I saw these at the show I started looking for the christmas pins.  I was able to get them for $1 each.  A pin and a postcard...what a good combination.

The hankies tied to a wire tree was an idea I saw at a thrift store in The Dalles.  I have lots of hankies and I put this tree together using red, white and green for our christmas bazaars.  It turned out really cute.  It would also be nice left up as decoration.

This idea was actually my sister's.  She was in the process of making over cheap pins using newsprint.  I never saw any of hers but in hearing the idea it sounded like a good one since these button pins can be found anywhere.  I put the newsprint on then got stumped as to where to go from there.  I finally decided on a holiday theme.   I never know where the next idea will come from so I am always looking.



Whew!

It's been a busy month.  A lot of time was devoted to pulling off our first show.

Shabulous was awesome.  It was so fun planning for it.  I really enjoyed getting my shabby shack ready.  We hadn't had a chance to create and display Halloween decorations so this was fun.  The show was a huge success and a great start for an annual event.  We hope to see it grow next year.  Now that I have had a week or so to recover it's time to get ready for the next big thing.  We have our usual fall show the saturday before Thanksgiving and then we are having a Christmas Open House here on December 8.  I have some new craft projects to work on.  I'll show you later.

Pinterest

Don't you just love Pinterest?  I hope you all have discovered it and are pinning away.  I work with the young women in our church and we made these last night.  I had several colors and styles for them to choose from.  Gareld cut a 2x6 into four inch blocks and we mod podged them on.  Top it off with a cute bow and they each had something new for their room.

We talked about the world's view of beauty and then I asked them to think of words that described what beauty means to them.  What makes someone beautiful?  They came up with words like self-confidence, kindness, honesty, integrity, strong, friendly, virtuous and inclusive.

I had the girls write the words on the back of the block along with this quote:

"Happy girls are the prettiest."  Audrey Hepburn

(also from pinterest)