Tagged: charms
The Lonely Queen
If you have followed my last couple of posts you will know that I am making lots of journals for the shows I am doing later this year. I had made a stack of hand-bound journals using coffee stained papers. It just so happened that I had a stack of the papers left over that were not the right size for the bound journals. See the stack with the holes in it?
Stack of coffee stained papers.
What to do? What to do? Well it so happened that the holes all lined up perfectly so really all I needed was to find a cover that fit and some book rings. I found an old book called, “Asylum For The Queen”. I never read it but I loved the title. Here is the finished journal.
Journal from old book.
I had to add pretty ribbons and charms, including a crown as the title dictated.
Bees remind me of Marie Antoinette.
On some of the pages I stamped images that remind me of old royalty.
More stamping.
This journal has blank pages, except for the few stamps, to allow for lots of journaling or space for smashing other ephemera.
I’m so happy I was able to use every last piece of the papers I had stained from that project!
The Rebirth Of Some Forlorn Books
With Kindles, computers, tablets, IPhones, etc., good old paper books are getting the big heave-ho in many homes. Thrift shops are becoming so flooded with books that many are starting to give them away for free while others charge only 25-50 cents a piece. I for one still love to read actual paper books and it breaks my heart to see them devalued in society today.
As many of you know, I am an avid thrift shop junkie and yes, I always look at the books. And even though I am not interested in reading most of what I find, there are other criteria that will get them into my shopping basket. Do they have nice and interesting hard covers? Do they have fun vintage graphics? Are they vintage children’s books, especially Little Golden Books? Are they old accounting ledgers or logs of some sort?
Here are some (and I emphasize some) of the books I have purchased recently. Notice they don’t fit on the bookshelf so they are piled up on the floor!
A shameful hoard of old books.
So what do I do with all these old books? First of all, I deconstruct them and separate the pages from the covers. Then I pull out all kinds of other vintage ephemera I have such as flash cards, stationary, envelopes, playing cards, graph paper, scrapbook papers and the list goes on.
Deconstructed book covers with a stack of mixed ephemera.
Next I sort the papers and ephemera into equal piles according to the number of book covers I have.
Sorting paper and ephemera into piles, each with a book cover.
Lastly I bind the books together to make sweet vintage junk journals. Usually I bind them with binder rings so there is lots of room for the new owner to add their own treasures. I tie some ribbon on the book rings and each is given a charm to dangle from the top ring.
Eight finished junk journals made from old Golden Book covers.
These junk journals function just as the others I have made. You can glue, staple, tape and clip your ticket stubs, cute packaging tags, greeting cards and all sorts of other collected ephemera onto the pages. This is a really fun way to keep and display all those little bits of paper and ephemera that you have collected and don’t know what to do with.
These journals will be packed up for some shows Mossy Cottage will be selling at this coming fall. I have many more books to give a new life to and plan of rescuing as many as I can in the months to come!
Goodbye Old Friend
It is with great sadness that I have to say goodbye to the companion I have had with me everyday for this last year. If you check my blog post from exactly one year ago titled, “The Humble File Folder” from January 5, 2014 you will see the organizer I made for my coupons, bank deposits, shopping lists, to do lists, etc..
Pretty brand new organizer
Sadly, she has become a little tired looking and worn around the edges over the past year (but haven’t we all?)
Just tired
Ripped embellishment
Bent side from elastic closure (which went missing).
I even felt bad using it, sort of like wearing old worn out undergarments, if you know what I mean. Well with a new year ahead of me and an urge to “scrap my stash” I made this little beauty last night.
Brand new organizer with charm and elastic!
Inside pockets full of deposit tickets and note pad.
I mixed up all the papers to keep it interesting although they are all from Crate Paper. So today my new organizer went out with me and we accomplished everything on our list without forgetting a thing. If you would like to make and organizer for yourself, there are instructions on my original post as well as video how-tos on YouTube.
I confess that I did throw out my old organizer in the trash and then fished it back out because I have become attached to it. I will use it at home to organize other paper items. I will treat it with kid gloves as it has been my faithful companion for the last 365 days!
From Flat to Fat
Happy New Year everyone! I know it has been a long time since I last wrote a post but you know how busy the holidays are. I am betting that all of you were too busy to read blog posts anyway, right? Well, now that the holidays are over for the most part I will show you something that I made to help me remember this wonderful Christmas time. If you have read my blog for a couple of months or more you will remember seeing my December Daily in the post, “Out of the Mess”.
This is the unfinished version. The pages were all there but none of them, including the cover had been decorated. Well everyday in December I wrote down a little something I did and put aside some ephemera that corresponded with what I wrote down. Then every other day or so, I played with my December Daily and all the embellishments and ephemera I had so I could go back to it in the years to come and remember the fun times.
This is what my December Daily looks like now!
-
- Fat December Daily
-
- Decorated Front Cover
-
- Charms Dangling From Binding Rings
I didn’t show you all the pages but you get the idea. This is the second year I have made a December Daily and I love them. I had so much fun reading what I did at Christmas time last year I know this is a tradition I will hold on to. So now you can see how my December Daily (and my waistline) went from flat to fat over the holidays. Later this year I will post a blog when I start constructing my one for Christmas 2015 and I hope some of you will come and play along!
Embellishment Swap
Camilla and I just finished another arts and crafts swap! This swap was for embellishments to be used in our various crafts. The only real rules were that we had to make them ourselves and swap a minimum of 50 pieces. Other than that, we were allowed to make whatever we wanted. Here are some of the embellies I made for Camilla.
Padded Lace Stickpin Book
Stickpins made with a variety of beads.
Lace Flowers
Glittered paper leaves and tiny book paper leaves
Homemade Washi Tape
Paper Rosette Medallions
Decorated Clothes Hanger Paper Clips
I also made her some charms, Christmas “postage stamps” and layered paper flowers. For some reason, however, I forgot to take pictures of those embellishments.
Here is what Camilla presented me with!
Stickpins
Oodles of charms
Paper rosettes
Lace and fabric flowers
Altered bottle caps
Teeny tiny envelopes with tags
Cute little paper pin wheels
Crumpled paper flowers
Yo-yo flowers
Die cut flowers from paper and soda cans!
Once again Camilla and I made each other some of the same type of items, however, they are still all unique in their own way. Each of us made other embellishments that were altogether different.
I am so glad I have a partner to swap crafts with because it gives me an opportunity to try new things and learn new techniques. I am super excited to have all these amazing embellishments and can’t wait to incorporate them into my crafts.
Thank you Camilla for a wonderful time at lunch and for leaving me with a box full of little inspirations!
Work First, Then Play
Last year I made myself a December Daily, which is a type of decorated journal where you keep track of what you did each day in the month of December. So much happens during the holidays, and we are in such a hurry, we tend to forget all the events that happened. I kept a journal last December because I wanted to remember the month instead of letting it go by in a big blur. Here is a picture of the December Daily I made last year.
I made it junk journal style using all kinds of papers, ephemera and embellishments. (If you would like to see more of this journal you can check out my post from November 30, 2013.)
I had as much fun making the journal as I did filling it, so I decided to make another one for this December. So all year I have been collecting bits and bobs to put in my journal. I even purchased some cute retro styled Christmas papers. Well, a year is a long time to collect stuff and as I pulled everything out to start making my journal, I realized I had a giant paper-ephemera-embellishment-sticker-cards-ribbon-charms mess. I was so overwhelmed I didn’t even know where to start. That made me unhappy because I was so excited to work on this journal.
Yesterday I finally decided to do something about it and it all started with this.
A BIG plastic tote box.
Poor Louie was so excited. He thought I got the box out for him. Sorry baby. But throwing everything in a big tote would not make it any easier for me to find what I was looking for so I got some old Tupperware food boxes and got to organizing.
Okay, this is actually a shoe box, but I needed a big container for paper and cardboard to be used as pages. I also have some envelopes in there.
This box has smaller paper pieces for tags as well as word embellishments.
These are all vintage style embellishments and cutouts.
Be still my heart. Here is a box of glittered embellishments. Notice that I took the time to bag everything so as to prevent a glitter downpour.
This is a fun box too. I have all my vintage Christmas stickers, alphabet stickers, washi tapes and just look at that cute roll of Duck Tape!
Here are some 3-D type embellishments. I think I did a blog post last year about that little button wreath. Well if I did, it wasn’t in December or I would have written it down!
How charming is this box? (Get it?)
This 6″ x 6″ paper pad and the Christmas napkins were too big for a box so they just lay on top of the tote.
Two hours later and my efforts produced this…
How fun is this box? I get so excited just looking at all that Christmas junk journal goodness!!!! And if you look really carefully on the right side toward the top, you will see this…..
It is my still naked, still plain, still waiting for the good stuff 2014 December Daily. I am very happy that all the bones of my journal are in place now and I can get out my big box of Christmas happy and just PLAY!!!
I will definitely post a blog with the finished product before December. So in the mean time, get out some cardboard, get out some paper, get out some embellishments and get started on your December Daily. You’ll really be glad you did on December 1, when you can start recording all the magic that is Christmas.
A Christmas Sneak Peek
I am sorry I have not been blogging as regularly as usual, however I have an excuse (don’t I always?). This little elf has been really busy buying, making, cleaning, ironing, pricing and packing for the Christmas season. Today I finished setting up the shop for this weekend’s Christmas Open House. Then I have two shows, back to back, November 21-24 (see upcoming events menu on top of this page). I may be adding another local show at the beginning of December. Why do I do all this? Because I love it! I absolutely delight in making Christmas crafts and gift items. So to get all of you normal people non-shop owners ready for the Christmas season, I am giving you a little sneak peek at some goodies I have made for my shows. Keep in mind that this is just a sampling, as a lot of stuff was already packed up before I decided to give you a peek.
Little decorated tart tin ornaments with retro pictures, figurines and foliage (a 10 cent word for plastic flowers and ivy).
Decorated tin star ornaments with all kinds of layered goodness.
My own design of cross-body bags. Some are covered with pieced together vintage lace and some are made from vintage Christmas linens. I still have a couple more of these to make.
Here is just a close-up of the front of one of the bags. I really loved how these turned out.
Tons of old yardstick and charm necklaces. I even made some fancier ones with beaded necklaces. These are super fun to make and no two are alike!
And here are some “good intention” cones. I had good intentions of finishing them today. Oh well, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen does it?
And here are some “good intention” altered bottles. They still need a lot of embellishment and I need a lot of motivation time to finish them.
Well, there you have it. My excuse for not blogging as faithfully as I wanted. I really hope some of you dear readers will be able to come to “Ladies Night Out” in Bowling Green on the evening of November 21rst or to the Vintage Home Market in Richmond on November 23-24th. I would love to see my old friends and I always have time to make new ones!
International Craft Haul
I don’t usually order items from over seas due to the high shipping costs, however, I recently made an exception to that rule. I saw a craft haul video on Pinterest and the lady had purchased stuff from a company called Yozo Craft. I liked the look of the stuff she had purchased so I checked out their website at http://www.yozocraft.com.
Hours later I clicked the finalize purchase button. I think I looked at practically everything on their website which is considerable as they sell washi tapes, papers, stamps, figural paper clips, Kawaii stationary, stickers, Hello Kitty items, fabrics and lots of other stuff!
I knew I would have to wait about three weeks to get my order and the wait almost killed me (a little exaggeration there)! And then this….
It arrived!
I was so excited. I couldn’t wait to look at my stuff. Well, half an hour later, no exaggeration there, I was able to open the packages. First thing I can say about Yozo Craft is that they package extremely well.
A half hour later!
Let’s take a quick look at what I got.
4 rolls of tape
I bought 4 rolls of specialty tape. The top two are decorative packing tape with lace designs. The rosy tape is a fabric tape and the bottom roll is a pink lace washi tape.
Stickers!
I bought five packages of lacy stickers. Some are borders and others are figural.
Metal charms
I got several metal charms. It took me a long time to pick these out because the variety they offer is extensive. I adore the little ruler piece ones. These charms are top quality. They are nice and heavy and finished well. There are no rough corners to snag clothing.
For me
I splurged and spent $1.50 on a cute mouse pad. Yes, that’s right I still use a mouse. It’s the Victorian in me!
Papers
Several kinds of paper.
More papers.
And yet more papers. Again, it took me quite a while to choose these papers because the selection is so great. These papers are not small either, they measure approximately 21″ x 29″.
Big papers
These papers are ALL really nice and thick. Some are waterproof and are almost like thin plastic. The descriptions on the website say which are waterproof.
I cannot tell you how pleased I am with everything I got from Yozo Craft. The quality is outstanding and the prices can’t be beat. If the shipping deters you, get some friends to order with you and split the mailing cost. My shipping cost $18.00 for the two packages. My only warning about Yozo Craft is that you will spend hours on their website drooling over all the goodies!
glitteronmyface 