Tagged: decorating
End Of An Era
Moss Cottage Vintage has just gone through a major change. Due to the sluggish economy these last years, I have felt that my profit margin at the Fredericksburg Antique Mall isn’t were it should be. I am doing well on Etsy, but that is because my overhead is so low.
I like having a space in the mall because I like to “play” at displaying my items. But the space I was in was just too big and too expensive to make it worth my while.
So, out with the old…
And in with the new!
I love my new space! It’s surprising how much stuff I was able to fit in there and my sales have already increased!!! If you come to the Fredericksburg Antique Mall, my booth is the third one on the left on the ground floor, right before you go into the back section. Send me a message if you are coming and I’ll try to meet you there.
Now onto some arts and crafts. Here are two cards I made recently. One for my nieces 16th birthday (she loves anything Tudor) and one for a gentlemen who loves fishing.
Well, that’s all I’ve got for now. Moving the shop was quite a big ordeal and I’m also busy with some household renovation projects. I hope I’ll have a chance to “art” again soon.
More Makings
As my last post showed, I have been very busy making items for two upcoming shows. Here is just a quick little post showing some more things I have made. Enjoy!
Up-Cycled Child’s Skates
Up-cycled men’s skates. The blades had marks on them so I covered them with snowtex to hide the flaw.
Snowmen “Merry Christmas” plaques from some blank wood plaques that were languishing in our garage.
A wreath made from a metal ringy thing I found while out junking one day.
As you can see, at least 90% of everything Moss Cottage Vintage makes is made with recycled elements. It is good for the environment and let’s me create one-of-a-kind items my customers can cherish!
So Busy, But Having Fun In A Manic Kind Of Way!
This time of year always makes me somewhat frantic. I have two big Christmas shows, The Vintage Home Market and the Holiday Craft Fair at the Fredericksburg Expo Center. At the Vintage Home Market I can bring vintage Christmas items as well as handmade items with a vintage flair. I don’t feel so stressed about stocking my booth there because I always have a lot of vintage Christmas items I bought throughout the year and squirreled away. The Holiday Craft Fair is another story. Everything in my 10 x 10 booth for this THREE day show has to be handmade! That is quite intimidating. I helped a friend do this show last year and she practically sold out on the first day!
So this is the reason I have not been able to blog as frequently as usual. Every waking hour I seem to be making stuff, thinking of stuff to make, pricing stuff I made, packing stuff I made and generally freaking out in the mess my house has become.
Here are some pictures of the chaos which has become my life.
Large tote filled with handmade books of all kinds.
This tote is absolutely stuffed with handmade December Dailies, Gratitude journals, altered mini compo books, junk journals and up-cycled denim and cashmere flower pins.
Some of the finished arrangements.
This is just a sampling of the arrangements I will be selling. As you can see, they are mostly finished.
Empty arrangement containers.
These containers are patiently waiting for me to make their arrangements.
Empty containers.
These are waiting too.
More empty containers.
Yep, these are too.
My magic workshop, aka our dining room table.
This is where I will be spending the good part of the next two weeks. I hope to have all the container arrangements done and the totes that are full of supplies emptied, or mostly emptied.
So now you can see the glitz and glamour that is the life of a crafter! If you would like information about either of these shows, please see my upcoming events page.
It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas…Already!
I am already making items to sell at my shows this fall. Gifts items and Christmas decorations are what I am concentrating on. Because the biggest show I am doing is a very expensive show to participate in, my theme for making items this year is, “Something out of nothing”. What this means is I am using up my stash of craft supplies and up-cycling and recycling everything I can in order to offset my expenses. I am not buying much of anything to complete my items. It does not mean, however, that I am producing anything that is not up to my standards. It just means I’m being more creative, which is actually quite fun!
Here are some pictures from one of my first show projects.
Stacks of coffee dyed papers and envelopes.
Coffee dyed papers and envelopes sorted into equal stacks. Each book will have twenty pages.
Inside pages of hand bound junk journal.
Ten finished hand bound junk journals with different covers.
Finished stack of junk journals bound up and ready to pack!
These junk journals were made only with stuff I already had on hand, so my only investment was a little time.
This is the first completed set of books I made. I will be making many more junk journal/glue books of various styles for the shows. I absolutely love making journals and can’t wait to start my next project!
What’s Up?
My blog posts have been far and few in between, however, that does not mean I’ve been slacking. Oh no, I have been keenly aware that Christmas is approaching faster than I can eat chocolate the speed of light. That means I’ve got to make, make and make some more Christmas items for my upcoming shows. This is what our kitchen looked like last Thursday.
Explosion of vintage Christmas items.
I was working on these tart tin ornaments. They were a pain fun to make with all the tiny bits and bobs involved!
Cutie retro tart tin Christmas ornaments.
Then I made these vintage style Christmas corsages. I think these are so cute. They are like the ones your grandmother wore and you thought were tacky.
And these things are just the tip of the iceberg. I have a bunch of other things I need to make as well as finish making embellishments for a swap I’m doing with a friend.
Please excuse my lack of posts, but know that I will try to keep you up-dated on all the Christmas goodness I am making!
Easter is Finished!
Okay, I know it’s only February 25th and Easter is not until April 20th this year. So you must be asking, “How can Easter be finished already?” Well, anyone who is in retail knows you must always be working on the next season so your merchandise will not be put out too late. Valentine’s Day is over so now people are looking to buy Easter items.
Today I finished making the last items to sell at Mossy Cottage for this Easter season, so that is how I can say Easter is finished. Unfortunately, those of us who make items for retail get tired of the holiday decorations before the holiday actually arrives! This is especially true for Easter and Christmas because I tend to make so many items for these holidays. Hopefully in a week or two bunnies, chicks and lambs will be appealing to me again! Here are the last items I finished today. They are Easter arrangements made with all sorts of vintage ornaments, vases, bottle brush trees, etc… Everything I used for these arrangements I already had on hand.
And while you are enjoying these pictures, I’m off to dig out my stash of flags, stars and seashells!
A Little Bit of Christmas
I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting older (and wiser) but I just don’t feel the need to go overboard with Christmas decorating anymore. I used to put up several trees in different areas of the house and now it seems like such a chore to get one up. I have a collection of snowmen that haven’t seen the light of day for the last three years. The parlor hasn’t had a tree in it for as long as I can remember which means my antique clip-on bird collection is now collecting dust.
I believe a part of my decorating funk has to do with how totally commercial and crass Christmas has become. Most people under the age of 18 don’t even have a clue what Christmas is about other than getting more stuff! I really want to celebrate Christmas for what it is, a remembrance of Jesus’ birthday.
I don’t want to be entirely Scroogy either so this year I decided to have “a little bit of Christmas” around the house. Let me show you what I mean.
This pretty apple and berry wreath around the dining room chandelier was made by my long time friend Donna McLeod from Snow Creek Farm.
This matching swag over the door was also made by Donna. I can’t even remember how old these are but they are still really pretty. The only other decoration I have in the dining room is this…
This is a really BIG vintage ceramic light up tree. I love these so much and I always sell out of the ones I get in the shop. When we are not in the dining room we leave the lights on as a kind of night-light. It’s just so homey.
So here is a look at the dining room, as best as I could get it, with all three elements in the picture. I may add some fresh magnolia and holly (not the cat) to the mantle and an embroidered Christmas runner on the table and call it a day.
This funny little Anna Lee Santa was my mother-in-laws but she was nice enough to give it to us. He likes it on the mantle in the kitchen and has spent many a Christmas there.
This part of the foyer usually sports three rustic trees with outdoorsy and camping ornaments. This year, however, I decided to see how Louie does with the big tree before I temp him with three small ones. The teddy always sits in the foyer and yes, it is another vintage light up tree on the cabinet!
There is nothing little about this Christmas decoration. It may not seem like it in this picture but this tree is 10 feet tall. We have really tall ceilings and our 6 foot tree just looked ridiculously small in our house. We upgraded to this big boy last year. My favorite ornament is the paper plate and doily angel tree topper Adam made when he was little. And look, Louie seems like he’s dreaming of Christmas.
Oooh, look how pretty it is with the lights off. Do you see my vintage nativity lit up under the tree? Well that leads me to one more Christmas decoration we have out.
I love this 1960’s vintage creche. It reminds me of my childhood!
Well, that’s the Christmas tour of the Hausers house. I realize that we won’t be featured in any decorating magazines for our Christmas displays but I am very happy with what we have. We have enough to remind us that this season is special without being hit in the head with the crass commercialism of today’s Christmases. We will have special dinners and plenty of home-made treats. We will have enough presents to exchange with each other and with our whole family. But best of all, we will have each other! Merry Christmas to Martin and Adam, I hope you like the decorations!!!
The Lazy Decorator Part 2
As each holiday season passes, I promise myself I will be more prepared for the next one. As I do several craft shows and have two shops to decorate at Christmas time, I just manage to throw up (that doesn’t sound right) some decorations around the house. And it usually doesn’t look that bad because we’ve got nice Christmas decorations.
Well, here we are facing Spring head on and guess what? I’M NOT READY!!!! I wish I had all kinds of great excuses why I’m not ready, but I don’t. So I had to call out the lazy decorator in me to fix up this boring mantle. (You’ve seen it before in The Lazy Decorator)
I have some cute “Springy” stuff, I just had to gather it together and throw it on the dining table, like this….
Let’s take a closer look at some of these goodies.
These are old store stock egg boxes that were never used. I got them at the Big Flea in Fredericksburg for $1.00 a piece. Look closely at the cute chicken graphics!
Yeah, I know he’s a goat not a lamb, but just look at that sweet face!
Here is a vintage flocked lamb next to two vintage hard plastic bunnies. Look at the little red nose on the yellow bunny.
Well I futzed for all of 10 minutes, because that’s basically my attention span, and I came up with this…
I know you can’t see it very well, so I’ll give you some panoramic pictures.
I love the vintage Easter card and all the little peeps.
Look at my vintage bunny wearing a small doily on her head. And more peeps.
Look who’s reading “The Velveteen Rabbit”, more peeps.
And last but not least on top of the mantle, it’s goatee! (and more peeps)
Here is an Easter banner I made. Unfortunately, Miss Golightly is a little too interested in this! We’ll have to see how long this lasts. Here is a close up in case you don’ t have Superman vision.
Well, that’s my 10 minute, low budget (more like NO budget) Spring decorating. The moral of this story is you can decorate with anything and make it look great as long as you are surrounded by your peeps!!!!!
The Lazy Decorator
It’s been about a week since I last blogged, however, I have a good excuse. I did a show on Thursday and another Friday through Saturday. Whew I’m exhausted. Now my Christmas shows are done and for the most part, my shops are also stocked for the holidays. It no longer looks like the North Pole exploded in my house. In fact it looks kind of sad.
I hate to skip decorating the house for Thanksgiving, but goodness, it’s only 3 days away. We won’t even be eating here on Thursday, we are having our “veggie” Thanksgiving tomorrow night. Since I am going to make our traditional vegetarian feast for dinner, I thought I might as well spend at least 10 minutes dressing up the mantle in our dining room. Oh, and I’m so cheap I didn’t want to spend any money either!!!! So I gathered some “fally” looking stuff.
Then I got to work. I am so lazy I tried to do everything in just 10 minutes. Unfortunately it almost took me that long to find my glasses!!! So here’s what I did.
I literally stuffed a fall flower garland into the bottom half of a really neat purse. I bought this bag at a thrift shop for 25 cents (note: the top in no longer attached to the bottom). I’m still thinking of what to do with the top flap that has the handle still attached. That might be fodder for another blog when I get desperate for ideas, like next week! Then I hung a “craft fail” hang tag over the top.
I changed out the white candles in these wood sticks for rust colored ones. Then I tore a piece of sheet music and taped it around the candle. This precision operation took all of 30 seconds. And just FYI, when I got done I noticed the piece of music is called Gondolieri, which is Italian for gondoliers. I guess with a little alcohol imagination you could consider the Mayflower a type of gondola!
Next I made a little banner for my Steiff squirrels to hold. This is where I spent the most time, all of 5 minutes! (Note to self, don’t use hemp twine on tiny banners because you may use words that would make a sailor blush). Lastly I slapped a votive candle in the glass candle holder I got for a whopping 25 cents. And voila….my lazy (and cheap) decorated mantle.
I have so many things to be thankful for I could not even begin to list them all. But most of all I am thankful for my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who died on the cross so that all who believe in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life! I wish you, my dear readers, a very happy and healthy Thanksgiving.
glitteronmyface 