Tagged: vintage
Burlap Heart Embellishments
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, I decided to make heart embellishments out of burlap. The process was really easy, but I think they came out really well. Here’s the simple process.
Cut some ordinary burlap into smallish pieces. The bigger ones in the picture above measure about 6″ square.
I painted the burlap for interest as well as to keep it from fraying when I cut it into smaller shapes.
I cut the fabric into heart shapes. Some were cut with a die and others I free-handed.
Here’s the fun part! I took out a lot of my Valentine’s Day stickers, bling and graphics. I also took out some sequins and plastic flowers.
Here’s the finished heart embellishments.
I will use these little embellishments on cards, tags or gift bag toppers. I hope this has inspired you to get out some of that plain old burlap you have lying around and make some fun embellishments!
My New Antique Mall
For the past two weeks I have been packing, schlepping, unpacking and arranging merchandise at the New Fredericksburg Antique Mall. The old Fredericksburg Antique Mall and the Antique Gallery finally have merged together at one location. We are now in the old Ben Franklin building where River Run Antiques was located. But this mall is so much different from River Run. My cousin, who owns the mall, has put in super new lighting, made beautiful spaces for all the dealers and had the floors cleaned up and polished. It is now so light and bright!
Here is the new sign on the front.
Here are some pictures of Moss Cottage Vintage’s new booth!
My showcase is still waiting for electricity. It will be nice and light when I get it hooked up!
Mantiques, sewing supplies and some cool odds and ends.
Moss Cottage Vintage is only one of many shops in the Fredericksburg Antique Mall. The entire main floor and downstairs are filled with booths. This is one antique mall you do not want to miss if you are visiting old town Fredericksburg, Virginia. Our new address is 925 Caroline Street, Fredericksburg, VA 22401. The mall will be open every day 10-5 and Sundays 12-5. And if you are familiar with the old River Run mall, come and see the wonderful transformation!!!
After The Party Up-Cycle Tags
The Christmas holiday season is over and all the goodies are gone, including the 3 batches of Chex mix I made. So it’s time to say goodbye to the empty cereal boxes.
Some went the way of the recycling bin and others… well, they went the way of my craft room.
I cut a box into tag shaped pieces.
Then I covered one side with printed paper and the other side with plain white card stock.
I layered on pieces of different papers and sandwiched trims, pieces of paper doilies and snippets of tulle between the layers.
Here are the finished tags.
I didn’t buy anything for this project. I only used supplies from my stash. I think they turned out pretty well considering they started as waste.
I hope this inspires you to look in your recycling bin, pull something out, and use items in your stash to create something pretty and new!
Easy Tags From Scraps
Okay, here is the last project I have for now that deals with using up your scraps of paper. This project is great for using long thin pieces of scrap paper, not tiny fragments. But the best part of this project is that you can use up some of your ugly papers!
My inspiration for this project came from this video:
First I selected my paper scraps, some ugly and some nice. The only requirement is that they be of the same thickness. You’ll want to cut your ugly papers into strips about 2 or 2 1/2 inches wide.
Here are my ugly strips.
Then you want to cut your nice strips into widths of varying widths also.
Here are my nice strips.
Now you will add any cheap glue to an ugly strip, making sure you’ve got good coverage.
Next, start laying your nice strips at a slight angle over the ugly strip.
Be sure your nice strips are covering the ugly strip and that they are lined up tightly against each other without any gaps.
Keep going until you have finish covering the entire length of your ugly strip.
This is what the back looks like.
Now trim off all the excess paper around the ugly strip. Most of these trimmed pieces will still be long enough to use again.
Cut the strips into lengths you like. I pretty much just cut each one in half, although I did to a little extra trimming off the top or bottom to achieve the look I wanted.
Cut the top corners off, punch a hole and insert cord or baker’s twine. Now you have unique tags!
They can even be topped off with the scrap embellishments you made from the directions in my last blog post.
I think these tags are such a great idea and each one will turn out differently. Again, you can make these crafts with any paper and any theme based on what scraps you want to use up.
I hope you will try these scrap projects I have posted lately. Not only are they using up scrap papers and saving you money, but they are so much fun.
When I come across other ingenious ways of using up scrap papers, I promise to share them with you!
What’s On My Desk ATC
Every once in a while I get the urge to make a project just using the junk that is cluttering up on my desk. I decided to make an ATC sized magnet so I could reuse the magnet strip off list pad I had just finished up. I always have varying sizes of cardboard on my desk so that was a no-brainer for the substrate.
I opened a new bottle of gesso and an obscene amount poured out onto my little ATC. I was actually able to gesso 2 – 8 x 10 canvas boards, 2 – 5 x 5 stretched canvases, 1 – 6 x 8 canvas board and my ATC with that huge puddle!
Next, I painted on some cream and brown acrylic paints to give it a vintage feel.
This very blurry picture shows some eggs I cut from some scrapbook paper. I inked the edges with distress ink before decoupaging them onto the card.
Here is the “finished ATC”. It’s really simple, but it gives me that old field guide feeling.
I painted the back of the card the same color blue I spattered on the eggs and attached the magnet strip from the used up note pad.
I like how the ATC magnet came out, but I just needed to add one more touch to make me love it.
Yep, you guessed it. I added glitter to the butterfly’s wings. NOW it’s done and I do love it! I hope you like it too and that it inspires you to make your own little work of art with things that are already on your desk!
Inspired Tags
I have been watching some videos by Marta from Maremi SmallArt on YouTube. She is one talented lady! She does amazing mixed media as well as paper projects like cards. One video in particular got my creative juices flowing. In this video, Marta made Shabby Chic vintage style cards. The link to the video is:
Instead of making cards, however, I was inspired to make some tags using her techniques.
First I cut some tag shapes out of cardboard. I just free-handed these.
Then I added a layer of texture using decoupage paper, drywall tape and old book pages stuck on with Gesso.
For my first tag I used my Prima Princess paper collection and embellishments.
For the second tag I used some specialty papers and some papers from the Market Street collection by My Mind’s Eye.
For the third tag I used paper from Tim Holtz and My Mind’s Eye, however, I forgot to take a picture of the papers used. Sorry!
Here are the three tags I made.
I love how they turned out. There is so much layering on each one so the dimension is quite thick.
If you find yourself in a rut or just need a little inspiration. Go to Marta’s YouTube channel, Maremi SmallArt. I know you will find some videos to jump-start your art mojo!
Thank you Marta for all of your videos, including the “Break a blank page” series!
A Little Up-cycled Project
I purchased this ugly metal match box holder a couple of weeks ago because I thought the shape was really nice. The flower cart picture on the front, not so much.
The bottom needed help too!
I decoupaged some scrapbook paper on the front and the bottom.
I attached an old piece of broken jewelry on the front to add some bling. Now it is worthy to sit on a desk and hold pens, pencils and “old lady eyes”.
It can also hang on a wall. There are many things (including a match box) that you can corral in this up-cycled holder!
It was a quick and easy re-do that saved this vintage piece from going to the junk yard! It is now available at Moss Cottage Vintage in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
Ready For The Vintage Home Market
Here’s a quickie post because I am busy with The Vintage Home Market this weekend. I just wanted to show you how great the booth turned out. A great big thank you goes out to my sweet hubby Martin for helping me get it all there and arranged. So just sit back and enjoy the photos.
If you are in the Central Virginia area, please come to the show and see us. The show information is at the bottom of this post. There are lots of dealers with really cute vintage items to see and buy!
I really hope I get to see some of my dear readers at the Market!
What’s Up?
I’ve been missing in action on my blog lately because I’ve been busy getting ready for two upcoming vintage shows. Here are some pictures to give you an idea of what I’ve been doing.
Five Cooking Themed Junk Journals. The Charms I Found Are Absolutely Adorable!
I have made several themed junk journals. There will be cooking, travel, garden and general themed junk journals.
Lots of Wood Pieces Getting A White Wash!
Both furniture and decorative items are getting gussied up with white paint. Funnily enough, some of the smaller pieces where then painted aqua instead!
The Beginnings Of My Show “Pile” Being Stored In The Sun Room.
This photo was taken a couple weeks ago. This pile has grown considerably since then!
The next two weeks are going to be my crunch time so I’ll be even busier. I’ll try to remember to pick up my camera and take some pictures along the way to show you.
Information about the Vintage Home Market and Foxwood Barn Sale can be found on my “Up Coming Events” page.
Cute Christmas Graphics
A lot of people ask me where I find such cute Christmas graphics for my December Dailies. I tell them, “Anywhere I can”. I don’t say that to be evasive or cryptic, I say it because it’s the truth. When you work on December Dailies and junk journals, you learn to look at the things that pass through your hands carefully. You want great graphics for your journals, however, most people don’t really even look at the papers that pass through their hands.
Here are a few cute Christmas graphics that may make it into my December Daily this year and the place where I found them. Hopefully this will give you some ideas for collecting great graphics for whatever project you are working on.
From and old Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer book from a Salvation Army thrift shop.
I got a whole box of these cards for $1.00 at a church thrift shop.
Snowmen plushie patterns from the Goodwill Outlet (by the pound store).
Cut from a children’s Christmas book from the library’s free book cart.
Vintage greetings cards purchased at a flea market.
Vintage sticker that was stuffed into a bag with old Christmas ornaments from a thrift shop.
These are just a few examples of what types of graphics are good to use for journals and where you can find them. But don’t forget to look at napkins, coasters, food bags, labels, newspapers, magazines, flyers, food boxes and shopping bags. Great graphics are all around, you just have to slow down and look for them.
I hope you take your time this Christmas to see all the wonderful images marketing professionals put out there for us to enjoy!
glitteronmyface 