Indulge Your Shelf

I had an impromptu crafting session the other night with Rebecca.  She recently tried out the Annie Sloan chalk paint and invited me to bring over something to paint. So I showed up with some pieces of antique architectural trim that I had bought a couple of years ago, in Kansas I think, and a piece of great old, rusty garden fencing that I picked up the other day at a local antique store . We each painted a length of trim white (one coat) and then cut some fencing (which was NOT easy!) to fit it.  We nailed the wire to the trim. I really like the way the wire looks against the white board. Then we used pliers to bend the bottoms of the wire into "hooks".  The finished piece can be used to clip tags or other paper ephemera onto for display...and/or hang stuff from the hooks on the bottom. I might even decorate the part of the fence that is nailed to the trim with a word formed from found pieces of junk.   I've always wanted to do that!  I'll show ...

I'm excited to be a new contributor at the fun blog, Tag Tuesday .  Each week we have a theme, create a tag, and post it.   Then we get to enjoy everyone's tags all week. My first tag, for the letter "U", is now up on the blog .  Everyone's welcome to visit/follow along!

I have been scrap happy lately, busily putting together something new in Leaves and Lace : those long-promised fabric scrap packs! In the small ones (above), I included pieces of the new and vintage fabrics I used in my inside cover pages of the Breakfast at Tiffany's fabric book , now appearing in the Summer 2013 issue of Somerset Studio Gallery . There are enough pieces to create a page of your own, or some crazy quilt blocks, or to use as an embellishment for tags -- or whatever you would like in a cheery NY theme! Audrey-inspired vintage buttons and fancy trims complete the package. Then...I've also made some scrap packs full of a wide variety of vintage fabrics from my stash.  I think it can be fun and challenging to create from a kit like this of pieces someone else put together, for a change. These large kits include some really fun handmade vintage quilt scraps, completed, pieced "blocks"... old fabrics, Irish linen, hand crocheted vintag...

summer seems to have arrived in Southeastern Colorado!  I'm just going to go ahead and call it summer because we didn't have anything resembling Spring here, and I'm over it.  These lilacs are the first color in my garden this year -- if you don't count my bulbs' failed, brave attempts at blooming through the late snow and cold! I see sunny skies ahead!  So does Little Bo Peep.  Funny story: I found this planter at an estate sale Thursday, just after conversing with Magpie Ethel about favorite nursery rhyme characters.  Hers is Humpty Dumpty, mine is Bo Peep. What a coincidence, huh?   There was nothing else like this at the sale, so I think it was meant for me. I was invited to the sale by my friend Kathy.  Kathy always has the BEST junk and she loves everything I love, too; I met her at one of our local antique fairs. And look what she had waiting for me (above)! She's after my own heart! gorgeous vintage apron with satin ribbon...

I received my contributor's copy of the Summer 2013 issue of Somerset Studio Gallery yesterday! In this lovely, aqua issue, they included three pages from the Breakfast at Tiffany's fabric book I worked on with six friends! It's in the Special Book Section, and shows my cover, Tami Hacker's page, and Suzanne Wingfield's page! Plus, a mention of all the other contributors: It's been a dream of mine to have work in one of their magazines, and what could be better than appearing with some of your best artsy friends?  It's on newsstands on June 1! The book was so pretty that of course I wish they could have shown all the pages; if you haven't already seen it, here's a link to the blog post I did about it when we finished so you can see the whole book!

I have visited a few estate sales lately and found them mostly crowded and thin on the stuff I love. Does that affect you the way it does me?  It makes me more determined than ever to uncover a treasure! At one sale, I liked these blingy little buttons; they are sewn onto a piece of velvet and then the velvet has a snap on the other side.  So, I guess it was an embellishment.   But to me, just two pretty vintage buttons! Check out these beaded poinsettias -- hand made by someone long ago.  I love finding little boxes of Christmas kitsch!   I haven't decided yet to keep or sell them.   They are listed in my shop now ! A little made-in-Japan spun cotton girl doll -- or is it an elf?  Look at those big eyes. I thought she was cute and she's in great condition, so she's going in my shop  for sure. Something unusual: a little girl's hat.  It is made of a kind of shiny terry cloth, in pale blue, and lined with satin... then it hol...