Jack in white

My San Diego friend Julie lent me a bunch of her old family photos to scan. Among them was this marvelous picture of her father Jack. I just love it. His big grin, his crossed ankles, his little knee socks. Too effing cute!

When Christmas rolled around, I came across that pic while looking for something else and knew I had to do something with it. Julie and I always exchange something handmade, so I printed off the pic and went to work.

I swathed it in old lace, draping and stitching as I went with no real plan. My inspiration was the totally scrumptious things that Suzy makes. Go look at her blog. Scroll thru a few posts so that your brain can really take in the sumptuousness of her work. I can't even imagine how much lace she puts into each project. Gorgeous work.

Anyhow, being such a ohmygodIcan'tuseitallup!!! person, I did my level best to go crazy, but it still looks pretty skimpy compared with hers LOL.

I hung a bit of old chain with a Tim Holtz metal tag that says 'cherish' on it, and glued a fancy vintage button up in the corner. Click to embiggen altho it isn't crystal clear. I scanned it but should have taken better pictures.

The back is a page from a geography book her mother made in 8th(?) grade. She knows I love old paper and actually use it, so she gave me the book. I was amazed. It is so cool. Full of her handwriting and pictures she clipped and glued in. Lots of the red highlighting that you see in the picture. Very very cool.

Julie loved it!

a good swap

The neat card she made me. Love the sprigged paper along the edges.

I ran into Jan somewhere - a swap, a forum. Now I feel like a dolt cause I can't remember, but anyway we decided to swap prayer flags. Actually, it was prolly via Lenna's flag swap.

We both like old lace and vintage stuff, so here's what went back and forth across the ocean. (she's in England)

The beautiful flag she sent.
It's so much cooler in person cause the fabric flower
is totally squished by the scanner.
The old rayon seam binding is great. Love it all. 

It's so rewarding to have a swap go well. My package took forever to get there and I was just about to start working on another flag for her when she let me know it finally arrived. Good thing - I was about to go down and picket the P.O.!

Thanks, Jan!

She included a bunch of neat Christmas ephemera.
I used the kid on the sled on my December
calendar page here.

The flag I sent her. Lots of vintage lace and bits of
an ancient shawl.

A little cluster of clippings on the back.
The green backing is an old piece of silk, lovely stuff.

a tour of my guest room

The guest room is the one place in the house where I can go nuts with the antiques and the grunge and the lace. The one place that doesn't get messed up regularly by actual living, and doesn't need to be practical and easy to clean. It's a display room for all some a small part of the fun stuff I've collected over the years. 

This picture apparently wants to be at the top so badly that I can't convince
Blogger to move it so we'll start with it. This is the far corner as you come into the room.
Dresser to the left, desk and cabinet to the right.
Old family photos in their original frames, lacy side table and doilies all over the lamp.
I'm not showing the bed this time around because I have it stripped down to the
mattress pad so the dog can look out the window and bark at anyone
who has the nerve to use the sidewalk.  

This is the left side of the window, at the foot of the bed.
I bought this oak dresser when I moved out of my mom's house in 1970. I was 17
and still in high school but had a good job and a car. I paid $85 for it, a fortune at the time,
at the antique flea market they used to have in the parking lot out in front of the
Cunningham's drug store I worked at. The mirror tilts and I never had the
silvering repaired, altho I thought about it often enough. That dresser has lived in Michigan,
Illinois and California since I've had it. No telling where all it was before that.

Some old sewing goodies. The large round thing hold several spools of thread
 with a pincushion in the center. I'm a prancing horse in the photo and
my cousin Dea is about to shoot me in the head with her pistol. 

My mother is at front right standing in the washtub with the other neighborhood kids
around 1927. That's her dad in the frame at right. My grandma's little bitty
address book in front of him with her spidery writing. Old leather hair curlers
in front of the kids and a triangle chicken I made at left. 

If I could find a whole set of these dishes, no telling how much I'd be willing
to pay for them, but I've never even spotted another piece at all the
 flea markets and thrift stores I've been to over the years.
Lovely old dresser scarf.

A long shot of the dresser top. I layered 4 or 5 dresser scarves.

A reproduction wall cabinet with various salt and peppers on top.
A large set of made in Japan shakers on the first shelf and
an old pitcher and jar of Leslie's Foot Cream on the second shelf.
Close ups below.

Standing over by the dresser. I put a shelf with pegs above the closet
and hung a garland that my friend Moneka and I made years ago.
Closer shot of the shelf below. Picked up the old wooden ironing board
at a yard sale just the other day.
They said it came with them from Connecticut, but not way to prove it.
That's an old crazy quilt hanging from the cabinet. Close up below.

Part of the crazy quilt and a pin I made years ago.

Chair at right of dresser with pillows I made from old quilts.
The small crazy quilt is one I made during and after a class with
Betty Pillsbury. It was about 100 that day and 14 crazy quilt ladies
were packed into Julie's family room.
That's still one of the top 5 weekends of my life.

The small drop front desk from Steve's side of the family.
His mom entrusted me with a lot of the old family things
because she knew I loved them and would really enjoy having them.
I've had the mirror for years, love the shape of the top edge.
The bed is immediately to the left.

I have so many old doilies that I can't decide which ones to use, so I layer them. 

I bought this old doll at least 30 years ago for a couple bucks.
I know she's quite old but I don't know anything about dolls
and have never had her appraised. I forget if there are any maker's marks.

Another made in Japan shaker. I absolutely adore this one.
The pink and brown, the crazing, the raised work - everything about it.

Lenna's prayer flag swap

Lenna has got a prayer flag swap going and I think there are a few spots left. Altho I'm not a religious person, once I read up on prayer flags, I liked the concept well enough to join. Pretty much the only requirements were a final size of 5" wide x 8" tall with a sleeve at the top for hanging.

I started out with a couple old damask napkins from my stash, no telling when I bought them but for sure they're from a thrift store. I cut them into the proper sizes, then did some stamping on a few of them with an old Tibetan wood block I got from a weird little junk store when I first moved to CA. It didn't print real well, so I lost my oomph for the project and they sat on my work table for a couple weeks.

Then I decided to dye the fabric with various spray inks and distress stains. That was a lot of fun and I got happy with them again. Did some more stamping with a dot-textured roller from my husband's Garage of Gadgets and made some big arcs with the cardboard inner roll from a large roll of packing tape.

Found a scrap of upholstery fabric sample from years ago when my friend Moneka gave me literally boxes of sample books that an upholstery store had put in a dumpster near her house. I've gotten a lot of mileage from those samples. Stamped "confidence" on it in turquoise ink, then cut it into strips. I went thru my drawers of lace and pulled out bits and pieces of trims I'd dyed over the years.

When Julie was here last weekend we went to the Lace Museum in Sunnyvale where they had a 'fill a bag with scraps for free' thing going. Among the things I got was a large piece of quite damaged pale yellow cut-work that was perfect, so I cut a piece for each flag. Stitched everything onto the flag with various aqua and blue plain old floss, then added some beads to hold the lace on. Folded the top over to make a sleeve with a running stitch.

The three shown here are for the swap. My two mail art buds are also in the swap so we're each making two more to swap among ourselves. We'll end up with 5 flags which is a nice number to hang in the back yard or craft room. The ones I made for them are a bit different - don't want to give it away before we swap them in Sept.

A simple enjoyable project made completely from things I had on hand. Doesn't get much better than that. Soon they'll be dispersing confidence vibes into the air. Lenna's swaps get people from all over the world, so no telling where they'll end up.

serious retail therapy

A couple days ago my husband left on fishing trip. A week long fishing trip. On a large boat. Those aren't especially cheap. Now I'm not one of those women who feels that just because their husband spent $79.95 on a brand new whiz-bang whatever, that they get to run out and spend an equivalent $79.95 just to keep things 'even.' No.

But I DO feel that when said husband is off enjoying himself immensely while I'm home taking care of the animals, the business, the everything, that I should get to go have at least a little fun.

So I went shopping! First stop was the thrift store where I scored a black skirt as part of my Goth Halloween costume for $1.99. Also bought a funky little vase cause I'm determined to keep more flowers around the house and all I had was a couple great big ones.

Then off to the little antique mall in the next town over. It isn't huge, as those things go, about 50 vendors, but I never fail to find good stuff. This time I hit the jackpot.

(since I can never get @&#% Blogger to put my text where I want it in relation to the photos, I'm going to use the caption feature)    All these images are at my camera setting of 180 dpi, so you might want to wait until I get them scanned at 300 dpi before saving them to use, altho if 180 works for you, go for it.

An old ledger from a gas station that also sold a few groceries, kinda the forerunner of 7-11s,
I guess. It has months and days but no year...

Every single thing they sold each and every day was written into this ledger in pencil.
If you double click on the pic, you can see that some of the gas sales were noted
as 'ethel,' the good stuff.

'Pop' and candy were each a nickel. Gas was 16 cents a gallon. Can you imagine? 

I picked out a bunch of cabinet cards and old pictures from an unmarked basket and when she started
adding them up at 3 for $5, I tried to stop her cause I said I couldn't afford them all. She just wrote
down $15 and went onto the next item. So I got 19 of them for $15. Score!!!  I'll be giving away that
duplicate of the lady with the white bow, so stay tuned and let your friends know.

Isn't she lovely? Look how smooth her skin is.
She oughta look ridiculous with that tulle pom-pom on top of her head,
but instead she looks almost regal, like an early Russian princess.

And this one... no jewelry, no hat, no frilly collar. Just that lovely up swept hair and
those haunting eyes. I would love to know her story.

The gents and couples, including the sisters grim in the back.

I love this guy. I'd've gone after him in a New York minute if he'd been around when I was single.

This friendship album was in a locked case so I figured it cost a bundle. I asked her to get it out anyway
so I could look at it. Imagine my surprise when I found I could afford it.
It was marked $15 and she was having a 30% off sale. I couldn't believe my luck.

This is the oldest inscription in the album. 1883. Almost 130 years old and it's still in very good shape.
I'll share all the pages as I get them scanned. I may even give one away.

Last but not least, three old doilies and a crocheted pillowcase edging. All four for $5.
I had a really good day...

fragile

DH was out of town yesterday and today, so I've spent the day:
1) walking the dog in the cool of morning
2) browsing the bookstore with a mocha and a cinnamon scone
3) watching the last day of Le Tour as marvelous Cadel wins for Australia and Cavendish demolishes the sprinters
4) playing in the studio
However, don't be too jealous because in the hour before he gets home I'll be:
1) doing the pile of dishes that seems to always accumulate no matter whether anyone is eating at home or not
2) sucking up the dust bunnies who thrive under my furniture and occasionally have the bad manners to waft into view
3) shuffling the mountain of art supplies on the kitchen table back into the studio

BUT... meantime, I made another journal page using fabric and lace. I really enjoy this process, and was more confident making this one. Didn't bother Tacky gluing things in place, I just started stitching.

That's me at around a year old, I suppose, toddling around the married student housing that my parents lived in while attending Purdue University. I aged it a bit with Distress Stains, then lots of sprayed water until it ran and softened.

I used cross stitch fabric as a base. It's kind of stiff and I thought it might work well, which it did.

I lay down a couple pieces of flat lace, then the image printed onto fabric. Once those had a few seams in them, I dug around and found the very fine lace on the right edge. It was fairly long, maybe a baby dress hem or something.

Then I looked over the stamping I'd done earlier and settled on 'fragile.' Cut a bit of fabric to put to the right of it, and added some crumpled trim and some old buttons.

The bottom needed something, so I cut a point off a tattered old crocheted doily. I like the shade of it with the rest of the fabrics.

I like this a lot but it still isn't the heavily layered look that I so admire. I'm not sure I can do that LOL. It just isn't me, so I'll be happy with this and maybe try to add a bit more stuff on the next one.

This will be the right side of a spread. No idea yet what will be on the left.

mom in fur and lace

I like this picture of my mother. She has a fur coat on (beaver?) and it's snowing. I suspect it was taken in Dayton OH where she lived after high school, working at a newspaper, and she's maybe 20 years old. Hard to tell and it's not dated.

I've been admiring the wonderful lacy fabric journal pages done by this artist and this one for quite a while now. I have all the stuff to do this - fabric, lace, buttons, old photos - just needed to wait for the right moment to come along, I guess.


This afternoon, after the dog park, after two loads of laundry, after baking gingerbread cupcakes and chocolate chip craisin oatmeal cookies, I finally felt like giving it a go.

I used a page from an old book that I'd painted green, then played around layering tea-dyed fabrics and bits of lace until I liked the look. I stuck each piece down with little dots of Tacky Glue so that the whole thing wouldn't shift around while I was sewing.

The image of my mom was printed onto really thin fabric years ago, literally, and I didn't bother trying to peel the paper off the back, or she would have been too transparent.

The lace that's sewn around her is from a big old ball that I bought probably ten years ago and have used steadily ever since. I never measured how much was in the ball but it had to be twenty yards cause I've been using it forever. And I paid a buck for it. I remember cause it was the day I bought home a big old bag of stuff, none of which I paid more than a dollar for. Don't find deals like that much any more.

Added a few mother of pearl buttons and called it done. It'll be the right side page of a spread in the journal I started for the 4 Artists 4 Ways class, which you can see here, here, and here. It features me, my mother and her mother, and I did multiple spreads using each of the four artists' techniques. This will be the first spread using Lisa's lessons. I'm quite happy with how it turned out and will be doing more of these soon.

I have to admit that while looking thru my laces, at first I had the thought, 'oh, this is too good to use.'

Really??

No, not really. As soon as I thought that, I grabbed the piece and used it. I absolutely refuse to die with all this wonderfulness and have someone pawing thru it at a yard sale going, 'I wonder why in the hell she didn't use this stuff when she had the chance?'

pear with spoon

Well... just got done playing around with my camera and then photoshop, and I have an image I'm very happy with.

I took several pictures of a pear with some lace and an old spoon, then chose one and began to play with textures and layers. This is the original photo. Not bad but not very interesting.

Twenty minutes and lots of 'undo's later, I have this. Much more interesting.

from the shelves...

When I set up my collage area, I made a point to use all my old boxes, tins, and bowls. No more cardboard and plastic. Over the years, I've collected several old carved or wood burned boxes. I've seen them called glove boxes, altho not all of mine are the long and slender shape I'd associate with gloves. I love the look of them on the white shelves, along with canning jars of button, bowls of threads and laces, and whatever else I have stashed there at the moment.

Since moving my collage area into my home office, I've rearranged the stuff on the shelves about 20 times, trying to fit it all in, keep the most used stuff closest, etc. Here are some pics of the current incarnation.

The bottom right box is a drawer from an old sewing table. I have a few of those on the shelves, as well. The lace is a doily I found on a thrift shop run with my friend Julie. On top of the upper box is a little glasses case I made from an old quilt and to the left of that are some old leather curlers with a piece of metal inside. I can't even imagine using them to curl your hair. Seems like the leather would smell when wet. or maybe they aren't curlers, but I can't think what else they might be.










I'm the horse and my cousin is about to shoot me in the head. I haven't written about the pink flower pin yet, but it's soemthing I made in a class I took at Nostalgic Needle Arts several years ago.







This is an old cigar box that my mother had all her life. Inside are small tin figures of animals and objects. Tons of them. I thing they were a giveaway in boxes of tobacco or something when she was a child. I need to figure that out cause they might actually be worth something and I certainly don't need them all.






The top box on the right is one of my favorites. Clear, strong designs in relief against a burned background. These old boxes almost always smell good inside - musty and old, but good.










I paid 25 cents for this old restaurant bowl because I loved the green stripes. That's my shade of green. I wound some old crochet cotton around some old spools and put them in there with some vintage crochet hooks and other sewing doodads.