Friday, September 26, 2014

Vintage Darlings Snippet Roll Swap Part Two - My Snippet Roll From Tabitha

Oh, yes - finally you get to see what Tabitha made for me for the Vintage Darlings snippet roll swap! Her work was exquisite as always, and the packaging was so sweet. I opened the box to find these little packets.


I had requested creams and neutrals for my snippet roll, and she found so many lovely things to include. She even made a tiny hanger for the spool!

Look at this little sweetheart! I love all the laces and the little beads.






































And, oh, this velvet ribbon! It's such a lovely shade, and there's a wonderful button.


Another cutie - don't you love that little pouty face surrounded by vintage millinery flowers?






































At the bottom Tabitha included some beaded floral bits. She didn't know that I had a few of those I used in swaps and had been hoarding my very last one to use on something for myself. I love them! Plus more velvet ribbon, beautiful lace and bugle beads.

She backed the roll with some vintage pieced satin. I thought at first it was just quilted, but every little square is a separate piece.






































She sent lots of pretties along with the snippet roll - a bingo card, crocheted lace, velvet ribbon and beaded trim - and I especially love the little crocheted bit and the "coquette" label.

Also, a fun necklace from Good JuJu (my favorite shop in KC's West Bottoms,) a pretty napkin, a cabinet card. pretty mocha lace, a tiny ball of crochet thread and a little frozen Charlotte.






































I feel totally spoiled. Thank you, Tabitha! And a big thank you to Heidi for organizing the swap!

For your viewing pleasure, here are links to blog posts by some of the other participants showing their snippet rolls. They're all wonderful!

Heidi and Jodie
Beth
Patty and Gypsy Rose
Laurie and Cerri

















Monday, September 22, 2014

Vintage Darlings Snippet Roll Swap

Heidi Meyer who blogs at Sugah Beez hosted a snippet roll swap and I was so happy to join in. The theme of the swap was Vintage Darlings and the rolls were to include vintage photos of children. My photos were all found on Pinterest.

My partner was Tabitha and, as we've swapped before, I knew I'd be receiving something special and wanted to be sure to make something she'd love. Her color choice was white with touches of pink, aqua and mint.

I started with a strip of vintage dobby linen from a table runner and embellished away. I used bits of lace fabric, crocheted trim, tiny faux pearls, buttons, a MOP buckle and ribbon. It's impossible to get a good photo of the entire roll as it hangs, so I'll show the photos of each section in the order they appear on the roll, from top to bottom.
A wide strip of lace was added to the back to keep it looking neat.


And here's it is hanging on the wall before I rolled it up to send to Tabitha along with a few goodies for her future projects.

This was the first snippet roll I've made, but I can tell it's going to be a bit addictive. If you'd like to see more, you can visit Sugah Beez post here for links to the other participants.

My next post will showcase the beautiful snippet roll I received from Tabitha.

Monday, September 15, 2014

Pink Themed Fabric Book No. 2

Earlier this year I finished a pink-themed fabric book for my friend Laurie (see it here) who had made me a fabric book a couple of years ago. This second pink book is for my friend Terry, who gifted me last year with with a beautiful satin glove box full of lovely pink vintage trim, buttons, and other pink pretties. I wanted to share something I created with the trims Terry gave me, but she isn't really a pink kind of girl. She loves all things black with some white and cream thrown in, so I added a few touches of black to the mix to make it more appealing for her. She got it last week and didn't go into shock over all the pink, so maybe that worked!






































Here's the cover with a bit of black and cream striped ribbon, some black tapestry ribbon and a black and gold filigree buckle. The base is a embroidered pink organdy dresser scarf with net ruffles attached.


The inside front cover has a pretty flourish I found at a fabric store in the clearance bin years ago. I knew I'd find a place for it someday!







































This page is probably my favorite.  I think the image came from The Graphics Fairy, but it's been so long since I started the book that I'm not really sure.


I wanted to use the crocheted flower, and like it with this stripe and the bit of old pink quilt.







































The base of this page is a beautiful lace hankie with an embroidered center. I added trim, buttons and ribbon. 


I added this page after we both attended Birdsong in June.







































The base of this page is fabric I purchased at French General when Terry and I met for the first time. The image was given to me as part of a swap. I copied it to fabric for the book.


This was an old pillowcase. I added some of the pink trim at the top of the page and on the dress.







































This page is a mix of old linens and a bit of organza trim, a vintage millinery flower and pretty black glass buttons.




One more bird, with a friendship quote printed on a bit of old glove leather.


This page is made with a vintage embroidered silk scarf. I included the "Top Hit Fashion by Baar & Beards" tag as part of the page. I used several trims on this page and a bit of hankie across the top.





























Somehow I managed to not get individual photos for the last page and inside back cover. Here they are together. More lovely French General fabric for the last page with some of the pretty pink trim from Terry, and a organza pocket on the inside back cover, accented with more of the pink and black trim used on the inside front cover. I included a note to Terry in the pocket.

Hope you enjoyed seeing this. I have one more pink book I'm working on - one for me. I might finish it in the next year or two!

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Nature's Blessings Journal Swap Pages

Advance notice - LOTS of photos in this post! Click on any of them for a slightly larger view.

Karla Nathan is hosting a Nature's Blessings journal swap. The fact that there are 78 participants in this swap is testament to how wonderful Karla and her projects are. She drew the artwork for the front and is individually creating a cover for each of the 78 books, plus additional blank books that were available for purchase. She's also making some journal pages. I don't know how she does it all! You can see her post about the swap here.

Anyway, participants are to make six journal "pages" with four sides each (each is a folded 8-1/2" x 11" piece of cardstock.) We send our pages to Karla and she'll send each of us a book with pages from six others, three blank pages, and a pretty doodled sheet she's created.  She's also done a tutorial for those who want to make their own journals (does she ever sleep???) You can get more information on the tutorial here.

My pages are, as always, not what I intended to create but I do like them. Since we have no idea whose pages we'll end up with, I'll share mine now. Here are the fronts of my six pages.






















































We were supposed to leave at least fifty percent of the space for the recipients to fill in with words or photos or whatever. I'm afraid I fudged a bit on that, although most of my "open" space is on the insides and backs. There are a couple of notecards, too, that open up for space to write.

Here are the inside layouts.









































































































































































I did all the backs the same except one, which actually turned out to be my favorite. This page was on "Beauty" paper from Authentique's Harmony collection. Of course I only had one sheet, but if I'd had the patience to wait until I could get to Paper Crown I'd have made all my pages on this paper. I'm hoping they have more when I go Thursday (fun class, more on that in a later post.)
The others were very similar to the page below.
I found some really lovely washi tape on Etsy from WashiTapeManiac. I got the nature-themed tape in the photo above and also the pretty blue rose print with the background wording and the metallic gold dot shown in some of the earlier photos. WashiTapeManiac has die cut tapes, cute labels and lots more. I'm only passing this along because I feel they have a great selection and thought some of you might be interested (no benefit to me.)

So there you have it. I can hardly wait to get my book back from Karla and see the pages created by six others - I'll share when I do - but I have a feeling it may be a bit before she gets all those 78 books together and mailed. Gotta love her!


Monday, September 1, 2014

Thrift Store and Estate Sale Finds

This past Wednesday I checked out a nearby thrift store that I'd not visited before. The shop was loaded with the usual non-vintage clothing and decor items, but a bit of digging in the sewing and craft section turned up a plastic bag of treasure - a batch of beautiful handmade lace!

I almost teared up! It's all so intricate and delicate. Just think of all the time and patience that goes into pieces like these, and then they end up in a plastic bin underneath a lot of cheap ribbon and trim. I'm so glad I found them!
These cuff pieces are my favorites, I think. The upper cuffs were made in sections and then sewn together. The single cuff has tiny seed beads sewn along the edges.

























A friend messaged me Thursday morning about a sale but I was still asleep. By the time I saw her message she was leaving the sale (I'm a night owl, what can I say?) I wouldn't have gone to this sale based on the photos on Craigslist because it was mostly vintage toys and I'm not really into those. BUT, she said it was a great sale with a lot to dig through (magic words!) I did wait until Friday to go, and still found wonderful things. Thanks, Becky!
I love these hats! The one with white lace is a baby bonnet. It's a bit damaged but I'm hoping to be able to clean it. The tiny row of flowers along the bottom of the photo are on a organza baby bonnet. They're on the inside so they frame the face. Cute!


























This is just a small portion of the linens, all with handmade lace edging. Some of these look like they were stored in Oklahoma red dirt, but that just adds to their charm. I especially like the sailboat lace.
These little shoes are very rough but I couldn't resist those button tops. The fabric is just a small piece but cute, and the child's cat and mouse hankie is sweet.
I bought several small boxes of sewing items. I love all of these pieces. The red and cream silk ribbon rosette was attached to an old powder puff.

And there were buttons! These were overpriced so I went back on Saturday to see if I could get them for half. I was able to negotiate a fairly good price because I bought all they had, and while I still probably paid too much based on the condition of the cards, I do love them.
These are my favorites. The berries and tiny green rhinestone buttons are particularly wonderful and, oh, those Mermaid Pearls! Fabulous!

I just love weeks with lots of treasures!