Birdsong Peeps and Swaps

One of the best things about Birdsong is the "peeps" as Karla calls us. Here's a group shot of most of us.

I was thrilled that my sister-in-art Terry came all the way from California to attend this year. This is our second time to attend a creative event together. If you're new to my blog, you can read about our initial meeting here.

Below is a pic of our table group at Karla's - me, Laurie, Tamatha, and Terry. Lisa was also at our table. She's busy in the background shooting photos. That's Hope Wallace Karney at the next table behind Laurie. So excited to meet her, and to have a chance to look through her current journal!

(Thanks to Karla for this photo and the group photo.)

There were three swaps this year at Birdsong. I joined two - the altered bottle swap and the banner swap. You can see the altered bottle I made here. For the swap the bottles were numbered and each participant drew to see which bottle she'd take home.

I received the bottle made by Lee. It's sweet, simple, and filled with vintage pearl buttons from Muscatine, Iowa. You can read about Muscatine's button factory history here. The front of the bottle has a pretty translucent bird, bits of lace, and charms. Lee handmade tiny paper and button flowers. The bottle is bigger than it looks in the photo. I'm not sure if I'll leave it as is or use some of the buttons, but I do love it!

I was partnered with Tami for the banner swap. The word choices for the banners were either Birdsong or Fly Away, and each banner was to have eight panels. We both chose Birdsong and a neutral palette with pink and/or aqua.

Each of the eight pennants of Tami's banner for me are completely unique and wonderful. I love all of the beautiful details she incorporated.

(Sadly, I somehow tore the crepe paper on this one before getting it home,
but I've since replaced it with some from one of Karla's project kits.)

Tami wasn't aware of it, but she incorporated a line from one of my very favorite songs.

Isn't it all so amazing? I am truly honored to be the recipient of all this creativity and hard work. It is now hanging so that it's the first thing you notice when you walk into my craft room.

The banner I made for Tami is simpler (typical for me!) I used sheet music for the base and adhered lace using Glitter Mod Podge. I surrounded the pale aqua ovals with vintage millinery and lace bits. At the bottom of each pennant I attached lace, tattered tulle and vintage tassel trim. I won't show an individual photo of every pennant as all are in the same style, but each one has different lace as a background and a different arrangement of vintage millinery and lace bits around the letters.

I'll be sharing some recent projects in my next post, but I may sneak in another Birdsong mention or two when I finish my last class project or run across something I've left out that I think you might like to see.

Birdsong Sponsor Gifts and Vendor Night Purchases

I know Birdsong is long past (well, a couple of months) but there's so much to share and I've lost a month due to my @%*$ PC issues. I'll have at least one more post to talk about swaps and friends, but I'm posting in the order I edit photos so today will be a quick post just to show some lovely sponsor gifts and vendor night purchases.

We each received a bag stuffed full of goodies from sponsors plus a few other things that wouldn't fit in the bags. So much swag - this isn't even all of it! These are mostly sponsor gifts but a couple of things are little gifts from table mates and friends. A lot of this will go into my Birdsong journal if I ever make one, but that may happen sooner rather than later (more on that below.) Click on any photo for a better view.

On Saturday night Karla, Lori Oles and Andrea Singarella set up tables loaded with wonderful items we could purchase. I didn't get a lot as my craft room is overflowing already but I couldn't resist a few things.

Aren't these bits perfect to make something beautiful for fall?

I couldn't resist all this pink and green vintage loveliness.

A bit more paper for my stash. It's always nice to have a variety.

Speaking of journals and paper, I signed up for Mary Ann Moss's Full Tilt Boogie class last November and finally watched the videos for the first of three types of bound journals. Have a feeling I'm going to LOVE making journals using the techniques she teaches. Lovely old albums and book covers, tons of papers - new, vintage, whatever - and pretty fabric scraps and ribbons. What's not to love, I ask you???

PC Hell

Just a quick post to say that I'm in PC hell! My new (April 2014) PC keeps crashing and HP won't replace it so I've spent hours and hours on the phone with them trying to restore it. Fortunately I had backed up my business files a few weeks ago to disks along with some of my photos as it appears everything on our hard drive AND our external hard drive has disappeared.

The PC is now headed back to HP for repair. I hope to have this issue resolved and be posting with lots of lovely photos again soon. Hope you'll stop by!

Birdsong Projects

On to the Birdsong projects! Lori Oles got us started on Saturday morning. We were each provided a granola bar/nutrition bar box and lots of vintage paper, lace, twigs and trinkets to transform our humble cardboard containers into beautiful shadow boxes. As always, the finished pieces were each unique and lovely.

I kept mine fairly simple. Hope Wallace Karney of Besottment by Paper Relics was there and gave us all a wonderful bird-themed collage sheet. I used the "fly" letters from that sheet. My tiny bird came from a piece of paper my friend Laurie had in her stash, and the lace and ribbon rosebud on the front were from my personal cache of best bits. I love the mossy wood-look paper Lori had for us to wrap around the outside, and the little twig-and-roses collage on top.

Lori provided enough items in her kit to complete at least one more shadow box, so I need to do that.

Class two on Saturday afternoon was Karla's Peat Pot Fairies. Most of our table opted for feline or canine fairies, as Karla had sheets of Dresden animal faces as well as pretty fairy and angel girls. Here's my little hound.

I love her ruffled crepe paper pantaloons and her glittery fairy dress.

Isn't this flower lovely? The perfect shade of aqua.

Sunday morning's project was Andrea Singarella's bracelet. I LOVE this bracelet! The blue beads, bling and bird charm are all lovely. Andrea and Karla had additional supplies for us to make earrings if we had time - and I did. Love those, too!

We had one more project with Karla - a lace and vintage paper mobile - which I didn't complete. I'm still working on it and hope to have it ready for viewing soon, but I'll be sharing swap photos in my next post.

For more Birdsong photos, check Karla's recent posts here, here and here.

Pre-Birdsong Shopping

On the Friday prior to Birdsong, many of us shopped in Kansas City's West Bottoms district. This area of old warehouses comes alive one weekend a month with vintage and antique shops and thousands of happy shoppers. Bad blogger that I am, I didn't carry my camera and my usually reliable iPhone produced some blurry shots (nothing to do with the photographer, I'm sure!)

Our favorite shop was the first one we visited, Good JuJu. Lots of fun things here. 

Blurry, but you get the idea. This was the display just inside the door. 

Laurie wanted a pic with the sign. Loved the name. Loved the shop.

I was really drawn to the color of this buffet. We saw it in the building behind Laurie in the photo above. I have my grandmother's buffet and have wanted to paint it for years, but have never been able to commit to a color. I'll have to think about this one.

Most people took photos of the shop signs. I took photos of a few buildings. These aren't overly special, but I love the look of old architecture. Someone said this one serves as a haunted warehouse for Halloween.

Almost forgot to include my purchases! I didn't get a lot - a music theory book, receipt book, vintage trim, a metal number 2, seals, a Victorian scrapbook page, and a jar of vintage stickers. Just a few of the stickers are shown here.

I'll be posting about Birdsong 4 Day One projects next. Hope you'll check back!

Gearing Up for Birdsong IV

I'll be heading to Lawrence, Kansas later this week to shop and attend Birdsong IV in the amazing studio of Karla Nathan. If you've been reading my blog for at least a year you may remember all the fun of Birdsong III. You can see photos here, here and here.

Birdsong IV includes two classes with Karla, one with Lori Oles, and one with Andrea Singarella. Karla and Lori taught wonderful projects last year and will again this year. I've always admired Andrea's work and look forward to making a beautiful bracelet as her project.

I'm in two swaps this year. The first is a one-on-one banner swap so I'll be showing photos of my creation and the banner I receive after I return. The other is a altered bottle swap. We aren't partnered for this one, so I can show you what I created.

When I found two small metal trays (probably ashtrays) earlier this year I knew I wanted to use them as frames. My altered bottle design began with this vintage postage stamp and one of the trays. I used Glossy Accents to set the stamp and the rhinestones.

I added a knob backing plate at the top, backed it with lace, velvet ribbon and feathers from my neighbor's guinea hens. I added a silvered knob at the top and tied seam binding, lace and ribbon around that. An embellished key and a bird charm were the final elements.

The back has a lace applique. If the recipient doesn't like the over-the-top look of the front, they can display the back.

This was my first altered bottle and I rather like how it turned out. I hope whoever receives it feels the same!

I'll have more on Birdsong next week. Hope you'll check back then!

A Bag and Some Tags

The last couple of weekends have been busy for us with errands and visiting, but we managed to squeeze in a few estate sales. I found more paper dolls that will be going into my Etsy shop, along with this very nice 1960s Etra clutch with an optional chain handle, a Victorian-style brass glove or hankie clasp, and three bell ornaments. The ornaments will probably go into my extensive collection - at least for now.

The clasp has rhinestones and faux emeralds and did have several baguettes on each side but sadly, all but one of the baguettes were missing when I found it.

My favorite find was this saleman's sample kit of Dennison tags from the 1950s or early 1960s. 

The envelopes contain various colors and sizes of tags. Most of the tags have printed information regarding sizes, materials and uses, but a few are blank.

There is a twine color chart, and there are envelopes with various weights and colors of twine and wire, as well as various clips, hooks and rings. I had no idea there were so many options.

My favorites are the size chart tags. There are both blue and black. I'm not sure what I'll do with this set, but I couldn't leave it behind. Because of the weight of the full set, I'll probably break the tags up into small lots and hope to attract some Dennison product lovers who might like them for journals and such. One thing is for sure - I'll be keeping a few myself!

Glitter Market Recap

What can I say about Glitter Market? It was totally enjoyable. The customers and other vendors were all so nice and welcoming, and my sales were much more than I even hoped for. A big thank you to Cindy at Paper Crown for all her work and for inviting me to participate.

A huge thank you to everyone who shopped! And to friends stopped by to shop and visit - thank you!

After I set up my space on Friday afternoon I was too busy looking at the wares from the other ladies and didn't remember to take photos. Thank heaven for Bobbie, who sent me photos without even being asked. Thank you, Bobbie! These are all her photos, with the exception of this first one.

This is my awesome friend Chris, who contacted me a few days before the event to volunteer her assistance. She helped me out for the first few hours and I was so glad to have her there. We got a little visiting in after the initial rush so that was a plus. Thank you, Chris!

My tablecloth could have used an iron. It's unbleached muslin and I didn't finish sewing on the doilies until late evening on the day before set up. Wrangling that much fabric was exhausting so ironing was out of the question. All the lovely frames were already there, courtesy of Paper Crown.

Many of the items sold, but a few will be going into my Etsy shop like that little white vanity box.

Another view of that end of the table.

My favorite things were these inspiration kits and ephemera packs. I had such a good time putting them together. The inspiration kits sold well, as did the smaller ephemera packs.

Be sure to check out Cindy's post on the Paper Crown blog here and Jackie's post on her Good Grief Girdie blog here to see some of the other goodies that were for sale.

This is a twice-yearly event at Paper Crown and something those in the know look forward to. If you'd like to shop the next Glitter Market, follow the Paper Crown blog and watch for the fall dates. You'll also be among the first to know when new items come in, and when new classes are posted.