Gifts and Finds

Just a bit of catching up today. My birthday was Thanksgiving day, and I received gifts from a couple of my artsy friends. Laurie sent me a box full of handmade and vintage goodness.

I love the pretty pumpkin she made and the velvety letters. The tiny vintage tinsel is silver and green, and there's a lovely vintage card, a star wand and a fabric image to use in a future project.

She sent wonderful vintage wallpaper, seals, the sweetest vintage felt Santa tag, tiny glass cherries, and a card of wonderful French General trim.

Isn't this a pretty little pennant? The heart is stamped clay. She sent along a cute card, too. Thanks, Laurie!

My friend Jeanne gave me the cutest notecarts with a pop-up design inside, holiday cupcake toppers, and these pretty rose soaps. I might have to just keep them to look at, but they do make me crave frosting roses. Thank you, Jeanne!

We took a quick trip to Texas early in the month. We didn't have much time for shopping but on the trip home I did manage to find this glove box, old plastic pin, and a bit of rusty goodness.

Everything above came from a nearby estate sale. The dogwood tablecloth came with four napkins. The keys are kind of unusual with their heart-shaped holes. The bar piece on the one key turns.

I love these green record and journal books. They came from another sale last weekend.

Today's sale was at a home in one of OKC's beautiful historic districts. Most everything there was from the 1950s or before. I scored this trio of cute Santas with their tags still intact. Although they're probably post-1950s, they're still vintage and cute.

This pretty little box will probably be used for a swap at some point. Two of the millinery bunches are pins - the red and the pink/purple.

I found lots of vintage paper doilies to add to my stash, including some in silver and gold, but the creamy aged ones are my favorites.

The lace is wrapped around an old letter. The compact is cream plastic and in excellent condition. One of the Cowboy crayons (or colored pencils) is missing, but I bought it for the box which is in great shape. The little Oilwell pocket calendar is unused. The orange and black make it perfect for a tiny Halloween book.

That's all for today! I do still have a couple of December journals to show in the next few days.

Hope you're enjoying the holiday season!

Nature's Blessings Journal - My Book, Part Two

My last post showed half of the pages in my book from Karla's Nature's Blessings Journal Swap. Today I'll share the remaining pages. If you missed the last post, you can find it here.

The beautiful pages below were created by Robin at onceuponapinkmoon.blogspot.com.

These stunning pages were made by Lisa P. from Texas.

And last but certainly not least, these gorgeous pages were created by Nora N. (no blog.)

Karla created a doodle page for the swap, and sent everything along with a sweet little blessing.

Hope you've enjoyed seeing all the beauty created by these talented ladies. Books seem to be what I've been doing for the last few months, and I'll have a couple of Christmas journals to show soon.

Happy creating!

Nature's Blessings Journal - My Book, Part One

It's a bit late, but I wanted to share the beautiful pages from the book I received from Karla Nathan's Nature's Blessings Journal Swap a few months ago. There are a quite a few pages so I'll show them in two posts.

Karla made the covers which all include a copy of her original angel drawing. She used vintage wallpaper, millinery flowers and lace to make each cover special and unique.

Each participant made six "signatures" with each consisting of four pages. Karla compiled them into sets of six that looked lovely together, then bound them into the cover with three blank signatures so that we can add to our books. I won't comment on each set of pages individually, but they are all beautiful as you'll see. I'll list the artist prior to each set. 

My first set of amazing pages is from Lorraine at Over the Rainbeau.

I'm not sure who made the second lovely set of pages, as it just lists the blog name and I've not been able to access the blog. The blog is somewouldevensayitglows.blogspot.com. If the artist sees this or if anyone reading is familiar with this blog, I'd love to know. I'll try to check with Karla, too.

The next wonderful pages are by Cheryl Stoneham, who I met at Silver Bella in 2010. I didn't find a blog for her.

So much talent and loveliness! I'll be sharing the pages from the other three artists in my next post, so be sure to check back. If you missed the pages I made, you can see them here.

White Christmas Button Book Swap 2014 - What I Received

My partner for the Button Floozies' White Christmas Button Book swap was Diane from Cottage Wishes. She used both paper and fabric to create a really special book for me. Click on any photo to see a larger version.

It came wrapped in a doily that Diane cleverly laced with ribbon to create a pouch. I've not seen anyone do this before but I love the technique.

The book inside was wrapped with a bit of tucked fabric with a pretty tag attached. "JOY" is written in buttons, and that's a tiny baby bootie in the upper right corner. So sweet!

The inside cover is collaged, and a pretty embellished hankie forms the first page.

A little burlap pocket holds a bundle of pretty buttons.

This page has an unusual metal and glass button and a pretty beaded spray.

Isn't this little felt mitten the cutest?

I love this little glove on a vintage postcard. There's even a button "ring" on one finger.

And here's a cute little button snowman!

The back cover has lace, vintage wallpaper, and a label - three of my favorite things.

These are just some of the pages in the wonderful book Diane made. You can see other pages and some close-ups of pretty details on her blog here. If you'd like to see more button books from this swap, check out the Button Floozies blog here or Laurie's Indulge Your Shelf blog. There are several posts on both blogs, so click on "Older Posts" on each blog to see the rest.

Button Floozies' White Christmas Button Book Swap - What I Made

I'm SO behind on blog posts! Our lemon of a PC went out (total monitor freak out) the day before Thanksgiving. HP sent a box and we shipped it to them on the 28th and just got it back yesterday. This time we didn't lose any files, thank goodness, but I'm behind on blogging, record keeping, and other important things like looking at Pinterest, Instagram and Bloglovin'!

Laurie organized a White Christmas Button Book Swap on the Button Floozies blog, so of course I had to join in. Today I'll show you the book I made. We had the option to make either a fabric or paper book, and since I do my best work in fabric that's what I chose.

I used a photo from Pinterest for the cover, and tried my best to find the original source but couldn't. It's a lovely photo, and I used buttons to line the snowy path between the trees. I added a few glittery rhinestones and a bit of sequined trim.

This quote seemed like a good fit for the inside cover. An old snowflake pin worked well.

This page has snowflake sequins and glitter under a layer of organza with a bit of lace and a rhinestone button.

I cut flowers from a few pieces of fabric and lace for this page.

This one is fairly simple. I used some antique embroidered eyelet edging that I found this past summer with MOP buttons.

Another simple page with some batting and a strip of crocheted lace.

This page featured a pocket made from a bit of vintage tablecloth. I inserted a little bag of additional buttons for my partner.

Another simple page with two laces over dotted Swiss fabric, and carved MOP buttons.

This tree was made from small bits of lace and accented with small buttons. A pretty iridescent rhinestone button acts as a tree topper.

Another lace pocket with a card of vintage buttons.

I added this page to commemorate the swap group and date, and added a bit of ruffled tulle along the edge.

And a bit more lace for the back cover.

It was difficult to pack this one up to send away. I really loved how it turned out, and it was fun to make. Hope my partner is enjoying it! In my next post I'll share the very creative book she sent to me.