Paper Feathers 2.0

Remember when I made these paper feathers last year?  And showed you HOW I made them.

They sold really well in my booth at Stars, so I decided to make more.  But I noticed that the last few leftovers got very ‘crunchy’ over time and cracked and broke easily when handled.   Time to re-think the process to make them hold up better and longer.

Pretty much the same supplies: bamboo skewers, old sheet music and book pages and glue.  I decided to use regular Elmer’s glue instead of thinned down tacky glue this time.

 

First I glued the bamboo skewer down the center of a scrap piece of book page.  Left them to dry overnight.   I did a couple dozen at a time.

I used scrap cardboard, the fronts and backs of old cereal boxes, cut into thirds; glued the skewer/paper to the center of one side of the cardboard.  Let dry.

Then I glued a piece of pre-cut sheet music or book page paper to both sides of the cardboard.  This project uses a LOT of glue.  The average size on my feathers is 7″ x 3″, and I went through a 4oz bottle of glue for each dozen feathers.

I used the handles of my scissors, but you could use a boning tool or any other ‘hard edge’.  After I placed my paper atop the skewer side of my cardboard, I ran the handles of my scissors along the skewer, to work out any air bubbles.

Once I had several of them this far, I IRONED them.  Yep. I ironed them.  This helped set the glue and work out any air bubbles and to keep the cardboard nice and flat.  The glue wasn’t 100% dry at this point, so I let them sit overnight before cutting them.

Then I cut them into a feather shape, then I cut the feather slits.

I came across one small kerfuffle in the process.  When I cut the slits in some of them, the paper was coming loose from the cardboard.  This happened after I had had no problem with about 40 of them, so I was perplexed!

I just tossed out the one that came apart.  A few minutes later, it happened again?!?  What’s the deal with THIS batch??  I just tossed that one out too.  Then it happened to the very next one.  What the heck am I doing wrong??  Is this whole batch going to fall apart???

I decided to investigate a little further and pulled the paper completely off the ones that were coming apart and discovered that they were all from the same box!  So I ended up having six of them in total come apart like this.  Not really sure what was so different about that particular cereal box that caused this to happen; but I can tell you that it was the one and only ‘store brand’ cereal box that I had in my stash.  So, FWIW, keep that in mind if you decide to make these. 

I’ve already taken a big batch of them to Stars, and made a second batch for the upcoming Spring show.

Time for another SALE @ STARS!!

Just what you need to fend off those winter blahs!!  Shopping therapy!

STARS 5-day sale

Thursday, February 28th – Monday, March 4th

11am – 6pm ~  Both stores.

I just took in TEN BOXES of fresh product this week to ready my booths for the sales.

I brought in my beach cottage decor.

 Mermaid crowns, shell topped bottles, beachy lanterns and candles.

How fabulous is this shabby white wood trough?!?  I’ve used it to display some beach decor in, (floating starfish frames, white glittered sugar starfish and some metal bowl fillers) but you could use it for dozens of other things.  Perfect piece for the center of your farmhouse table.

I made these sweet little beach lamps.  Found the lamps at an estate sale, and filled the clear glass bases with an assortment of shells and beach glass.

These one of a kind lamps are $49.00 each.  OR $49.00 for BOTH during the sale!

The shabby beachy crates UNDER the table are for sale too!

These fishbowl beachscapes are so much fun to make.

These little ‘six section crates’ make handy little display shelves for smaller items.

Small sea glass wreaths, framed pictures and framed shells.  Beverage bottles and shell topped bottles.

Beachy wreaths and framed shells are hung on the side of my other booth.

***Helpful hint:  If you have some starfish or shells that you want to mount and frame, use a piece of sandpaper for the backing. 

Vintage ironstone creamers, sugar bowls, soup/cereal bowls and butter bells.  Vintage glass snack sets and apple shaped snack plates.

Lots more Ironstone dishes and cake stands.

I’ve added lots of newly procured vintage milk glass pieces too.

Two little pink chairs and a little pink scalloped edge shelf, perfect for a little girl’s room.  Upcycled male and female mannequins are great decor pieces.

Regular price on the male is $129.00 ($64.50 at half off during the sale)  Female mannequin is $155.00 ( $77.50 at half off during the five-day sale only)

My wall booth is stocked plentifully for the sale too!

Pretty white frames, gold glitter metal crown, big vintage jar filled with dried Hydrangea (from my very own garden!) sweet little crystal accent lamp.

Another little accent lamp, this one is an upcycled vintage Ball Mason jar, next to an upcycled vanity mirror tray.   Unique shape, narrow bird cage.  Gold cherub jewelry box and gold metal cake stand.

Little brown glass jars and itty bitty glass vials with plastic lids.  I’m really not sure what people use these little jars and vials for, but they always seem to sell well.

Vintage lamp tables.

Heavy duty set of wicker nesting tables with cast iron legs.  Priced individually at $29.00, $39.00 and $49.00; because if I priced them as a set ‘someone’ will want to buy just one of them.  Pricing them individually just makes it easier.  Of course you can buy the entire set still; you just don’t HAVE to.

50% OFF SALE PRICE FOR THE SET OF 3 IS $58.50.

There are three graduated sizes of these metal tables too, but they don’t ‘nest’.  They will ‘stack inside each other’ for transporting, but they have to be displayed individually.  (It’s kind of difficult to explain without being able to show you!)  They make nice little plant of lamp stands and are light weight enough to hang on the wall.

It’s difficult to see the second one in the picture on the left.  It’s just below the other one, and I used the third one under one of the beach lamps.

A new batch of hand crafted paper feathers, made from vintage book pages and sheet music.  I made this batch of the differently than I did the first ones.  Tutorial to follow soon.  Upcycled gold metal cloche on upcycled metal dessert stand.  Vintage cherub statues.

Get out and get yourself some BARGAIN SHOPPING THERAPY at Stars!

MORE Christmas in my booth at Stars

Took the rest of my Christmas goods to Stars this week.

Both of my spaces are fuller than full!

Plenty of vintage white Ironstone dishes in my wall space.

 Unique hand crafted gift boxes, perfect for that ‘little gift’ or gift cards.

Hand painted Christmas signs, red glass jar lanterns come with a battery votive and SO CUTE little vintage style car with tree on top ornaments.

Trees.  Trees and MORE trees!  Bottle brush trees in just about every size and color; mounted on unique vintage bases: candle holders, tart tins, glass vials filled with ‘snow’, spools of thread and cherub candle holders!

‘Snowfolk’ made from vintage salt and pepper shakers are making an encore appearance this year; but it will be their final year.  Get them while you can.  Bottle brush trees and snowmen are the perfect winter decorations to leave out after Christmas and before you decorate for Valentine’s Day.

Vintage crepe paper rosette ornaments also make wonderful package toppers.

Vintage sheet music rosette ornaments with classic Christmas color adornments of red, gold and silver.

Both Stars malls are open 7 days a week; 11am – 6pm.

Give unique vintage and upcycled gifts this Christmas.

Quick Change

Well, not really all THAT quick (it took me three hours), but a considerable change in my booth layouts.

My original ‘plan’ to put in a completely new vignette in my little wall booth has been abandoned.  I’m not abandoning the space, just the idea for changing it out.  Why?

My thought process in deciding to change it up monthly was that it was a small enough space and it would be fairly easy to do so.  It was a LOT more work than I had anticipated.    Not that I necessarily eschew hard work, but it was getting to be too much for my ‘bad back’ to handle.

AND the aisle along the back is much narrower than the central aisles.   It was next to impossible to move stuff around without blocking the aisle for shoppers to traverse.  So I decided to put mostly small items in my wall booth.  Small stuff is easier to stock without getting in the way of shoppers.

Fortunately for me, the owner scheduled a ‘dealer work shift’ Saturday, which gave dealers 3 hours to work without any customers.  I took advantage of that time to move the big metal rack from my big boot to the wall space.  Which sounds fairly simple, but it was a pretty big undertaking.

First I had to empty and move four shelves on the back aisle side of my big booth in order to access the big metal shelf.  Then I had to empty the metal shelf.  Move the stuff that was in the area of the wall booth where I was going to put the metal shelf; then move that big heavy shelf to the wall space.  Put all the product back on the metal shelf.  Figure out where I wanted to put the four shelves I had moved out of the way.  Then figure out where to put the stuff I had taken from the wall space!  Believe me, I needed every MINUTE of the three hours allotted for us to work without any interference.

Normally I have what I am going to do with my booths pretty well thought out ahead of time.  As soon as I decide to take a new piece of furniture in, I start thinking about where I will put it and how I will move things around.  So I had measured ahead of time and knew where I was going to move the big metal shelf to, but beyond that I just drew a blank.  Had to ‘wing it’ this time.  I’ll be changing this up again next week when I take the leftover Christmas product from the show in, and pull the last little bit of fall left.

It feels SO much bigger without that metal shelf in the middle!

Took these two cute little upcycled tables in last week.

The bottom photo here is the space where the big metal shelf used to be.  Haven’t quite decided what I want to do there.  This will do for fine for now though.

Some pretty vintage liqueur bottles.  Perfect for putting homemade liqueurs for gift giving in.

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

White furniture binge

Went on a bit of a white furniture painting binge recently.  Here’s the end result of said binge.

Cute little metal birdcage.  Just a quick coat of white spray paint.

Little brown step stool.  Painted white and distressed.  Still debating whether or not I should stencil something on it???

Not a very good picture of the refinished piece on this one.  (sorry!)  Just a basic white paint job and distressed.

Cute three tier wall shelf; again just painted white and distressed.

This half round table was the same dark wood color as the shelf above.

This little shelf was already white.  I just distressed it.

This coffee table with lower shelf had already been repainted white, but they didn’t do a very good job of it.  You can’t really tell how ‘streaky’ the paint was in the pictures.  I needed to sand it before repainting it anyhow; and decided that I liked how it looked without repainting!  Distressing covers a multitude of mistakes!

Little ‘jewelry box size’ chest.  Removed the knobs, sanded off the red, white and blue; painted it white, distressed it and put the repainted knobs back on.  easy peasey.

Little upcycled side table made using a tall metal candle stand and an inverted metal tray.  Glued together using e6000, and spray painted.

This ‘open back’ cubby shelf was a medium wood color.  The white paint and distressing really emphasized the dental moulding at the top.  Below it, in the second photo is another cubby shelf, but with a back.  It was already white, so I just distressed it a bit.

I guess this shelf was for some kind of sports memorabilia.  Some white paint and you have just a regular white wall shelf!

 

No before picture for this one.  It was dark brown and had a ‘tapestry-like’ cover on the seat.  I LOVE the foot stools that open up like this for storage space!  Painted it white and distressed it a little.  Added some additional padding to the seat before I recovered it with a pretty soft aqua paisley print fabric.

All of these went to my booth at Stars.  A few have already sold.

So, what’s next???  I’ve got some pretty BIG news!  A new shop is opening soon in Aurora . . . and they will be carrying some of my items!  Stay tuned for more details and official Grand Opening notice!

 

 

 

Faux concrete statues

As promised, this is the post on how I made the previously shown faux concrete statues.

Above are the finished pieces.

This is what I started with for the big oval one.  A glass light globe with metal embellishment, which I found at a thrift store; and a wooden bowl, which I had in my stash.  I glued the bowl to the globe.

It’s difficult to tell what’s different about this pair of photos.  To make the glass more durable, I added several layers of paper.  Newspaper works fine.  I just happened to have to plain newsprint paper.  I used tacky glue to adhere the paper to the glass part of the globe.

When I have made similar statues in the past I used spackle from a big tub that I bought at the hardware store.  That stuff dried up on me, and I didn’t want to buy another BIG tub, so I got the little one at Dollar Tree.  But it was pretty ‘wimpy’ stuff.  Almost like it was whipped and airy, and it just flaked off as i was applying it.  I remedied that problem by mixing in some Mod Podge; which added the perfect amount of ‘oomph’!

The bird one is made using a round light globe, a bowl base just like the other light globe, and a little ceramic bird glued to the top BEFORE the paper layers.  Adding the paper layers to the bird and the base helped make their attachment more secure.

These two were a pair of vintage ceramic urns, topped with two different curtain rod end ornaments and  . . . . .two and three salt shaker tops, glued together.  I did not apply the coats of paper to these two.  Went straight to the DT spackle + Mod Podge.

This one was made using a big plaster egg that I had bought at Dollar Tree YEARS ago!  I used to attach them to wood bases (as shown) and paint folk art style designs on them.  I found this one last one in a box of other stuff.  I was about to toss it into my ‘donate box’ and decided to see if I could do something with it along with these other projects I had in the works.  I glued a wood finial to the top.  Then a coat of my oomphed up DT spackle.  But I ran out of the spackle before I got to the second and third coats on this one.

Having run out of the DT spackle, and having very little patience when I’m ‘in the zone’ and want to get a project DONE, NOW . . . . I had to improvise the following additional layers.  I made a new concoction of Mod Podge and SAND to add the final coats to the three smaller pieces.  Liked the look so much that I added the sandy stuff to the two bigger ones, even though they had sufficient coats of the spackle.  I decided that I wanted them all to have the same ‘textured’ finish.

For painting them, I first applied a coat of grey spray primer.  Then I ‘stipple’ painted with an off white.

Close up view of texture and paint.

I was liking the grey color so much, that I decided to stick with the color theme for repainting batch of wood finials.

And here they all are on display in my booth at Stars.

There was also this grey urn that I painted with a faux galvanized look.

There was actually a whole batch of items that I faux galvanize painted.

For the faux galvanized look, again I spray painted the pieces with grey primer.

Then I dry brush stippled an off white paint.

Then the same application with some lighter grey paint.

Not quite the real thing, but it’ll do!

I seem to be really liking neutral colors lately.

Monday, March 5th is the last day of the sale at Stars . . .  and 50% off everything in my booth!

 

 

 

 

 

A NEW Vintage book page craft! PAPER FEATHER TUTORIAL

Well, it’s new to ME.  I’ve been seeing the paper feathers made from vintage sheet music and book pages on Pinterest for a while now.  Initially they didn’t really appeal to me; but I decided to try my hand at a few to see how difficult they were to make . . . .  and BAM!!  I’m hooked!  I love them and I really enjoy making them.

My biggest issue with all the ones I was seeing on Pinterest was coming up with something sturdier than just wire for the stems.  Bamboo skewers worked perfectly.  I made the smaller size feathers using the regular size skewers, and some bigger square-shaped ones (closer to chop-stick diameter) for the bigger ones that I made.

I used several different kinds and colors of book pages.  The yellowed sheet music shown above and some varying shades of white dictionary and book pages.

SUPPLY LIST:

Paper: old book pages, sheet music, dictionary pages or ANY other paper

Bamboo skewers for the stems

Thinned down tacky glue: for gluing the two layers of paper to the stem.  Add just enough water to your tacky glue that it’s easily brushed on with a paint brush.

Scissors for cutting out the leaf shapes and feathering.

Mod Podge: apply one coat to each side of your feather shape BEFORE cutting your slits.

As with just about any crafting I do, I prefer to work in an assembly line style.  I selected the vintage papers that I wanted to work with and readied the rest of my supplies.

1. Fold paper in half so you get two matching pieces of each leaf shape that you cut.
2. With your thinned tacky glue, evenly coat one side of a leaf and put glue down the center only of the matching leaf.
3. Place your skewer in the center of the fully glued leaf, and lay the other leaf on top.  Gently press along the skewer with your fingers to get the glue to grab it; and smooth the edges to be sure they are completely glued together.
4. Set aside for several hours for the glue to completely dry and cure.  (overnight is best)  Your paper will curl a bit from the moisture in the glue, but you WANT that to happen.  It gives them a more natural feel.

5. Vintage paper can be very brittle.  I ruined several of mine just handling them and gluing them together.  To strengthen your final product, apply a coat of matte finish Mod Podge to each side; one side at a time.

Mod podge dries pretty fast, adds a little more ‘character curls’ to your paper and will help your feathers last a lot longer.  The mod podge gives the paper a bit of a plastic coated feel.  If you aren’t sure if you will like the look and feel of the added Mod Podge, just do ONE feather with it as a test, and one without it; to see which you like best.  A little bit of the Mod Podge is going to seep over to the other side of the feather, so be sure you lay them to dry on something ‘raised’.  Across an open box or on a cookie cooling rack.

6.  Gather up your dried feathers and grab your scissors.

Go through your entire batch of them making your first ‘V’ cuts; 3-5 cuts per side, depending upon the size of the feather.  I always keep the total number of cuts as odd number.  IE 3 on one side and 4 on the other.  These cuts are going to be the GUIDES for your smaller cuts, so be sure you make the cuts in the direction that you are going to want ALL your cuts to go.

7. After you have made those cuts in your entire batch, go back and do the feathering cuts on all of them.  Make your cuts as close together as you can, and cut as close to the stem as you can.

Here are the different kinds of paper/ shapes and sizes that I made.

As you may have guessed from the above pictures, they can become quite addicting to make!!

NOW, I just have to figure out how to use them and display them to sell in my booth at Stars!  Suggestions are welcome!

My booth at Stars Antique Mall

I know I’ve been posting a LOT about the upcoming Rebel Junk Marketplace in Hillsboro, Oregon; and seemingly doing nothing BUT prepare for the show.  But I have still been adding new inventory to my booth at Stars every week, as I always do.  Here’s a little peek at some of the recent additions:

LOVE these little Valentine gift ‘bags’ that I upcycled.

I’m really not certain if ‘gift bags’ is the right thing to call them.  They are more like little ‘boxes’ made out of lightweight cardboard.  I have no idea what I originally intended to do with them when I bought them; or even when or where I bought them in the first place.  But they were in my Valentine supply box and I decided it was time to ‘use them or lose (donate) them’.  I’m in serious paring down mode so that I don’t need to rent a storage unit anymore.

In the top left picture you can see what they originally looked like.  I only covered them with the old dictionary page on 3 sides.  (trying to keep it a ‘quick and easy’ project!)  Then I glued a strip of pink ribbon along the top and tied it in a knot.  Then I added some little scrapbook embellishments . . . just whatever I had on hand.  I was going to add a piece of tissue paper to give them some ‘oomph’ and keep them looking nicely fluffed up; but thought I see if paper doilies would work.  Just the perfect little extra touch.  These are available in my booth at Stars for $1.00 each.

These red cones were leftover Christmas trees from LONG ago.  (I think clear back when we had our shop!)  I had filled them with cello bags of wrapped candies in the past and added a chenille handle.  I had a package of ‘hearts on a stick’ and put two in each cone along with some paper shred (I ‘blend’ my own paper shred) then tied on a tag that I printed with some bakers twine.  The tag reads “Forever, for always and no matter what.”  I only had three of these, so I displayed them on the little black wire shelf along with the little gift bags.

I had bought some of these ‘honeycomb’ hearts a while back to use for display, but decided to go ahead and sell them this year.  I opened up one of them, and left the other two ‘flattened’ for easier transport.

For some reason I had the ‘lid only’ of this old heart shaped box.  I added some embellishments and made it into a wall hanging.  The ‘arrow’ on the box was made from the one extra ‘heart on a stick’ leftover from the cones.  (there were 7 hearts in a package) I glued some cardboard on for the tip of the arrow and glittered it to match the heart end.  Used some leftover red Christmas ribbon to glue all around the edge of the box and tied it into a bow at the top.

Then I tied on a little ‘True Love” tag, which I printed myself; with baker’s twine.  really trying to keep my upcycles ‘simple and quick’ so I can price them lower; so they will hopefully SELL faster!

A couple of upcycled mini Valentine themed mini mannequins.

Vintage Ironstone bunny covered casserole dish, and an English gravy boat with attached liner.  I especially like the ones that have the liners attached like this one does.

Some ‘Love Potion No.9’ upcycled bottles.

Some cool newly found hobnail Milk Glass containers.  (and a few more that I am taking in tomorrow!  I’ve been finding a lot of the hobnail Milk Glass lately.)

Upcycled jar lantern with tea stained lace and rusty tin heart.  A big ole tub of letters to spell out just about anything your heart desires!

Upcycled apothecary jars and vintage and upcycled medicine bottles.

PLENTY of hand stitched and stuffed felt hearts still.  (there will be some of each of these colors/styles at the Rebel Junk Market too!)

Stars in open 7 days a week; 11am – 6pm.

My new favorite color

I’m really drawn to galvanized metal items and soft grey colors these days.  I especially LOVE the contrast of mixing them in with shabby chic white decor.  I’ll be bringing LOTS of items in this color to the upcoming Rebel Junk Vintage Market on February 2&3.

In addition to the ‘real thing’ (all of those items are already packed away for the show) I’ll have lots of faux painted items, like the ones shown above.

 I’ve also got some distressed turquoise metal items, shown above.  For some reason, I decided to buy some dark turquoise spray paint a while back; and I painted these items with it.  Did not like it once they were painted though, so they have just sat in storage.  Got them out and was going to sand them to prep them for repainting, but decided that I actually LIKED the distressed dark turquoise!

These items and much MORE will be available for purchase at the

Rebel Junk Marketplace

Come visit my booth, and don’t forget to ASK for your 20% discount.  Discount given ONLY to those who have read about the show via my blog and/or Facebook page; and only if you ask.  My booth only.

 

SNEAK PEEK at Rebel Junk show inventory

Much of the inventory for this upcoming show has been packed away for months already.  As I previously mentioned, I’ve been saving my very BEST finds for this show.  Of course, whatever doesn’t sell at the show will end up in my booth at Stars and the upcoming Every Husband’s Nightmare Spring show in April.

These pictures aren’t very good.  It’s kind of dark in my storage space.  But you can see a little bit of what I’ve stashed away for the show.

These pictures are of some of the items that were in my booth at Stars for a while, that I pulled to save for the show.

And of course, I’ve been working on lots more stuff specifically for this show; like these two upcycled mannequins.

This is what I started with:  a child size plastic ‘half’ mannequin (the back was ‘open’), a fabric covered male mannequin torso, and a big wood candle pedestal. (Why yes, the candle pedestal photo IS upside down!  Glue was drying on the bottom, so I had it upside down and I was afraid if I waited to take the picture that I’d forget!)

On the male torso, I covered the whole thing with several layers of vintage pattern pieces.  Sanded the pedestal to distress it; painted and distressed a round wood finial to put on top.

The same treatment on the child size plastic mannequin; except that I cut a piece of cardboard to cover the open back before I started adding the vintage pattern pieces.  At first I made a little pleated skirt out of pattern pieces for her; bit it looked too plain.

I made another ruffled skirt (using a needle and thread) and layered it on top of the pleated skirt, and fluffed it all out.  MUCH better!  I added a little key necklace that hangs right next to her ‘heart’.  (how lucky was it that there was a heart pocket template in one of the patterns I had!?!?)

ALL THIS and much MUCH more in my booth at the Rebel Junk Show, February 2-3.

Spend less time waiting in line to buy your admission ticket, and more time SHOPPING by buying your ticket on-line here in advance.