Making the ordinary extraordinary

(Forgive the dust on the base)

This little jar/vase/whatever has been with me at least 12-13 years. It’s sat in 1…2…3… 4 antique malls without going home with anyone. No one wanted him. His price tag was never more than a few dollars, but you see, he’s very common. Made by Tiara, I believe, he was meant to be a cigarette holder. Am I remembering right on that? Someone correct me if I’m wrong.

He finally came home with me and has sat around in various places, usually close to the fireplace, holding matches.

(Dust is still on the base. Ugh.)

He’s been elevated on little boxes, been part of other arrangements, just moved around, never really finding the right home. Then one day recently, I was walking through the shop and looking for things I could use at home, things that I might regret selling, and brought this little prayer book home.

With it’s tattered spine and the front cover torn completely off.

And the sweet, sweet sentiment written on the back of the front cover.

I do love this little book. And when I combined the little black jar and the book … A match made in Heaven!

Such a simple, little combination, but the effect makes me smile every time I look at it. The camera didn’t capture the look the way I’d  have liked. Maybe I should play with that some more. But that’s another day.

It sits on a glass top table with iron legs. I’m not totally happy with the whole arrangement. Maybe it needs a different plate, but that’s for another day, too.

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Here’s a decorating tip for you from a very non decorator. First remember the only person you have to please is you. When you place an item, trying to do an arrangement, whatever you’re doing, step back and look. If you’re first impression makes you smile, you’re done. If you think you’ll have to come back and look at it, see if it grows on you, it’s probably not right. Things will grow on us. If we walk by them enough, our messed up stack of magazines on the floor disappear. The dust bunnies don’t exist. The junk mail all over the table becomes part of the decor. It all grows on us. We don’t see it until someone comes over.

Bonus tip: Take a picture. Trust me on that. Once you do, no explanation will be needed from me.

More Fun With Gutter Guards

You know I’ve said I rarely have an original idea and that’s true, but I think this one was all mine. Which would explain the lack of hurrahs and applause and the “how did you ever think of that”‘s. But in the event you would like to make one of your own, here’s the super simple instructions.

The gutter guard, which I believe is still made, originally looks like this

Turn it upside down so that the tines are standing up. Using some needle nose pliers, curl the front few tines so that the very front tines are lower than the side tines. And there you have it. A picture or plate easel.

The hardest part is finding the gutter guard. This one is for sale if anyone’s interested. $6.00. It’s not on the site yet, so just “inquire within”.

You can see the gutter guard cloche using a different type guard here Gutter Guard Cloche.

I’m linking up with Layla of The Lettered Cottage for How To’s Day.

The Lettered Cottage

A Passion For Crafting

I’ve been thinking lately about my crafting history. Nearly as far back as I can remember, I’ve loved hand made things and had the desire to make them myself. The first thing I remember making when I was probably no more than 5 or 6 years old, was this pre printed, Dennis the Menace.

All I had to do was lace the yarn through the dots and stuff it. Poor guy. He’s been through H*** over the years. But at least I still have him.

Then I think I made this heart in Girl Scouts. Same principle. Sew up the sides and stuff it.

It was sometime around this time that Santa brought me a toy spinning wheel very much like this one. I never did learn how to use it. He also brought me a Sears, chain stitch, toy sewing machine. Now, my mother wasn’t inclined to make stuff, but she at least indulged me.

When I was about 10 years old, I picked up a “belle” embroidery she had abandoned years before and finished it. Did a darn good job, too.

There were countless paint by number pictures and I remember a picture of a poodle that I got to  glue on tiny rocks and “gems”. I was always interested in sewing and let’s not forget the potholder loom! We could sure crank out the potholders, couldn’t we?

My grandmother taught me how to make fabric yo-yo’s. If I remember right, I made a book mark. And again in Girl Scouts we made a ceramic leaf.

There were horrible, Play Dough creations. Lots of snakes, balls and hearts. I learned to draw a whale as pictured on my chalk board and a friend of the family taught me how to draw a girl’s face. As a young teen, I copied those art school ads and was convinced I could be a talented artist.

I’m getting long winded, reminiscing. Sorry. Too many words and not enough pictures. I’ll try to wrap it up. The 1970′s were heavy on the macrame, needlepoint and cross stitch. I was cross stitching before it was popular and patterns were very hard to find. Then the 1980′s brought a lot of sewing. French hand sewing and smocking for my daughter and sewing for me. I also tried tole painting. But something happened in the early to mid ’90′s. I lost my desire to craft. Who knows why? Erin got too old for the lacy dresses, I realized I couldn’t paint worth a flip, there were no blogs then to inspire and the few craft magazines showed really cheesy crafts. Oh, yes. I subscribed to Decorating and Crafts for years, beginning in the ’70′s.  Talk about cheesy crafts! Quilting was about the only thing I was ever inspired to do, but I wanted to make them totally by hand. Needless to say, I never made a quilt.

But now, with all you creative people out there to inspire, I want to craft again. Badly! I mean, I don’t want to craft badly, but badly want to craft. The creations aren’t so cheesy any more. I think most are absolutely fabulous. But that makes me wonder. What will we be making in 10 years and what will we think of the things we’re creating now?

Will you indulge me in a suggestion and a whine?

No pictures today. No inspiration. No fun. What?! No fun??!! Before you all run away, there might be a funny at my expense.

I have had a couple of things on my mind about blogging. Or reading blogs to be more specific. First, I’ll say I let the shop take over my life for the past couple of years and totally got out of the blogging habit. Reading and posting. You’ve seen me whine about that, swear to be more regular, etc. I took the month of January off from the shop and, among other things, tried to get back in the blogging habit. You know we’re told that if we do something so many days straight we’ve formed the habit. Maybe it’s working. I hope so ’cause I love blogging. I love seeing what you all are doing in your homes, shops and booths and what cool art you are creating. And I love sharing my life through my blog. Anyway, now that I’m making an effort to keep up the reading – and I have to keep my reader open all the time and catch your blogs as they come in or I get so far behind it’s too overwhelming, and Heaven forbid I’m away from the computer for a few hours – these two things kinda bug me. Please understand they’re not criticisms. We all enjoy reading blogs in our own way and who the heck am I to try to tell you what to do?! Nobody. That’s who. You have a right to have your blog just as you want it and I’ll keep coming back. But #1 can help and #2 is a personal preference that I share with a lot of people.

1. This one involves being able to comment. Most of you are Blogspot users. Nothing wrong with that at all. I think they’re some of the prettiest blogs out there and easy to use. But the default for comments only allows people who have Google accounts or a few other blogging platforms or – something – I don’t even understand what the other options are – these are the only people who can comment. That was a convoluted way to say anyone who doesn’t have a Google account or one of those other… things… can’t comment. We all love comments and there’s no reason to make it hard for anyone to comment. Most Blogspot bloggers don’t realize the default is set like this or that it’s a problem or that it can be changed. So. What to do? Go into your dashboard “Settings” and under “Comments” (I think), choose “Anyone can comment”. This allows those of us who host our own blogs and prefer to send folks there instead of our Google account which would then send people to our non-Blogspot blog, if they even bother after that, to comment using Name/URL. It also allows Grandma and Aunt Glenda, who only read your blog and aren’t interested in a Google account to comment either with their name or anonymously. Some people think not using these two options keeps out spam, and it might a little, but use Captcha or something to help with that. Usually when you see a comment that includes the person’s name and their URL inside the comment box, they’re not being self promotional. They’re just making sure people can get to their blog as easily as they can to the Blogger people’s blogs. Did any of that make sense?

2. And now my whine. Music on blogs. A lot of people enjoy music on blogs. A lot more don’t. Or maybe the people who don’t are more vocal about it. I’ve seen the surveys. Sure, you’re setting the mood. Sometimes I like your choice of music. Sometimes not. And those are the songs that get stuck in my head. LOL And do you realize we never get through the first song? Even if we’re reading the whole blog, every time we go to another page, the song starts over. But, aside from that, I have two problems. Even though I have DSL at home, it’s not as strong as it should be. Things like that can bog my computer down. But that’s OK. Not a biggie. I’m used to getting bogged down. And even if it doesn’t affect the speed, I’m probably watching TV while blogging. But again, I can mute the computer. No problem. But here’s a funny that has happened a couple of times to me lately. The store music comes through my computer. Now that I’m trying so very hard to keep up with you all, I’ll read blogs at work, too. So, I’m sitting there with the shop music going, start logging onto somebody’s blog, a customer comes in and before you know it, two songs are playing at once! I have to leave the customer and go hunt the place to turn off the music on the blog.

Am I suggesting you not use music on your blog? Not at all! Well, OK. Yeah. Maybe. Or think of it like this. My suggestion is to have the music player at the very, absolute, tip top of the sidebar. If you elect to keep it off, those who love to have the background music see it readily and can turn it on. If you keep it on, those of us who don’t need or want the music don’t have to frantically search for the player to turn it off.

Are you still with me? And not mad at me? Please don’t be mad. Or hurt. Who’s blog is it? Yours! Like I said. You do your blog the way you want to do it. I just wanted to raise awareness. I’m certainly not the first person to mention these things. AND… If I enjoy reading your blog, I’ll keep coming back. Music is NOT a deal breaker for me. I promise, I won’t think less of you if you chose to keep the music.

I’ll be away for the next few days. Way down in south Florida. Go ahead. Hate me. For that. Not the blog things. But it’s not a pleasure trip. It’s a sad, funeral trip. But I will be there long enough that hopefully I can hit a few thrifts. Is that tacky? Have I overspent my allotment of tacky tonight?

Gutter Guard Cloche

Y’all know I rarely have an original idea and this is no exception. I know I’ve seen it done on Raised In Cotton and probably some other blogs, and I’ve had it on my mind to make one of these for quite a while now. I found a bunch of old, wire, gutter guards over a year ago at an estate sale and they’ve just been sitting there, mocking, taunting, saying: Here we sit. Make a cloche with one of us! Make it. Make it. Do it. What are you waiting for? How long has it been? You know you wanna. Come on. We don’t think you can. Chic-kennnnn.

It wasn’t that I didn’t think I could. I knew I could do it. Nothing to it. My problem is inertia. And the shop taking over my life, but that’s a whole ‘nuther discussion. So a few days ago, Melanie called and said, let’s get together and make something. She brought a necklace that needed restringing and I got out a gutter guard, some thin wire and a decanter top. (Vintage trim and birds were later added, and I think it would be sweet with a tag. But I didn’t have a tag, so it’s going without one. Maybe someday.)

I believe you can still buy these and the hardware store, but don’t hold me to that. I haven’t actually looked for them. All I did to make this sweet, little cloche, was take the thin, wire that comes on a spool and “sewed”, laced, the wire in and out of the two side edges, so it would hold it’s shape. Stuck the decanter top in the opening at the top and squeezed the guard around the glass top. I’m having trouble getting the finial to stand straight, though. Then, using small pliers, I bent the bottom edge outward to make a “foot”.

Sitting under it is a tiny nest my friend Teri gave me. Teri has an Etsy shop, A Drop In the Bucket for her unique and fun paintings. Talented girl.

If you want to try your hand at making a gutter guard cloche, it’s very simple. Your gutter guard might be misshapen, it might be squished like this:

But the wire bends so easily, it’s no problem to reshape. Just stretch it out and reform it.

This stuff is hard to photograph in detail. I didn’t think about putting paper behind it, but really. You won’t need pictures in that much detail. It’s that easy. Even a caveman can do it!

The Cranky Queen – Tiff has a blog!

I want you all to welcome Tiffany to Blogland. She finally got started and her second post (the first is the usual here I come, ready or not, first blog post) is showing her dog figurine collection. In real life, she has three, sweet, little doggies and had started collecting the figurines a few years ago.

So, go pay her a visit and be sure to follow her. Tell her I sent ya! She’ll have much eye candy and great ideas in the months to come.

The Cranky Queen.
Don’t you love the title? And the picture in the header?

Vintage Valentines Banner & Other Things

(Click the image for a larger view)

What to do with the vintage Valentine collection? I certainly didn’t want to put holes in them or alter their appearance in any way. It would have been fun to have cute clips, but regular ol’ paper clips was all I had, so they just had to do. The banner isn’t anything earth shattering. Boring, actually. But it’s fun for me to look at and, well, what else can I do with them?? I have a bunch of moveable Valentines I haven’t figured out what to do with, yet and still a bunch more of the regular ones. So fun to be a hoarder! Sometimes.

I’ve been playing with an old drawer, too. It should be perfect for this kind of display, but I don’t quite have it right just yet.

First attempt:

(Click for the larger view)

Hmmm… Not as bad in the picture as it looked in person – How’s that for a change? – but kinda jumbled, mixed styles and more than the eye can take in. Let’s try something else.

(Again, click for a larger view)

Getting better, but still not there. I love this part, though:

That beaded heart is one my friend Jeri gave me that an older lady had given her. It had belonged to the lady. I love, love, love it! The sun must have really been shining in on that side of the room that day. The candy box sure is reflecting!

So stay tuned to see if the box gets better or goes by the wayside.

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And here’s some great news. Tiffany is starting a blog! We’re working on it this afternoon. Hopefully she’ll go live tonight. She’s excited, I’m excited and you’re in for a real treat! I’ll post a link as soon as I have it.

We’re off to see the Wizard… I mean … The Big Peanut

Yes, we made a trip to Dothan, Alabama and saw the big, waving peanut. Last weekend was Tiffany’s birthday weekend and her husband graciously paid for a hotel room for her, Melanie and me. (He was relieved to get off that easy, preferring to go hunting over antiquing. Can you imagine?!)

We left early Friday morning and as soon as we hit Dothan we started the rounds of shops and antique malls. Some were great, some were, well, not so great. But we had a blast. Saturday morning, found us at the flea market with the chickens, puppies, men with junk, women with more junk. I think Melanie made the only purchase, but darn if I can remember what it was.

So when we pulled up to the flea market, we’re face to face with the giant, waving, peanut. The arm actually waves. Does the beauty pageant girl wave. The conversation went like this:

Tiff: We’ve got to get our picture made in front of the big peanut!
Mel and me: Hahaha… No, we’re not.
Tiff: Yes! We HAVE to!
Mel and me: No. We don’t.
Tiff: Yes. We are.
Mel and me: No! Please no!
Tiff: Yes.
Mel and me: But we don’t want to have our picture made in front of the Big Peanut!
Tiff gritting her teeth: We’re gettin’ our picture made in front of the d**mn peanut!!

Here we are:

Melanie, Tiffany and chubby, little me doing my stoopid head lean thing.

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I did come home with a few things from the shops and malls.

An old framed tile that is now on a kitchen wall.

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This Yale lock that I hung my meager skeleton key collection on. Don’t you think I need a little picture to sit on top?

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That big, old, ledger. I don’t think I got the color right in the picture. Playing with the settings on my new camera.

We made Valentines from tin heart molds

Another impromptu craft night, this time Melanie, Tiffany and me. I’m loving craft nights. It seems to be the only way I get anything done! Tiffany had bought some little tin – OK, aluminum – heart molds, so the three of us put our own touch to one. It’s so interesting to see the different ideas.


A concentrating Tiffany. Melanie had just stepped out of the picture.


Mine, Tiffany’s and Mel’s.

I took closeups, but the background made them too confusing to look at. I’ll try to get closeups of Tiff’s and Mel’s in the next couple of days. They’re worth a closer look. Here’s a closeup of mine.

We all started with the same shape mold and we all used stained cheesecloth as a base. Tiffany and Melanie got their graphics from The Graphics Fairy. Mine was a copy of a picture I had lying around. Mel and I used lace and glitter and jewelry pieces and she used a silver cord. Tiff used a fabric yo-yo, red check fabric strip, bit of lace and buttons. I hope I can get closeups of theirs tomorrow! They each made a bottle, too. (I tried, but had an…. ahem…. artist’s block. Ha!) Again I took closeups, but the lace background did nothing for seeing the details of the bottles. When I get the heart pictures, I’ll take bottle pictures. Personally, I like to see them in place anyway.

Update:

Pictures of Melanie’s heart and her bottle:


The red hanky says “Lipstick”

Update #2

Tiffany’s heart and bottle:

Love the glitter on the feather!

Three new style trends

So the newest home decor trends will be mid century modern, ’70′s retro (including avocado green!) and ladylike. This makes me feel special. I’ve been searching these things out for several years now! Found this little video at High Point Market’s website.

Most of us have been ahead of the curve with the ladylike look. I see it on your blogs as you share photos of your homes.

How fun would it be to have an extra house to decorate in nothing but mid century modern? 1950′s modern house with modern furnishings.

And being a teenager in the ’70′s, I’m particularly fond of the ’70′s fashion and home decor and really excited it’s making a comeback.

So which look are you? Is there a way to incorporate all three looks into one house? One room? But what if we still adore our primitives? How do you mix a primitive cupboard with a Danish Modern buffet? My problem is that I love bits and pieces of all styles. No, I love almost everything about all styles. Good design is good design. I suppose it boils down to what we feel comfortable living with. What gives us pleasure when we look at it or sit on it.

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