Craft Show Thrifty Treasures

First I want to say thank you to EVERYONE who visited and commented on my post about the antique door that I acquired from my Dad's childhood home. I spent the day with my Dad yesterday for his 80th birthday and we had a lot of fun reading through all the thoughtful comments. I appreciate the time that everyone spent to leave a comment and the wonderful ideas many of you had on how I could incorporate the door in my own home!

This week is going to be a crazy one.....I am trying to get the final projects finished for this weekend's craft show, the one and only show that I am going to participate in this year. I thought I would show you what I have been working on (some of these have been mentioned in earlier posts). Almost 100% of what I use to create my projects comes from thrift stores, garage sales or flea markets. I like the idea of recycling "discarded" items and it helps keep material costs low.

I have several snowmen I have created using old bottles and salt and pepper shakers. They are embellished with vintage earrings, keys, watch faces, buttons....whatever I have in my stash of goodies. The glass cake plate I have them displayed on was a garage sale find for $1.00.
These snowmen were made using old silverplated salt and pepper shakers.I have several framed key projects that I made out of thrift store frames, burlap and flea market keys.
I found some wood blocks at a thrift store.....with some black paint, scrapbook paper and wire picture holders I made some Halloween picture holders just waiting for a favorite halloween photo. The wood cake plate was also found for $1.00 at a thrift store....some black paint was all it needed.

I recently posted about the pincushions I was making out of old silverplated cream and sugar bowls...here's a few more that I recently finished.

For a simple project I glued silver bales to black Scrabble tiles (game found at a garage sale for $1.00)....inexpensive ball chains complete the necklaces.
Finally, I have several altered bottles for both Halloween and Christmas. I recently posted about these bottles using graphics from The Graphics Fairy.

I'm looking forward to this Octoberfest show.....my mom and brother are both participating in the show as well so we are bound to have a great time....even if we don't sell anything!

I know I'm late.....but I'm linking my thrifty finds with Rhoda @ Southern Hospitality for Today's Thrifty Treasures. Head on over and check it out!

My Free Vintage Door (and the story behind it)

I have a very special vintage, thrifty (free) find that I wanted to share today in honor of my Dad's 80th birthday on Saturday. Before I show my find, I need to share a little family background.

My Dad was born in 1929, the last of five children. When he was born his father (Herman) was 60 years old and his mother (Theresa) was 43 (they already had two grandchildren when my Dad was born). My grandfather Herman purchased a home for his family in 1904 and it remained the family residence until 1952 when my grandmother, Theresa, passed away.

Now fast forward 55 years to 2007. The house that my Dad grew up in is being renovated and Dad and I stop by to take a look at his old family home. I have to say that I was thrilled the house was going to get a new life. It had been in disrepair for a lot of years and needed some TLC. The gentleman who was renovating the house was not going for a historical renovation and had put new doors on the house. The original front door was sitting outside and I asked what he was going to do with it. He said it was mine for the taking! I jumped at his offer and took the 100 year old door home with me. My Dad thought I was crazy but that door represented family history to me and I couldn't let it end up in the dump!!

I haven't done anything with the door yet....it is currently being stored in my basement but I know someday inspiration will hit and I will come up with an idea for the door (and if you have any ideas let me know). You will see from the pictures that it needs to be stripped (it's painted white on the other side) and has years of dirt and grime....but I think it is beautiful!

So thanks for reading about my vintage thrifty find. Here's a picture of my Dad in 1931 standing on the front porch of the house. Look close and you can see a small part of the front door behind him.

And here are pictures of the vintage door. It is extremely heavy, has gorgeous, thick, beveled glass and egg and dart wood trim.

And here's my Dad standing on the in-progress renovation of his old childhood home.

I am posting this to two parties.....thanks to:

Leigh @ Tales from Bloggeritaville for her Thrifty Thursday party and:

Suzanne @ Coloradolady for her Vintage Thingies Thursday party.

Thanks for reading and Happy Birthday Dad!

Brag Monday with Karen @ The Graphics Fairy

I am so pleased to be able to join Karen @ The Graphics Fairy for her first Monday party....Brag Monday. I'm sure many of you have visited Karen's wonderful blog (she's a popular girl with 1385 followers at last count!) where she offers free downloads of some great graphics. Karen has generously offered to host a weekly party where we can brag about our projects using graphics that she has posted. Make a visit to Karen's blog and check out what people are creating (link above).

I wanted to alter some bottles as part of my Halloween decorating so I visited Karen's blog to see what Halloween graphics she had posted (everything is very neatly categorized). I found this fun graphic and knew it would be a great label on an altered bottle.


I gathered a couple of bottles, the graphic I downloaded from Karen, a page from an old book, some tea-stained cheese cloth, some buttons and some black paint and thread and I created these Halloween inspired altered bottles. They were easy to make and add some fun to my Halloween display.

Thanks again to Karen for posting these free graphics.

Wire Pumpkin Project

Since today is the first day of fall I thought I would turn my thoughts to creating something for my autumn displays. I think this project fits three party categories today so I'm linking to these great events:

Susan @ Between Naps on the Porch for Metamorphosis Monday
Rhoda @ Southern Hospitality for Today's Thrifty Treasures and
Cheri @ It's So Very Cheri for Knock Off, Knock Out
Be sure to link to all of these blogs to check out all of the thrifty and creative projects.

I was shopping at Hobby Lobby on Saturday and came across this wire pumpkin.


It was very cute, came in two sizes and at 50% off very reasonably priced at $4.50 for the smaller pumpkin and $6.00 for the larger one. I was about to purchase one when my thrifty alter ego suggested to me that I could make a similar pumpkin for much less. So off to Lowes I went where I purchased this:

200 feet of 20 gauge wire for $6.97. And with 13 feet of that wire (for a cost of 45 cents), I created this:

These are the steps I took to make my wire pumpkins (don't let all the steps scare you...it really is quite easy to make)

1) Find a can in your pantry....you are going to wrap the wire several times around the can.

2) Measure the diameter of the can (mine was 8 inches) and decide how many "loops" your pumpkin will have (the Hobby Lobby pumpkin had 50 loops...I decided that 20 loops was enough for my pumpkins). Multiply the diameter of the can by the number of loops on your pumpkin to get a length of wire that you need to cut for the project.

3) Cut the appropriate length of wire off of your roll of wire. Straighten as best you can.

4) Starting at one end of your can, begin to tightly wind the wire around the can, continue wrapping until you use all your cut wire.

5) Take the coiled wire off of the can....it will kind of look like a slinky.

6) One one side of the loops, pull the loops together and, using a twisty tie (this will be a temporary hold), wire the loops together. With the inside wired together, the outside of the loops will fan out in a pumpkin-like shape.

7) Go outside and find a small branch for your pumpkin stem. Slide the branch in the twisty tied opening. I also made a small "curly cue" out of the wire to accent the stem. Now, using a piece of 16 gauge wire (approximately 8 inches long), tightly wrap the inside of your pumpkin loops and the branch. (I started the wrapping process, removed my temporary twisty tie, and then continued wrapping).

8) I then added a little glue for good measure and let that dry.

9) The wire I used was silver so I spray painted the pumpkin black. I painted the curly cue green. You could also add some leaves but I didn't have any....I'll add them later.

I had hoped to get pictures to illustrate the steps but time did not allow tonight. If there is interest I would be more than happy to post again with pictures (sometimes my written directions aren't the best).

The cost of my pumpkin was less than 50 cents. Cost will vary depending on the diameter of the can you use and the number of loops that you want your pumpkin to have.

My husband and son both liked this project so I think it was a winner!!

It's a Vintage, Thrifty Thursday!

Today I am once again participating in two fun parties:

Thrifty Thursday with Leigh @ Tales from Bloggeritaville and
Vintage Thingies Thursday with Suzanne @ Coloradolady

I always enjoy sharing my vintage, thrifty finds so many thanks to both ladies for hosting these events. Make sure you link back to their blogs to see who else has joined the party!!

I love old tarnished silver pieces, especially cream and sugar bowls. I am always on the hunt for them when I go thrifting and over the past couple of months I have purchased several. At first I was using them to store/display buttons and other embellishments but pretty soon my collection was getting out of hand. With all of these pieces piling up I had to come up with an idea on how to give them a new life. Here's a picture of some of the pieces I have collected. I have not paid over $3.00 for any one piece.

Now here is what I decided to make with some of the collection....pincushions. I have made 15 pincushions so far (with another 10 to go) and I will be selling them (amongst other vintage, thrifty items) at the Octoberfest Craft Show on October 3rd in Atchison, KS. If you live in the area make sure you stop by and say hello!!
Thanks for stopping by!

Hat / Coat Rack - Metamorphosis Monday

I've got one simple project that I thought I would share today so I'm linking up with Susan @ Between Naps on the Porch for Metamorphosis Monday. Please link back to Susan to see what all the creative bloggers are creating!

For this weeks project I turned (once again) to Pottery Barn for some inspiraton. I saw this hat/coat rack in their catalog for $99.00

Photo courtesy of Pottery Barn

This was a pretty straightforward project and I knew I had some old knobs that would be perfect for the project. These are knobs that came off a vintage stove. I have had these knobs for over 10 years.....don't know why I didn't use them before now.
I set out to the thrift store to find something thrifty to use as the base of the project. I found this shelf at a thrift store for $1.98. This isn't exactly the look of the Pottery Barn hat/coat rack but I liked the idea of having a small display shelf with my coat rack (and the price was right).

I popped off the wooden pegs that were on the shelf and, using the existing holes where the pegs once were, I drilled all the way through the holes to accomodate the screws for the stove knobs I would be using on my new coat rack. My next step was painting the entire piece black. Once the paint was dry I screwed the four knobs into place. The final step was finding some rub-on numbers in my scrapbook supplies and numbering the knobs 1 thru 4. Here's my completed project: Sorry the pictures aren't the best....I wanted to show the finished project in approximately the same position as the "before" picture.

Total cost of this project was under $7.00

Thanks for visiting....drop me a comment and let me know what you think.

Letters and Numbers Party!!

I am SO excited to be participating in the Letters and Numbers Blog Party hosted by Vintage Junky. Link back to Vintage Junky here to see what fabulous letters and numbers people are sharing!

I love letters and numbers in all various forms and fonts. My dad worked his entire career as a typesetter at a printing company so maybe it was meant to be! All of these items are things I have somewhere in my home....hope you enjoy them as much as I do!