Trick 'r Treat Swap

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

I am very excited to be participating in my very first blog swap which was generously hosted by Christine @ A Work In Progress.  For this swap each participant created two "treats" and one "trick".  These Trick 'r Treat items were shipped to Christine earlier in the month where she then brewed her magic and swapped out two new "treats" and one new "trick" for each participant.   She mailed these new Trick 'r Treat items to each participant and today is the day we get to go Trick 'r Treating to see who got our items and who made the items we received.  So let's get our costumes on and go Trick 'r Treating!!!!

First I'll picture the items I created for the swap.  Keeping with my crafting philosophy of reusing thrifty and vintage items in my projects I knew just what I would make for my "treats" using these vintage wood photo albums that I found, one at a thrift store and one at an antique store.  Here's the before pictures:

And with a little magic....OK....with some black paint, an antique cabinet card photo, some vintage sheet music, a tea-stained dryer sheet, ribbon, buttons and stickers, I collaged a new Halloween scrapbook filled with blank, acid-free black pages that are ready to be filled with Halloween memories.

For my "trick" I created this little hanging card from an antique cabinet card

Now on to the wonderful Trick 'r Treat items I received from the swap!!!

My first item....a wonderful Chunkybook treat!!  This little book is chock full of wonderful Halloween embellishments.  It is so beautifully crafted and I can't wait to add some of my Halloween pictures and memories.  I LOVE IT!!

                             

 

My second "treat" came wrapped in this fabulous fabric package, decorated with Halloween stamped messages.

                            

And inside the package:  A fun "spooky" scrapbook for more of my Halloween pictures (I am going to be so organized!).  This book is so cute and is perfect for the pictures of my son in his halloween costumes through the years.

                            

Also in the bag was this adorable little black box decorated with wonderful fall embellishements

and inside the box....this fun "treats" banner....look how great it looks on my mantle.

I absolutely LOVED all these wonderful treats.....thanks!!

And finally, my "trick", which I thought was more of a "treat".  Look at this adorable little "BOO" sign!

And I love the tag that was attached to the box, it was a gift itself!

                         

And last but not least we all received from Christine a wonderful "thanks for participating" gift - this wonderful assortment of Halloween goodies.....a Halloween postcard, stickers, "bingo" cards, acylic stamp...all sorts of items for future Halloween projects.  Thank you Christine!

Thank you everyone for the wonderful Halloween goodies.  I love each and every one of them.  Here's one last picture of all of my "Trick 'r Treat" items displayed on my kitchen table.

Happy Halloween!!!!

Silver Inspiration

I love old, vintage silver pieces.

You have seen the silverplated salt and pepper shakers that I turned into snowmen:

                             

The silverplated cream and sugar bowls that became pincushions:

And the numerous silver trays, plates and bowls that I use around my house for:

Storage in my studio

  Display in my guest room

Base of a cloche displaying vintage sewing notions

But recently I saw a couple of pictures from fellow bloggers/decorators that had me gathering my collection together so that I could recreate one of their fabulous displays.

This first picture is from

Polly @ Make Mine Beautiful

Polly pictured her display of silver trays hanging as wall art in her living room

And Debbie Dusenberry @ The Curious Sofa

(a fabulous retail boutique in Kansas City that I luckily live close to)

was recently featured in the Better Homes and Gardens Christmas Ideas magazine with her display of hanging silver trays (photo from Better Homes and Gardens Christmas Ideas magazine)

After seeing these pictures I knew I wanted to hang some of my silver trays in my dining room.

I haven't hung them yet but pictured here is a large part of my vintage collection that I have purchased at thrift stores over the past few months that are just waiting to be turned into art.

I will get pictures posted as soon as I get them hung.

But wait....I have one more thrifty, silver piece that I bought this week that I am so excited about.

A silverplated punch bowl (this bowl is huge!)....for $8.00!!!  Can't you just see this at Christmas filled with greenery, pinecones and white lights!!! 

And doesn't it look great sitting atop one of my extra large silverplated trays (another thrifty find this week for $10.00).

So there's my silver inspiration for this week....I'm linking to two parties today:

Leigh @ Tales from Bloggeritaville for Thrifty Thursday

and

Suzanne @ Coloradolady for Vintage Thingies Thursday

Thanks to both ladies for hosting these great Thursday events.

Brag Monday - A Visit From Saint Nicholas

Happy Monday.....I am linking today with Karen @ The Graphics Fairy for her wonderful "Brag Monday" party.  Karen has the best free graphics on her blog...perfect for art, crafts and DIY projects.  Go check out The Graphics Fairy and all the participants of her party here.

Last week Karen posted a wonderful cover of a vintage Christmas book.  Here's the image she posted.

I have several photos of my son visiting Santa every year before Christmas.  I have been wanting to create a scrapbook of these pictures and I thought this would be the perfect cover. 

Because the image that Karen posted was beautiful just as it was, I didn't want to do too much to it to "dress" it up.  I printed the image, inked the edges and adherered it to an 8.5" x 11" piece of patterned scrapbook paper.  I added a few embellishments.....ribbon, buttons, brads, sticker....and then adhered this to a heavy piece of 8.5" x 11" chipboard.  Here's  a picture of the finished cover of my "A Visit From Saint Nicholas" scrapbook.

Here are a few closeups of some of the elements I added:

Sticker and brads

Ribbon and buttons

Felt star and button

Now I have a wonderful scrapbook for these pictures of Alex visiting Santa Claus

Thanks to Karen for posting this great Christmas graphic.

Jane

Throwback Thursday: Decorating Mistakes

Christy at Embellished Bayou is hosting a fun party today called Throwback Thursday: Decorating Mistakes.  The idea is to show off (if we dare) some of our questionable decorating choices over the years.  Check out Christy's fun post and join the party at Embellished Bayou.

I had to dig through my photo albums to find a couple pictures of the house we owned when we lived in Wisconsin.  We only lived in Wisconsin from July, 1994 to May, 1996 but I think I managed to cover 90% of the walls with wallpaper (or wallpaper border) in those 2 years.  And not any wallpaper.....no I went for the big and bold prints.....which would be the only way I can explain this busy, flowered wallpaper I used in my kitchen.

And how about those vertical blinds covering the sliding glass doors....the predominance of the "hunter green" color, the glass and brass globe hanging over the kitchen table and the ivory stove and refrigerator.  Now in my defense, these were popular decorating choices in the early 90's....I even remember seeing a "model" home in the area wallpapered in the same print so I thought I was quite the decorator!!  We didn't live in the house long enough to tire of the decorating scheme so I left the house with fond memories.

But now I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to the owner of our once humble abode.....I hope it didn't take too long to tear down all that wallpaper I hung so many years ago.

Now go check out the other decorating mistakes.....or better yet....go dig out some of your photos and let us see what you thought was cool "back in the day".

Happy Thursday,
Jane

And the Winner Is.....

Wow....this week went fast!  It doesn't seem like a week has gone by since I posted about my first giveaway but here it is...October 21st @ 7:00 p.m CT.  I want to thank all of you for all of your wonderful comments on my blog this past week.  I read each and every one and so enjoy hearing what you think of my projects....thanks again.

Now here's how the giveaway worked:

• Every time you left a comment on one of my blog posts between Wednesday, October 14th and Wednesday, October 21st you got an entry in the giveaway (there were 4 posts during that time period).
• I totaled all of the comments for my 4 posts to get the total number of entries for the giveaway.
• I used the random number generator to pick a winning number.
• Starting with the 1st post on October 14th and continuing with the subsequent posts, the comments were counted and whatever comment matched the number picked by the random number generator was the winner!

So, now that we've gone through all of that, let's get to the good part...the winner!!!

The winning number was 41 and that number matched the comment left by Michelle @ Michelles Cozy Cottage!!!!  (I tried to copy and paste the random number generator in this post but couldn't get it to work).

Congratulations Michelle - I'll contact you so that I can get your address.

Thanks again everyone....this has been a lot of fun for me.  I know I will be doing another one soon.

Jane

Quick and Easy Recycle Project

I was making a spaghetti dinner the other night and while rinsing out the empty spaghetti sauce jar I noticed the nice shape and size of the jar and the indentation where the label was glued (disclaimer....this is NOT an endorsement for Ragu spaghetti sauce...it just happens to be the one I was using). 

I immediately thought of the leftover burlap webbing that I had used in my bulletin board project.  (You can see that project here).

As luck would have it, the width of the webbing was the same width of the spaghetti sauce label.  After removing the label from the jar I cut a strip of the webbing the diameter of the jar, glued the webbing to the jar, added a small accent ribbon and ended up with a recycled container that could be used for multiple purposes.  (I think sewing buttons on the webbing before it is glued to the jar would be a fun idea too).

I'm storing some of my vintage, wood rulers in mine but it would be great for pencils, paint brushes, buttons, etc.  If you keep the lid (I forgot to) you could spray paint it and then use these as gift containers for candy or dry mixes etc.  Tie a cute tag on it and you would be good to go!!

So from my pantry to my studio that's my quick and easy recycle storage project.  Hope my family doesn't get tired of spaghetti!!

      

Tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m. CT I'll be drawing for the winner of my giveaway....not too late to enter....just leave me a comment!

Have a great evening.....Jane

Flea Market Style - "I'm a Flea Marketeer" Party

Good Morning. I'm linking up today with Flea Market Style for their first blog pary...."I'm a Flea Marketeer" This party is all about showing off one of your favorite thrift store, flea market or yard sale treasures. Link here to the Flea Market Style blog and check out their party .

The treasure I am showing today is one of my favorite finds for a few reasons: 1) it is an unusual piece, 2) it is a very versatile display piece and 3) it is vintage and I love vintage. I found this at a flea market (actually I bought two...I'm only showing one). I paid $20.00 apiece for them (more than my thrifty self likes to pay but I couldn't pass them up).

Here are a few pictures of my flea market find. My best guess is that it was a vintage time-card holder. It is made of oak and has 24 slots for time cards. It is 40" long, 6" wide and 2.5" deep.

The time card slots are great for displaying pictures, postcards,etc. I've got a lot of vintage ephemera so I plan on changing this out for the seasons.......I took a couple of pictures of items I had on hand just to give you an idea.

Vintage Valentines

Wedding photos of my grandmothers (wedding dates 1910 and 1928) and my mother (wedding date 1953)

Vintage photos and postcards

This will be a great piece to get my ephemera out of the boxes and displayed for me to enjoy.

Friendly Reminder:  My "leftovers" giveaway ends this Wednesday, October 21st @ 7:00 p.m. CT.  All you need to do to enter is leave a comment on any of my posts from October 14th until October 21st.  One entry for every comment you leave.  You can view the "leftovers" here.

Have a great week.
Jane

Raise a Racquet!

Halloween is rapidly approaching and I still don't have my living room mantle decorated.  I've worked on a couple of projects recently that will hopefully bring me one step closer to getting the job done.

I'm posting todays project with Leigh @ Tales from Bloggeritaville for Thrifty Thursday and with Suzanne @ Coloradolady for Vintage Thingies Thursday.  Go check out their great blogs and check in with all the thrifty and vintage finds!

I have seen a lot of vintage, wood tennis racquets with wood braces at thrift stores and antique malls.

I found these three braces at a thrift store (minus the tennis racquets) for 50 cents apiece.

I wanted to make a BOO sign for the mantle and thought these would make great frames for the BOO letters. 

After taking the wood brace apart, I used the brace as a pattern to cut out a piece of corrugated cardboard and a piece of patterned scrapbook paper (the carboard was used to help stabalize the paper in the frame).

                      

One of my Christmas gifts last year was this Cricut cutter.  I have to admit that I haven't used this as much as I could but it sure came in handy for this project.

With the Cricut I was able to very quickly cut out these letters.

I reassembled the braces sandwiching the scrapbook paper and cardboard between the two frames.  I then adhered an inked piece of orange paper to the patterned scrapbook paper and then adhered the letters.

And here is the finished project.  You can see that I turned the middle brace upside down so the braces would sit close together.  OK....I know those aren't crows I attached to my BOO sign....my Cricut cartridge only had a robin....just imagine it's a crow!

And here's the sign on my undecorated mantle.  I'll post pictures of the completed mantle after I get it finished (or maybe I should say IF I get it finished)!!

My vintage, thrifty BOO sign cost a total of $4.00!

DON'T FORGET........Check out my 1st giveaway here.....Just leave a comment and you'll be entered!! You can get multiple entries if you comment on any post between now and next Wednesday, October 21st!