Fabric and Lace Cuff Bracelets

Did you ever notice how "all over the map" I can be?  I jump from one subject to another and then to another and you probably never know what I'm going to do next!  LOL!!!  Neither do I!  What can I say?  ADD!

I just added some new Fabric and Lace Cuff bracelets to our Boutiques:

These are made with my collection of vintage millinery flowers and they're reminiscent of old fashioned wrist corsages!  I use elastic in my cuff bracelets so they'll fit up to a 7 1/2 inch wrist.  Also available in our Etsy Boutique!

New Boutique Items

Just a quickie post for today ladies!  My "to do" list is a mile long!  Thought I'd share our new Boutique items.  First, mom's new Easter Tussy Mussy's:

I just love mom's tussie mussies!  Next are my little Wedding Bells:

I took vintage bell ornaments, added some tulle, pink ribbon and vintage millinery flowers.  I thought these would be pretty as a Wedding Gift decoration!

Vintage Hats Vintage Millinery Flowers

I'm back and I must say, I'm so looking forward to having my routine back to normal!  It's been a busy week and I'm worn out.  But now things can settle down and I can get back to stitching, sewing and glue-guning!  LOL!!!

We've done some shopping this week and I found 4 Vintage Hats with Vintage Millinery Flowers in the antique mall.  I buy these old hats and then take them apart and use the Vintage Flowers on my projects:

And here are the Vintage Millinery Flowers that I end up with:

I save everything from these old hats that I can.  If there's trim or usable fabric, I save it.  Waste not, want not! Would you like to see how to take these old hats apart?  See my Taking Apart Vintage Hats Tutorial.

I use these Vintage Flowers on my Crazy Quilts, Fabric Cuff Bracelets and other projects.

In other news, my sweet friend Cathy Scalise of Treasured Heirlooms included one of my Crazy Quilt pieces in a beautiful Etsy Treasury.  If you have a free moment, please see that Etsy Treasury and please leave a comment.  If it gets enough views and comments, it may make it to Etsy's front page!

Happy Pink Saturday! Pink Lemonade Lady!!!!

Happy Pink Saturday everyone!  I pushed myself just a twinge to get this completed in time for this week's Pink Saturday presentation.  I cannot tell you how much I love this crazy quilt piece!

This sweet little lady is drinking lemonade and surrounded by pink roses worked in silk ribbon embroidery!  I actually bought the frame first, in a resale shop so this is a trash to treasure project!!!  I worked the crazy quilt block to go with the frame.

It's entirely embroidered and beaded by hand.  I added some vintage millinery flowers to the bottom corner of the frame for just a touch of vintage charm!

As much as I hate to part with it, I just know that there's someone who will absolutely love to have it so I've added it to my Etsy shop.

So that's my Pink Saturday post for today everyone!  I'd like to say a special thank you to our gracious host Beverly at How Sweet The Sound for allowing me to participate in Pink Saturday.  Please stop by her blog for a visit and while you're there, check out some of the other lovely Pink Saturday Bloggers!

Also, my drawing for this pretty little Sewing Art Quilt continues:

I'm so eager to find out who the winner is!!!  To learn more about how to enter, please click here!  Help me reach my 300 Followers!!!  I have another lovely prize all ready to go for my next drawing!!!

Finally, tomorrow (Sunday) is the 15th of the month!  That means I have a new Guest Blogger to introduce you too.  You're all in for a real treat so please stop by again to meet her.  She's a sweet angel and has loads of eye candy to share with you!

Have a great Pink Saturday everyone!

Taking Apart An Old Hat Tutorial

Bubba & I hit 2 Flea Markets yesterday!  I didn't find anything all that exciting but I did pick up this ugly old hat for $6.00:

I buy these these old hats for the vintage flowers.  Many times, they're velvet and silk and usually in very good shape.  I buy them when I find them for around $4 - $6 and then I take them apart.  This may seem like a rather dumb tutorial but I thought someone out there may like know how to do this.

In most cases, the glue on these hats is rather brittle and the flowers will come off easily but I have had a few that were a big old bear to get off!!!

First, I started on this one by removing the leaves:

The leaves & flowers are usually glued to each other.  Find a starting point and carefully start pulling the leaves or flowers away from the mesh base.

Silk flower petals may tear a little.  Do your best to carefully pull them off and keep in mind that if they tear, it adds to the charm and raggyness of the flowers.  I for one, love the raggy look of vintage things!  They can always be slightly trimmed with a pair of scissors.

There may be areas where you just have to cut the mesh base to get the flowers off.

Once I had the flowers off of the sides of the hat, I cut the mesh base on the top off.

This just makes it a wee bit easier to get the rest of the flowers off.

Continue to carefully pull the flowers off the top.

I pulled them all off the top of the hat and then I pulled them off of each other.  And now I have a nice bagful of silk & velvet vintage flowers & leaves!

It takes about 1/2 an hour to tear one of these old hats apart but it's well worth it.  The flowers can be used on crazy quilting, art quilts, cards, art dolls...just about anything!  They can be sewn on or glued on with a glue gun.  The can also be glittered!!!

If you find one for a few dollars, give it a try!  It's fun to re-purpose these old flowers on new projects!

If you would like to see some the projects I use these Vintage Millinery Flowers on, please visit my Shabby Chic Boutique at Etsy!

When I finished tearing that old hat apart, I did some baking!  My Kitchaid was calling to me!  LOL!!!  I made some Banana muffins with chocolate chips:

I just used a regular Banana Muffin recipe and replaced the nuts with chips.  Scott always laughs at me because I put chocolate chips in everything!!!

Then I made a batch of Sugar cookies with cinnamon and chocolate chips:

This is my basic Drop Sugar cookie recipe.  You can find it in my sidebar.  I added 3/4 of a teaspoon of cinnamon to it.

By the time I was done baking, it was late afternoon and Bubba had gotten the headlights on our Model A:

Is this incredible or what?  He's been working on this car for 7 years now and it's really starting to come together.  He has the running boards on it now too!

Finally for today, I'll leave you with an update on my Autumn purse block:

This is ready for beading now.  I'll start on that later today!

Before I head out and start my day, I wanted to say thanks to everyone for all the sweet comments that you've left for me on my depression & anxiety discussions.  If any one would like to share a link to the articles on their blog, please feel free to do so.  I truly feel that if I can help even one person who's going through a horrible depression experience, then my energy in writing these articles is so worth it.  My next article will be available this week.

Ding Dong! Avon Lady Calling!

Does anyone remember this?  If you were or knew an Avon lady back in the 70's, you should know that this was the Avon Lady's Sample case!  My mom sold Avon in the 70's and this was her case.  She was thinking of getting rid of it.  I was like, devastated!  How could mom even think about parting with something that had such happy memories attached to it?

Mom had 3 territories for awhile and my sister Kathi and I would help mom unpack her order shipments, package them up and deliver them to her customers.  Honestly, I don't know why those are such happy memories for me but they are.  It was fun to unpack the shipments and see all those wonderful, colorful and good smelling items sitting out on the kitchen table.

Well, since mom was contemplating getting rid of her Avon "suitcase", I asked her if I could have it and she said yes!  So guess what I use it for now:



It's my new little Art & Craft supply case!  I have some supplies that I like to have here and at mom's.  I was using a totebag to carry them back and forth but I feel like this is a little neater and definitely more fun since I've always loved mom's Avon suitcase!

I thought you'd enjoy seeing that!

Now, some of you may want to go and grab some paper towels because I know you'll be drooling all over your keyboards!  Scott and I went to a flea market this morning and look what I found:



2 shoe-boxes filled to the brim with vintage, "made in Japan" millinery flowers!  I was blown away!  I only paid $10.00 for the lot!  They are so beautiful, I almost hate to use them!  Of course, what good is having them if I don't use them!  But I will just enjoy looking at them for a little while before I use them!

That was my deal of the day!  I found a few other cool craft supplies but nothing you've never seen before.  It was the vintage flowers that I thought you would enjoy.

In other news, I had to turn the Comment Moderation option on.  I was getting so much spam and no one needed to read some of that, esp. since I like my blog to be a happy place for all of us.  I hope no one minds and I hope it doesn't discourage anyone from leaving me comments.  I love hearing from my readers.  I just want it all to be pleasant.

I also wanted to ask ya'll a question.  How do you feel about "Guest Bloggers"?  I was reading an article somewhere about bloggers inviting other bloggers to blog on their blog.  Say that a few times in a row!  I thought it might be fun maybe every other week to invite one of my favorite bloggers to write an article for mine.  What do you think of that idea?  Would you find it interesting?  I have so many blogs that I just love and I think it would be nice for me to introduce some of them to my readers.  Please leave me a comment and let me know what you think.

Oh, I promised you I'd fill you in on what my new Dr. had to say.  I saw her last week and I really like her!  And she did indeed let me drop my medication to 75 mgs.  It's been a week now and on one hand, I feel a little better and on the other hand, I don't.  I have to say, this has been the most difficult thing to describe to anyone!  Can some please remind me again that the day will eventually come when I wake up and say, "oh my gosh, I think it's gone!"  I really need to hear that again!

Finally for today, I'll leave with you a few new pretties!  Kitty earrings & one of my Crazy Quilt Cat Dolls!





Have a good night everyone!