Mixed Media tin hearts

 Hi guys! I am sharing some mixed media tin hearts I finished up this weekend. I make these with vintage materials.

 OK..except for that Red's Apple Ale bottlecap halo! These figures are vintage Italian creche baby Jesus-es. (Jesi?) Wish I had more but only had the 2.

 The keys are vintage brass ones I verdigris-ed.

 A bit of the vintage copper I found at an estate sale a couple weeks back. I am going to have fun snipping and hammering that!

 These last 4 are larger...vintage French dictionary pages and vintage wallpaper.. love that rosy stuff!

The sing one has vintage Mozart sheet music. Time to clear the decks and move into glitter mode! These will be headed to The Gathering show in Knoxville this weekend and if they don't sell onto my Etsy shop. Hope you had a great weekend too! More vintage pics and Show pics to come so stop back! Comments loved, followers adored! Til next time! Julia

Whats up in the studio today

 Hi guys! Just a quickie post of what I am up to today. I was hip deep in bottle brush trees this morning. A whole forest dyed and waiting for glitter and mica!

 I was washing vintage aqua quart jars yesterday for my upcoming shows and I had 4 lone insulators.

So today I dug up some springs and battery tea lights and made candle holders. Not as easy as you'd think..LOTS of hard bending and filthy hands! Real votive candles fit, but these seem much safer! I think these are going to the shows too. Stop back and see what else I am up to! Comments loved, followers adored! Til next time! Julia

Weekend Project Upcycled lamps

 Hi guys! I rewired and upcycled a couple lamps this weekend. I got this vintage base this summer at an antique auction. I couldn't find any info on it online, but just thought it was marvelous!. I think it is probably 1970's era. The riser was rusted and the wiring gone. This "painting" is Grant Wood's American Gothic. My mom always calls them "the cornflakes couple" as there used to be an old Cornflakes commercial with a spoof on this couple.

I added new lamp parts and a new riser made from an old trophy piece that Ed had left on the coffee table. He bought several vintage trophys to salvage and sell on EBay and only wanted the tops and marble bases. It worked perfectly! Now I am eyeing the rest of his "discards"! lol.

 I made this lamp from a vintage wooden surveyor's tripod. I added new socket bits I sprayed hammered bronze to "blend in more" and new reproduction cloth covered wiring that Ed sells in his Etsy shop The Industrial Farmer.

   It just looked better than regular cord.

 I added a shade I made with a vintage lampshade wire frame and chicken wire. I plan to add an Edison light bulb too. These are headed to my upcoming shows as I HATE shipping lamps! I have a lot more "project lamp bases" sitting around..I need to get cracking! Hope you had a fruitful, peaceful weekend! Stop again and see what I am up to. Comments loved, followers adored! Til next time! Julia

New projects

Hi guys! These are some things I made this week. The first 3 are upcycled wooden bowls. My husband brought me some shabby mid century wooden salad type bowls at an estate sale last weekend. I painted them with chalk paint (home made) and decoupaged on my graphics.
These feathers are actually peacock feathers..not the usual tail feathers but wing feathers. I like the graphic black and white stripes! These are actually scanned images of the same 2 feathers, I just made them different sizes and mirror imaged some in Print Shop before I printed them. The eggs are from an antique print that I scanned and printed, trimmed and applied.
This is some more of the feathers and a photo of mine of a nest and eggs.
The bowls were those shallow nesting ones.
On the blue one you can see the surrounding paper a bit..which isn't bad, but I may try clear decal paper next time.
This is one of my fav pics. You could really add whatever image or photo image you wanted. I was going to add text pieces that said "Nest"around the rim but decided to leave these as is.
I got this cool drawer at the same sale. It was aqua but only the front was painted. I painted it with aqua chalk paint and added a vintage label holder.
And some pretty scrapbook paper on the inside.
I love these little cup pulls!
This could be used to hold CD's or whatnot as a drawer, or stood on end....
Or if you added hanging hardware it could be mounted on the wall as both something to put things IN and a shelf to put things ON! I love repurposing vintage "junk" I think you end up with cooler things than you could buy in a store! On another note, my 9 yr old son had fall break this week. We went bowling and my 3 yr old grandson Hunter beat both of us rolling the ball granny style. He bowled a 96 and I had an 86 and Jack had a 79..and yes that was WITH gutter guards! I told my daughter the next day that my butt cheek hurt from bowling..she said, "You are supposed to use your hands!" LOL. Tonight we made a bonfire and toasted marshmallows. Quite the process but they had fun. It made me think I really need to take advantage of this time when they are little! I know my "big kids" were just little the other day and now they are 27, 23 and 20! Hope you had a great week and stop back! Til next time! Julia