Vintage Aprons – Who Knew?!

Who knew that vintage aprons were so popular? Okay so probably lots of you knew but I didn’t until just recently. Back in January I bought a lot of about 40 vintage aprons. I had visions of doing crafty things with them, making embellishments, sewing cupcakes on them, etc. Well, as it happens with many of my crafting ideas, I just ran out of time and never ended up doing anything with them.

So, when craft shows started up again a few weeks ago I decided to decorate my booth with the vintage aprons strung across the sides. I already had a kitschy kitchen feel going with some of my other display items and figured the aprons would look nice. I was right, they look great strung all together hanging from my tent and within hours of them going up at my 1st show I had people asking if they were for sale. At first I said no, they’re just for decoration but I was quickly overcome with the requests and seeing I had a large stash of them from my initial lot purchase I started selling them. Would you believe they’ve become my #1 selling item at shows right now?!

More than just the sales though the aprons just seem to have some magical memory powers. Every person (and it’s not just the women) who comes in my tent and sees the aprons shares with me some story about their mother or grandmother and their fond memories of aprons! I’m having so much fun listening to everyone that I think I’m going to have to make the aprons a permanent part of my booth just so I can continue hearing the stories.

Maybe I’ll start writing them down and I’ll share a few with you!

Swaps!

A couple months ago I found a website that I have become obsessed with. It is http://www.craftster.org and it's a place for anyone who likes to craft to come and share ideas, questions, tutorials, inspiration or just chat.

One of my favorite parts of the site though is the swaps. These are organized swaps where you pick a theme (usually) and you then get a partner and you craft a certain number of items for them and they do the same for you. If anyone knows me even a little bit they know that I love themes, crafting and getting mail - so this was just perfect for me.

So far I have finished 3 swaps, a postcard swap, a Star Trek swap and a Doctor Who swap. I'm currently in 3 more; a Star Wars swap, a Jim Henson swap and one called the little visitor swap.

The little visitor swap is a bit different. I took a toy robot, made up a name and cute back story for him and mailed him to a girl I was partnered with who lives in Australia! She in turn sent me a little stuffed animal dog. So for 2 months we go around taking pictures of our toy wherever we go (work, movies, trips, etc) and at the end of the 2 months we make a scrapbook of all the pictures and then return the toy with scrapbook to its original owner and get our toy and a scrapbook back. The post below with the picture of the felt food shows my little visitor - the dog chappy. It's been a lot of fun. People look at you a bit strange when you take pictures of a little stuffed animal wherever you go, but who cares and just think, my toy is in Australia! I wish I could have gone too!

The other swaps have been just as fun! Here is a picture of one of the items I received as a gift in the Star Trek swap! A hand knitted Mr. Spock! How cool is that.
If you'd like to see what other wonderful things this crafty lady makes you can check out her Etsy shop at http://www.creationsbyteapot.etsy.com/

Providence Open Market and the Rhody Girls Art Club

Wow, life has been so busy lately. I haven’t had time to tell you about this wonderful new craft group I’ve joined called the Rhody Girls Art Club or the fact that we Rhody Girls are now managing the Providence Open Market. It all just seemed to happen very quickly but the results have been fabulous!

This past Saturday was the opening day for the Providence Open Market! We had over 50 vendors show up on a hot steamy 94 degree day! The street looked marvelous all filled up with tents and crafters and somehow we all managed to stay cool (between the frozen lemonade and canning jars full of iced lemonade, I felt like a giant lemon by the end of the day).

This is a photo of 3 of the fabulous Rhody Girls. They are (L to R) Kim from Lucky Bird Studios, Layla from Doll Face Designs and Erin from Kiddo Mio.


This is a shot of some of my felt food on display (and a little visitor in the middle).

I have made the 1st batch of ancestor spoons into pendants and I'm loving how they look. Thanks to everyone for all your suggestions and comments. I still plan on making some ornament ones as well. Don't you just love the idea of "instant relatives."

No Shirt Sulu

I'm on a quest to see how much of a comic book I can recycle into something else. I've made pins and mini envelopes before but this was my first try at gift tags. The funny part about this set is that I posted them on my flickr and got over a hundred views in 1 day. I thought it a bit strange till I realized my title - No Shirt Sulu - might have had something to do with it.

I wasn't trying to give the wrong (naked) impression, I just thought the drawing of Sulu was so funny that I had to make it into a gift tag.

More, More, More

More new items. These are Gift Tags on a Stick!

I found a beautiful deck of vintage cards that each had a different bird illustration on them and turned them into gift tags. The back of each is now covered in sturdy cardstock, stick attached and an area left for you to write a message on.

These look great inside gift bags because they stick out of the top and can be seen easier. They also look great stuck inside a plant, a cupcake, or a teacup full of chocolate as shown here.

Did I mention that I can't stop making new things? It's a problem, really!

More New Items - I Can't Stop!

Help,

I can't stop making new things! :) Thanks to everyone who posted comments for my ancestor spoons. I'll have updated pictures of that soon. I've boiled it down to pendants and ones that are bent so they prop up to look like an oval picture frame.

My new project today though is PIN CARDS! I don't know why this didn't occur to me sooner, but I was making some handmade cards this weekend and had my circle cutter out that I make the pins with when I realized I could combine the two. I just happen to be cutting up a little field guide to wild flowers from 1945 and decided to let them be my prototypes. I like how they turned out. I cut the picture out to make the pin and then cut the flower description out and glued it to the front of the card. The inside is blank for you to write your own message.

The only thing I haven't had time to test yet is how will the pin fare when mailed in a regular envelope? I don't know if it'll get dented or if the cardstock paper will support it. My mother is mailing one to my Aunt today to see how it works. She sent her a strawberry one.