Published on July 10th, 2009
I inherited my grandmother’s house many years ago. I still have not went through everything that came with the house. Boxes remain that have not been sorted and organized. My grandmother was a pack rat but the awesome thing is that she left behind memories of her life like pieces to a puzzle for me to put together.
I have found newspapers and photographs from the 1800s, old magazines, some cool handbags and hats and tons of letters, cards, and little mementos of a long life.
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Published on June 26th, 2009
If you have not gotten your hands on one of the Junk Beautiful books you are totally missing out.
Sue Whitney is the ultimate when it comes to taking a piece of whatever and re-purposing it into awesome decor. Examples: an old grate becomes the centerpiece of a magnificent winter wreath, washboards and a printer’s drawer become a stylish outdoor patio table, a tire and drum become a side table, a vintage wooden milk crate becomes a garden cart, dominoes become a soap dish, an old urinal becomes a planter…and that’s just ideas from the Junk Beautiful Outdoor Edition
.
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Published on June 19th, 2009
I love vintage glass. I have a few hoarded bottles and unique finds that are currently stashed away so my kids don’t break them. Eventually I will have all my antiques displayed around my home and not stuffed in boxes…after the kids have grown up.
If I displayed everything now it would just get broken. But broken glass pieces don’t always get wasted. There are many artists who have found creative ways to turn broken glass into works of art. Some make mosaics, others make new bottles, glasses or tumblers, and some, like Laura Bergman of Bottled Up Designs , make pretty pieces of jewelry. Read the rest of this entry »
Published on May 19th, 2009
One simple way to make your customers feel special when they open their purchase is to tie it up or tape it up in style. In the first part of this series I showed you a variety of handmade eco packaging envelopes, but your special product packaging doesn’t have to end there. Seal up your envelopes or tie up your package with my top recommendations for decorative tapes and ribbons.
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Published on March 24th, 2009
Do you create and assemble vintage or antique collections that are unusual and artful? If so then meet Lost Found Art: a unique design company that specializes in sculptural installations and assemblages using antique and vintage pieces. LFA may just be interested in acquiring those odd collections (you’ve been thinking of selling) for their unique contemporary art sculptures.
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Published on March 20th, 2009
I found an Etsy seller putting her vintage buttons to good use. She makes custom monogramed pillows and wall art with vintage buttons. Peggy of Letter Perfect Designs hand sews each carefully selected button into place. Read the rest of this entry »
Published on January 6th, 2009
It wasn’t always that handmade quilts, the work of women who had a lot of other work to do, as well, were considered artwork in their own right. They were used, after all, and used long and hard, not set aside for posterity. If they were hung up, they were hung up to divide up living spaces or provide insulation, not set on a gallery wall. They were created not by professional artists, but by real women for real needs who used as their materials what was at hand.
And yet, handmade quilts are artwork. They are beautiful. And they are now often hung in museums. Here’s an online tour of some of the nicest permanent collections: Read the rest of this entry »
Published on January 3rd, 2009
I’ve been posting lately about the treasure of beautiful, hand-sewn vintage quilts that I found in my Mama’s house, and the shocking conditions in which they’d been stored: stuffed in a closet, stuffed in a garbage bag, with MOTHBALLS! Another that my mother had put aside for me was folded up, hung on a HANGER, and then stuffed inside a garbage bag.
The quilts were all visibly worn-looking, weak, and discolored along their fold lines. On my Nana’s friendship quilt, some of the color of the embroidery that served as the signature of the women who pieced the quilt had bled onto other parts of the quilt that they’d been shoved against for thirty years. The quilt on the hanger is in the worst shape–the plastic had stuck to it in a few spots (it’s a nine-patch my Nana made in the 1970s, out of polyester), and it didn’t really want to completely unfold anymore. I have a master’s in library science that focuses on archival management, and I sew, and y’all? I FREAKED. OUT.
The thing is, my family doesn’t hate these quilts and want them to die. The recognize that these quilts are works of art, loving legacies from women long gone from us, and records of our ancestry, and they very much want to treasure them and preserve them for future generations–they were just doing an ass job of it.
Here’s how to not be such an ass. Read the rest of this entry »
Published on January 2nd, 2009
I don’t know about you, but Christmas week at my grandparents’ house isn’t exactly a hotbed of activity. Papa does get up at around 5 am, of course, so if I got up, too, I could hang out with him while he sits at the kitchen table and reads the newspaper and drinks coffee for three hours. Then we can move into the den and watch Fox News for a while. We could yell at the dog, watch through the front window to see what the neighbors are up to, and when the postal worker comes, well, we are going to hop up and get that mail RIGHT AWAY. We have to hurry, you know, because if we’re going to go to Western Sizzlin’ for dinner, we have to be there by 4:45 pm at the latest.
Yeah.
So you may not be surprised that while my Papa watches Fox News all day, I putter. This is where I found the million of Christmas cards from people we’re not even related to anymore and got permission to upcycle them into gift tags. One time I found a bunch of my Mama’s really old resin record albums and ripped them all to my computer. I dug around in the attic until I found all my old Strawberry Shortcake dolls and Transformers and He-Man guys (remember this dude? He’s my favorite).
And then, a couple of days ago, I found the quilts. Read the rest of this entry »
Published on June 30th, 2008
Steampunk, a genre combining future living with the romance of the Victorian era, started to come to prominence in the 1980’s. Influenced by fantasy and science fiction writing, and inventions for time-travel by H. G. Wells, steampunk has started to trickle into the mainstream in recent years.
It has gone beyond being relegated to the novel and expanded into all other aspects of art and design, making its way into fashion as well. The style is most often characterized by the use of found and repurposed objects, open circuitry and exposed gear cogs. There is also a blog devoted to all things steampunk called The Steampunk Workshop.
The mentality of do-it-yourself that is pervasive within steampunk is what helps this aesthetic cross into green culture. The clothes, jewelry and modded phones and computers are all created with vintage or thrifted items to achieve the proper “look.”
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Tags:
Clothing & Fashion,
craft,
cufflinks,
diy,
eco,
environment,
pendants,
recycle,
rings,
steampunk,
upcycle,
Vintage
I inherited my grandmother’s house many years ago. I still have not went through everything that came with the house. Boxes remain that have not been sorted and organized. My grandmother was a pack rat but the awesome thing is that she left behind memories of her life like pieces to a puzzle for me to put together.
