sparklythings

So yesterday I found myself down in Gainesville…of course, I checked out the thrift stores online and formulated a list of places to hit. I forgot the GPS but I did have my mom with me, so it balanced out. Together we hit 6 stores in about 3.5 hours and came up with quite a haul – she has the patience to go through stacks of things that I won’t, and she’s usually well rewarded for it. Here’s my loot:

The candle holder is a little shabbier than normal, but I think with a little love and paint it will come out looking pretty neat. The saucer is Fire King; as a newbie I figured I’d stick with Pyrex only, but this one was just really pretty so I got it. I like the colors and they pop so nicely on the white:

Now, I showed this vase to my mom and said, “Isn’t this pretty?”

That phrase wasn’t code for “buy this for me, ” because it really doesn’t match my decor or anything. But you know how moms are…so now I have this pretty vase.

These two boxes held recipe cards, but I just loved the hot pink oven graphic…

I know i’ve see these triangle-shaped plates before, but I never bought any before today. They were half off!

I did find some Pyrex! These green-edged bowls compliment our daily plates, so that’s a nice bonus.

I’d like to warmly thank Audrey for making this sign (and the bajillion letters!) available. I may take some pictures this weekend with it but I think it will permanently live at work. There’s much fun to be had there…

Continuing with the letter theme, I got three sets of these monogram transfers. I really wish I embroidered, but I still think I can use ‘em on other things.

I ended up taking this out of the nasty frame, and it looks like this might have been a part of an old greeting card. The kids on here are so adorable they make me wince, and I love love LOVE the font!

 

Since my vacation week (when I went thrifting whenever I wanted) and with my relative success on eBay (stuff sold, but I need to take a class on shipping) I had been chomping at the bit to get back out there and find some treasures. I am notorious for not being a morning person, but I was up early yesterday and today with detailed, planned routes to hit estate and garage sales. And I was not disappointed…EXCEPT for the advertised “HUGE MULTI-FAMILY GARAGE SALE!” that turned out to be two tables along the side of the road. Momma didn’t raise no fool!

I think I’ve been watching too much “Big Love,” because those amish girl coasters first reminded me of Utah. But they can’t be real Amish, something about the way they’re smiling doesn’t look quite right. There’s three each of the two images. The Cafe du Monde cup I got for Jim; he’s the coffee drinker and on occasion, he’ll get a hankerin’ for some beignets. They sell the Cafe du Monde mix at WalMart of all places, so now he’ll have a cup to match. Picked up the Venus pencils at an estate sale in a box full of tools; they’ve never even been sharpened. And the 30-piece dollhouse furniture set was only $1! I know I had this set when I was a kid, but I got pissy and threw it out. This time I’m going to do it better…

Box o’ vintage cards from an estate sale. I always see these on eBay, but with shipping all they’re never worth it. Now I finally found some! This one is my favorite:

Too cute!

Cute embroidered Mr. & Mrs. linen towels from the same sale. The DoD Fallout Protection book may still come in handy; I heard N. Korea is shutting down a reactor but Russia has broken some treaty…? And for you local folks – how amazingly cool is that Civic Auditorium dedication program? The writing is full of the optimism of the time, heavily emphasizing the “Civic” part of the name and how the building would be used by everybody for the greater good. This is extra special to me because over 30 years later my high school graduation took place there! The program has some interesting pictures, including an aerial shot of downtown with NO Independent Life building and NO Jacksonville Landing (okay, I can remember pre-Landing days) And look at the design! It’s fab! As a graphic designer I’m a complete font whore, and these are so much fun!

At that same sale I picked up a huge stack of Life, Look and Better Homes and Gardens magazines from the ’60s. Lots of Jackie Kennedy and spaceflight stuff. I have enough card-making material to keep me busy for the rest of my life. 

I did get things other than paper…found these two items at the same garage sale today. I first saw these lady-head vases on eBay a few years back; I went a little nuts because there are so many different kinds out there and they’re all so cute! I never did buy one, though, and this is the first one I’ve found. She was pretty dirty but had her original pearls on! I had to remove them for her bath but will re-string them for her. She cleaned up great, and her lipstick just needs a little touch-up. Yes, this is the new pencil-holder for my desk!

I can’t figure the green bowl out – it seems too short for food but too tall for an ashtray. Plus there’s no humps in it for a cigarette. The bottom is marked “Eastern Air Lines” with the old-style bird logo, but I can’t figure out what function this would have on a plane.

I’ve been googling this all afternoon and can’t find anything…halp?

Needed to make some cards for a dual-birthday party today. Not a duel-party, which could be ugly. Anyway, kids don’t love the vintage like I do, they like Transformers! And Elmo! And I aim to please…

You can’t tell from the picture, but I used two different thicknesses of foam to create three levels within the autobot logo, so it looked like it was coming out at you. This was fairly easy – it’s all straight lines, I used an exacto and a ruler – just time consuming. I GISed the image and the font came from a transformers fan site. I used silver vellum in the background for an extra-metallic look.

I have had these rocket ship shapes forever – I got them from Dollar Tree in the school supply section. They’re supposed to be used for classroom bulletin boards, but they’re so fun I knew they’d be great on cards. I picked up the astronaut diecut shapes later on at a teachers’ supply store, and they couldn’t have fit together better. I have been wanting to do this one for a long time! The younger brother is an Elmo fan and it was easy to pop him in the spacesuit. I used more of the foam squares to give it some dimensionality. Elmoooooo in Spaaaaaace!

Seriously, that smell reminds me of craft stores from my childhood, the small independent ones before all the megachains came along. I bought a bottle of ModPodge a few months ago, intending to collage a small wooden box, but it turned out to be harder than it looked. That dadgum box still isn’t finished, but I busted out the ModPodge again this week for this thing:

 

Michael’s had these pretty large plain plastic letters on clearance; they were marked at three dollars but rang up at $1 – awesome. Of course, my interest in monograms was peaked during wedding planning; this would have made a fabulous door wreath or some other sort of decoration. But now i’ve just covered it with bits of scrapbook paper; I’m not thrilled with the light blue paper, so I may cover it up somehow. I have plenty of ModPodge to do it!

On a similar note, I was in need of a corkboard to hang above my lil’ craft table, because I just can’t work without papers all over my walls (see my desk at work and my computer desk at home!) I didn’t want to get a boring ol’ wood framed one, and I couldn’t justify the cost of a really cool one. I found a good-sized slice of foamboard at Dollar Tree and put this together:

I had to play with the colors a bit, ‘cuz it was hard to photograph white on white. I love my lil’ chicken – birds are so trendy these days, and I started off with a rough idea of one of those kinds of birds. Then I went a little nuts. I don’t think he’ll hold up when I start putting too many pins in him, but by that point I’ll probably be bored with him anyway. At $1 a pop, I can handle making more when the time comes. I wanted to cover him with scraps and modpodge him, too, but thought it might be harder to put pushpins in him that way. But somehow I’ve gotta dress up my plain, boring chicken!

 

I’ve actually been looking for something just like the latest challenge at Card Positioning Systems. I have so many tiny-yet-adorable vintage images in my collection (oh man, I have a COLLECTION!) This week’s sketch gave me lots of ideas on how to incorporate them. The images on this card came from a old McCall’s softcover cookbook circa 1965. Seriously, how cute are they?!?! 

I went hardcore thrifting today. I had been going a little more often lately; “a little more”  being like four times this year, mostly for old books for cardmaking purposes (yeah yeah, etsy store, coming soon, yadda yadda.) Today, though, was like it used to be back when I was in college and just after. I hit store after store with clockwork precision until i was ready to drop from exhaustion – and I loved it. Why, you may ask? I dun got inspired.

I’m not even sure how how I found it, but I happened upon this post at Thrifty Goodness last week. The pyrex bowl in the back jumped out at me instantly; I had a casserole dish in the same pattern that had been passed down from my Grandma Jennie. I’m not sure why it never occured to me to look it up or to even think of it as collectable. That led me to Pyrex Love, which has more info than you could ever need about glassware. But some of those patterns rocked my world, and I started to remember all those Saturdays I would spend treasure huntin’ and how much I enjoyed it. I recalled Grandma Jennie taking me thrifting when I was just a child, activating and imprinting the habit deep into my DNA. And I was – for whatever reason, I don’t know – suprised to see a community of chicks that thought the same way I did, who considered it a legit hobby (or sickness!) and proudly displayed their trophies at the end of the day and even organized swaps with each other. Amazing!

So this weekend I talked Jim into an estate sale, a few garage sales and a thrift store. And today I braved the rain to hit about 5 more stores. Here’s what I came up with…

Yeah, I found some! Nothing too exotic, but these match my kitchen colors and they’re pretty cute. I actually dislike butterfly stuff but made an exception for the gold pattern.

I found not one but TWO of these lil’ prize packs from India Airlines circa 1971. The red booklet is filled with fun line art and there’s some awesome pictures in the brochures. These will probably work their way into some cards. The pink card in the middle is a tariff card; it’s got some great fonts on it and as always, it’s fun to look at the price of cigarettes and perfume 30+ years ago.

 

This is some kind of envelope, I’m not sure what it’s for. The colors are fun!

 

 

The airline that loves me? Fantastic! I want to fly them everywhere now, since I’ve encountered no domestic airline that even pretends to like me, let alone love me. And that little super mario guy must be the Indian Airlines mascot, because he’s EVERYWHERE in these items.

 

And here we have the grand prize winner! Aren’t these teeth-gnashing ADORABLE?  The kitty cat is from Dolly Toys in 1955! I looked on eBay and quite frankly, I’m suprised they’re not more in demand. There’s a few on there that are similar, but none exactly like this. Oh well, these little pressboard beauties are going on the wall anyway, I wouldn’t sell them – I want to find some more!

I got a few other things, mostly books of course for my cards. The inspiration continued so that I actually got some more stuff put up on eBay, some from today and some from that ol’ thrifting heyday I spoke of. It’s going to be hard to part with Space Ghost but I hope he finds a good home.

An independence day challenge from Card Positioning Systems. Red patterned paper from a DCWV stack, blue paper from Miss Elizabeth (Dollar Tree) Star shape from a Fiskar’s template. I wanted texture with simplicity and a smidge of retro, which I think I got. I’ve also been messin’ around with making my own rub-ons by printing on transparencies. I’ve learned that big areas of color work better than finely-detailed images; that you have to let it dry a little so it doesn’t bleed, but not so much that the image comes off too light; and you just have to accept that it’s going to look stamped instead of like a genuine rub-on. But I think that looks cool, and I love love LOVE being able to create my own elements – and on the cheap, too!  

I also thought the quote by Thomas Jefferson was a nice change from all the disturbingly jingoistic messages I’ve been seeing out and about lately. Love those founding fathers!