Bunnies, Ballerinas, and Bears, oh my

That dumpster might have been yucky and smelly, but I am loving the  stuff I pulled from it.

I dug out an old, broken magazine rack and almost tossed it back in.  But it had a cute shape, so I kept it.  When I got home, I gave it a good whack with a hammer and tore it apart.

This section with the bear painted on it is the center of the rack, with the handle on the top. 

Wouldn’t this be sweet in a little baby girl’s room?  $20 if you are interested.

I have a thing for ballerina bears. I have painted a t-shirt for Sugarwings with this on it, and did a mural for a friend’s daughter of a  cute dancing bear in a tutu also.

My matchbox is ready to be mailed for Natasha’s Swap. http://natashaburns.blogspot.com/

My partner is Debra of http://www.hophopjingleboo.blogspot.com/ who is a talented artist and a collector of bunnies (she is hosting a bunny swap, you should check it out).

I was fresh out of vintage bunny paper (or maybe I never had any), so I painted some bunnies on my matchbox.

My first step was to paint the entire thing pink, and add some striping.  While the paint was wet, I dumped a bunch of glitter to the inside of the newly pink box.

I painted a white rose on one end and a brown bunny to the other end.  Then I wrapped the sleeve part of the box in vintage sheet music and wallpaper and painted a bunny on the top.

I drew some gold swirls on the bottom, and glued chenille ribbon and crystals to the sides, so it is pretty from all angles.

I thought it was missing something, so glued 3 little vintage millinery flowers to the top.  I bought the flowers from Deb Dusenberry of Curious Sofa http://curioussofa.blogspot.com/.

When she was moving from her old location to her new (and magnificent) store, I worked at her moving sale.  How cool to style her shop and get the sale set up!!!!  Ooh, I felt schmancy working there.  She had bundles and bundles of these posies

marked from $1.50 to $3.00 each so I bought quite a few.

I also bought a pair of these columns from her. I have them in a nook of my studio.

I might have spent more than I earned that weekend working at her shop.

Back to the matchbox- those things are tiny, but you can jam a lot into them!

I found some old bunny shaped buttons, rhinestones, and some small ephemera goodies. To top it off, I put in another teeny bouquet of those posies from Curious Sofa and tied them up with black velvet ribbon.

Last week while Garage Sailing, I found an old jewelry box, for almost nothing and it had quite a bit of old jewelry in it (included in the price).

There just happened to be a bunny brooch inside!Just what I needed for my swap partner who loves bunnies. Fate?!

It is way too big for the matchbox, plus I wanted to add some copies of my little fairy girls too, so I wrapped them all up together in old silk wallpaper and tied it with a silk ribbon I hand dyed.

But the trouble is, now I am SWAPLESS!! I am all caught up and have no swaps to do.  Although, I saw an art-doll hat swap that looks really unique……  take a look at it here: http://craftingbycandlelight.blogspot.com/

I was still up and working at 4am last night, so missed Garage Sailing this morning. I thought about just working till 6am, then going out sailing, but realized that I am way way way too old for those old tricks and went to bed for a few hours.  I can’t go with out sleep like I used to when I was in my 20s and could stay out all night, then work the next morning.

We had company all day (family BBQ) and all I could think about was a nap.

This little nightstand used to be the right half of a desk.  I got it cheap-cheap-cheap because it was butchered up a bit in the deconstruction. 

Some wood putty, sand paper, primer and paint is all it needed to be a decent little hunk of furniture. 

I was going to do more to it, but thought the hardware was so nice, I didn’t want to distract from it.  Plus, it was about 3am.

Well, it is about midnight now, and if I want to go Garage Sailing tomorrow, I’d better get some rest. I cannot miss it two days in a row!!  Its already near the end of June and my shopping days are slipping by.  The season is just too short around here!!

Ps- the wierd mask is spoken for now.

ppss- don’t forget, only SEVEN DAYS till the drawing for the handpainted charm. leave a comment if you want to enter!