My sweet friend, Angie, gave me the nicest birthday gifts before I went out of town! We'd been trying to get together for months and the timing was just not right. She had Christmas, Valentine, and birthday presents all in one giant bag of goodie heaven for me.
Including this lovely custom creation.
Lots of lovely thoughtfulness.
Thanks, Angie!!
The first Friday of every month, the Old West Bottoms warehouse district in KC is a treasure trove of antique shops. It started out with just a couple, and over time has grown into a bustling district with more than you can even get to in one day. In nice weather, it's almost like a street fair, with sidewalks and empty lots full of flea mkt goods, and food trucks parked everywhere.
Gwen McClure is one of the reasons this whole area is such a big success. Her shop is Bottoms Up and is floor upon floor of high quality antiques.
I always enjoy her own spot there in the mall. She and her sister haul back cargo loads full of finds from France.
Of course, I'm drawn to the ephemera to use in my work.
When I was visiting with her, she offered to sponsor a giveaway for my Birdsong peeps who are coming in June.
She is going to give us a drawing prize of a $50 gift certificate good for shopping anywhere in the shop.
I'd probably be tempted to spend it all on these $3 bags of lace, myself. I can't wait to see what the winner picks out, I hope she brings it with her to Birdsong to show us her purchase.
I've set the date for our gathering so that anyone who wants to can shop in the West Bottoms on Friday before our weekend classes, so I'll be holding the drawing ahead of time and the winner can pick up her prize there.
THANKS, GWEN!!!!!
Sponsors who give us little prizes for the gift bags or something for the drawing will be added to the side bar of my blog until the next Birdsong. Plus, I'll show off your kind gift on my blog.
And you will make the Birdsong peeps very happy! If you want to be a sponsor, please email me at:
karlanathan@sbcglobal.net
There are so many shops in the district, that I haven't even seen them all. My friend, Lori, and I spent most of the day and saw about half.
Not all are open only on the First Friday, some are available every weekend.
(notice all the floral hats? I had a lucky hat day, and came home with SEVEN wonderfully, flowery ones!)
My friend, Sarah, has a booth at Restoration Emporium.
And Lesa Daily had a temp spot set up at Bottoms Up for Easter. She will be there first Friday of April too. Then back again for Halloween. I treated myself to one of her birdies, and chose one with pink polka dots. I loved the bunnies too, but I am very, very fond of her special birds. They have so much personality!
One thing I appreciate about the shopping is that if you need a piece of furniture, you can find almost anything, and often redone and ready to go. Much of it is painted, and in trendy tones. You also can get many crafty items that are well done and in good taste, done with vintage materials. There are great uses of salvaged goods, like this centerpiece too.
Plus, the antiques of course.
Prices run the gamut from one store, or booth to another, but I've usually filled a bag or two (and I am cheap). And a couple times, even a truck. Springtime there is a perfect time to find white wrought iron garden pieces.
A while back, I found the coolest old frame at a flea market. But it certainly needed a redo.
This is how it began. I liked that it wasn't perfect, was a bit beat up and looked its age, but the pictures sure weren't my style, and I like things much lighter.
I've done a lot of painting over the years, and have many how to's listed HERE. For different looks, you paint things in different ways. For this, I wanted it white, but not "clean" white. So, instead of priming, like I suggest in most of the tutorials, I lightly sanded it. When I coated it in white satin latex paint, some of the wood tones bled through.
If I had used a primer, I'd have lost a lot of the wood grain that I wanted to still see. This paint was pure white, but also because I didn't prime, the wood wasn't sealed. The natural oils of the old wood stain caused the paint to darken.
I did a purposely semi-sloppy paint job, didn't get all the edges, left the indentations in the trim dark. But I was careful to always make my brush strokes the same direction as the wood grain so it didn't look messy.
The frame sections weren't typical modern sizes, so I didn't have pictures that would fit without having mats cut to fill out the frames. And since I didn't want the formal look (and expense) of mats, I layered cut out pictures of my fairy grand daughters over sheet music.
This is not a technique I would try on something that was in heavy duty use, like a table top. Unless I applied a ton more elbow grease into the sanding. But for a decorative wall piece, the light bit of sanding was plenty.
Once I was done taking a picture of the pictures, the dorkies insisted that I photograph them. They patiently waited by the bench while I took the frame's picture, then jumped up for their turn as soon as I moved it.
How could I say no to them? Little hams!
Our family day Valentine fairy workshop was very special to me. I simply do not get enough time with my sisters and their kids. Not all of them could be there, a couple of nephews are far flung, like I am. Because of they are not nearby, it was a good day to be together, we found out that my oldest nephew's son was going through a crisis and wasn't expected to live. I was glad to be with family as the story unfolded, and even more glad to be there when we got the news that he was recovering and was going to be fine.
Bobbie's home is the best place to be for a Valentine party, the dining room's color scheme was ideal! And she had plenty of space for all of us to gather. We had kind of an open house seating, with nieces coming and going through out the day to make fairies with us.
I'd brought all the supplies and turned everyone loose with them to see what they'd come up with. The best part of a class is the variety of styles and creative ideas that show up in the end products. Dang, I don't know how I missed getting a picture of Hannah's basketball fairy, it was a cutie!
Bobbie put her own face on her doll. It's fitting, because her last name is Valentine!
Here is the three of us posing with our dolls. The cheery, cherry wall was a good place to pose, and the rose painting was a good match for our Valentine theme too.
Doesn't it look like Sis is wearing a magnificent floral hat tho? So, I had to put a hat on too. Sadly, all that was near me was a skein of yarn. Not a fancy as hers.
Sissy brought some curly wool roving in deep tones that made ideal hair.
I'd dyed wool and crepe paper in pinks and reds to use.
Then decided that my wool was too pink and redyed some yellow over it to make it more fleshy. Great for the dolls, but in a pile, it looked like intestines or worms.
I sewed up some strips of sparkly tulle for dresses petticoats too. You should see the drifts of glitter left behind in my sewing machine, when I opened the bobbin compartment.
I'm not sure that is good for it…
The more fairies I made, the more I got the hang of it and came up with tricks and short cuts.
Whenever I do a class or tutorial, I need to make a bazillion prototypes before I figure out the very best way to tackle the project. My studio is going to be knee deep in fairies by the time I'm ready to host the class.
For now, I've got the pretties hanging off my dining room chandelier for the holiday.
These will differ from what we are doing in Birdsong, since for one thing, they are all pink and red Valentines, but for another, I used some new flowers instead of all vintage millinery.
While experimenting with the new petals, I ran into a lot of trouble with my glue. I've always used the Ultimate, and love it. But when it came to these brand new petals, it just wouldn't stick, they were slipping and sliding right off of the skirt. I asked around and Fabric Tack was suggested. It did the trick, worked great on the new materials. My fave, the Ultimate was used on the rest and also on the old flowers.
I've come up with lots of different shoe styles for the fairies, I always like to have a lot of options to show the class attendees.
I even have extra face options. Dogs, cats, cherubs, ladies. No dorkies, though, durn it. I wish I could find some Victorian scrap Yorkshire Terriers!
After making a quite a few red and pink girls, I was ready to try some other colors. 
And I ended up with a few witches.
Bobbie's witch had a face from Oz.
Sissy moved onto using her wool for another purpose and felted a scarf. And when my niece, Stacey, saw what we were using, she offered to gather some angora from her friend's goats. I can't wait to felt and dye that soft, fuzzy wool. I'll show you the steps as I do it. Of course, it could be a "don't try it this way yourself" version of instructions, because I've never done it before.
One thing I tried didn't go so well. I thought that maybe the sprites would look better with more rounded bodies. So, we tried wrapping the wool over cotton balls, only to find that the dolls looked like cinched in pillows, not curvy fairies. The one on the left is an example of how NOT to make one.
I'm excited to make more and get my kits made up in soft springtime colors for our Birdsong gathering.
And I'll enjoy memories of our family weekend filled with fairies while I am making kit after kit after kit.
When I got an invitation to my niece's surprise 50th birthday party in Indiana, I couldn't say no. As soon as I finagled the kiddo watching schedule and made sure my turn was covered, I cashed in frequent flyer miles and packed my bag.
My niece, Shelli, has always loved mermaids, so I made this one as a gift for her. It's the same pipe cleaner and wool roving as the fairies we will be making in Birdsong, but with shells and a tail instead of clothes and legs. A little more complicated, but not much. And harder to sit up, so I packed a sea shell in the gift bag too, now the little mermaid has a seat.
This mermaid is holding a heart shaped coral from the Maui beach and her seahorse wand is a cocktail pick from our dinner cruise there. And my family wonders why I fill my pockets with "junk" sometimes, it's not junk, it's supplies!
My flight arrived in time for a lunch out with my sisses and the birthday girl. She didn't realize there was more in-store for her birthday the next day and had no idea I was there just for her. She thought that the lunch was the celebration itself, along with dinner out with her husband and kids that night.
So, the evening after her birthday, when everyone surprised her at the party, she was looking over her shoulder trying to figure out whose shindig this was.
It was cute to see her face when she realized everyone was there just for her.
My sisses and I were able to fit in a little antiquing the first day, just enough to score 3 floral hats and a few other tidbits, not a lot, but it scratched my junking itch.
Mostly I was there for family time, and glad to have it.
Our cousin even drove all the way down from Northern Indiana in the snow to join us for craft day.
Everyone consented to be my guinea pig students for the Birdsong fairies. This is Sissy's Valentine fairy, I'll have more to show later.
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ps- have you seen the Facebook movies that have sprung up over night? At first I wondered what the heck they were, then thought they were hokey, and soon after got sucked in to looking at them all.
Some are off a bit, like showing exes from years ago, or odd pictures. But some are golden. I even got a little teary eyed at a couple, including my own. Yep, I went along like a lemming and posted one.
They are fun to look at, but it's also creepy to see how fast they spread. In one day, it seemed like every other post was a fb movie. Like a zombie epidemic.
While out junking, I found three of these domed glass ornaments for $1 each. (I wish there had been more!!) They were pretty as is, but I had other ideas for them. First step was to find just the right picture of my little fairy princesses, then back it with heavy paper, and cut out the images.
After that, I pried off the the back of the frame. That was harder than I thought it would be, but it ended up coming off okay.
Next, I covered the existing cardboard circle with very old, gold wallpaper on the front/sheet music on the back, and added the girls to it. Dewdrop is layered over Sugarwings, with a wadded up piece of paper under her to make her image a little higher than her sister's image.
Since the glass was domed, I wanted to take advantage of the space inside and have the pictures at different levels.
Next, I added millinery flowers to their hair, and glitter pen sparkles to their dresses.
On Sugarwing's hair posy, I added a rhinestone. And then slid the word, "joy" under Dewdrop's head.
Bunched up lace and ribbon were glued over Sugarwing's skirt, and a silver pipe cleaner tree was put into Dewdrop's hand.
I took a snip from the pipe cleaner, and bent it into a V shape, and trimmed the fringe, so that it was all shaped up neatly. Then, I cut another snip off of a pipe cleaner, and trimmed almost all the fringe off of it right down to the wire, and glued that into a hole poked into the picture of Dewdrop's fist. Over that, I glued the V shape, faux tree, so that the piece glued into her hand looked like the trunk of the tree.
Next, I ran a bead of glue around the circle, dumped a bunch of sparkly glitter on the center of the circle, and rammed the piece back into the metal frame, under the glass. It wasn't much easier to put back in that it was to take out. But it went in, and the glue will hold it.
The glitter is loose, and makes me think this looks like a snow globe.
The other two that I bought were turned into gifts for Guncle Randy and Guncle Kevin. I made up a couple of pretty boy angels on black velvet for them.
Our trip to visit them in Florida involved a fancy dress up dinner party that was themed, "A Black Velvet Christmas."
I had some gorgeous, old black velvet to cut up, and used it for the background plus cut some up as ribbons.
The old watch face is ringed by tinsel, to make it Christmassy.
Foil leaves and sparkly snowflakes were tied to the ribbons.
The angels in both are vintage, and the feathers are from my hen, Sophia. She had such pretty, silver colored feathers, that were just perfect for the angel wings. This handsome guy got his suit foofed up with silver stripes, and a boutonniere with a rhinestone center on his lapel.
When I get back, I'll have some pictures to show of the guncle's FAB holiday home. They always do it up right. I'll probably come home about 10lbs heavier too, they cook every bit as good as they decorate, and these guys love to spoil their guests!
When Lori Oles, Andrea Singerella,,Hope Wallace Kearny, and I flew down to see Suzanne and Jennifer Hayslip my buddy, Sherry kindly invited us to her antique haven of a home for a visit and then hauled us around to some of her favorite shops.
One of our stops was for authentic, down home style southern cooking at the Blue Willow.
Hope snagged info from there, as from all of the spots we hit, for her travel journal, that she had completely done and ready to pop photos into when she got home.
Sherry's house had more to see in it, than at any antique shop we could ever find.
OH
MY
GOODNESS
I don't know that I could possibly describe the treasures lurking behind, beyond, under and over each other in her Victorian dream house.
This is one small snippet, of a giant house filled with fripperies and fineries.
I was touched to see so many familiar pieces in the midst of her major collections. This is a painting I did of one of her grands.
And here is her project from Lori's Birdsong class this spring.
And from Lisa's class 3 years ago.
And a mushroom that I made for Jenn's fairy tale event in Asheville a couple of autumns ago.
There was a lampshade from Debbie's Birdsong class too.
I saw some clever ideas.
Gorgeous, vintage books.
And piles and piles of pretties.
I seriously can't imagine so many cool things in one home. I should've tried to get an all over photo of at least one of the rooms, you wouldn't believe it.
Sherry is a master shopper, for sure and has created a home filled to the brim with what she loves.It was quite an experience to see her collections.
And quite an experience to get to spend time with such good friends too.
I miss them already!
Rusty Chandelier has had a few parking lot sales this year, and I finally made it up to one. Next door is Jesse James Antique Mall, where I found this mirror tray. The silvering is off the back in an ex shape. Probably from tape? I want to sand off more of the silver, so the shape isn't as linear, and cover the back with wallpaper.
Beth found a good looking $12 chair. It's always nice to see her find something to keep, she is mostly a resale buyer. It's a rare occasion that she treats herself to a piece.
I found a few little goodies in the parking lot, but mostly was there just to enjoy a spur of the moment day out. I'd decided to head that way, and stopped to call Beth to see if I could convince her to ride along. She was just finishing an episode of Breaking Bad, so the timing was good. NO ONE could ever leave in the middle of an episode!
I found some pink millinery roses, some project ideas, and we had a tasty lunch, so over all, a good day.
Plus, found some interesting titles for candle scents. ????
This teapot was one of my best purchases of the day.
And I have already added some rose wallpaper to the back of the mirror, it turned out nice. Of course, you can't see it very well in this picture, it's blocked by my dressform fairies.
I'll leave you with some pictures of Rusty, it's always a pretty place to visit.
Anything I sew is wonky. Maybe, just maybe, I should break down and measure?
A long, long time ago, I found this throne at a garage sale, and finally got around to painting it about 18 months ago, thinking I'd recover it then too.
It did not get recovered til recently, because Sugarwings uses it and she, well, shall we say, is a pig? is not the tidiest kid at the dinner table? I left the fabric dark so her sliminess wouldn't show as much. But lately, she has been growing up and being less of a mess.
Still, I worried that a light fabric on the seat was just asking for trouble. So, I decided a washable slip cover would be the best way to go, but man- those arms were hard to fit the cover around!!
I ended up cutting them out way too big. So, I fixed the gap with a ruffle made of the fabric on the back of the chair. I'd cut the fabric off my old dining room chairs that were broken, and saved it. There wasn't enough to cover the seat too, so I did a mixy matchy thing, and I think this ruffle was just what I needed to make the mix match up nicely.
The whole dining room is now mixy matchy. After searching here, there and everywhere, I finally found some new chairs to replace the ones that had broken. (by the way, I have a magic driveway, anything at all that I sit at the end of the drive gets picked up by someone. It's fun to wonder who got it and what they did with it, and nice to know that it isn't in the land fill!)
There were 4 chairs at TJMax for $99 each (plus 10% off for opening a card and a cash back bonus for spending that much)
I'd hoped to find old chairs to fix up, but these were a decent price, solidly made, and didn't need a thing done to them besides Scotchgaurding). Forget about the throne seat, I feel like a princess sitting in BRAND NEW CHAIRS! What a treat!!!
While I was taking time off, hanging with the grand fairies and on my home improvement kick, I spiffed up the guest rooms a little.
Not much, just some switching of linens for this room, and bringing in a bedside table. (I really, really hate the carpet, but the room is used a couple times a year, it's not worth ripping it out and putting in wood or laminate, like I'd prefer)
The second attic guest room got more of an overhaul. I hung a cool, old, mosquito net that Lisa had given me, and added a gorgeous net and lace bedspread from her too.
Here is a before. We don't use the room much, and around here, the guest rooms seem to just get leftover bits and pieces put in them. It was okay, but a little blah.
The dark green shutters on each side of the window needed balance and I happened to have a $7, dark green table from a garage sale wasting away, and thought that helped a little when I brought it in. (both are things I thought I'd paint white and never did, but I'm liking the contrast with the rest of the room)
But it made the bed look washed out, so I added some pillow cases I made out of some green and rose curtains from the 40s.
I had a heck of a time getting the netting to hang right, so it wasn't drooping down too much. I decided to use a beautiful hand made bit of wrapping paper from Lori Oles as an anchor to hold it on the wall. It worked, but was too light colored, so I pinned a round piece of floral wallpaper in the center of it.
Then, I broke a ruler in half, wrapped it in torn strips of ivory cloth. I gathered the netting, and nailed the fabric wrapped ruler over it in two places to hold the pleats in place.
The room is hard to photograph since it is so small and has those angled roof lines. The canopy thingamajig looks better in person than it does in the pictures. The bed is kind of cozy looking this way.
I stapled a millinery flower on each side of the ephemera piece, and trimmed Lori's ribbons to dangle a little bit, but not too far.
This room is full of hand painted rose pieces too. I used to have an antique biz and I'd paint furniture. All this is leftovers from that.
Sometimes I think my house only has things that no one else wanted it in. Either stuff I never sold, or things I bought dirt cheap second hand because another person wanted it gone. (except for the lovely gifts from Lori and Lisa, this room is all cast offs)
These shutters are actually a custom order that was never picked up, which is why they were dark green in the first place. And that inspired the rest of the redo. And it wasn't even something I'd chosen to do for myself or the room.