redos

It might seem early, but if I don’t start on Halloween crafts now, and Christmas ones by mid summer, I won’t be ready.  Last year, I got a very late start, and was getting up at 5am to put in such long hours that I hardly had time to enjoy the holidays myself.

 This year, I’ll be ahead of the game!

Here is the before picture of this wedding couple.  The first picture posted is the after, with them transformed into two ghost brides wearing vintage finery.

I just wasn’t feeling the groom.  But I did like the idea of doing one bride in black.

Each have a bat charm on their bodice, curly, white angora hair, and some of my favorite, old lace.

Here is an after close up of a tree I found this summer at a garage sale.  I started with the after, because the before was so ugly, I might have lost your attention.  

It was definitely in the “walk on by” category of garage sale finds.

Here it is in all of its glory.  But if you look closely, there is potential.

Those are little vintage shiny brites that were used on the original creation.  And the tiny, wooden train isn’t that bad. There was a salvage pile, a toss pile, and a package up and sell at the mall pile.  
I also cut off all the non working lights.

The next step in this glow up was white spray paint for a flocked look.  I painted the board it sits on too.  After the paint dried, I carefully spritzed it with spray adhesive and generously sprinkled mica on it.  After it dried, I shook it upside down to get out the loose flakes.

Then, it was time for the fun stuff.  Batting was wrapped around the tree to create snow as well as something to glue deer hooves into.  I cut some sticks from my yard and made trees from them, plus added some bottle brush trees.  

The wood itself wouldn’t have been easy to attach anything to.  By using the batting, I was able to give the skinny legs of the deer and the twigs a better base for glue.  I also tried to cluster them, so I could glue everything to each other for even more stability.

Keep in mind, for any glue project, the surface you attach something to is only as good as what you attach that to.  For instance, if I hadn’t really, really, really glued the batting to the wooden circle really, really good, it wouldn’t matter how much glue I used on the deer and trees.  If the batting came up, they’d fall off.  

So, there was plenty of glue underneath it all too.  And lots oozing about here and there.  I gave it a coat of mica flakes to hide that mess.

The gold and silver packages got reused, and tied up with brown string with little, vintage bells.

There are birds and pinecones in the branches.

And a star on top.  

I like it so much better now.

This tree will probably be at the Good Juju sale today, I still haven’t decided if I’m selling or keeping.

There is an extra sale date for this weekend!  A party on Thursday night.

Then our regular dates of First Friday and Saturday.

This hat is from Dollar Tree, and while I am a huge Disney Fan, it isn’t exactly the look I wanted for the holidays.  Typically, I’ll glue a couple flowers onto a red, furry hat or some antler headbands, because you know, Christmas fashion is important, right?

But this year I was inspired by a falling apart, vintage, white mink stole I came across.  And of course, the first thing I thought was- “This must go on my Santa Hat!” (I have also been using bits of it on some Sugarplum Fairies that I made)

The fabric on this pink hat is pretty thin, so I snipped off the white band instead of adding to it.  I was worried that the weight of the fur would make the existing trim droop.

Since I detest sewing, and how do you sew through a pelt anyways,  I used Fabric Tac to add my fur trim.  First, I put a piece of cardboard covered in plastic inside the cap so the glue didn’t adhere the front to the back.  

 I trimmed the fur into pieces to fit around the hat and glued them down, using clothespins to hold them in place.

The adhesive made it just a little stiffer than I might have liked.  The Ultimate glue dries nicer, but I didn’t know if that would hold.  I wish I’d tried that first.  But this is okay, just not great.

 I added  velvet petals from an old rose I pulled off a vintage hat and centered an Angel in them.

Before attaching the fur, I buffed the edges really good with my fingers to get off any bits of fluff that might have come loose while cutting into it.  I sure don’t want tickley pieces landing on my nose while wearing it.  It doesn’t seem to be shedding, so I think it’s good.

The original pom pom got cut off and I half assed made one from folded fur, glued together and adhered to the tip of the hat by wrapping gluey ribbon around it tightly.

I might add some bling or more flowers after I try out wearing it, first I want to make sure it isn’t heavy or uncomfortable.  I wish I could find a velvet hat to redo, I’d prefer that, but since I do not want to sew, or to spend much, this on is just fine.  I’ll enjoy it!