Saturday, December 13, 2014

Vera Vault -- The Grid Edition

The amount of scarves I can accumulate in a year is both exciting and kind of scary.  I have been stashing scarves as I find them in a bag at our shop -- keeping them separate from the rest of my collection to photograph.  Let's just say the number of scarves in the collection total has drastically increased!  I will be doing a count over Christmas, as soon as I finish photographing the rest in the bag, and you know, after maybe the other Blackbird stuffs a little Vera something-something in my stocking?  <wink>

So enjoy this round-up of some of my Veras (my dear sweet loves!), all with a grid or grid-like design.




















Bonus -- It's time for the Christmas windows!

So I know I've been a real slacker when it comes to the blog, especially with the window posts.  We've still been doing the windows at Collector's Antique Mall in Asheboro, North Carolina -- we just haven't been sharing them with you.  So for that, I apologize, offer as a gift to you our newest window, just in time for Christmas.


If you've read our blog before, you know that the Christmas window is not necessarily our favorite one to do.  We have more parameters and limitations with it than we do with a normal window design (the tree goes here, it must be rich and full, blah blah blah).  But we really enjoyed this one.  It came together quickly, there was tons of silver tree junk in storage at the store, and we could use our trusty black and white tiled "floor".  And there's always lots and lots of glassware at the store to use. 


We suspended plastic glittery snowflake ornaments in silver and white from the ceiling, and filled the wall with black, silver, and white framed mirrors.  We wanted it to SPARKLE! and SHINE!  And it does. The effect doesn't translate all that well in photographs, but standing outside at night looking in, it really twinkles.  So pretty.

Balls and tinsel and picks galore!

The tree is so full of stuff, I was afraid it would fall over.  We found a gajillion silver picks and we used them ALL.  We also had tons of that cheap silver tinsel garland (can you see it?  it's kind of buried in the tree), and we debated about using it -- will it look like cheap silver tinsel garland?  But it's kitschy, and I LOVE KITSCH, so we went with it.  And I swear, it made that tree looks expensive.  Who'd have thunk??


We didn't go overboard adding presents under the tree.  Just some carefully curated items, mostly chosen for their colors and designs.

We loved this doll for her white hair and patterned dress.  And the dominoes are freakin' cool!

So we've done a Christmas kitchen, a traditional living room, our Hipster Cabin Christmas last year -- but we'd never done a table and chairs.  We found this great white iron and glass mid century patio table and mixed it with two traditional black chairs.  We were selective with our red accents, and mixed crystal, painted wood, milk glass, and steel for the other pieces.  We think it looks pretty awesome.

We've wanted to use this checked bedspread for a while now.  It was perfect here.
Crystal Christmas tree and Santa says "Hi!"

This has deer heads for handles!  Perfect!
We finished the whole window with angel hair tinsel -- another kitschy classic.  But it's so sparkly, and delicate!  We put it EVERYWHERE.

And the piece de resistance is my disco fringe silver tinsel wreath I made.  Did you see it?

You can make one too!  I started with a Styrofoam wreath base, and used silver bead garland and angel hair tinsel from the dollar store.  I used my handy glue gun to glue random lengths of the bead garland to the top, and I did two layers.



Then I took hanks of angel hair tinsel and wrapped it around the form, hot gluing the ends in the back.  I kept adding it until it was full, then I went back over it and teased out some loose ends for that fringe-y effect.  It was very messy, but you know, whenever I make anything, I make a huge mess.

Messy, but sooo sparkly!

And here it is installed!  Merry Christmas y'all!!


Sunday, December 7, 2014

Junk Love: Holiday Greetings!

Every year, I peruse the displays of my local shops to find the perfect Christmas cards to send to my favorite people. The problem is that I have more Christmas cards than I do favorite people, so I always end up with extra. The next winter, I try to make myself reuse those leftover cards, but I hate to repeat myself. The solution to this problem? Vintage cards.


Here

Unused ones are, of course, the best. And the great thing about them is that they're cute, affordable, and you can buy only as many as you need. Here are the best that Etsy has to offer this season. Hope you find the perfect ones!
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Sorry! This one sold....