china and love at first sight

this past thursday i headed out bright and early to an estate sale.

it was the last day of the sale and no photos had been posted online so i had no idea what i was going to find. but, the estate sale gods did not disappoint!

i spotted this amazing china and it was love at first sight. then i saw the price tag of $35 dollars, quickly calculated the last day half price discount and i knew it would be a lasting love. i took home 38 pieces for $17.50. pretty good deal in my book. especially after a quick internet search, i discovered the lidded sugar bowl alone is going for $24.

the pattern is "golden glory" by harmony house which i believe was sold through sears in the 50's, but i can't find any more information than that. any way, I LOVE the artwork - the gilded stylistic floral pattern is soooo anthropologie.

visitors and lemonade

any big plans for the weekend?

i have this yummy cake hanging out in the fridge until i pick my old roommate up from the airport. she's flying in for a few days to hang out and i couldn't be more excited.

the cake is a pink lemonade cake recipe i made from this months better homes and gardens. just ignore the mass quantity of some of the ingredients - everything is fat-free, right???

tomatos and gardens

i have decided that this is the year that i will learn to garden.

besides my lemon tree, i kill virtually all plants that cross my path. but not this year. i have even set a daily alarm on my phone to remind me to water the plants in the yard. pitiful i know, but i would never remember without it!

i bought a bunch of herbs and some tomato plants. this one came with 5 tomatoes already started which i think is a good thing. it makes me feel like i am already half way there. whatever helps, right?

wreaths and rest

happy monday!

i'm laying low today between a bachelorette party on saturday which i am still recovering from and a numb mouth due to a chipped tooth. please note, these 2 events are unrelated. i am not that crazy... anymore :)

check out my latest tutorial for may arts - a tiny ribbon wrapped wreath. click here for full instructions. 

have a great week!

zippers and a bag

i often joke about it, but i have definitely crossed the line of hoarding with this post. but i have a good reason for the madness, i promise. well, maybe...

here goes - this entire lot of around 600 zippers (a guess) was $4. is that a good reason to be hoarding more zippers that i could possibly use in a lifetime?

some local sewing shop must have gone out of business and dropped off all their inventory at my local thrift shop. they have bins and bins of zippers along with bins and bins of serger thread. at least my compulsion drew the line at buying up serger thread for a serger i hope to acquire in the future.

back to the zippers - fill up a grocery bag as full as you can and pay $2, that was the deal. i stuffed and stuffed and walked away with a bag of zippers in the most amazing colors for $2. and then because i could not stop thinking about them, i went back in the afternoon for another bag. $4 in all, and half of them are metal zippers that i am note even sure if they make anymore. and if they do, they would definitely be more than $2 for a single zipper in any store.

i do have plans for these zippers though - some will be used as intended, others will be crafted into flower broaches and more will be for sale during the atlanta goat farm vintage show at the end of june.

beauty and white light

no words really needed for this bunch of pics, just some fun with my zoom lens.

- i sure do love a good out of focus background (bokeh).

thank you spring in atlanta!

piedmont park and intown living

lately, i have been venturing into atlanta and meeting a friend for a walk around piedmont park. i miss my days of living in town more than i should admit, so i love my weekly drives back to the place i adored in my early 20s.

piedmont park is in the heart of downtown atlanta with city views whichever way you look. but there is so much natural beauty as well.

does anyone have an idea what tree these pink blooms are from? the flowers look just like carnations, but only they aren't.

then, on my way back to the car, i can't help but sneak a peak into the lives of the people who live on the edge of the park.

this rental house is right next to one of the park entrances and i have been enamored with the place for over 15 years. i couldn't resist taking a pic of this entry with daytime twinkle lights. i think i would be constantly inspired walking through an entrance like this every day.

then i pass by this house and i can't help imagining some paint stripper and a little tlc on these doors. i have no idea what kind of room these doors open up onto, in fact, it is very clear the current owner never opens them. i think it would make a fabulous studio. i would sit at my desk all day long with the doors wide open to let all the fresh air in.

sometimes i think half my day is spent day dreaming...

collections and cards

do you have collections, things that you can't pass up when you see them? maybe something that others don't know about?

when i was in college, i collected anything cow related. seriously, cows - what was i thinking? everyone knew about my collection, so i received lots of cow related gifts and then it just kinda got out of hand. then, the problem with people knowing about your collections, is they think years later, you are still collecting the same thing. can you image 5, 10, 15 years of cow related gifts??? anyway, i thankfully grew out of my cow obsession and have lately been on a vintage paper obsession. a much better way to spend my time, don't you think?

this is one collection that i am not afraid to let people know about because i get precious hand offs like these baby cards above. a friend of mine has a very thoughtful mother who gifted me these cards instead of tossing them into the garbage. as a graphic designer, i love looking at the detail which went into cards during the mid 1900's. they have embossing, moving parts, removable toys, and various textures, oh, the textures. i have cards in my collection that have a fuzzy fur-like surface, feathers, glitter - so many custom elements. translate those extra items to cards today and card companies would make us pay a fortune.

hands down, my favorite of the bunch is the die cut card, front and center, with the pink booties that have kitten faces as pompoms. A D O R A B L E!

easter and a chick

happy (soon to be) easter!

this may be my very favorite tutorial that i have created so far for may arts. say hi to my sweet easter chick and click here to download the tutorial so you can have some of this cuteness in your house as well!

she is a mash up of all the things i love - ribbon, vintage jello molds, sewing treasures, and typography. if you can't raid your mothers/grandmothers kitchen for these jello molds, i have lots of luck at yard and estate sales. so much luck that i am overflowing with them in all different shapes and sizes.

what do you think her name should be? she looks like a Millie to me :)

craft wars and disappointments

so last week, on twitter, tori spelling (yes, i follow her :) tweeted about a new show on tlc that she was hosting called "craft wars" which is due out this summer. and that is when my heart stopped. literally, i think it skipped a few beats, and then my mouth hung open in disbelief and the disappointment hit me.

i make a rule never to post things on this blog about what might be or could possibly be happening to me because i firmly (and irrationally) believe that announcing it will jinx the whatever. sort of how you are never supposed to tell what you wish for when you blow out your birthday candles or your wish won't come true. but since this wish does not seem like it is going to happen, here goes...

back in december, i saw a few tweets about a casting agency looking for crafters for a new show tentatively titled "ultimate craft throwdown" which would be similar to the food network show "cupcake wars". no more brief than that, no producer name, no network name, it was very vague. i am not a center of attention kind of person and i never thought in a million years i would ever do a reality show (even though i am obsessed with all reality tv), but the crafter in me squealed loudly in delight. i thought "i can totally do this, and i can definitely win" seriously, confidence overflowing. because if there is one thing i am not modest about, it is my art.

i went to work designing a crazy cute one sheeter explaining why i would be perfect for the show. and guess what? i wanted something that would stand out from a plain email with jpgs attached. it worked, i got noticed and when i got a CALL from the casting director, the inner crafter in me squealed again, only louder this time! in this day and age of emails and texting, i thought a phone call was huge - she probably just wanted to see that i wasn't some loon. in fact, i think she even said to me, you seem totally normal :) next i was asked to find an assistant for the show if i was chosen and shoot a video outlining our personal styles and what we make, which would be 3-5 minutes long. i picked jenni as my assistant because she has mad styling and crafting skills and i know her enthusiasm for life would shine through on tv. i had never made a video before, but we tacked it on a sunday, and i think it turned out really cute, especially since i am a complete amateur with video editing.

after the video was submitted, i went through a few more rounds of giving information to the casting director and then jenni and i had to sign a ton of release forms for our submission video and then the waiting happened. i knew they were hoping to shoot sometime in february, and i figured they had a ton of submissions to weed through and that was why i wasn't hearing anything, but i still felt really confident that we would be picked. it was that eerie kind of calm confidence too which totally threw me off.

at this point, i still did not know which network wanted this show or who was involved. so that brings you up to last week when i read the tweet and my heart stopped. the show tori was tweeting about is called "craft wars" but in my gut, i knew it was the same show i auditioned for and never heard back from. i still don't know 100%, but i did some snooping and found a press release which talks about the show and references the same casting agency i was working with. such a bummer! so that's it, that's my story.

it would have been such a super cool thing to be part of and now that i know who is involved - oh, forgot to mention michaels is the sponsor as well, i am just so sad about the missed opportunity. being on a reality show for my crafting is something i never gave much thought to, but now that the opportunity was in my view for a short time, i want it so much. i want to be able to show the viewing audience what i can create and my point of view. i think that i have such fresh, new ideas and i would have loved the opportunity to stand out from the crowd.

did any of you apply to the show? do you know who is going to be on it? i figure in this small craft/blogging world that we exist in, we are bound to be familiar with some of the contestants. 

the moral of this novel? every time you read online about this person getting a book contract, or that person getting a licensing contract, or this person being picked to be on a craft reality show, they too have a past filled with rejections that they just aren't talking about.

fabric and tubs

have you uploaded your pic to amy butler's "show me your stash" contest on flickr yet?

if you know me at all, you know that this isn't half of my fabric stash. um, can you say vintage sheet fabric hoarder??? anyway, while i am working on a sewing project, i love tossing fabric into a galvanized tub i have in my studio. this way i don't have to stop my flow to fold fabric nice and neat - i can save that for when i am done for the day. or, in my case, when i can't stand the mess a few weeks later and i need everything to be orderly.