"Tis the Season" at Sweet Salvage

 It's the most wonderful time of year again at Sweet Salvage this weekend!

Between the beautiful displays and the wonderful cool weather we are having here right now, I am really filled with the Christmas (and Thanksgiving) spirit!!

 I love these little vintage style wreaths and think the wooden Christmas trees are wonderful too!

See that garland peaking out at the bottom of the pic? That came home with me and found it's way into my bedroom garland. (I'll show pics of that soon!)

Me and the gang at Sweet must have been on the same wavelength cause' I just put some angel wings on my manni in my office!!

 I have a sled like this at home too. I never thought to put it on a table and use it as a centerpiece!

 There are some darling little burlap stockings there.

 Christmas elegance!!!

 I sooo wish I had room for this sweet carousel horse!!!

Glittered skates??? Fabulous!!!!

 I am in LOVE with these colors!!!

This antique bear would have been perfect for my "days gone by" themed family room, but he was too far outside my budget. I'm sure he's going to find a great home though!

Lovely transferware plates, sweet french flash cards and the color on those ornaments... divine!

 I am doing an Angel theme in my bedroom, so these really caught my eye. Too bad they are too big for me!!

As always, there was wonderful jewelry and sweet vintage style clothes and accessories. 

In addition to all the lovely whites and aqua blues, there was also plenty of the traditional red. While it's not  the direction my Christmas decor goes in, I thought these pillows were fabulous!

I even caught a candid shot of old Santa himself getting ready for a personal appearance!!!

I hope you are all enjoying the beginning of a wonderful Holiday season!

Waterless Snowglobe Tutorial

Hello everyone!! Christmas is just around the corner and I have been having lots of fun making Christmas crafts and gifts for my friends!

These waterless snowglobes came out so cute, I thought I would share with you how I made them. :)

 I started by bleaching out a bunch of bottle brush trees that I purchased at Michaels. I just threw them in bucket of water with a bleach solution of about 4:1 (water to bleach) After about 15 min they looked like this.

 Then I took a paper mache box that can be found at any of the big craft stores...

 ...and I covered it with this cool burlap and lace ribbon that I found at Hobby Lobby. You could also cover the box with any paper or fabric.

I put the top back on the box. It will become the bottom of the snowglobe.

 I added paper to the top, but found that it was really unnecessary. I poked holes where I wanted the trees to go.

 As you can see, I pulled the bases off the trees because I wanted them to sit lower on the box.

I used a bit of glue to secure them.

Then I added some more glue to the base...

...and sprinkled mica snow on it. Then I decorated the trees with pearl garlands, pearls and rhinestone beads.

(After I finished the whole piece, I realized I had actually planned on doing something a little different, so I made some changes... I'll show what I did in a few more pics)

 I wanted to mix rustic with refined so I used natural jute to wrap around the top of the jar. I used a hot glue gun for this because I wanted it to hold right away.

 Decorating the box came next. I used gathered lace on the bottom as well as silver tinsel garland and Platinum Stickles glitter glue.

 Then I glued the jar upside down onto the top of the box, and added some more Platinum Stickles glitter glue to the top of the jute.

I layered several different snowflakes together and glued them to the front of the base.

Next, I spray painted a tart tin and a wooden ball with a flat base with off white spray paint.

Once they were dry I used an antiquing glaze to age them and give them some depth.

This is what they looked like after some of the glaze was wiped off.

Then paint them both with Mod Podge...

...and sprinkle with fine crystal glitter.

Then I added some jingle bells that had been wired together and glued the whole thing on top of the jar.

This is what it looked like when I was finished, but as I said... I was a doofus and didn't do what I had originally planned. I decided to carefully tear it apart and make some changes.:)

 What I really wanted was an image of vintage children playing in the snow.

I printed the image out on my computer and glued it to a piece of heavy cardstock.

I left enough cardstock at the bottom to fold under and use it to glue down the image.

Once I ripped out the front tree and replaced it with the image, the whole thing came together the way I had originally wanted it. :)

Here is the second one I did. Instead of using a box for the base I used a large inverted tart tin for the base as well as a small one for the top. The jar is smaller too.

I added some snowflakes to the outside using Frosted Lace Stickles glitter glue. Then I decided I didn't like it and scraped it all off! LOL! Hey, it's a girls prerogative to charge her mind right???

Well I hope you enjoyed my little tutorial and it inspired you to do something creative today!!

Junk in the Trunk Fall Show

Yesterday my gal pal Sandie and I got up early and headed out to Westworld for the awesome 

Junk in  the Trunk show. They have this event twice a year and it is always a good time!

Here we are standing in line at 7:30 in the morning!! You should have seen the line! (Maybe you did) By the time the doors opened at 8:00am it looked like the line was a mile long!

(Good thing we got there early!)

It was really heard to get shots of the booths without them being filled with people. (Hence the slightly blurry image) 

This is Tricia's booth from Vintage Bliss. I had a cute shot of her too but it was even blurrier than this!! She has some shots of the show over on her blog too. :)

I also was finally able to meet the lovely ladies that run Tattered Nest Vintage Marketplace. I designed their blog for them as well the postcards and business cards they gave out. It was great to meet them and fun to see my designs in print. I rarely get to see the finished result!!!

and speaking of a cool finished product.... A few months ago, Bridget from Grungy Galz asked me to design a t-shirt for her. I had never done that before was certainly up for it.  When I showed up at her booth she surprised me with a gift of one of her t-shirts!

(It has her logo on the back)

I love the way they turned out, and will wear it proudly!  (Thanks Bridget. :)

 There were lots of wonderful booths there this time. I actually bought the majority of my stash from this booth.

 Lot's of cute things everywhere the eye could see!

 I thought these were darling for a front porch.

There were wonderful re-purposed and hand painted furniture pieces there too.

One of my favorite ladies that does this is Judy from Vintage Street Designs.

Unfortunately I couldn't get a really good shot of her booth.

I also saw the lovely Erin, from Audrey's at the show. Erin is a great stockist of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint.  In fact, I think the whole gang from the shops on Cave Creek were there. I really enjoyed visited with them and meeting new friends too.

 In addition to great "junk" there were lots of really nice handmade items there too.

I spent about 2 hours going through the whole thing, and could easily have spent at least another hour there.

Here is my stash! I know the sweet dolly has some issues, but the price was right and I figured I could cover her fractures with a cute dress or something. I also purchased several cards full of vintage lace. Yes, the real stuff... not just stained to look real!! The silver tray was gifted to me by my friend Lynne who I also saw there. She got one for herself, and we're going to make a project with them! I can't wait!! I also bought a jar full of junk jewelry to play with.

The last thing I picked up was a wonderful, long tool caddy from Moonstuck Vintage, to sit on my desk in the studio.

It was a lovely morning!!!!!

I have a fun Christmas tutorial coming up for you on the next post!!!