Altered Dollar Tree Pumpkins With Rusty Hardware

I made a few of these last year, click here to view.

The base is the Dollar Tree Styrofoam pumpkin.

Although I always have a stash of rusty hardware,

it is surprisingly hard to find enough size and shape

 appropriate pieces to do very many pumpkins.

So this year, there are three.

I love the lightbulb, mad scientist look.

They "screw" in so easily with the Styrofoam.

Easy and a lot of fun to make.

A Forest, Fall, Friendship & Amelia Earhart

My friend Crystal comes from Myrtle Beach each year to visit me and to enjoy our fall color.  Each year we take a different mini-trip.  This year we journeyed to Atchison, KS.

Here we are with Amelia, at the home she was born in.

The home (and neighborhood) was stately and gorgeous.

And we learned a lot about the multi-talented Amelia.

 

From there we went to the "Forest of Friendship",

which was just outside of Atchison.  There is a meandering

pathway lined with trees from different states and countries.

Peaceful and gorgeous. 

 

We enjoyed the lovely fall weather, the trees

and celebrating 40(something) years of friendship.

Upcycled Halloween Bling Bottles, Part II 2016

After doing a batch of bottles for Halloween,

(click here to see that post)

and thinking I'd gotten off easy with the number of bottles --

I discovered a second box of bottles set aside for Halloween decorating.

I pulled out little trinkets and some vintage

jewelry bits to adorn some of these.

And then I had the bright idea to cut out vintage

photographs of people to make them looked "trapped"

in the bottles.

Imagine my surprise when I unpacked some of last year's

bottles -- to find that I had that same epiphany last year!

Sometimes old age is such a blessing.

It allows you to forget the bad, and rediscover the good.

County Old Fashioned Fall Festival

Our county in Northwest Missouri was celebrating it's 175th anniversary last week.  There were about four days packed with activities, and I think each person in the county population was drafted to help for one or more of those events. 

I had my back yard raided (they know where to come for

the rusty junk!) to fill out the "photo booth" area.

Yep, about every thing metal in this photo is mine.

How cute is this family?

There was a flea market around the square on Saturday.

The gazebo featured different entertainers

about every thirty minutes.

Here is the courthouse in all of her glory.

All three lumberjacks have a day job --

and lately it has been working on windows at my house.

Here they supervised people using a cross saw to cut

a log section which was then stenciled with the 175th

logo and given to the sawees.

Frog jumping contest, three legged race, pie eating contest,

a petting zoo, and pumpkin painting all

provided great entertainment for kids and adults.

It was great fun to see young families

enjoying the "old timey" entertainment.

 

I couldn't resist including a photo of our newly renovated

barbershop on the square

(where I get my hair cut!)

My friend Kim had a booth at the flea market, she did a brisk

business selling the signs she makes from vintage metal.

This t-shirt features the logo

my husband created for the weekend.

 

Sunday was the icing on the cake.

PERFECT fall weather graced the community

church service at the park.

  

 

Halloween Still Life In A Jar 2016

I came across a stash of old wide-mouth peanut butter jars a few months ago.

I knew instantly that they would be perfect for "still life" jars.

I'm saving a few for Christmas-themed jars.

I think I made five this years,

but only managed to photograph these three --

and I think all three have already sold.

Loved the skull on a stand that Dollar Tree

offered this year.  Perfect size for this jar.

Another of the peanut butter jars...

With a knob attached to the top it would

resemble a cloche.

Leather Topped Vintage Dental Table

I recently won an antique dental table from a local on-line auction.  It was AWESOME, except for the top.   I couldn't even tell what the top was (or if it were -gag- blood-stained). It turns out that it was felt, and the reddish areas were the true color of the felt.

Fortunately the lovely oak with the great patina was only a "frame" to the pine with the felt glued on.  You can see that by removing the oak "frame" (carefully) I was able to sand the felt off of the pine surface without touching the outside oak. 

I had saved a small piece of thin upholstery leather for such a time as this.  I knew that I wanted to "upholster" the naked pine piece with the leather.  After cutting the leather to size I used spray rubber cement on both the back of the leather and on the pine top.  After letting them both dry separately I pressed them together (you only get one shot at this, so be careful!)

I cut niches out on the corners so that when it was folded under it wouldn't bunch up -- the oak "frame" fit pretty tightly around the pine rectangle.  Then I folded the extra leather under the pine and pushed in some tacks to hold it in place. 

Then the scary moment --- was the oak piece still going to fit over the pine?  YES, success.  Mostly.  One corner was a little bunchy had to be cut with an exacto knife.

Really the whole thing only took about 1.5 hours, and for me that is a quickie project.  Especially for such a beautiful result.  Sold at the 2017 Platte City Antique Show for $85.

Cleaning 100+ Year Old Windows

I have a tough time cleaning my windows.  When I bring up this subject with friends and relatives, they just look at me.  Perplexed.  Why doesn't she just use windex like the rest of us?, their expressions say. 

Because they don't have windows that are 120 years old! 

When we bought this house, we were just young pups.  We hired some professionals to paint the exterior -- which included the window frames.  So, they had to take the windows out -- and the workers wondered if I wanted to clean them while they were out.  Sure, I gave them all a once-over with Windex.  (I sometimes have to laugh at my young self.)  That didn't seem to make much of a difference, so I probably tried a couple of other lame things before giving up.  The glass may have looked a tad better, but all of them still had build-up.

Fast forward (an unbelievable!) 26 years.  My windows look absolutely horrific.  (The photo above is the view out of several of the windows).  But thanks to the internet, I know why and I know what to do about it.  Knowing that taking windows off of the second story of our house is not going to be easy, I confess I have put this off.  But, as I have mentioned, I am in the process of painting the first story exterior -- so the time has come to face this monster.

Why do I have cloudy windows that would make a Windex salesperson weep?  I mentioned before, that our house was either vacant, or neglected much of it's 120 years.  Not a lot of exterior window cleaning being done during those stretches.  Every time it rained, the water left behind mineral build-up.  Multiply that by decades.  That (and dirt) is why I have hazy windows.  And let me tell you, windex doesn't touch it.

So, today I tried cleaning on a couple of storm windows (they aren't 120 years old, but they weren't close to new back in 1988 either).  I would have loved to have gone a completely "green" route.  So I tried two coats of straight white vinegar.  Leaving the vinegar on for awhile before squeegeeing (is this a word?)  Really, it made no difference.

I had to resort to the CLR (Calcium  Lime Rust Remover).  I don't even want to know that it has in it, but it did the trick.  I still had to treat each side with two applications, and then hit a couple of tough spots one last time -- but I ended up with sparkly storm windows.  So now I am taking my show on the road (or on to the porch roof), and trying it on some of the old wavy 120 year-old glass windows.  I personally do not have the technology to take out these windows, so they will have to be cleaned "on site."

Halloween Poison Apothecary Bottles 2016

Some years I have accumulated many cheap antique apothecary bottles for this project.  And this year...not so many.  That gave me the opportunity to go slow, and enjoy the decorating.

Here is Group A.  Most of these bottles were "dug" (from the ground)

so I didn't have to do anything to age them.

The labels include some from Dollar Tree,

some from Michael's, and some free on-line labels.

Not all the bottles had corks, but that doesn't bother me.

The one at left I attached a broken old doll head to the top.

And after this photo I put a slightly damaged chandelier crystal

upside down in the top of the Eye of Newt bottle.

Group B.  Then almost all of them get a little 3-D bling.

Anything from plastic creepy crawler to old jewelry.

Love the dolly arm stopper on the Frog's Blood bottle.

To see some of my apothecary bottles from a different year,

click HERE

 

These were somewhat more generic bottles that I

whipped up after finding a stash of keys.

More to come...

Vintage Finds: Vintage Jewelry

Last week I won a couple boxes of jewelry from a local on-line auction.  No way to tell very clearly in the photos what I was looking at for sure.  I noticed that some of the jewelry junkies have now started bidding on the local on-line auctions, so this might be the last of the jewelry that I'm able to purchase.

I had a feeling after looking at the auction photo

that this bracelet (needing new elastic)

was bakelite.  And I was right.

Sold for $25.

This is actually a 1920s compact that came with the jewelry.

It was upside down in the auction photos, so I didn't know how great it was. Score!

Sold for $21.

Marked sterling.  Again, no way to tell from auction photos.

This celluloid and bakelite cameo necklace will also make a

good ebay item.  No way to tell from auction photos, but it was bakelite too.

All heading to ebay.

  Sold for $30.

Halloween Book Art Assemblages 2016

I decided that to "eek" out my full enjoyment from an art project, I can handle doing about three.  Any more than that, and it seems like a job.  Which, is necessary sometimes.  But thankfully not for this project.

 

Like last year, I did include quite a few screws.

I really don't like my book assemblages to fall apart,

and this really keeps them solid.

(Clamp books together before attempting).

Again, a few screws.  (Another tip:

drill pilot hole first before adding the screw.)

  Check out my past book assemblages by clicking here and here.

Vintage Finds: Mexican Sarape Saltillo Blankets

Another local on-line auction has come and gone.  One of the best "lots" that I won was a set of three vintage Mexican blankets.  The auction photo was not great, so I got them cheap.  It turns out that there were relatively few condition problems.  These are large and probably made 1930-1940.

The serape or sarape is a long blanket-like shawl, often brightly colored and fringed at the ends, worn in Mexico, especially by men.  The term sarape is for the rectangular woven blanket (no openings).

The traditional serape was made in the Mexican state of Coahuila in north-eastern Mexico near the city of Saltillo often consists of a dark base color with bands of yellow, orange, red, blue, green, purple or other bright colors

These are finely woven, and very artistic.

If my house had a southwestern décor,

these would definitely be keepers.

Going on ebay soon.

  Sold one for $61 and the other two together for $85.