Thrift Score Thursdays

Found a few fun items this week!

Fabulous 1940s Sawdust Doll. Isn't she pretty? She belongs in a fairytale!

High fashion WWII black felt tilt hat with stunning magenta curled ostrich feathers.

And a colorful floral mid century Lilly Pulitzer dress. Perfect for spring!

Under the Big Top!

I was at the thrift store last week and found a roll of orange perforated event tickets. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with them - but I knew I could find a fun way to use them in the house. When I got home I wandered around the house brainstorming about how I could re-purpose them and ended up in our youngest son's room. Gideon's room has a circus theme and I spied the perfect place that I could use the tickets to revamp the room.

Gideon loves books and we are lucky enough to have a built in bookshelf in his room. On close inspection the tickets were the perfect size to glue onto the front edges of each shelf. I brushed on Modge Podge on each edge and pressed the tickets down. Then - since I love to color coordinate - I couldn't help organizing the books by color as well - alternating each shelf. Once I had the books organized I had two whole shelves left for displaying some of our vintage circus treasures. In addition to using a page from a 3-D circus book, I dug up a retro Fisher Price Roly Poly Bear, a fun Little People clown, a plastic candy holding weiner dog, a colorful stuffed Humpty Dumpty and a vintage magnetic monkey puzzle. See below for before and after.

Gideon's room has been a labor of love and I am absolutely thrilled with how colorful and fun it has turned out to be. For the ceiling Mike and I wanted it to feel like we were under the Big Top - so we created our own stencil and painted the ceiling a vibrant blue. Around the light fixture Mike painted a star pattern using gold metallic paint. Gideon's bedspread and circus wall canopy are from Ikea. I found the curtain valances at the thrift store and scoured the fabric district for gold/white striped fabric to make the drapes with.

It took me several months to find all the art and other decorating items for Gideon's room. My crafty neighbor Cathie Filian http://cathiefilian.blogspot.com/ gave me a vintage book full of amazing circus illustrations. Using a thrift store frame, Mike and I finally chose this incredible tiger to hang on Gideon's wall.

I love Helen Dardik's art and on her Etsy store (http://www.etsy.com/shop/helendardik) I found the perfect print! Gideon is a Leo and so what more could I ask for then the Mr. Leo colorful circus art she created (on the right). A friend made the fun collage on the left and I attached the clown feet to it from a toy the boys no longer play with. Add a fearsome lion head, a cymbal playing monkey, a circus train on parade and wallah THE CIRCUS IS IN TOWN!

Vintage Christmas Card Display

I found a stash of vintage 1950s Christmas cards at the thrift store the other day. The graphics are fabulous and I wanted to figure out a way to display them somewhere in the house. So after a brief brainstorming session, I grabbed a few wooden clothespins, spray paint and a bit of string.

I spray painted the clothespins red, dk green, medium green and yellow. Mike screwed in little hooks for me in the kitchen wall above our vintage stove. I stretched and knotted the string to each end of the hooks and pinned the cards onto the string with the colorful clothespins!

Tada! A quick and easy way to display your holiday cards!

Very Vinyl Christmas - Part I

I'm at the thrift store pretty frequently (so I can keep my Etsy store stocked with goodies) and there's always an abundance of vintage vinyl. So this year I decided to challenge myself and see how I could revamp old records into a fun colorful Christmas decoration. I grabbed a couple of the smaller records - 45s, then headed over to the 99 cent store where I purchased a few packages of tinsel and cheap ornaments.

In addition I used a glue gun, a drill, some scrap ribbon and vintage Christmas light bulbs.

The end result! Super fun Christmas wreaths with a retro feel.

Instructions:
1. Grab your record and an electric hand drill and drill a small hole in the top of the record.
2. String your ribbon through it
3. Grab your glue down and glue the tinsel down first. Let cool
4. Arrange the ornaments and the light bulbs where you want them and glue down. Let cool.
4. Hang it!

Party gal

Just a quick post to show my latest assemblage creation. I love old dolls - mostly old doll parts and so I was rummaging through my stash of goodies and honed in on a few items that caught my eye and started tinkering around. I finally ended up with the below - a doll head and body, a scrap of velvet wallpaper, butterfly wings from a Christmas ornament, feather bits and some metal parts from a vintage cookie and candy press.

Now - while I have the creative vision - I often have no clue how to assemble what's in my head. Thankfully I have a husband who is ready and willing to help me facilitate my art. So he gets the construction credit!

She's my Party gal - all gussied up for the holidays.

Got Brains?

This post is dedicated to Zombie lovers everywhere! A few years ago Mike and I decided it was time to come up with a theme to decorate our front yard for Halloween. It came down to 2 ideas - Meat the Cleavers, a gory ode to June & Beaver Cleaver or a Victorian Zombie graveyard. We settled on the graveyard because it was a little easier to flesh out (he he).

 My husband built the Cemetery sign and the graveyard fence from recycled wood we had.

Then I thrifted a few cosmetology heads and Victorian looking clothing. We have talented friends and our friend Karen Sartario painted Mr. Zombie and Aaron Lyle painted Mrs. Zombie for us.

Last year the week after Halloween I found this 1950s life sized doll. She had to hang out in the garage for a whole year until finally I could get her all zombied up for this year's display. She stares creepily out at everybody from the front of the cemetery.

This little one is another addition to the walking dead family.

And that concludes our Zombie graveyard. Hopefully I'll be able to add another ghoulie ghoul
next year.

Last but not least - I had the opportunity to take my 2 boys on a family zombie walk a few nights ago. Both of my sons had a blast - groaning and lurching down the streets of Glendale. I am always amazed at the ability of children to suspend disbelief and just have fun! I highly recommend it if your city has one!

HALLOWEEN - Part I - COSTUME ATTIRE REQUIRED!

I love Halloween! And so does my family. We make a big effort to decorate both the front yard (coming soon in the next blog post) and our house. In the house I like to get everyone involved in dressing up for the season - costumes are mandatory! And that includes our taxidermy, stuffed animals, vintage toys and various artwork that's on display. See below for some of the fun disguises I have used to "spook up the crib."

We love Jesus and thinks he must have a sense of humor! So he gets to sport devil horns for his costume.

I found this painting 20 years ago at one of my first thrift store visits after I moved to Los Angeles. I took a piece of black cardboard paper and cut out a bat mask for her.

Would you believe this is a monkey!??

This is Pancho Del Muerte. Even skeletons need a get-up.

 

Mr. Deer gets a snappy top hat and a wolf snout.

This is a vintage cosmetology head that we painted to look like a zombie and added an morbid Victorian mourning bonnet.

Stay tuned for our Zombie graveyard in Halloween - Part 2.