Some of my regular readers will know that I volunteer at my local Oxfam Shop twice a week, which I really enjoy. It's great to work with the other Volunteers and enables me to give something back to the society we live in. Of course there is also the added bonus of finding wonderful old items for my altered art! During the past three years I have had the pleasure of getting to know a local Antiques Dealer who visits the shop once a week, he knows that I am always on the lookout for old photo's, lace, music sheet papers etc.. and on several occasions he has brought some great pieces in for me to purchase.
The last couple of weeks have been no exception, he has found some wonderful old photo albums for me as well as a huge bag of old lace and tablecloths. With these treasures I have breathed new life into them and created vintage wall hangings. The cover and inserts from the albums have formed the background base for my wall hangings (after carefully removing the gorgeous photos of course). I have then very loosely thrown together scraps of lace to create a tattered setting for the main images.
I then stitch the lace background in a freehand motion on the sewing machine making a layered and tattered collage with the scraps of lace. This forms the base on to which I have added an old postcard image that has been covered in melted beeswax and sealed with diamond glaze. Butterfly wings printed onto velvet paper are then added to the child image and this is glued onto the postcard. I then stamped the word DREAM onto old paper and cut each letter out repositioning them haphazardly below the childs hand. The whole piece is then hand stitched onto the lace background adding vintage buttons, making sure to stitch through the lace and also the photo album backing.
The original ribbon from the photo album is then retied onto the holes in the album cover, this adds as a ribbon with which to hang the piece from. And there you have it "Breathing New Life into Old Finds!"
Earlier this week I celebrated my Birthday and was very spoilt by my family and friends! Hubby outdid himself as usual and treated me to a wonderful Japanese Lunch followed by an afternoon browsing around the V&A Museum in London and then topped the day off with a fabulous Cabaret, La Soiree.
What I really want to share with you are images of a few of the gifts I received that I know you would enjoy perusing. The gorgeous vintage shoe mold was given to me by my parents, I have wanted one of these to display in my home for a while now but had never come across one with a stiletto heel, so I was over the moon when I unwrapped this treasure. Mum also came up trumps with the stunning glass cloche above, I'm still deciding what to display in it.
My wonderful friend Sarah knows me so well, she gave me the gorgeous glass containers above, full of buttons.... I adore buttons and use them in all sorts of creations from mixed media collages to adornments on scented pillows and of course to create jewellery. The glass jars now have pride of place on my desk.
I also treated myself to the wonderful paper doll above, created by the talented Amy Earles of Wool and Water, Amy is an amazing artist, check out her work here.
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