Christmas Dress Form with Tulle Reindeer and pinecones

I've been admiring the dress form and mannequin Christmas trees for quite some time. I decided to make one last night and first looked in the garage for an old Christmas tree to use for the skirt but only had a couple of small ones lurking about. So I ended up using tulle instead. We took it and some more Christmas goodies to the Antique Mall today. The last pic is of another mannequin that I pinned a bunch of Christmas ornaments on.

The dress form was actually pretty easy to do. I turned it upside down and added some Christmas bulbs and then looped some ribbon across the middle so they would stay up on top. Next came the tulle. I looped it around the bottom in an up and down pattern and the top layers I looped sideways. I used fishing line to sew on the pine cones and small ornaments and tied on the reindeer and star ornaments.   I made her necklace out of a piece of vintage star chain, a vintage rhinestone brooch and a star ornament. Then added the ribbon belt . 

Man I can't believe it is almost December.  This year has gone by so fast, I haven't done a post in ages..Hope ya'll have a wonderful Holiday Season!

Today's doins....upcycled table project

Man it's been so hot lately I haven't been outside much doing any new painting projects. Yesterday I finished up this table re-do and took it to Timeless today. 
The chairs were in pretty good shape when we got them...I added some ebony stain to the finish and decided to go with 2 different vintage upholstery fabrics on the seats.
The table top was in poor shape and hubby sanded it down then I mixed up some chalk paint for the top of the table. Used the ebony stain on the base and then also added a bit of ebony on top of the chalk paint before sealing with a few coats of polyurethane.
Can't believe it is almost July already.

Hope ya'll are having a great summer!

Happy campers Tied the knot Got er done :D

My sweet Niece Allison had a beautiful wedding yesterday and it ended up being a nice but windy sunshiny day instead of Rain----which made it even nicer :-)
She had seen a bridal hairpiece awhile back and asked if I could make something similar....
And I ended up with this...
(of course using vintage and new components.....)

She loved it but the slight problem was that it was too big for the hair style she had chosen....
so I made a few alterations and it ended up working out nicely.
One of my SIL's told me she couldn't believe how well it matched her wedding dress....
and considering that I hadn't seen the wedding dress until after the hairpiece was made.....
it did all come together quite nicely.

She looked so radiant and beautiful..she is such a sweet talented gal and you can tell how much her and her new hubs really love one another.  It was also kind of cool seeing my husband's sister cry so many tears of joy yesterday in knowing that she wasn't losing a daughter but instead gaining a son :)

Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Smith!

That 70's kind of feeling Old School Picture...Today Is The First day Of The rest Of Your Life

When I found this old picture it had a yellowed clear plastic stapled on top of it which made it look as old as it was.
I removed it and the velvet background looks as good as new.
Man this reminds me of something I would have had hanging up in my room back in the 70's :D
Taking it to the spot at Timeless this week.
And yes....that saying "Today is the 1st day Of The rest Of Your Life" still rings true.
Seize the day peeps!

Upcycled vintage dried flowers in a tiny bottle and new heart locket necklace for Sarah

So Monday....had a ham in the oven because the kids were coming over for dinner and checked facebook
(which I don't keep up with all that often these days....)
my social skills network yada yada department seems to be severely lacking LOL!
Gheez...it's been awhile since I've even taken the time out to blog anything here.
Anyhoo....I saw on facebook that it was Sarah's birthday....
and it is the one thing I like the most about Facebook....
if you log in everyday you can remember everyone's Birthday.:D
So....while dinner was in the oven I had a bit of time to whip up a small present for Sarah....
I used a tiny glass vial and put in some dried flowers that the girls had picked out in the garden and Chloe and I had placed into the flower press awhile back....
I also added a vintage dangler crystal and a new heart locket.
Sarah does not wear a lot of jewelry but she liked it :D
We had a nice family dinner
and cheers to celebrating many more family Birthdays!

Chloe and the pill bugs

Saturday fun

Vintage pillow case vendors Apron

I've seen a lot of these aprons made from pillowcases.
Took pictures today of one I made awhile ago using a vintage pillowcase and some of my vintage trim.
You just fold them up and sew up the sides and a couple more seams up the middle to create the pockets. Then add ribbon on the sides for tie backs.
This one took less than 2o minutes from start to finish.
(Although it did take me a bit of time remembering where I had stashed my flower trim hee-hee.) Easy peasy and quick!

Spanky's Place at Timeless Furnishings...today's doins

Went to Timeless today and did a little rearranging and took a country kitchen display shelf that I finished painting the other day.
I love to browse the place and I kind of feel like I am always at home walking around in there considering that I had my first full-time job there way back in the day when it was Brock's department store.
I remember coffee breaks up on the mezzanine...and I was what they called a "BUCS clerk" which had to do with tagging and tracking merchandise and the computer upstairs filled up almost an entire room.
Later on they made me an assistant MGR in the Junior Dept at the Valley Plaza location and then I resigned when I was hired on to work at the Post Office...
but every time I walk in that door it takes me back to the past long ago...
and how fitting that it is now a vintage/antiques destination....LOL!

About the Zibbet still closed forums

Yes...many of us have moved on...and have left a lot of time sucked wasted promoting energy behind us. Many however do have Zibbet to thank for bringing so many of us together in conversations and long lasting friendships that never would have happened had it not been for the failures up to this point of CEO's Jono and Andy.
When the forums were public...it became quite evident that the Ning venue that the Zibbet community is hosted on actually had a much more likelihood of postings being crawled by Google. I used to tell members that posting their images in the Ning community gave them much more likelihood of being noticed on-line.
Myself---no SEO expert....just knew that postings in the Zibbet Ning Community showed up when googling....and yet items from shop members that had been shared and tweeted over and over were not showing up. There was something posted about the way the shop listings in the links showed up and why they were not being crawled. Back then I was darned determined that a pretty large group of us could promote share and get Zibbet on the map.
I didn't have a crap load of sales for all the time spent listing and promoting...but considering that I did not have an on-line built in customer base and sold something like 200 plus items....I did a heck of a lot of sharing and getting my items shared----but big difference--- Zibbet had an open Community.
well people all have different sides of the story...but my opinion is that Pastor Andy pretty much reeked havoc in that community and stirred up a lot of problems behind the scenes in his little hidey holes....and jono knew what was going on but he was off doing another start up at his new day job and didn't have time to pay attention is all I can figure.
Okay....so flash forward to 2015 when the few die hards in the community are simply asking that the forums be made public again---they have pretty much come to the realization that their efforts are for naught so to speak unless they can get crawled from the Ning hosting site.
Jono busts in and says this----
Permalink Reply by Jonathan Peacock (Zibbet's CEO) yesterday
Hi all,

I understand the desire to make the forums public again. Unfortunately at this point in time, we aren't able to honor this request. As many of you know, the forums became uncontrollable and brought a lot of negativity to our members and our team a while back. We simply don't have the resources to dedicate the time needed to cultivate and manage an open forum community. 

We see the benefit of it and look forward to be able to do this in the future. 

We're sorry to disappoint.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
well here's my 2015 2 cents to add to yer statement Jono---
1st of all........IMO the forums became uncontrollable because the site is very poorly managed...and Andy had too big of an ego to just relax and let it be a real forum of people discussing ideas and all----
being that he is a pastor and having everyone agree with him most of the time "Oh yes Pastor Andy" kind of deal---I can see now where he might have had an inflated ego and uber control type of issues....and just because your religion is in the business of "planting" really doesn't have to carry over into your need to fertilize and "cultivate" a forum----but the social monitoring that ya'll did outside of that community before you closed it down---went waaaaaaaaaaaay beyond what was natural for any type of selling venue. Ya'll were like control freaks on Acid or something...I mean really..what good for your overall community did you expect to come from your actions?
You had crap loads of time to dedicate to monitoring your sellers actions outside of that little community....but now-------
No time to let them have an open forum.
Your downfall then..was trying to control too many things.
Your downfall is still that you are very nice people as long as people are kissing your arse and telling you just how fabulous you are.
reality C-H-E-C-K--....grow up---
let the community be a community.
You don't have to control everything.
The only thing you controlled when you muted booted lied about sellers and members of your community---
is that Zibbet lost the momentum that was building.
You killed it.
Jono and Andy----
don't be sorry to disappoint-------
crimeny---ya'll own that badge a thousand times over already don't cha?
wink wink.
Your die hard natives are getting restless---
and the fact that you do nothing about it---
well........
might mean that ya'll have already moved on and just raking in whatever $ is still tinkering in without any effort on your part.
You still owe those sellers who have stuck beside you all this time some sort of effort to help them make money.
They won't keep promoting forever and ever with no real views or sales to compensate them for their efforts.

Finished A couple of recycled furniture pieces today

I often forget to take the before pics of pieces I have been re-doing lately.
Here's an old end table that I started on yesterday and suddenly remembered to get the "before" pic

It was actually in a little better shape than this when we found it a couple months ago...but was one of the pieces that got hit in the heavy rains we had awhile back... I felt kind of sorry for how drab this old thing was looking... and decided to get a bit funky with some color...
I think if furniture could talk this one might tell me it is happier today than it was yesterday :)

I finished up this 4 drawer chest today. Spotted it at a thrift store awhile back and some of the drawers were wonky...and the finish was really banged up---- I really loved the curved front
I put on a couple of coats of white wash chalk paint and then waxed it with some ebony stain added to the wax. Brownie my constant side kick weiner-meister boy...ended up with a little streak of white wash paint on his side as well.
hubby made some new drawer runners and got it functioning
when I was decoupaging the drawers he kept giving me that "look" and I could tell he wasn't quite seeing what I was seeing. 
But when he got home from work yesterday after I had done the sanding and all---he said that it looked way different than he thought it was going to look the night before. :D
I really like how this piece turned out.

I finished a couple more pieces but will post some pics later.
Hope ya'll had a happy hump day!

Hooray Sunshine today in bako...got some stuff ready for Rose Bowl Pasedena next week!

Nice to have a bit of sunshine today....hands were warm enough outside to actually do something for an extended period of time LOL!
Hubby and I were getting some stuff ready for the Rosebowl Pasadena Swap next week....
here's a couple of old tables I found a few months ago that just needed some sanding and a little TLC...
I love the lion head knob on the side table stand!

Here's a table we covered with a tarp but it got wet with the recent heavy rains....has a real marble top but is made of pressed wood mixed with real wood on top...and the bottom was jacked up pretty badly after getting wet...the easiest fix I could think of was a layer of glazes on top of chalk paint and I think the piece will survive for a few more years :)

here's an old pic that had a faded brown plastic frame....
while I had out the cream chalk paint I added a quick layer to the plastic to give it a fresh new look.

Am working on another dining set....hope to finish it up tomorrow if the weather permits.
Will get some more pics up.
Cheers to a productive 2015 ya'll
refurbish refab re-shine...one piece at a time :=)