Friday Finds #12: Thrift Store Hauls and Oddities

I've been able to do a little thrifting this week and figured I might as well share!

It all started on Saturday at Southern Antiques and Accents. Every month or so they have a "Dollar Day" where booths have items marked for only a buck. I love this kind of sale because most likely the items at this price are likely to be small things that I can include in my jewelry and art. While I only spent $5 this month, I came away with some real treasures.

My first finds were these metal hardware pieces. I already have a couple of the rings from the last Dollar Day, but it couldn't hurt to pick up this one too. I'm not sure what I'll do with the handle. However, rest assured that I'll come up with something.

While there was plenty of jewelry marked at the sale price, I tried to stay selective and only came away with these two pairs of earrings.

Lastly, this unassuming set of cards caught my eye. Two decks for a dollar sounded good to me. But there was more to this than I thought.

While I was expecting the cards to have the palaces from the box on the front of them, these are the cards I found inside. Interesting.

The cards themselves are a little ragged. But the face cards. . .

Now, these are VERY interesting. 

I haven't flipped thorough both desks yet to see if there's anything else peculiar about them, but I'm happy with this Dollar Day purchase for sure. 

This is the marking on the back of the deck. Searches so far haven't yielded any information about them though. Let me know if you have some other resource. 

Once Saturday's Dollar Day shopping was complete, I thought I was good for the week. But, the thrifting bug bit again on Tuesday. So, out I headed.

My first stop was a large, local charity shop. There, I found a belt that might be fun to make a bracelet or two out of, a German (I think) children's book, and a baggie of yarn and some plastic canvas. I'll use the canvas as a stencil/texture in my art. 

Next was the Salvation Army. I haven't had much luck there lately, but did happen upon this book. I've been wanting to read Alabama Moon for a while - even before I knew it was written by a local guy that my husband kinda knows. For 75 cents, I couldn't walk away without it.

After that, I hit up one of my favorite antique malls. In the same booth, I found both these tiny shakers and the jar of jewelry. Obviously they came home with me.

Finally, I hit up a thrift store I'd only been in one other time. I thought I was going to leave with nothing, but finally stumbled across these goodies: another deck of cards, a roll of rectangular stickers, a tiny shelf, and an old baking powder tin. I don't quite know what I'll do with the last two, but I'll work it out.

While I was in said shop, these . . .oddities caught my eye.

First up was this Super Road Whiz. I guess this is what people used after maps and before GPS-es. Weird. . .

Just the words Telephone Listener caught my attention. From what I can tell, it was just a speaker phone. Perhaps this was before they had the term "speaker phone". However, I can't believe that 'telephone listener' was the best name they could come up with for this device. 

Finally, this baby caught my eye.

I had a Furby back in the day, and we have no idea what happened to her. Her name was Tallulah. At least that's what she told us it was as she repeated it over and over in the creepiest, slow, cutesy robotic voice ever, "Taaaaa-loooooooo-laaaaa." Like I said though, we're still not sure where she is, but we're positive she's plotting world domination. I had to bring this photo home to Pat, just to freak him out some. 

Anyway, that's been my thrifting experience of late. Have you found anything worth bringing home or an oddity that bewildered you?

Another Set of Altered Playing Cards (Dec 2015)

I made and swapped some altered playing cards back in December. I even recorded the process and took pictures of the results. Then, I promptly pushed that digital file aside. It's way past time to share these with you, especially since I finally uploaded the process videos.

Above are the six cards I sent my swap partner.

I split the process video into two to try to keep the videos a little shorter. In the first video, I made these three cards.

You can watch Altered Playing Cards Part 1 below or click over to YouTube.


And, here's another look at the cards.

Here are the three cards I made in part two.

Again, you can watch Altered Playing Cards Part 2 below or at YouTube,


A closer look at these also.

Watching the videos should fill in any questions you have about how I made these cards. But, if they don't, please let me know!

You can see previous cards I created as well in other blog posts.
My first Motivational Altered Playing Cards (two sets of cards)
August's Altered Playing Cards (in November)
Altered Playing Cards for October (In January)
November Altered Playing Cards (in March)

Covering and Naming My Mannequin

For far too long, I've had a naked mannequin torso. I picked her up at a jewelry mall. You may have seen glimpses of her with clothes on in some of my jewelry listings like this Rose Fringe Necklace.

And, she's popped up in reveals like for the latest issue of Creative Spark. 

She really does work well for showcasing my necklaces without the awkwardness of trying to take a selfie with my good but heavy camera. 

However, in all cases, I've had her clothed for good reason. Here's what she really looked like. 

Yes, she was a little obscene, but only in a naked-barbie-doll-way. That nakedness, and the shine on her plastic skin, made me keep a shirt on her for pictures and even while she just sat in the craft room. 

Oh, and here's her backside.

 I think that's where a pole of some kind would be inserted to make her stand up.

Ever since I bought her, I've wanted to cover her somehow to make her less obscene. Pat was the one who suggested book pages. I do love to cover most everything with them, like the displays in my booth at the antique store.

And, that would be a simple solution to her blatant nakedness. 

I used pages from an old dictionary (using only the same book so there was some consistency in the color of them) and gel medium.

Some of the pages were torn into smaller bits while others were used whole. I had to learn as I went to see what worked. Angles and curves were hard. However, I discovered that snipping the pages and wetting the tops of them (with the gel medium) made them conform to the mannequin better.

I let her dry for about 24 hours before handling her. Here's a picture I took with a necklace on her at this stage.

While this is much better, the glossy nature of that particular gel medium made her far too shiny for my tastes and photographs. I already knew I wanted to whitewash her anyway.

This was done by simply mixing white acrylic craft paint with a little water and painting all the paper covering her with the mixture. 

The white paint  took away both the shine and the distraction of the words being so prominent. 

Here's a look with another necklace.

Better, right?

Oh, and she does have a name - Amanda. Well, actually she's Amadaquin.

What do you think? Is she better this way or do I still need to clothe her?

July Goal Review

August. It is AUGUST! No freaking way! Instead of panicking, let's just admit that July is over (though it seems to have just started). I'm going to cope with it by reviewing what I did accomplish in July. Maybe I'll feel better about the loss of another month by the end of this post. 

As a reminder, each week I wanted to complete a Goal, a piece of Jewelry, an altered Card, at least one Blog post, and a Journal page. I'm covering weeks 26-30. Also, please note that I'm WAAAAAYYYY behind in these goals and tasks so a lot of this will be showing how I caught up.

Week 26 (June 26-July 2)

Goal

My goal for the week was to finish up the e-magazine for ZnetShows. And it appears that that was ALL I did as nothing else got accomplished. However, I did complete this goal. And I think Creative Spark Summer 2016 looks mighty fine. 

Week 27 (July 3-9)

Goal

This week I worked on hosting a 4th of July party at our house. I mentioned the party in my post about our staycation. I think it was a roaring success. Goal accomplished!

Card

As I mentioned previously, we were on vacation during part of June and had one of the nieces staying with us. She had a few doctor appointments during the week. While sitting in the waiting rooms, I worked on some of my altered playing cards. With this method, four cards were completed. I counted them as a catch-up for weeks 20-23.

Week 20: The background was made with some acrylic paints followed by circle stamps. A few stamped/colored images were glued on top and outlined. I added some word stickers and dots of liquid correction fluid. 

Week 21: I practiced some of my face drawing. You can just barely see the words I wrote above the face that say "Let ideas bloom". I did the whole drawing with neocolor ii pastels and the words with a marker pen.

Week 22: Layers of stamps, stencils, and collage papers were used to make the backgroud for this card. I added a stamped image of a typewrite and the words "write your own story". The words and card are edged with watered-down stabilo all pencil.

Week 23: The background was a gelli print covered in texture stamps to create a chaotic image, The phrase is a magazine cut-out that I colored around with a white neocolor ii and then circled with a black one.

Blog

I shared my designs and a little about the e-magazine in my Creative Spark Summer 2016 reveal post. 

Journal

Being on vacation gave me a little time to play, so two pages in my art journal were completed. 

Week 20: The background was created with acrylic paints and collage papers. The center circles were cut from a gelli print and doodled onto. The words were added with just a paintbrush and paint. I doodled and made marks with a pencil and more of the bright pink paint to finish up the page.

Week 21: Let me start my admitting that this isn't a favorite page of mine. I used paper, paint, posca pens, neocolor iis, and stencils to make the page. They can't all be winners.

Week 28 (July 10-16)

Goal
My goal for this week was to make hot glue gun stencils as I had seen and used some of my friend Tiffany's. However, I just didn't get to it this week. Don't worry, it's further down on this list.

Jewelry
Instead of getting to my goals, I did get quiite a bit of jewelry made/finished this week. I decided to use the muffin tin method and put most of the components I needed to make pieces into the cups of a muffin tin. This totally helped me stay focused as to what to work on next. In this manner, four pieces were completed.

Working L-R
Week 16: You can't really see the focal piece but it's a brass charm with an arrow embossed in it. The chain was made of white glass beads and brass wire. Simple. I have no idea why it too me so long.
Week 10: Talking about taking me too long to complete. GAH! This long necklace is made from buttons that were the last ones on button cards in my stash. I used antiqued brass wire, headpins, and jump rings to connect them. The delay arose when I ran out of a certain size jump ring and couldn't find them anywhere for weeks. Once I finally got some more, I was able to finish up this quirky necklace.
Week 22: The focal for this is one I made. It's some text, a button, and glitter encased in ice resin in a bezel. I used glass pearls and clear crystal rondelles for the front part of the chain. The end of the chain uses antiqued brass beads.
Week 23: While going through one of my treasure jars (old jewelry I buy at thrift and antique stores and put into jars), I found a zipper pull that had these two bright pink wood feathers on them. Using some watered down acrylic paint, I darkened then sealed them. From there, a few black beads were added to connect the feathers to the ear wires. Done.

Blog
This week I wrote up my recipe for my favorite Arugula, Tomato, and Cucumber pasta salad.

It tastes as good as it looks!

Journal
I was able to get one journal page done. This one would have been for Week 22.

I like this one much more than the previous one. The background was made from gelli prints that I glued down then lightly gessoed over. The girl is a magazine image and the butterfly wings are from a book. I glued and sealed them with matte mod podge to take away that magazine shine. "Magic" was written with a sharpie water-based poster paint pen. I accented the word and the girl with a gelly roll stardust pen. As well, the circles at the bottom were made and filled in with neocolor ii crayons.

Week 29 (July 17-23)

Goal
Since I was making great strides in my goals and tasks, I decided to try another catch up week. While I put in a great effort to do this (as you'll see), I still haven't caught up yet.

In my catch up attempts, I got to some of the backlog of goals to be completed.

Week 11: The actual knitting wire portion of this goal (learn Viking Knit) was done weeks ago. However, I needed the thing with the holes to pull the wire through.  Pat was finally able to knock that out for me so I could knock this off my list.


Week 21: Cover mannequin - I've had this flesh-tone plastic mannequin bust for several years now. I love using her for my jewelry pictures but have had to put clothes on her for the pictures. Ever since I bought her, I wanted to cover her with some paper. It really took less time than I had imagined, and I'm relieved it's done.

Week 22: Make Stencils with Silhouette Cameo - My cousin actually finally prompted me to do this when she needed some stencils cut for a party. I made hers on poster board but have since cut some on plastic tabbed dividers for a swap.

Jewelry
Continuing to work from my muffin tin, I completed these two pieces. They were both also inspired by the items I discovered in my treasure jar.

Week 24 is a charm bracelet made from charms and stud earrings that I transformed into charms. It seems to have a bit of a floral, sparkle, pearl theme to it
Week 25's piece is a necklace I made from these bits of rosary-like chain. I think they're actually extenders from necklaces but the necklaces are long gone. It's a simple little thing.

Card
Only one card was made this week.

Week 24: The background was made with a red marker I was using for something else. There are a few alcohol splatters on it too, but they're hidden behind the heart made of music paper. The paper was painted with acrylic paints and outlined with a basic black pen. The rest of the accents were made with posca paint markers.

Blog 
You may remember my tale of the new couch drama

I also shared a peek at the Southern Antiques and Accents CraftyHope booth.

Journal 
I was able to get two pages made this week!

Week 23: I started this by placing down all the bits of washi tape stuck to my desk. From there, acrylic paint was smudged and doodled on. The image and words are from a magazine. I doodled on both before splattering the whole this with some white spray ink.


Week 24: This page is so very simple, but so glorious! I made some spray alcohol inks using spray alcohol (Dollar Tree) and a variety of markers (also Dollar Tree). I tested them out on this page and let it dry while I cut out hearts from a variety of papers. The edges of the hearts were inked with black soot distress ink. A few pieces of washi tape were stuck on the before I started gluing down the hearts. "Love completely" was written with a brown stabilo all pencil and traced with a water brush.

Week 30 (July 24-30)

Goal
My goal for this week was to make some kind of assemblage piece(s) on a key or other surface. I discovered Teresa Stanton's image of assemblage keys on Pinterest and was inspired to make something similar in my own style. Since I have a hoard of keys and broken jewelry, those are the materials I turned to.

(Sorry the image is so poor!)
These four pieces emerged. I really enjoyed the process and am looking forward to making more.

I also completed a few of my backlogged goals.

Week 23: Make a file of focal images - It took me a little time to sit down and sort through my stash, but using a shoebox-sized plastic storage container, I created a container full of stickers, chipboard pieces, stamped images, and whatnot that can serve as focals in some of my art journal and altered card projects.


Week 28: Make Glue Gun Stencils - I watched Tiffany's video on making hot glue stencils ages ago. She made it look so easy! Mine turned out wonky and weird. It's likely I won't be making them again. But, I'm glad I tried.

Jewelry
Two pieces were made this week. I'm still working on catching up.

Week 26: This was another piece from the treasure jar. I removed the broken pin back from the brooch and filed it down. Glass pearls seemed like an obvious choice for the chain of the necklace. Matching up the shade of blue for the dangles was a little tough, but worked out well in the end.
Week 27: While searching for blue beads to match the brooch, I discovered some amazonite brolettes in my bead stash. Moonstone-colored Chinese crystals top them off for a sweet pair of earrings.

Card
Three were made!

Week 25: I worked on creating this one while playing in my journal. The background's just some acrylic paint brayered on and a teardrop stencil of weathered wood distress ink. The paisley is a stamp I colored in and cut out. "Be Bold" was written with a black pen and there are also some doodles made with a pencil.
Week 26: I picked up some Derwent Inktense pencils (permanent watercolor pencils) at long last and used them to create this flower. That was is. Play.
Week 27: While I played in my art journal and used prompts, I also worked on this card on the side. For the life of me I don't remember what I used to make the drips, but I know it was with a paintbrush pressed against the tops of the card. I doodled with acrylic paint and a pen, made lines with the side of a gift card, and dotted it with liquid paper. The words are stamped onto deli paper and glued on with liquid matte medium. Dots around it were made with a posca pen.

Blog
You were treated with glimpses of my Staycation.

Journal

Finally, a few more pages in my art journal.

Week 25: This was quick work of some collage papers, acrylic paint brayered on, weathered wood distress ink through a stencil, and the image circled with a black stabilo all pencil. The words were written with a water-based sharpie poster pen and edged with a white stabilo all pencil, I love that I was able to keep some white space on the page. I do struggle with that so.


Week 26: Just a silly page created with some of my homemade spray alcohol inks to start. From there, I used prompts to create the page that included collage, doodling, water coloring, acrylic paints, and line-making. The image is from an old yearbook and the words were written on with a posca pen.

So, that was my month for the most part. Catching up is hard, but it really feels like I'm getting there a little at a time. Thanks for bearing with this post. I hope you found some enjoyment and/or inspiration in it.