Little Pink Studio

A craft tote makeover

 
Hello! So when my husband and I decided to go away for a few days to celebrate my birthday in the mountains, I had to pack a few projects to take along. I found this craft tote stuck in a closet that I used to use a few years ago. It has great storage space, but was kind of ugly..and way too bright pink for me. 

I didn't take a photo of the front before I started working on it, but it basically looked like this. I decided to cover it up with some vintage fabric scraps and salvaged embroidery pieces. 

 
I'm not finished with the whole tote yet, but the front panel is finished and the sides are covered with some fabric. (you can click on the photos to see details better if you would like, I left them large)

I just basically cut up pieces I liked and glued them on with The Ultimate glue. (which sticks to everything in the world!) I just layered until I was happy with the results. Here's a couple close ups. 

And this tote holds a TON!

See how it folds out? Here's a few snippets of the things I brought with me. 

I've been practicing on making some little flowers..

It's not finished yet, but it's better than it was, don't you think? :)

Back soon! xo, Cerri

Pretty, old things

Hello! I hope your weekend was lovely! My college student was home for fall break, and it was nice to just hang out with family. She had a major project she had to work on for school, and and I have to say, that child of mine is amazing me at the growth she is already showing in just her first semester at art school! Isn't wonderful to see them grow?

In continuing on with talking about the pretty, old things we all love, I thought I would show you some of my most recent lace acquistions. I seriously can't seem to turn away from pretty lace. Especially old cotton lace.

These are old dress sleeves. I seem to find these pretty often, do you? I have quite a few different sets. I was thinking of making cuff bracelets with some of them.

Most of the lace you see here came from the 127 sale I went to this summer. I should point out, that I adore finding lace remnants. They're perfect for adding onto various projects. At the 127 sale there was a lady with a booth full of beauitufl shabby furniture and container after container of beautiful lace remnants. However, NONE of her pieces were priced, so she had to stand behind me and as I would look through I would have to ask her and her prices for little remnants were $30, $40, $25... you get the idea. Waaay overpriced.(or maybe they were not overpriced, it was just more than I was willing to pay) So I walked directly across the grass from her to another booth selling lace and old sewing notions and she had her lace already in baggies or wound around little cards, and it was all priced! The crazy thing was, it was the same kinds of lace, just as old as the other ladies stuff, but her lace was in baggies for $1-2, and the cards were also only $1-$2.50. I bought tons from her. Am I the only one with a pet peeve about stuff being priced? Drives me crazy to have to ask the price of every item I'm looking at. Ok, ok, back to lace...

I love to use my lace in various projects. Here is a project I made with lots of old lace, and here is another. In fact, if you just click here, you'll see I use bits of lace pretty much all of the time.

Sweet Sandra works her magic with old lace and makes the most beautiful little journals and such that she sells in her etsy shop.

Here's another etsy seller that works magic with lace.

And lastly, I'm going to share one of my very favorite online sources for vintage lace. Just click here, and be taken straight to a lace lovers dream. :) (will you let her know that Cerri sent you? )

So, tell me, what do you love to use your lace for? Post a link in the comments if you want to share something, I know we'd all love to see!

Cerri xoxo

PS, Be back Wednesday with some gorgeous old postcards and sometime this week I'll be showing you some of the wonderful things that have been ariving in the studio almost daily lately!

OH!, and don't forget the Halloween sale.

When cigarettes were pretty....

Ok, so cigarettes were never pretty, but the things they included to advertise and lure women to buy them were! Look at these wonderful cigarette silks! Aren't they gorgeous? I found them recently at an antique shop in Atlanta, and was very curious about them.

I knew a little about cigarette cards, but I had never seen silks before. Turns out that in the early 1900's more and more women were smoking and by 1920 it was very commonplace for women to smoke. There were many cigarette brands on the market, so in order to lure women to purchase their brand, companies included things like these beautiful silks in their packages.

Women would then collect them and many used them in making quilts. Cigarette companies also produced pretty trading cards that were included in their packages and even some pretty flannel pieces. I have some of the flannels somewhere, but couldn't find them, so I'll have to share those with you another day. I certainly wish companies today would take notice of such advertising practices. I would consider a different laundry detergent if they included a beautiful little silk with it, and purchasing weight watchers products would be so much easier if they did the same! :)

You can do a search on ebay to find cigarette trading cards and silks. I just checked and there seems to be a lot of listings for such items!

Cerri xoxo

Some new finds

 

When you're raising busy teenage daughters it is sometimes hard to spend a lot of time with your husband, but for the past little while my husband and I have been trying to spend Saturdays together and sometimes that involves antiquing. (of course we all know that is one of my favorite things) We've been traveling around to different towns and looking for new places. I love it. Both the time alone with him and discovering neat new shops. On one of those recent excursions I found this stunning pillow cover.

 

 

 

The needlework and ribbonwork on this just blow me away. I sooo need to learn how to do this. This cover is large, about the size of a euro pillow and is very sheer. It only has one side, so it's not like a pillow case. I'm not exactly sure how they were to be attached. (if you have any information about this, please let me know) There is a beautiful ruffle all the way around and it's just so delicate and pretty. I'm really quite smitten with it.

Here are a couple of other things I have found on recent excursions.

 

Can you believe I found this darling hankie with a southern belle on it? I've never seen one on a hankie before. I do love my southern belles. Also found another hankie case I couldn't live without.

 

 

This hankie case is made of silk and has that lovely embroidered covering on it.

 

And more vintage hankies. You know, I just don't think a girl can ever have too many pretty vintage hankies.

This week, one daughter is headed to Grandma's for a few days and the other is off to go white water rafting with a friend. So the Mr. and I will have 3 days to ourselves! We're going to head to the Hwy 127 sale for at least part of it. Can't wait!

I'm still adding new things to the shop, and almost have all of the new goodies loaded, so I'll be back soon to tell you about those.

Hope you're having a lovely week! Cerri xo