First-time fun on eBay!

Good morning friends. It has been a little while since my last post, but I have been doing some things around the house and time just got away from me. I am in the process of having a blog designer give this blog a face lift, and am anxious to see what it will look like, so I have been reluctant to add too much to it right now. She has sent me some samples and they look great...they are so, well, me! When I started this blog, I didn't know how involved I would be able to get with it, so I set up the basic blog myself just to get it rolling. I am ready to now put the time into it, and can't wait to have the design that sets the tone for the blog.

I had my first encounter with eBay last week, and let me tell you, I am impressed! I decided to try it with an inexpensive tidbit for future artwork, and so I searched for frozen Charlotte dolls. They are usually rather expensive when you see them in shops, if you see them at all. So...I set myself up on eBay, read some of their "help" tips, and won on my "top bid" of $10.00. I received them almost immediately, and in perfect condition. Pictured below are those three babies on some vintage lace hankies and a lace doily that I purchased at Vintage Village (for practically nothing), where I also bought the branch with the nest, old plate, and shabby picture frame shown in the second picture. I am thinking of incorporating the little dolls into some jewelry, but time will tell. Do you ever feel like you have more ideas than time?

I love these beiges, browns, blacks and taupes.

I hope that you are having a great Sunday.

Sue

Halloween or Christmas?

Hello from The Perch. After a couple of days of cold and rain, we are back to blue skies and temps in the 70's. Fine with me, although the rain was welcome as we had grass seeds and some new bushes planted recently and they needed the water.

The air is crisp and the shadows long. Fall has arrived. Or is it Christmas? You can't really tell the difference when you are in the stores, as they seem to run all the decorations at once. Does anyone have a problem with that besides me? Christmas decorations next to Halloween costumes? They seem to skip over Thanksgiving altogether. Never mind trying to find any Christmas stuff at all after December 1st, when they start to bring in the Valentine's Day material. I guess I am just as bad though; I haven't quite finished the Halloween decorating and am contemplating finishing the Christmas cards that I started two years ago and never finished. In any case, here is what I've been up to this week:

Prettying up the porch with pumpkins, mums and dahlias, which I will plant in the garden at season's end for years of enjoyment (the mums and dahlias, that is, not the pumpkins! Though we did have pumpkin vines in the compost pile last year.)...



I couldn't resist the shadows this morning.

Though orange is not my favorite color, I couldn't resist these
beautiful dahlias, already in nice pots and cheaper than the mums
at Walmart. Their future is in the garden.

...and working on Christmas cards...

Incidentally, this card was published in the Summer 2011 issue of Somerset Gallery. All I used for it was black and beige card stock, old wrapping paper (purchased for 90% off at Target a few years ago after Christmas when they were bringing out the next holiday attraction), vintage music, a Paper Whimsy image, pink velvet ribbon, a star stamp, glitter for the star, and silver paper clips. The inside says: "May the Star of Christmas light your path now and throughout the coming year." I WILL finish these this year! If not, I guess I can always use the "on sale" cards bought after the holidays last year!!!

Well, enjoy the rest of your weekend, and stay safe.

Sue

Halloween mantel

Hello friends. I hope you are having better weather than we are; it has been very rainy here. I guess that's a good thing, as I took advantage of staying indoors to make a couple of new things to decorate our mantel with for Halloween. I decided to keep things looking simple this year, so here is what I did. I took a dollar store black picture frame, removed the glass and covered the cardboard backing with some art paper that I had for awhile. I liked it because it looked like it was coffee-stained. On top of that I glued on some old ledger paper, and then added a sparkly green spider from Michael's. I hung it from some burlap ribbon that I had on hand. I don't think the whole thing cost more than $8.00, and the time spent on it was no more than 20 minutes! Here is a picture...

Then, I took some white plastic pumpkins (I very rarely use plastics for decorating, but real pumpkins rot too fast inside), added some glittery black stick-on letters spelling "BOO", and added them to the mantle, along with some black candles in some funky cut class candle holders that I had on hand. Lastly, I added a banner that I made by collaging a bunch of papers, trims, and copies of old photos, and attaching with black plaid ribbon. Here is the banner, shown via three pictures...

And here is the final result...

Have fun with your decorating!!

Sue

Buttons and buckles on cards, oh my!

Hello friends. I hope you're having a great Saturday.

I guess it pays to let family and friends know about the seemingly weird items we collect for our art, even though they often look at us like we are nuts for collecting what we do. The other day Mr. Perch (aka Hubby) and I went over to his sister's for coffee. She and my brother-in-law were cleaning out some stuff and deciding what to pitch. She said she had something that she knew I would use. You guessed it! Old buttons and buckles. It seems that they belonged to his mother many years ago. She was a big crafter and he said that she had a room full of stuff at one time, unfortunately long before I came on the scene. When my sister-in-law handed me the button and buckle cards, I could barely contain my excitement! I think that they must have been display cards. Of course, some of the buttons and buckles had been used long ago, but that contributed to the charm of the cards. I have scanned these for you to look at and use in your art if you would like. For fun, I also scanned the label that was on the back of the smaller cards ("Made in England"). The larger card was from a company in NY; check out the old-timey phone number at the bottom!

I think it would pain me too much to actually use these buttons and buckles, so I guess I'll just keep them to look at as they are. I can't help but wonder where the missing buttons went. What garments did they end up being sewn on?

I hope you enjoy these. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Sue

Hunting goodies....

Wishing you a happy Tuesday from The Perch! Fall is now really in the air here...cloudless blue skies and cool in the mornings, warming up a little in the afternoons to the 70's.

Yesterday the beautiful weather made me want to take a drive, so I headed out to Vintage Village in Raleigh, NC, not far from where we live. It is a grouping of cute little cottages and cabins housing different vendors who sell the most marvelous vintage stuff at very reasonable prices. It also includes SuzAnna's, which is in a large building that also houses several different sellers. If you are trying to find anything particular, this is the place to come! (Note: This is where I purchased the items in my earlier post, "Farmhousing the Kitchen".) In a future post I will share some of my more recent finds, but in the meantime I thought that you would like to see some of the pictures I took while there.

Here are two of the entrance signs down by the road...

...and some of the shops...

...and inside SuzAnna's...





I couldn't resist purchasing the little boy's
dress on the left!



Well, I hope you enjoyed the tour! Have a great day.

Sue