Holiday Arts and Crafts Show

These are some images from a recent holiday arts and crafts show I participated in. It has been going for over 25 years on Bainbridge Island, WA and is called Christmas in the Country. Over 9 venues open up with an average of 13 artisans in each site. I feature vintage inspired ornaments and this year I introduced my line of reconstructed and up-cycled tops and the "collage-style" necklaces. A future post will show examples of each of those lines.

One of the amazing things that happened was to be able to use a large sized oil painting I had serendipitously found about 2 years ago. It has been sitting in the garage and made its debut for the show. It wonderfully camouflaged a bulletin board that could not be removed. So it leaned against the wall on top of the table and blended perfectly into the display.

The color scheme was dusty pink, black, and ivory. I find fabrics and curtin panels at flea markets and lavishly layer them on table tops. Cupcake towers and faux trees (including my cherished tinsel tree) were appropriate props and display pieces. I also used large vintage frames with chicken wire glued inside to hang ornaments on along with white-washed pedestals created with trimmed metal flashing and stair rail posts.

Vintage inspired snowpeople, vintage glass glittered trees, sparkly snowflakes, dazzling acorns, jazzy- edged butterflies on clips, delicate and intricate paper shows fit for Cinderella, nested birds amongst matte glass ornaments, and wreaths made with flowers cut from French dictionary pages were just a few of the ornaments and holiday decorations that were featured.

Decorative Wooden Clothes Hangers

Oh the joyful simplicity of pretty little things. These decorative wooden clothes hangers give me a thrill every time I see them. What a simple, yet elegant, way to hang special tops. Little things can truly make big differences.

The wooden hangers were stained and then lightly sanded. With rubber letter stamps, selected French sayings were added....accuracy wasn't necessarily the rule. I chose some phrases that caught my eye: femme fatale, tete-a-tete, mon tresor, bon vivant, c'est bon, and c'est la vie to name a few. Then beautiful sumptuous French moire wired ribbon single loop bows were added to the hanger. The ribbons are the real deal from France and I so appreciate their packaging by being protected with a paper backing. And of course, flowers had to be added. Vintage millinery flowers were the perfect touch. The photo doesn't show the last thing to be added which were pearls glued to the ends to keep the straps from slipping off the wooden clothes hanger.

These decorative wooden clothes hangers were made specifically to display the up-cycled, reconstructed garments I make. A future posting will show some examples of the clothes.