Apron Thrift Girl

Vlog Post - How to list a 4 minute eBay Auction

I thought I'd do something a bit different here at ATG today and offer you a Vlog post. I wanted to show you rather than write how easy it can be to use the eBay Selling App for the iphone. It can take me about 4 minutes, others may be even quicker. Here are eBay options for cell phones.

Just a heads up though....my experience with making videos is limited. I didn't edit it very much and yes there are some errors and hopefully some funny parts where I just sort of messed up. It's authentic and real though and hopefully helpful to you. Make sure to watch it in the tiny mode since the quality isn't the best. Now I just need to thrift a HD video camera. 

How to Make a Jewelry Letterpress Box

Yesterday was our last day of summer. Today the children begin 5th and 2nd grade and our carefree days of summer are over. Wanting to squeeze in one last craft we began to work on my $5 thrifted Letterpress Box. Remember this post where I had asked your advice?

I did decide to make a Jewelry Box out of this amazing wooden Letterpress Box. I really needed one as my jewelry tends to become a heaped up mess on a built-in desk in our bedroom. I wanted this jewelery holder not only to be functional but to display my jewelry in an artistic way.

I began by making patterns of the little inner dividers.

Using a Fiskars Paper Trimmer I quickly cut paper rectangles to fit in the dividers. I chose three different patters of paper from the Dill Blossom Paper pack by S.E.I.

I was originally going to use vintage wrapping paper but the patterns of this paper pack were too hard to resist. This is one of my favorite paper collection that I have yet to come across.

Rather than using glue I decided to keep it really neat and tidy but using a Creative Memory Tape Runner. I still have a large stash of these from when I used to sell CM just after Keiran was born. I placed the double sided tape runner on each edge. Each rectangle fit perfectly in the divider. I pressed the area with the tape down around the edges.

Following your advice I only filled some of the spaces with paper while leaving others empty. I chose a random pattern.

I grabbed my box of vintage nails (some complete with a little authentic rust) and began to nail them gently into the backing of the Letterpress. It is rather thin so I was very careful just to tap the nail a little bit to hold but not so much that it would poke through to the other side. I used a ball-peen hammer in order to hammer inside the very small dividers.

A necklace from the Farm Chicks Antique show that I attended in Washington.

A Cath Kidston pin that I received as a gift from my family in England. A vintage pocket watch from England.

A Lucky Brand ring that was bought at a silly and fabulous sale price from Macys. It's very large and although I love the design it's not very convenient to wear while thrifting. I'm looking forward to being able to see it prominently in my Jewelry Letterpress Box.

A Thimbleberry Design piece by my friend Nancy Travis up on Bainbridge Island.

 

While I was carefully placing my jewelry into this box I realized that I am drawn to jewelry as if it were art. I love design, color and something that gives it an alternative edge.
While my Letterpress Box is being filled, it's far from being finished. I'm going to slowly add my favorite pieces over the next few months. Each piece will represent a memory or something that means something to me. This project took about 3 hours in between having lunch and working with the children.

Total Cost:

• Letterpress Box $5
• 3 Sheets of Scrapbook Paper (purchased on sale from Michael's) $1.65
• Box of vintage nails 25¢

How to Make a Vintage Button Art Display

Want to know how to make a Vintage Button Art Display?  Head on over to Curbly to see my tutorial. It's my last guest post for the week.

How many buttons are you going to admit having in your own collection?

Have a fabulous thrifting weekend everyone.

xoxo

Selena

Make a Felted Flower Brooch in Minutes

I'm writing for Curbly this week, a website that is creating a wonderful online community for people who love where they live. Curbly is a place to find design ideas, share your creativity, and learn from experts. It's an online community of people who are passionate about making their homes the best place to be.

When they asked me to do a week of guest posts I went to visit their site. I saw that they had a tab for Mid-Century and SecondHand and I knew that I had to say yes.

Yesterday I gave some tips on how to get the most out of Flea Markets. Today I did a post about making a 5 minute felt flower brooch. Take a look if you have a chance.

Last night I had the honor of meeting Suze Orman. Tomorrow I'll share info about what she had to say as well as a giveaway of her latest book, signed by Suze herself. 

xoxo

Selena

Felt Flower Mobile Tutorial

My sister-in-law gave birth to her second child on March 30th. Keiran came up with the idea of making a baby mobile using felt. He suggested stars and moons and I came up with flowers. We got to work by first bringing out two vintage wool quilts.

Supplies:

• Wool Felt
• Inside Wooden Ring of a Large Embroidery Hoop
• Embroidery Thread
• Needle
• Glue Gun
• Wool Yarn

Cut 8 circles (pictured is 7), 3 inches in diameter out of wool felt. I choose an ivory color from a vintage Navy blanket.

Cut 16, 1 1/4" in diameter circles. I chose a soft blue from a vintage quilt.

Cut 1 inch into the large circles nine time in a circle as pictured. This creates the petals.

Take your embroidery thread and sew three french knots on each blue circle. Every white flower should have a blue circle on each side. The six french knots in total will hold the flower together. When the last french knot is secure take your needle and bring it up through the center of one of the blue circles. Do this with all eight flowers as these threads will be tied to the embroidery hoop.

Cut a strip from wool that will cover wooden ring. I chose one edge of the blanket that was slightly frayed. Using a glue gun, glue the wool strip to the wooden ring.

Cut three lengths of wool yarn. These will be tied together to hang your mobile from above. Secure them to the ring evenly apart.

Tie the three in a knot at the ends of the yarn. Trim the ends neatly.

Tie all eight threads to embroidery hoop evenly. I decided to hang them at different heights but didn't really have a pattern to do this. 

The baby's view of the mobile.

The finished felt flower mobile.

Total Cost:

• Thrifted Embroidery Hoop .30 cents
• Thrifted Emboidery Thread .2 cents
• Thrifted Wool Blankets $1.00 each (used a tiny bit) .10 cents
• Thrifted Yarn $1.00, used .5 cents

final price: .47 cents.

It took me about an hour and a half to complete the project. This present is now in the mail and hopefully will arrive today or tomorrow at my brother's home in Seattle.

Matchbox Bling Tutorial

With the beeswax candles sitting in our newly appointed "Present Box", I sat down to think what our next craft should be. It's March and the holidays are ten months away. Besides Christmas though there is also Easter, Mother's Day and various birthdays to consider.

After the New Year I picked up a somewhat expensive decorated Matchbox from Rachel Ashwell's Shabby Chic line. I bought it half off not being able to resist a matchbox covered in roses. My frugal side wondered how I could make them for less.

First I had to gather the supplies.

Pack of 3 Large Matchboxes.

Pack of 8 mini matchboxes.

 

Glitter, glue & Amy Butler Paper.

Vintage rick-rack

Vintage sequins.

Thrifted bling, jewelry & beads.

Buttons from estate sales.

Creating Matchbox Bling

Place one small & large matchbox on a sheet of scrap paper to make a pattern. Carefully draw around each box with a pencil. Cut out the pattern and place on decorated paper. I used Amy Butler paper, Cerys used some homemade marbled paper and I also used a page from an Anthropologie Catalog. Cut out two pieces of decorated paper per matchbox.

I used a Creative Memory tape runner to attach the paper to the matchbox in order to avoid the wrinkling that can occur with glue. The children used Martha's glue. 

Fasten the decorated paper to each side. Make sure to apply tape runner as close to the edge of the matchbox to avoid the paper lifting at the edges.

I took a vintage clip-on earring and cut off the clip with beading pliers. I secured the flowered earring to the matchbox with super glue. I considered using a glue gun but I find that with my clumsiness, I tend to have glue strands covering my arms and hands after a typical glue battle craft. Somehow I managed to glue on every item without a drop of super glue on my skin. Selena 1-super glue 0.

I also added vintage beads, buttons and glitter.

The large vintage earring fit better on the larger matchbox.

I used pink rickrack, glitter and a single sequin to embellish this small matchbox.

The base paper is Amy Butler followed by an Anthropologie catalog page embellished with glitter and vintage buttons. This is the large matchbox.

The children loved working on this craft. They enjoyed the freedom of designing the box with the array of craft supplies on the table. Obviously because there are matches in the boxes, this is a craft that you want to supervise the entire time. You can find photos of Cerys' and Keiran's Matchbox Bling here and here.

This craft could easily be made with entirely thrifted supplies. I often find matchboxes at Estate Sales. Vintage wallpaper also could work well for covering the top & bottom portion of the matchbox.

Do you have any other ideas of how to create your own Matchbox Bling?

Beeswax Candles Tutorial

Every time I hold a beewax candle in my hand I have to lift it up and breathe in that sweet scent of honey. I'm a beeswax addict. I think bees are one of the most sacred gifts on the planet. Can you imagine life without honey and beeswax?

I've decided that rather than wait until November to get crafting for Christmas I was going to work on one project every month. I have a box marked "Handcrafted Holiday Gifts" and plan to work steadily throughout the year adding to it. February's project: Beeswax Candles.

My craft cupboard is filled to the brim with all sorts of odds and ends. Most of them are thrifted and purchased with the idea that I will find use for them for a craft in the future. I'm a crafter that usually is inspired by what I already have rather than a project that I want to make.

 

Needed Supplies & Equipment:

• Molds
• Beeswax
• Wick
• Metal Pot (used to melt beeswax)
• Wax Paper

I purchased the molds (all) for .50 cents from a yard sale, the beeswax $1.00 at an estate sale, the wick from Michaels with a 20% off entire purchase coupon $2.39 total, the pot & spoon were bought for $4.99 at at a thrift store (included a bag of soy wax) and the wax paper we had in our cabinet. 

Place beeswax in pot and melt under low heat. This took about 8 minutes for the beeswax to completely melt.

I was really surprised to see the dark color of the beeswax. Looks kind of like a dark ale.

This is my first try at ever making candles at home. This initial test candle taught me some interesting things. I learned that the bottoms of the molds were not flat. This meant that when I poured in the beeswax it leaned to one side and I had to grab the warm metal and move it to a place where it wouldn't tip. Because I had bought bulk wicks instead of these stand alone wicks this meant that I had to get creative of how to do a bunch of these at once. It wasn't too much fun to hold the wick for 3 minutes while the wax cooled. Next time I'll spend extra and buy the wicks with tabs.

I solved the first problem by doing this:

I filled a plate with rice and nestled the molds so that they wouldn't tip to one side.

To solve the wick issue, Cerys cut out squares of wax paper, poked a hole with a toothpick and stuck each wick through the hole. After the beeswax was poured into the molds we placed each wick in carefully. A thrifty solution to our problem.

The children were very excited about the prospect of making candles but in the end I wasn't very comfortable with them helping me. The wax was so hot and everything needed to be done quickly before the wax cooled. Luckily I had some thrifted beeswax sheets in our candle drawer that gave to the children. This took away my mama stress and left them feeling content about taking part in candle making.

I usually find thrifted beeswax items a few times a year. I think people want to make candles but end up never quite getting to it. It probably took me 7 years to make these candles so I can fully understand.

I love the light from these vintage molds. It's as if 20 little mirrors are reflecting the candlelight. A quote that always touches my soul is this:  There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it ~ Edith Wharton.

The price to make these was very inexpensive thanks to the thrifted items. The molds were .6 cents each, the wax made 7 candles which came to .14 cents each. We used a quarter of the wick which came to .8 cents each. This brings the cost of each candle to .28 cents each. Beeswax tea lights are pretty expensive at our local stores. I think Whole Foods charges at least .99 cents for each small tea light. I did find this great price at Local Harvest. You do need to buy $15.00 worth of candles though and add shipping.

I still prefer to make my own. When we give them as gifts I will remember the process of making them at home. I'm looking forward to getting to November and not feeling the normal stress that I do when I have to make last minute gifts.

Do you have gifts that you make over the course of the year that you save for Christmas? Any ideas to share with us? I'd love to hear them.

How to Make a Valentine Banner with Burlap

The day the fashion industry starting churning out clothing with rough edges, unsewn hems, mixed-matched fabric and items that I could have made, my world became much happier. That vast canyon between those perfect created clothing with straight stitches and my sewing got a lot closer. Now it's trendy to wear clothes that my daughter could have sewn. How does that equate to crafts? With perfection gone, I had a chance to join other crafters with my limited sewing skills. Maybe some of what I create could be compared to something at Anthropologie now instead of something I'd be too ashamed to ever show anyone.

I love crafting but I as I've said before, I need it to be easy and quick. With Posie Gets Cozy and her sensational smocking I just can't compete. I'm so envious of her crafting skills. Anything she touches is golden and I adore that about her. Which is probably why I have to visit her every single day. I live vicariously through her.

This doesn't stop me from hitting my studio and trying to turn out something crafty. My newly thrifted pinking machine inspired me to create this Valentine Banner. Despite banners being relatively easy to make, the only other banner I have made is my Halloween Banner inspired by Marie Claire Idees. 

Burlap is my recent medium of choice since I have been using it for my fiber art pieces. It's still a little awkward to use but that makes it more inciting to work with.

Cut out a narrow triangle on a piece of paper. I used an old grocery ad. Pin your triangle to the burlap. I placed my triangle on the edge so that I would only cut twice. You can also flip the triangle in order to use the fabric frugally. I decided to make my banner with 9 triangles since the banner was going above our mantel.

I took my original triangle pattern and made it smaller for the decorated fabric part. As I said, I like to keep it simple. Place your pattern over your burlap to make sure that you are happy with the contrasting size before you cut your fabric. 

I used my pinking machine on the long side edges of each fabric triangle. You can also use pinking sheers. I used this machine because it's so darn fun. Everything in our house is getting pinked at the moment.The kids have been warned.

Pin fabric to burlap, matching top edges.

I sewed the fabric onto the burlap with a zig zag stitch and then created a crazy pattern. No straight stitches here. In the end I trimmed the burlap a bit smaller.

I chose some coordinating fabric for the top strip of the banner. I cut into the fabric three inches down from the top edge. I then tore the fabric so that it would leave a ruffled thread edge. I made another cut and tore again so that I was left with two strips of fabric. These would hold my triangles together. I chose a sweet fabric that appeared red but had blue threads peaking through. A lovely aqua/red combination. I sewed each triangle at the top portion just under the strips of fabric. I used a tiny zig-zag stitch. I encouraged the loose blue threads to hang down on the red and white fabric.

To add some more color to this Valentine Banner I thought I would include some toadstools that I purchased at the Addison Sale. These toadstools have cloth wrapped wire attached to the bottom of each stem making it easy to adhere to the banner. With a darning needle, poke a hole through the fabric so that you can add your toadstool.

Place toadstool wire in hole making sure the top part faces upward.

Simply weave wire through burlap and it should stay in place.

 

This is a simple tutorial and probably best fit for those who like to churn something out quickly and with sweet imperfections like loose blue threads. This took me 2 hours mostly because young Keiran kept trying to take over the pinking machine. We had to wrestle for it in the end.

Cost: Burlap $2.99 a yard at Joann's, red/white fabric traded from friend, red/blue-looks purple fabric .50 cents yard sale, Toadstools .10 cents each. Total Cost: around $2.00.

finally.....

After months and months of waiting they finally arrived at the grocery store.

It's really sort of sad looking with a partially broken crown and bruises but I'm looking past that. I simply adore pomegranates. With my love of them I thought I would share with you all how to open one without damaging a single seed. To me there is no greater crime that cutting a pomegranate in half and breaking seeds along the way.

Step 1. cut off her crown carefully making sure not to cut too far down into the seeds.

Step 2. Slice into the top part of the pomegranate (white stuff) and a little bit of on each side, keeping the knife's depth at skin level. Inside the white bit you will want the knife to cut down at least a half an inch.

Step 3. cut again at skin depth on each side of the existing cut about half way down on each side of the pomegranate.

Step 4. Place your thumbs at the white part where the crown used to be. Pull the pomegranate apart opening up to the delicious seeds.

This will leave you a perfectly opened pomegranate ready to be savored. Because I couldn't contain myself at the grocery store I bought this one too early and as you can see she isn't fully ripe. But even with her tart seeds she was heavenly. To me she is the most delicious part of Autumn and my favorite ever fruit on this earth.

And to add bliss to my pomegranate eating experience, I was able to cozy up on the couch with this magazine while I shared the pomegranate with the children.

A perfect day....

ps. thank you for all your well thought and beautifully written comments from Friday's post. I'm terribly behind in replying to each of your comments but I took each one to heart.

Halloween Banner Tutorial

It's always interesting to wander down a new craft path for the first time. So many lessons learned, so many mistakes made and yet at the end of the journey you still have something pretty to show for your hard work even with a few creative flaws. A couple weeks ago I picked up my first Marie Claire Idees magazine and it was the delicious fall issue. I can't understand a word of French but that didn't stop me from being inspired by the amazing crafty photographs. This one did the trick to inspire me for my latest project.

I saw it and I had to have it even with the difficult French word I still can't pronounce. And that is even after a few lessons from dh on how to say it.  I couldn't understand a single word of the article so I made up the banner as I went along.

Here were my supplies:

-2 sheets of thick drawing paper for each letter (taken from the children's art supply)
-various fabrics (most is thrifted except for the Halloween fabric)
-3 yards of ribbon (I purchased new)

I started by taking 2 sheets of the paper on top of each other and drawing a simple J. In the beginning I worked a bit slow by doing each letter from start to finish. When I got to Halloween, I did it like an assembly line and it went much faster.  Here is an example of the E.

When I chose my fabrics I went through my fabric collection I found at the Sebastopol Flea Market and found colors that spoke Fall to me. I then placed my letters on the fabric and roughly cut around them.

I consider myself kind of a lazy crafter. I take shortcuts if I see them.  I started by using the iron but grew bored of that quite quickly and realized I could actually work without it. After the letters had their fabric partner they next headed toward the sewing machine to be stitched. I would start on an easy side which in the E's case would be the long straight side. I stitched very close to the edge.

With outside corners, I would simply fold the fabric over and sew. With inside corners I would clip into the corner evenly. There may be a better method than this but it worked for me. I discovered that letters like E's and H's are quite fun. O's on the other hand were a nightmare. In fact I did a cute little swirly thing on the O that took me at least 10 minutes. By the time I finished the swirly X tail I was done with swirlys. The O in Halloween is swirly free and proud.

Here is the completed E. After I had all of my letters finished I sewed them onto the ribbon. The magazine sewed them over the ribbon but I had to be different and sew them under the ribbon. Partly because I used one of my cute Bernina stitches that look a bit like fall leaves and I wanted it visible on the orange ribbon.

I loved making this banner. I always thought my first banner would be a typical triangle shaped one but this one called my name and my Bernina and I answered. I still haven't named my sewing machine but hopefully one will come to me soon. My next project, which I should start soon, will be two trick or treat bags that are on the opposite Marie Claire Idees page to the banner. I only have 13 days and counting to make them....