Pyrex Fun - Christmas Diorama

A little Christmas fun in my Pyrex. Love putting together those little thrift store finds I've collected over the years.

Santa's Elf  !

Vintage Ornament Wreath - Pink and Aqua

I went ahead and worked on what is probably one of the last large wreaths I'll make.  This one is in pink and aqua with vintage reindeer, putz and angel. I'm going to focus on making wreaths smaller than 12 inches as it is easier to ship.

Vintage Style Diorama Easter Eggs - Project

I couldn't hold back any longer.  I was itching so badly to do some Easter crafting.  I spent a good chunk of yesterday and today working on these diorama Easter eggs. The day is slipping away from me and I have to put this post together as quickly as possible!

I purchased these paper diorama eggs at the thrift for 25 cents each.

I painted the eggs on both the outside and the inside with three different colors, first white, then a light yellow, then a warm white.

I created a color swatch to test the paint colors I wanted to use for the exteriors.  I mixed them with whites for lighter pastels.

I applied a strip of glass glitter and mica to see how the colors would show up if I was going to apply them to the outsides.
 

Painted up the eggs with 3 coats of paint (using a hair dryer to accelerate the drying time) and decided to glitter the insides with clear glass glitter.

Painted the inside with Elmer's glue and a paint brush, poured glittered inside, rolled it around and dumped it onto a folded piece of paper so I could return the excess back to the container.

Great!

I tested putting rick rack on the rim but decided against it.  I went with mica instead.  Painted Elmer's glue on the rim and pressed it into a pile of mica on a folded piece of paper.

Perfect!

Now it was time to fill them.  I found some vintage Easter picks and picked up some chenille chicks over the past few weeks. I decided to use them for four of the eggs that I will give to my friend who loves vintage.

I ended up cutting the picks apart so that I could arrange parts into the eggs and onto the tops.  I glittered the little plastic eggs from the picks with vintage glitter and tore apart a bottle brush tree to use as grass.

I will start working on ones for myself another day. It won't be such a mad rush now that I prepared the eggs and only have to decorate the insides.  Hope this inspires someone to give it a try!

More Christmas Decorating and Vintage at Home

I took a few pictures today, thought I'd post some--I never get tired of vintage Christmas!  I think I've finally got my decorating done.  I don't think the stuffed critters that I usually cram in a basket with white mini lights is going to make it out this year.

I finally got around to putting up my putz which I have to put on my vintage rolling cart.  There is no where else to put it. I'll still fiddle around with it, but it's mainly up.  Here's a glimpse of the top shelf.

Yeah, the lamp is leaning. I've since straightened it up.  I could have faked it and made the software fix it, but I would have chopped off the cool mini Santa with sleigh and reindeer that are on the rooftop.  The A frame and ranch houses were made from free patterns on retrorenovation.com.  Speaking of which, Pam there supplies an uploader for folks to add their vintage Christmas images here at http://retrorenovation.com/2013/12/14/upload-photos-holiday-decorations/  I've been keeping my browser open and perusing them throughout the day, I think there are 557 images as I speak, lots of cool vintage Christmas stuff!

I got a handful of old glass balls yesterday, here they are, they haven't made it off the kitchen counter.

 

And to end the day, I am sitting in front of my Evergleam tree, but not before I snapped this photo of my corgie napping in my chair.

Tomorrow morning a thrifting we will go!

Christmas Finds - Lefton's Wins Again!

The thrift stores around here are finally getting into high gear with Christmas stock.  We looked for glass ornaments, crafting supplies and kitsch.  Here are a few pictures of finds from last week--I didn't include a picture of glass ornaments, though there were many!

 

I found numerous unopened packages of vintage craft supplies.  The older sisal wreaths have that nice thick snow on them unlike the painted stuff they put on these days. Not pictured is some gold Hollywood brand glitter! I bought the National tinsel as it's like the German lametta and it's just neat to see the unopened package.  I have my lametta I purchased in Germany 30 years ago--we don't use it every year, but when we do we take it down strand by strand and pack it away for another year.

Vintage kitsch finds included figures made in Japan, each stamped or with label.  I found this unopened package of Christmas garland!  A couple of the bell cages are out of shape, but cute all the same.  I've gotten into the vintage Hong Kong plastics!

My favorite piece is this Lefton's reindeer planter!  So sweet!

Bits and Pieces - Vintage Christmas Finds

Halloween hasn't passed yet so there is little in the way of Christmas stock at our thrifts, but I'm scouring what's there when I go none-the-less.  One of the things I look for most are miniature pieces for my putz.  Here is the stuff I have found this month so far:

I put a quarter in the picture so you could see how small these pieces are

These miniatures pieces are going to be for my putz.  The vintage box of hand painted nativity figures is embossed "Made in Hong Kong".  I will pluck the Santa, tree and reindeer from the wreath.

I love these old Japanese ornaments.  I wanted to find one of these last year, but it never happened.  Here she is and she's in fantastic condition.  She was in a bag with 4 other angels unlike her that I didn't want.  The bag was 99 cents and someone obviously left the bag in a different unrelated location, it was luck I found her as I went back to browse as I waited for hubby to finish looking through CDs.