Festive Fallout

The run-up to the festive season is always a busy time, so I'll only be updating my main blog for a while.
Thanks for visiting!
Niki x

Re-Do's...

With less than one month until I close my shop, rather than reducing the price of all the stock, I've been trying to revamp and repurpose some of the items...

This lovely Art Nouveau tin sadly was damaged right across the decorative panel on the lid. 

I carefully cut a section of antique sheet music to fit inside it. I then decorated this with an image cut from a Victorian postcard. 

I gave it a net lace 'skirt' around the base...

And lined the inside with more sheet music.

To finish, I glued some vintage millinery flowers to the lid, to echo the colours in the paper image. 

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With quite a few small tins in stock at the shop, and bead and diamante necklaces proving to be slow-sellers, I decided to combine the two to make gift sets. 

I used old papers to line them , with scraps of antique lace and stamped words to decorate. 

They were just large enough to hold these glass bead necklaces. 

An old pastilles tin for a diamante necklace, with cushioned pad in the base (I liked the inside of the lid far too much to cover it up :). 

At just over 1" diameter, these diddy French tins aren't large enough to hold very much...

But were a perfect fit for a sparkly vintage brooch...

And a pair of clip-on earrings. 

Finally, I lined this pretty box with more lace scraps to present another diamante necklace. 

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Next was this dainty hand painted bottle.

I part filled it with mica glitter and made a stopper from rolled-up paper. 

Added a label hand written with the words 'mermaid scales' and tied a glass bead and silk leaves around the neck. 

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I can't tell you how long this little handmade box has sat on the shop shelves...Such a shame that no one appreciated the hand painting on it's lid, or the careful hand stitches which created it many years ago. 

I simply covered the top in antique fabric and added a vintage millinery flower, which I feel fits in with my stall's fairy look that I go for these days. 

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Now for my favourite make; I have quite a few of these Victorian/Edwardian cardboard photo-album mounts, which are always so pretty. I have been wanting to use them for a long time. I decided to create box frames from some. It took a bit of doing, but I got there in the end...

I then made a fairy dress from vintage millinery flowers...

Which I hung from a twig inside the frame. 

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 Frame number two with forget-me-nots.

I love how these turned out...and intend to make some more, coordinating the dresses to the flowers on the front of the frame. I need to do it to the lovely velvet frame I bought from Belinda too! 

Lots of work, but hopefully the end result it worth the time and effort.  

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 The frames inspired my next collection of makes...

Tiny fairy dresses stitched from antique lace fragments...

Which I hung from twigs, then made a hanger from craft wire threaded with a glass bead and tiny vintage bell. 

Pretty for the Christmas tree with their touch of festive glitter.

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I have a fair few vintage and antique photos in a drawer of the shop as well. Some I decided were suitable for turning into angel decorations similar to the other one I made previously.

This tiny one is dressed in antique lace, glitter and has woollen wings.

This much larger portrait is dressed in a salvaged section from a baby's gown, which I tied with ribbons. 

I made wings embellished with paper, fabrics, lace and glitter. 

She also has a tinsel halo complete with bell. 

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I have a large collection of antique sheet music, so set to work using these in my crafting too...

Lots of large tag decorations trimmed with antique lace and shell buttons.

Some I made using vintage wallpaper. 

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I used the music to cover some gift boxes too, which were decorated with ribbons, antique-look tinsel and metal buttons.

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An assortment of vintage wooden spools became Christmas decorations. More sheet music, tinsel and tiny glass baubles were glued in place, with ribbon loops for hanging. 

I made a second batch in the same way, but using pages from an antique book. 

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Three old French curtain rings were also turned into Christmas decs... 

Complete with lots of glitter! 

I am packing away all of these to take with me to the final two fairs of this year. (Details on my previous post.)

And I've just started working on some new fairy dolls...with a twist ;-))

I'm finding it quite a release to be giving up my shop. I shall miss many of the people I have met over the past 5 years, but hope to see some of them coming to the vintage fairs instead. My mind has been buzzing with all sorts of items that I've wanted to create, but I have felt in the past I've needed to 'play it safe'. Selling to the general public via a shop, (I don't mean this disrespectfully), has meant sometimes I've had to make things a little ordinary and tame...There have been times I've wanted to be more off the wall! - But with constant bills to pay, my products needed to have a good chance of selling. I often had to explain that my things were handmade using vintage fabrics and materials and so my prices reflected that. (It's a shame I felt a need to justify.) Offering items for sale at the fairs can mean pushing the boundaries a little, because the audiences there understand and are often of a like-mind, who appreciate unique handmade pieces and quirky finds. 

I'm looking forward to a New Year and new beginnings...

Niki x