Altered Egg Carton Swap - How Fun!

 Swaps. swaps, swaps.  There are so many to choose from:  altered Altoid tins, altered matchboxes, ATCs, and so on.  But an altered half-dozen egg carton?  I've never seen that before.  This swap was the brainchild of Cassandra of An Altered Adventure. What a creative swap!  The challenge was to decorate an egg carton and fill it with vintage or vintage inspired goodies.  My swap partners are Allison and Julie.  We all agreed that we like pastels, and ever since I redecorated my living room I am stuck on the Robin's Egg Blue.  As you can see, I decorated the top of the carton with handmade burlap and felt flowers, eggs, crepe paper, doilies and jewelry parts. It really was so much fun to be working on this unique project.

 And then on to the inside.  I found a set of vintage sal shakers at an estate sale, and filled them with glass glitter.  A little candy (isn't the Lindt lamb adorable!), some bunny earrings, a bunny soap , a bunny hat pin and a few more little goodies completed the package. Today the Easter Bunny at USPS will get the package ready to deliver by Easter.  I hope the girls like it! 

I'm linking to Pink Saturday, with an apology to Beverly that I am stuck in the Robin's Egg Blue phase and it is not pink!

Antiquing in Ocean Beach

Oh how I love to head to the crazy little neighborhood of Ocean Beach in San Diego to browse through the stores and search for vintage treasures. There are a number of stores along the main street of Newport Avenue.  I even love the name "Newport Avenue"!  Many of the east-west streets in Ocean Beach are named for beach resorts around the world such as Brighton, Santa Monica, Santa Cruz and Bermuda to name a few.  These names were chosen by a developer in the late 1800s. Isn't that a cute part of their history? 
My favorite store is called Vignettes. The owner of this amazing shop was inspired by trips to Paris that she made with her mother.  As their website says, "Step inside this exclusive shop and experience the alluring beauty and faded grandeur of Old Paris."  While soft French music is playing, you can peruse the many rooms full of such lovely things; stunning vintage mirrors and chandeliers, beautiful furniture, wall art and trinkets. So much eye candy that you don't know where to look next! At Vignettes their motto is the French saying “Entourez-vous avec ce que vous aimez”… Surround yourself with that which you love, and everyone is bound to find something they love at this beautiful store.

This incredible dress is made from lace, feathers and vintage text!  Many of the items they feature at Vignettes are hand made using vintage supplies, which just makes the experience all the more magical. I'm sure all of my Pink Saturday visitors will just love this dress. 

 In each and every corner of the store you will find exquisite and artistic displays, such as this one.

And don't you think everyone needs a sign directing them to Le Petit Trianon, Marie Antoinette's beautiful little palace on the grounds of Versaille? 

Well I know that this post sounds a little like it might be from the San Diego tourism board, but can I help it if I love my little corner of the U.S.?  I have lived here about 25 years and love it more every year. It was sunny and 70 degrees yesterday.  If any of you would like to come for a visit I would love to meet you in Ocean Beach and offer you a tour of my favorite places!

I Answered The Call!

About a month ago, as I was visiting blogs during the Pink Saturday link party, I stumbled upon an offer made by Gerri - she would send a packet of goodies to those of us who wanted to take on the challenge of creating something out of it.  Well I always love a challenge, and this one was right up my alley. 

So............................here is a representation of the goodies that arrived in my mailbox a few days later:

What to do.......................what to do?  Of course I love vintage music paper and German scrap.  But cut out circles of paper, and post it notes? 

Spring has me in a birdie mood lately, so I had just the idea of something I wanted to try.  I glued the music paper to heavy cardstock, punched some of my own circles and constructed this:

A little bird cage!  The post it note is the bottom layer, and the cage is decorated with the two types of german scrap.  On the inside bottom of the cage you will find the circle and the cutout center of the little paper doily.  I suspended a glittered birdy inside, and crowned her with a piece of a sequin that was in my package.  Then I topped the cage with a coffee filter flower and some of the yarns that I recieved.  This was so much fun!  Thanks so much Gerri for your little package of inspiration.  I had a lot of fun with this and pushed myself to add a few more supplies than I normally would. 

A Wonderful Trip to the Vintage Marketplace

 

Last weekend my creative buddy Lorraine and I headed off to the little town of Rainbow for one of our favorite "Flea Markets", the Vintage Marketplace. It was even better than usual, with new vendors and new items that we just couldn't resist. And the photo ops at this event are always plentiful. If you live in Southern California, this is a really nice show. And Rainbow is a cute town in a country setting. We decided that Lo"raine Beau"mont should move to Rainbow, since her name indicates so!

On our way home we headed to Escondido for lunch and passed Value Craft. A teacher at Stamping Details also teaches there and always talks about it, so we took a quick detour. Boy was it stuck in the past! We found price stickers from the early 90s on some of the items. But they had some great deals on lace and trim, so of course we had to have some.

Lunch was at a small Bistro in downtown Escondido, which was tres bonne. We split a desert that was a fabulous concoction of chocolate ganache, hazlenut, meringe and almonds. OMG, it was soooo delicious.

After lunch, heading back to the car, we passed a new antique store and popped in. It ended up as one of our favorite places of the day! Many wonderful vendors and I found a Paris crock and an aqua glass Eiffel Tower. I still need to take photos of those, so they will be on a later post. There are a number of little antique and thrift stores in downtown Escondido, and it was definitely worth the stop.
Thanks visitors from Pink Saturday for sharing my travels with me. It really was such a wonderful day! 

My Lovely Gift

Look what my girlfriend Pam made for me!  I have known her for over 8 years and Pam creates with me every now and then.  But this is the very first home made gift that she has presented me with.  Isn't it wonderful?  She printed out the middle of a sunflower that she had enlarged.  She then put it on a dowel and glued purple Peeps around the outside for petals.  She "planted"it in a very cute little Easter bucket.  Adorable!  Thanks so much Pam, it really means a lot to me that you made it for me!  I love it.

Altered Little Bottle

Another fabulously fun MAMA (Marie Antoinette Mail Art) swap!  For this one we were assigned a partner and we altered a miniature bottle.  My bottle was purchased from Alpha Stamps.  I added rinestones and lace and some vintage embellishments.  This fleur-de-lis piece is from an old earring.  I love the way it offers a french feel to the bottle, and I had so much fun with the black and aqua color palette. Aqua seems to be my new favorite color! And as usual, I find when I leave my comfort zone and try something new for a swap I always end up really loving the creative process.  I am now looking forward to working on more bottles. Thank you so much Laura Carson for hosting such a wonderful swap!

And a very Happy Pink Saturday to the visitors from Beverly's Saturday link party.

Such a Wonderful Visit to the San Diego Zoo

We are so lucky to be close to the San Diego Zoo.  We haven't been members for awhile, so on President's Day we decided to join again and Jim, Cassidy, Brady and I headed off for the zoo.  The weather wasn't very nice, which is actually a big plus for a zoo trip.  The animals were much more active.  I was excited to see the tiger awake and alert, and in plain view.  He was pretty far away, but I zoomed the camera and when I came home and unloaded my photos onto my computer I felt so lucky to get this shot! I just love the zoo!