I made these Easter baskets with vintage and thrifted supplies….and thought I’d share some of the old postcards that I used as an embellishment to the craft. Check out the video where I show the creation process: https://youtu.be/RfnHoHtVf1Y
On this occasion my shopping bag for thrifted finds from the Goodwill Outlet was a vintage suitcase. I thought that made for the perfect container for vintage treasures. Way better than a plastic bag, don’t ya think?!
I made a set of St. Patrick’s Day Bookmarks out of vintage cards, stamps, diecuts, lace and ribbons. You can see highlights from the process of creating these goodies in the second part of this week’s video: https://youtu.be/RO0kgvX6qhM?si=g4PPbJkWn-69DYba
Below is a scan of one of the stickers that I used, feel free to copy/download it and use it for your own crafting enjoyment because it does not seem have any copyright marks.
I discovered late last night that there was an estate sale at my aunt’s house. She’d passed away over the holidays so we’d been wondering if they’d have an estate sale. My mom and my aunt had been estranged from one another for several years and we’d therefore been somewhat estranged from that side of our family. In any case, late last night I was scrolling through various estate sale sites and came across one in the town where my aunt lived. I was several photos in to the listing photos when I saw a piece of artwork done by my other aunt, and then I poked around a little more to see if anything else looked familiar and saw pictures of my cousins on a dresser-so that pretty much confirmed that it was her house. Unfortunately the sale had started on Saturday – so we’d already missed the first two days, but there was one left. I messaged my mom and sister and we made a date to meet up there today.
My mom had seen several things in the photos that she remembered belonging to her mother, her Grandmother and her Great Aunt, but thankfully we’d set our expectations pretty low for finding anything left that had sentimental value. With that in mind I was delighted to find a set of sorority and fraternity paddles that had belonged to my Granny and Grandpa and my mom ended up finding two pieces of art that had been carved by her Great Uncle. I found a few other treasures as well.
I know that its often the case that someone has passed away when the family is holding an estate sale…and its usually so interesting to explore the house…but it is an altogether different experience to walk through a house that you’ve been to many times before and so surreal to find a few things to which you have a personal connection. I kind of felt like it was meant to be for us to find the listing before the sale was over and to stumble across a few things that helped us connect with several loved ones who have passed away, including my aunt.
The original craft room I’d set up in our new house was in a guest bedroom. That meant that that I was always moving things off and on the bed (that doubles as a space to lay out crafting supplies when its not being used by guests) and move off other surfaces to make space for luggage. But the two worst parts of that room turned out to be the natural lighting, which was always pretty dim even on the best days because the windows face the north and lots of light gets blocked by nearby trees, and the carpet…which always made for vacuuming challenges after crafting projects with glitter or small bits of paper, fabric and thread.
I didn’t really have a specific plan for the new space, but I watched a ton of videos and looked at lots of pins on Pinterest for inspiration. And since I’m having a “No New New Year” I knew I wanted to stay committed to not purchasing anything new. So I headed to our local Restore. I spent way too long trying to weigh the pros and cons of different options, but ultimately settled on a large IKEA desktop for $25 (knowing that I already had a spare IKEA desk-base that was holding up a makeshift table in my shed), some large pieces of peg board (for five bucks each!) and some plastic wall mounted storage devices for a buck each (I got 10 but have only used two, so far). It was a small miracle that I made it home…thanks to a kind stranger at the store who help me get the peg boards mounted to the top of my car, and a volunteer working at the store who was kind enough to provide some plastic string when I realized the things I’d picked out didn’t actually fit in my car. (oops!) It was a cold and snowy day, but I somehow managed to make it home without anything flying off or out of my car.
I was, of course, lucky to have access to a variety of shelves, and cabinets and other storage devices that I acquired in the past that I was also able to use, but everything was old (and a little worse for wear) and I suspect much of it could have been acquired at garage sales or other second hand shops for a pretty reasonable amount.
The next big challenge was figuring out the right layout for everything. I sketched up some different options but ended up moving the desktop around the room to see where I liked it best….factoring in overhead lighting sources as well as natural light from the window and door in the new space.
My shelving units were a light wood color, but the other furniture had an orangey woodtone. I’d assumed I’d probably end up painting all the furniture gray or dark brown to make it look like the spaces I’d seen online. But then it occurred to me that the furniture kind of matched the natural color of several of my vintage Redmon baskets…which also make perfect storage containers. So I ran around the house and gathered up all the baskets I could find. Not having to paint anything and being able to incorporate so many of my baskets both as artistic elements as well as functional storage within the space was a win-win!
I’m so happy with how the space came out…and have already enjoyed getting to do some crafting there! I’m also really proud of the fact that I didn’t have to buy anything “new” and only spent $40 on the second hand items that I purchased to facilitate the transformation of this space.
The Thrifty Sisters 