freshvintage

Barn Sale Bounty

A few weeks ago, I went to the moving sale of a woman who used to have frequent antique sales on her property near Media, PA. As soon as I walked into her barn, I couldn't stop smiling. If I had a bigger SUV, I would have bought it all. Everything was just my style, and the prices just couldn't be beat. I am just sorry that she is leaving the business, or else I would continue to buy from her!

These were the first two things I fell in love with (and the only large pieces that would fit in my car) -  a waist-high wooden cubby shelf thingy and a tall flower display cart.

Can't you picture it on a street corner overflowing with colorful flowers? (I assume it was made for flowers or plants. If anyone has any other ideas, let me know.)

It has wooden wheels and six shelves, each smaller than the next. It is sitting on my front porch right now, but I plan to sell it at our next sale (which is yet to be determined).

I might add a beadboard back to the shabby aqua cubbies.

This sale didn't stop at the barn. Her garage and the first floor of her home were filled with the kind of vintage goodness that you typically read about on my blog. But cheaper and better than any yard sale I've ever been to.

This pink & white bedspread was three bucks. I found the piece of fabric at the bottom of a box of aprons that I bought. The colors are a little reminiscent of Cath Kidston, no?

I have enough antique lace and vintage trim to circle the globe twice.

Here's a box of colorful vintage embroidered trim. Three bucks.

... and a box of 130 assorted rhinestone buttons. Five bucks.

...and a box of 26 vintage aprons. Three bucks.

There were a few Christmas aprons in the mix:

And a few embroidered ones:

I couldn't resist buying a box of vintage baby clothes for two dollars. I am like a meth addict. I need to be on Celebrity Junk Rehab with Dr. Drew, where I talk about my tragic yard-sale-filled childhood and why I hoard  antiques in an effort to guarantee love and affection from my mother because she had five kids in five years and it is the only way to get her attention.

Or something like that. Anyway, here are some totally cute baby dresses and knitted sweaters:

All told, I paid about one hundred dollars for everything in this post, the bulk of which obviously went towards the big pieces.

BUT - finding all of this fabulous vintage stuff wasn't even the best part of the sale. I know....what the hell could possibly have been better than finding all of this cool stuff?

Well, when one of the lovely girls who was working there noticed that I was buying so much stuff, she asked me what I was going to do with it. I told her that I am a dealer, and I also write about my junk on my blog. I handed her my card.

She looked at it and said, "I think I've read your blog. Didn't you write about...". And then she pointed to her nether region. I knew immediately that she was referring to our most beloved family heirloom: my grandfather-in-law's Peter Heater. 

"Yes! That's me!"

I am officially famous now, and I have a crocheted cock sock to thank for it.

Video Vintage Finds: Dress Patterns & A Pink Beer Cooler!

You have a choice this week: my vintage finds on video...

freshvintage: vintage finds 23 Jan 2009 from colleen allison on Vimeo.

Or my vintage finds in photos:

Nearly everything is from the same Villanova estate sale that Dona from Antekin wrote about on her blog a few days ago. I didn't get there until Saturday, when everything was 50% off.

The sewing patterns were for sale individually, but I got a great deal when I offered to take all 100+ of them for $15. (Actually, I only thought there were about 40 of them when I offered to take them all). I should make at least $100 when I sell these on eBay as one big lot.

Little girl patterns...

 

Maternity patterns...

The quilt was a thrift store find on the way home from the estate sale. I like the pattern and colors, even though the fabric is pretty worn in some spots. If you enlarge the photo, you can see the plaid blanket that was used instead of batting:

Here's an aqua & white checkered apron, pink plastic child hangers, Dolly Goes Round the World book, and brown pom-pom fringe...

The 1962 pink Coleman ice chest was the first thing I picked up at the estate sale. I arrived at the sale on the third day and the house was packed with people. When I saw the cooler, I asked the same questions I always ask myself: Why hasn't anyone bought this totally awesome pink cooler for five bucks? What the hell is wrong with it? Is it so hideously ugly that no one else even looked twice at it? Does it smell like dead bodies inside?

I found it in the garage with a big kerosene heater sitting on top of it. Maybe no one else noticed it. Maybe it is just my dumb luck.

I never thought I could say "I love you" to an ice chest. But I am saying it: I love you, pink ice chest. And I love the inner tray that your previous owner didn't lose or break. I love that I am having a Tupperware* party on Friday night with all of my neighborhood girlfriends, and you will keep all of our beer and white wine bottles nice and chilly.

 

*And when I say Tupperware party, I really mean a different type of home party that I can't really discuss on this blog for fear of getting five hundred more hate mails. We'll just leave it at that. Use your imagination.

Speaking of hate mail, check out my other blog, freshblogtips.com, where I have just revealed the subject of my email. It wasn't the Baby Jesus after all!

Buttons

As promised, here are a few pictures of the buttons that I won during my night of drunken ebay bidding. Like most things that you buy when you are drunk, I had a touch of buyer's remorse when I opened the boxes.

Most of the buttons are small, nondescript black and white shirt buttons or just big ugly coat buttons. I enlisted my son, Finn, to help me pick out all of the colored buttons. We filled eight of these little red containers with all of our favorites.  I love the glass buttons and mother-of-pearl buckle at the bottom of the picture. 

The red containers were from the dollar spot at Target (but they aren't selling them anymore). They have strong magnets on the back, and came with a metal strip that mounts on the wall. Instead of using the strip, I put the containers on the side of this metal storage cabinet.

I bought the cabinet for $3 at a yard sale last summer. It is a great place to hide my fabric, patterns, ribbons and anything else I can stuff in there. The bottom was rusty, so I covered it with fringe from an old chenille bedspread. On top of the cabinet, I have even more fabric in a pair of vintage locker baskets.

If I ever clean the rest of my "studio" (more commonly known as the guest room), I'll share some more pictures.   

Comment and Win!

This is my 25th post! I bet that everyone in my family thought this blog would only last 6 or 7 posts. And then I would just move on to something new. Like that time that I was obsessed with opening a drive-thru coffee shack.

Anyway, in honor of my long and illustrious blogging career, I'd like to have a little giveaway. Leave a comment and I will randomly pick a winner from all of those who commented. But, I'm going to make you work for it. You can't just leave a comment and tell me how smart and funny and pretty I am, and that reading my blog has made you a better person. You have to tell me what you collect. Everyone collects something, whether it is pottery or fabric or shot glasses (Doug).

I'll go first. One of my collections is white pottery.  I prefer matte finishes, but if a piece is cheap enough, I'll buy it regardless of finish.  I completely stole the idea of collecting white pottery from my sister-in-law, Sari, who has a really nice collection. I bought her a few pieces for Christmas and birthdays over the last few years.  And then I said "screw her!", and decided to start buying them for myself, because I love the way they look when they are grouped together. A couple of them were gifts from my in-laws, but I bought most of them for less than $10. Here are a few of them in my kitchen:

So, what do you collect? I don't care if you are a lurker, a frequent commenter or a new visitor - just don't forget to include your name & email address on the comment form so I can contact you if you win. On Saturday, February 17th, I'll pick a name. The lucky winner will win one of my new bucket tote bags! I made it with Heather Bailey's freshcut fabric, funky old buttons and vintage woven rick-rack on the handles.

If you feel like sharing the city & country where you live, I would love to know that, too. Since I started this blog in November, my statistics on Google Analytics tell me that I've had visitors from 27 countries, including Iran, New Zealand, Romania and Malaysia! 

Market Tote

One button down...only 1,546 more to go.  I used a lavender button and my favorite freshcut fabrics for this BIG market tote bag.  I'm keeping this one for myself, but I'll be making more market totes with other freshcut fabrics, and my new obsession, Erin Michael's Uptown fabrics.

I Dig Doug

Doug is my sister Erin's husband. They both went to Ursinus College, but they didn't get together until they had both graduated. Doug was an obnoxious frat boy. When Erin was a freshman, she knew him as that guy who would throw boloney at her friends in the cafeteria. When Erin was a sophomore, she invited me to Ursinus to see David Spade perform in their gym. This was during his funny Saturday Night Live years and we were big fans at the time. Doug and his "brothers" had been partying at a farm all day (I still don't know why) and were shouting cow calls during the whole show. "Yamma Yamma Yamma!"  If I knew that day that Erin would eventually marry one of those cow-calling assholes, I would have asked my parents to force her to study abroad in Myanmar.

But, it all worked out. They fell in love five years later and got married. Doug's classmates and faculty from Ursinus are still dumbfounded that he is now a nanotechnology scientist at a pharmaceutical company. But he hasn't changed a bit.  Remember my mom's yard sale that I talked about a few months ago?  Doug decided to dress up in some of the clothes that my mom was selling.  Here he is, looking so dapper in too-tight ladies' blue polyester pleated pants, a t-shirt that proudly states "Color Me Grandma", and holding a Las Vegas oven mitt:

That get-up just beckons "come hither", huh?

In honor of the recovering frat boy's birthday, I was commissioned by my sister to create a special bag for holding his prized liquor (Wild Turkey 101). I made a bag and shoddily embroidered this loving sentiment on it:

It all comes back to booze on this blog, doesn't it?

Fabric Labels Tutorial

I've been looking for custom fabric labels for the bags and other stuff that I make.  They can be pretty expensive, especially if you want them printed with your own logo in non-standard colors (lime green & aqua). Making bags isn't my full-time job, so I can't justify spending a lot of money on custom labels. So, I decided to try using printable transfer fabric and twill tape to make my own labels.  It was really easy and I am pleasantly surprised that they don't look too homemade. The paper costs $10 and the twill tape is $1.50.  Depending on the size of your image, you can make around 120 labels using 6 packs of twill tape.  Total cost: $19.  Here are the steps I took to create the labels:

This is the paper and twill tape that I used. This paper only works on white or light-colored fabric.

STEP 1: CREATE IMAGE FILE
I created my logo in the correct size using Macromedia Fireworks (you can use Photoshop, or any other graphics program). The twill tape was 3/4 in wide, so my logo need to be smaller than that.  Mine was 1.75 inches long and 0.6 inches high. I set the resolution to 300 dpi (dots per inch) since it was being printed (70 dpi is standard for images being used on the web).

STEP 2: PRINT IMAGE ON TRANSFER PAPER
I copied the image into Microsoft Word and pasted it 44 times, leaving some space between each image. When you print the page, you have to select "mirror image" in your printing options. I printed the page on a regular piece of paper before using the printable transfer paper, just to make sure everything looked okay. Then, I printed it on the transfer paper as pictured below. You have to wait 30 minutes for the ink to dry before you continue to the next step.

STEP 3: CUT OUT IMAGE
Next, I cut out the images to transfer to the twill tape. It is best to leave a little bit of white space on the sides of the image, so you have room to peel off the backing paper (in a later step). 

STEP 4: IRON TRANSFER TO TWILL TAPE
Cut the twill tape at least a half inch longer than the image on each side. Turn the image face-down and press with a HOT, DRY iron for about 15-20 seconds.

STEP 5: PEEL OFF BACKING
According to the directions for the transfer paper, if you want a matte look to the image, then peel off the backing while the image is still hot. If you want a glossy finish, then wait for it to cool down.  I wanted a matte finish, so I immediately peeled off the backing. This didn't always work - sometimes it was too hot, and the image was still stuck to the backing.  So, I eventually found that if I blew on it for 3 seconds before I peeled the backing, then the label would be perfect.  I screwed up about 4 labels before they started looking good, so don't be nervous...just keep trying different things until it works (maybe turn down your iron setting and/or press it for longer than 20 seconds).

STEP 6: SEW ONTO FABRIC
Turn the edges under and stitch onto your fabric. If you use the iron to press the edges, be sure not to touch the image with the iron.  I used polyester twill tape, which tends to unravel easily, so you may want to use Fray Check on the edges.

You could also create a looped label, instead of the flat one that I made. With the looped kind, you could transfer another image to the "back " of the label that has the washing instructions (great for washable tote bags or diaper bags).

Please let me know if you use these instructions to create your own labels. I'd love to see how they turn out!  Or, if you have other budget-friendly alternatives for creating custom labels, I'd love to hear them.

Painting Woes

I received a couple of requests to see some of the buttons that I drunkenly won on ebay. I don't have pictures of all of them yet, but here's a picture of a diaper/wipes wallet that has 3 of the 1000+ buttons. It is a little hard to see, but I stacked 3 buttons, including a big mother of pearl one:

Chris and I spent Sunday painting the dining room. In our old house, we didn't spend too much time preparing before we painted. This time, we diligently taped all of the trim and chair rail. It still looks like crap. The paint seeped through the tape in a lot of places. Brown paint on white trim actually does look like crap. Luckily, you can't tell from these pictures:

The colors we used are Sunwashed Blue (also known as aqua) and Mayfield Common (aka brown) by Ralph Lauren at Home Depot.

In the lower right corner of the above picture, you can see part of our victrola cabinet. That was the first piece of furniture that we ever bought at an auction. Before it went up for bid, I looked at it quickly and thought that it would be a great place to store our stereo (the victrola had been removed years ago and replaced with shelves).  I ended up being the highest bidder at $70.  When we went to carry it out of the auction, we realized that it didn't have a back! So dumb. I learned my lesson with that one.

I bought the 2 cake plates at a moving sale on Saturday morning for $5 each:

Diapers & Butts

I went to a friend's baby shower last weekend and gave her a diaper/wipes "wallet" that I made with my new Freshcut fabric by Heather Bailey. She is having a boy, so I used two of the more masculine fabrics in Heather's line. I didn't have a pattern - I just measured the fabric using a travel wipes case and a size 6 diaper.  After I finished it, I went to the store and bought a package of newborn diapers so that I could include them with the gift. I grossly overestimated the size of a newborn diaper. Did you know that there is a huge size difference between a newborn butt and my daughter's 2-year-old butt?  The diaper wallet was a little too big (9.5" by 5"), but it still gets the job done. My friend can just throw it in her purse when she doesn't feel like carrying her big diaper bag.

 

Handmade Chenille Tutorial

I attempted a handmade chenille doll blanket a few weeks ago and took pictures along the way, just in case someone else wanted to try it. One of my friends has a baby blanket that her mother made using this method. Mine didn't turn out as cute as hers, but what the hell. 

STEP 1: Cut out 5 pieces of fabric that were 16" by 20".  You won't really be able to see the pattern on the fabrics when it is finished, so choose the fabric by the dominant color instead. I also cut a piece of white chenille from an old beadspread for the backing.

STEP 2: Stack the 5 fabric pieces together, right sides all up, and sew a straight line from one corner to the opposite corner.  Continue to stitch lines about 3/4 inch apart on each side of the first line. This would probably be much easier with one of those quilting bars or edge guides.

It ended up looking like this, after I sewed all the lines:

STEP 3: Put the backing on. I probably should have done this at the end, but its too late now! I put the right sides of the fabric stack and backing (piece of vintage chenille spread) together, and sewed around the edge. I left 4 inch opening so I could turn it right side out:

STEP 4: Press the edges and topstich around the edge of the blanket. Here's what the back looks like:

And here's the front:

STEP 5: Cut the first 4 layers of fabric in between each line of stitching. Be careful not to cut the bottom fabric, or the backing (if you put on a backing already). 

Here's what is looks like with all the cuts:

STEP 6: The hard part is done! Now, just throw it in the washer and dryer to fluff up the cut edges of the fabric:

Here's the final result:

Alternatives:

• If you put the backing on at the end, then you wouldn't be able to see the top fabric around the edges, like you can see with mine (the pink/white gingham).
• Use 3 or 4 layers of fabric instead of 5, and the chenille will not be as thick. 
• Sew the lines closer together (half inch) and you won't be able to see any of the base fabric.