Fabric Bird Collage

I'm just loving playing with fabric at the moment.  The base of this 6" x 6" collage is a piece of grunge board that I sewed a piece of tea-dyed ticking to.

Then, I just layered up things I love:

• stamped, tea-dyed tag
• piece of handmade paper
• page from a vintage book
• old postage stamp
• scrap of an old vintage map
• vintage buttons

The main focal image is a bird from an old book page (found in the Vintage Page Bird Kits) adorned with an old lens.  Everything was either sewn onto the fabric base or adhered with gel medium.  Here's some close-ups:

 

 

I'm linking to the following Brenda's Tuesday Treasures.

Happy Creating!

Ali

Upcycled Jars

I had a little time to play the new Frilly and Funkie challenge today, which is Upcycling.  {The items I upcycled for the challenge are the glass jars, old books and maps and a vintage button.}

I plucked two glass jars out the recycling tub and created a pair of votive holders.  I glued small scraps of vintage paper (maps, music and dictionary pages) around the center.  I finished them with seam binding, a button on one and a little tag on the other.  Very simple, but kinda cute!

  

Remember to link up pictures of your studio space at the end of this post.  I'm dying to see where you create!

Hope you have a creative weekend!

6 Ways to Wrap Gifts Using Vintage Paper

 

I've been having a lot of fun including vintage paper in my holiday gift wrapping this year.  I thought I'd share with some ways that you could incorporate some lovely old book pages or vintage sheet music into your packaging too.

1.  Vintage Paper Gift Wrap

Use old book pages to wrap the entire gift.  This works well for small gifts because you're restricted by the size of the pages.  Here I used vintage sheet music to wrap an iTunes gift card and finished it off with seam binding and a gold accent.

2. Vintage Paper Bows

Cut strips of old books to form a bow.  Here I used over sized dictionary pages - the large loops were cut to 1" wide and the smaller inner loops on top were cut to 1/2" wide. I finished off the center with a vintage button.

3. Vintage Paper Bag Toppers

Transform a plain bag into something special by creating a bag topper from vintage paper.  I just folded a rectangle of sheet music in half, stapled it to the top of the closed bag and hid the staple with a bow.

4. Vintage Paper Belly Bands

Cover the gift in regular wrapping paper, then create a belly band from vintage paper to bring it up a notch.

5. Vintage Paper Tags

Use a die cutting machine or handheld punch to create tags from old book pages and sheet music:

6. Vintage Paper Accents

Cut a piece of an old map or sheet music and glue it to the front of a parcel.  Here I used spray adhesive to attach a map of the East Coast to a gift wrapped in simple kraft paper.

There are more pictures of my Christmas packages in this post.  Got a great idea for packaging gifts using old book pages?  Leave a link and/or comment below.

Linking to:

A Crafty Soiree
Hodgepodge Friday
Crafty Happy Scrappy 
The Shabby Nest

Savy Southern Style

Happy Wrapping!

Ali

Fun Custom Orders

One of the things that I really loved about my first few months on Etsy is working with customers on custom orders.  It's so much fun to hear the stories behind the items they're requesting I make.  The vast majority of these custom orders are for my Vintage Map Photo Albums and I thought I'd share a few of those projects today:

The first is a spiral album featuring a map of the USA with 7" x 7" pages.  It was requested by a young woman to give to her boyfriend for Christmas to celebrate the cross country road trip they took this year.  The front shows New York state where they started from and the back shows Washington state, which is where they ended their journey and now live.

The second is another spiral album, this time with 5" x 7" pages with a map of Mexico.  It was requested by Dylan's aunt to give as a gift to her Sister-in-law to celebrate their November trip to Cancun.

Finally, here are 10 journals I made for a wonderful lady in Alabama. There is one each for all 10 cousins in the family who grew up in Hillsborough, AL for them to record their childhood memories.  What a thoughtful and personal gift!

I'm currently taking orders for custom albums for Valentines Day and the upcoming wedding season.  If you have a special place you'd like to feature on a photo album or journal, don't hesitate to contact me at alimanning@charter.net or directly through my Etsy shop.

Bright Ideas for Maps

There are so many creative ways to use vintage maps.  

I thought I'd share a few lighting projects with you today.

Check out this gorgeous light!  

You can find a tutorial showing how to make it at Paisley Sprouts.

This light created from old maps by Umbu is stunning!

There's a fun lamp tutorial at Modge Podge Rocks.

Although this pendant light is globe cut in half,
you could definitely decoupage a plain metal one with maps instead.

Source: Rosebud's Cottage

Got some map inspiration to share?  Feel free to leave a comment with a link!