Tuesday, May 12, 2015

DECORATING A MIRROR WITH VINTAGE

Here is an old mirror which I decorated with vintage necklaces and assorted craft materials... how kitsch is this! Definitely one-of-a-kind. If you are feeling crafty, you can decorate your boring old mirror too and give your dressing table a touch of whimsy!

I purchased this plastic mirror last minute for a jewellery booth many years back, and since I disliked how tacky it looked, it was immediately put away after that event so I didn't have to look at it lol.

Anyhow I re-found it and decided to 'deco-den' it just because. This is not my original idea by the way. When I was an intern (around 1999) at a local bags & accessories company, the boss requested me to decorate two table mirrors as frou frou-ish as I could, with cabochon and ric rac samples and scrap pink feathers because we had just revamped the stores with a fixed colour scheme. Haha, good times. Best thing was customers asked if they were for sale... unfortunately no. The mirrors did manage to get customers to stop by the shop so that was good.

This is the mirror before embellishing. It is red and silver. I guess it was meant to be futuristic but it doesn't fit my vintage shop. Only bought it because I needed a mirror with a sturdy base and a mirror face that stays put when tilted. Dug about my junk jewellery lot and found 3 beaded necklaces that was flat enough for securing. Actually I don't have an idea what I wanted at this point.

These are from the 1970s. I dismantled the clasps, and removed the cross off the faux pearl beaded one. Also cleaned the mirror and necklaces with alcohol.

Glued the hippie looking necklace from the bottom and ran it around the circumference. I used a normal hot glue gun.

Joined the second one where the first one ended. Unfortunately the necklaces were not long enough so I had to find something to hide the uncovered parts.

These are artificial flowers, fabric leaves and floral tape. I had them leftover from making bouquets for my dolls.

Assembled a small bunch and wrapped them with floral tape. Since the flowers have wire stems, they can be curved to fit the shape of the circumference.

Glued the whole bouquet down. And another bunch at the bottom for some balance.

I added the green leaves on the tops to hide some of the uneven spots, then used the white beaded dismantled necklace on the inner circumference. It was not long enough because that is just one side length of the necklace. The other side was used on the bottom rim. Then added some plastic jewels that came free with a package I bought, these have scratches on the surface so I can't use them anywhere else.

I decided to dismantle the beaded cross pendant and replicate the weave to finish that missing spot, unfortunately after gluing it down, I realised the beads were larger than the rest! Oh well. I might add a ribbon or something but the odd-sized continuation is partly obscured by the flowers, so will leave it for now.
Got these from Daiso. One is a black spangled sequins (has a hologram effect) and the other is black frilly lace.

Glued the frilly lace on the circumference to hide the backs of the bouquet. The width of the tulle was trimmed down as it was far too wide. I glued the sequins all around the mirror's base till it was fully covered, and done! Hope you like it, I will be displaying this at an event this June so customers can enjoy looking at themselves in the mirror while trying on my jewellery!

Sunday, May 10, 2015

MY WORK TABLE

This is a snap shot of my work table, spent over an hour cleaning up the clutter so I could put up a photo for my Etsy 'About' page, it still looks like a ton of things but this is as good as it gets. This is half of what goes on it - usually I have vintage jewellery, bottles of crafting materials, markers, bags of packaging, and I also do photography at the corner near the window with an A3 sketchbook and a large flat mirror panel. Also, bills and bits of paper. I think I had an old blog post about my previous work desk. It's changed quite a bit!

Of course, the table only remained this neat for about 10 minutes and then I started laying out scrap papers and painting equipment - a friend had commissioned a set of paintings for her boutique in the style of that black lace painting titled 'Mourn' (still available in my Etsy shop by the way) and I could only start when the mess is out of the way.

The two dolls there are Licca and Jenny, and 3 Licca doll heads which I have yet to purchase bodies for.

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

RIBBONS IN HER HAIR DIGI STAMP


This pretty lass digi stamp is titled "Ribbons in Her Hair", I made the original draft a few years ago and she was meant to be an acrylic painting. Imagine this... a nouveau-style octopus girl! Can't remember why I abandoned it, I think I didn't feel like painting during that time, moved on to a lighter new sketchbook and forgot all about it. Recently the old sketchbook was rediscovered all dusty and yellowed from my climate, flipped through it and decided she could be a digital stamp illustration instead. Of course her octopus tentacles were erased and she got a nice flowy skirt.

She is 7 inches height, 300 dpi jpg format, available in my Etsy shop as an instant download:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/232123819/

I am currently working on a set of paintings for a friend, and tweaking my vintage shop which SEO I had neglected; so that is taking up a bulk of my time to fix, also I have an upcoming fair to prepare, so new releases of digis will be slightly slower for this period, please keep a lookout for a new freebie which will be out in a few weeks.