My Swap gift from my buddy Rosanne of Ro's Cluttered Attic!

Imagine my surprise the other day when my post office carrier knocked on my door holding this giant box that, of course, would not fit in our mail box! I saw the return address label on it and knew my swap partner had sent it!

I ripped into the box, my 8 yr old gleefully assisting me, and it was Christmas in August!!! I have taken a photo of three of the items and posted them here. The main one is that amazing collage using antique music sheets and a vintage postcard element of Old St. Nick. I will hang it up in the Victorian room of my house next to our feather tree. I just love it!!! Ro expressed to me some trepidation at having gotten my name because she had never created anything Victorian before....but this was simply awesome...and I think she may have just discovered a new way of creating too;)

The next items in the box were the apple cinnamon candle that you see burning here and the handmade pin cushion with vintage fabrics. I have already started to use the pincushion....even if it is Christmas themed, I will use it year round to remind me 0f my favorite-iest time of year. There were two other items in the box that were not yet pictured here...they were a large bag of trailmix with plenty of my favorites; nuts, rasins and chocolates and there was a great package of Victorian tea themed paper plates and napkins. The trail mix did not make it to this photoshoot....ummmm perhaps because my son and husband and I have consumed most of it....but let me tell you; it was quite yummy!

Thanks Ro.....I LOVE these gifts and will cherish them forever. HUGS

Hang Tags with a Graphic, Victorian Flair!

If you have not noticed by now, I have been gradually making the switch over from doing early American style folk art to graphics and paper goods. The only time I usually craft folk art style items is around Christmas time when I switch over to my Belsnickels and my old world St. Nicholases. My newest items have all been hang tags and stickers,(I'll highlight the stickers a bit later), and they have been selling exceptionally well. I'm also going to be branching off into printing custom note cards and stationary

I miss traditional correspondence.......

I know, email and blackberries are great, they really are. E-cards are so wonderfully convenient too, I don't have to actually remember to pick out cards when I'm at the store...I can just hop online and go to my favorite e-card source, type in a recipient's email and there you go! It's just so darn cool, as well as easy to utilize in this fast paced world. But does anyone else out there miss traditional correspondence? I'm talking real cards or letters written and sent to friends at times other than at Christmas. I have suddenly found that I really miss a nice card I can hold, or a hand written letter from a pen pal that I can save in a drawer. I never get many of those anymore.

I think what sparked this little bit of nostalgia for me was a time a few months ago when I started to clean out my recently deceased grandmother's things, all things which I inherited....when I say inherited here, I mean all the stuff the rest of the family dumped on me because they didn't want it. But as I sifted through the mounds of old pictures, papers and letters that had been forgotten in a shoe box, I realized I had a goldmine. Dozens of vintage postcards dating back to 1899-1910 and hand written letters to her grabbed my attention.
There were even sweet notes penned to her from her boyfriend...whom she later married and he became my grandpa! As I read through these things, I realized that I was looking at a slice of her life, a unique picture of the time in which she was alive and with us. It then suddenly occurred to me that my grandchildren may not ever get to see this side of me. For one thing....I don't keep a diary or a journal, even though I do scrapbook, and for another, all of my little notes to people and cards sent to me are lost in some digital "ether" out there.

So I guess this is what has led me down this recent path to the style of creations I have been doing.....greeting cards and paper goods with a nostalgic and Victorian flair. For one thing, I love mixed media, altered art and paper ephemera art, I have just never really pursued it except in my personal scrapbooking. With these cards and tags I have been making, I hope to create little bits of art that the recipient will not want to throw out and will want to save for posterity. The cards I have been making have also been all blank on the inside, so that the giver can have ample room to pen their message.

Victorian Paper Cone Ornaments

If there is one thing I love about the Victorians, it would have to be their frugality and ingenuity when it came to recycling. I have an enormous collection of antique Christmas ornaments from about 1870 to 1906, and it is endearing to me how old pieces of Jewelry, wrapping papers, ribbons and cutouts from chromolith trading cards all were saved for later. Nothing went to waste! Items that were considered old junk or throw away were made into objects of beauty and later reused in holiday celebrations. This applied to all holidays, not just Christmas. The paper cone is also known as the "May basket or the Tussie Mussie", depending on it's season of use and adornment.

I love to craft my things in the same way and I spend hours creeping through the attic of my childhood home, ( a large Victorian farm house), and hours searching antique markets looking for sweet finds. All of my Victorian paper cones or scrap ornaments are crafted in the same style and tradition as their Victorian counterparts. The paper cones are always loaded with antique and vintage finds and will usually include some valuable antique ornaments, antique glass jewelry and chromolith scraps. The large, aqua colored cone here features a large, antique mercury glass ornament and two smaller vintage glass ornaments from the 1930's.

I generally try to preserve the integrity of the antique ornaments if I can and keep them firmly fastend to the piece, yet detachable and not glued into it. I still have an antique lover's passion for these things and it sickens me to ruin them for the "sake of art". Watch for some of my Victorian, spun glass bird cones coming shortly.....they feature rare, hard to find glass birds with spun glass tails. This year, I found a treasure trove, and I mean treasure trove, of antique Christmas things. I'm really excited to show them.

All of my cone ornaments would be great in a shabby chic setting, on a tree or hanging on a knob somewhere in your home.



All of these ornaments will be priced accordingly to the vintage and antique findings they are loaded with. The cones you see featured here are currently for sale at wsoapp.com

Very soon, you will be able to view my work in sets on flickr. com. I have chosen to use this site as a way for my customers and friends to view my complete, online portfolio

A preview of what's to come!

Here is a hand made box which is featured on the WSOAPP blog in the recipe section. I had pictured it stuffed with homemade Christmas sugar cookies, ( all of which are now gone, I assure you;O) ), but it will be offered in my WSOAPP store as a Christmas tag and stationary box. So many of my steady customers have been after me to sell a large quantity of tags as a bundle deal. So here's to you guys who have been writing me since October....I am bundling 20 of my best sellers in with this box. It will be offered at $50.00 plus travel fare to your home. The tags themselves are valued at $30.00. The box is a generous 9x9 inches and has been made by myself.



If you are interested in this item, hop into my WSOAPP shop to be the first to buy it when it is listed. Pictured here are just a few of the tags that will be offered. There will be two of each that are currently sold over in the shop and a few that will be surprises!

Sorry, this item has sold out!

contact me if you are interested in something similar; I will accept custom order requests up until December 21st.

The 2nd in my Old WorldFather Christmases series has finally taken shape and is ready to go out for sale. This year has been a hard year for me to work on my projects as my elderly father needs extra help and as my little one who is in second grade now is getting more active in clubs and in church. I have only created four St. Nicks this year. I have had some orders to consider for custom made, or made to customer request santas, and I will most likely get to those here soon.

I have been asked to join in with a handful of other traditional folk artists and send my work to the Early American Life Magazine for jurying to get on their traditional artisan list; and I'm excited to say, I am going to do it! So the challenge has been put out there to create my most interpretive piece of history and Americana yet, and get it to them by next spring. Hopefully, my work will be seen in next year's 2009 EAL, Christmas magazine on their tradtional artisans list.

Right now, the other two Father Christmases I made are in shops and both have already been sold. Some of my customers have written me and asked if I was using real fur on the coat trimmings as well as Cottswold sheep's wool for their beards; the answer is YES! I am using what I called "recycled fur" I have spent a great deal of time snooping through antique shops and resale shops searching for old fur coats and leather coats and belts. I painstakingly remove the stuff I don't need and process the fur or leather by trimming it into the right sized pieces that I need.
I feel that this way, an animal's pelt has been reused and not just thrown away. The figure picture here is wearing mink and his gloves were created from a very vintage sweater.

To view where this old world Father Christmas is currently being offered, check out my wsoapp shop by following the links over in the side column. He will only be offered there for a short time before he is placed in a shop.