White Clothes Hangers and a Lovely Shade of Pink

I hope all of you had a lovely Easter. We had a quiet weekend and enjoyed the sunshine.

During a walk about two weeks ago, we picked up a bunch of wooden clothes hangers at the curbside. The trash collectors must have overlooked them the other day. Certainly good for me :-). We took them home and I gave them a shower. Then I painted the hangers white, sanded a bit paint off here and there and stamped some text and patterns on.

I use the ones with a bar to hold some wider laces. For now the job of the other ones is to just look nice :-). Maybe I find some pretty vintage clothes one day for them to present.

 

 When I made guacamole last week, I remembered that Barbara over at Vintage Bunty had posted about dyeing with avocado skins. So instead of throwing the skins away, I looked again at her POST and followed her description. This is how my laces turned out. Some came out a little lighter than others but all have a lovely shade of pink with a beige undertone. 

I’m very happy with the results and will dye another batch when I make an avocado dish next time. I also love that no chemicals are necessary. Thank you, Barbara for posting about it!

Have a lovely week!

Hugs,

Julia

Fashion and Spring - A Wonderful Swap

It’s time now to reveal the wonderful swap I had with my very dear friend and talented artist Dorthe over at Den Lille Lade. We had decided to create a book along with some other things. I will start with the gifts that Dorthe had sent me. My desired theme was “fashion”.

This is the gorgeous fabric book I have received.

created by Dorthe

Each page has a pretty pocket to stash tags, cabinet cards etc.

 created by Dorthe

Dorthe has used lots of yummy laces :-).

 created by Dorthe

Aren’t those details just fabulous?

 created by Dorthe

Dorthe had filled some of the pockets with beautiful tags and other lovely items.

created by Dorthe

In one of the pockets I found a pretty organza glove. Another sweet gift from Dorthe was this hand made hat.

  created by Dorthe

The dress form pattern of the tag above can be found again on this fantastic doll. Isn’t this such a cool idea?

  created by Dorthe

Dorthe spoiled me even more with this pretty lavender pillow. It smells just heavenly.

  created by Dorthe

If these gifts hadn’t been more than enough, she added to my Easter decoration by sending me all those beautiful eggs.

  created by Dorthe

A sweet charm for me to wear and a lovely card were also included in the package.

  created by Dorthe

 created by Dorthe

You can probably imagine that I was over the moon when I unwrapped all those fantastic gifts.

Thank you so much, dear Dorthe!!! I LOVE each and every piece and will treasure them forever. I just wish I could give you a real, very big hug, sweetie. Maybe one day … :-).

A lot of you know Dorthe already, but if you have never been to her blog before, please hop over to this sweetheart’s place Den Lille Lade or visit her Etsy-Shop.

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Now I show you what I’ve made for Dorthe. Her desired theme was “spring” and she had wished for a book to store the ATCs she has collected over the years. I wanted the cover of the book as well as the pages to be sturdy, so that the ATCs wouldn’t get scrunched or bent. My first attempts to construct the book didn’t satisfy me. Then my dear hubby suggested to just use an old account statement folder. That was a great idea and worked out perfectly! Thank you, honey :-)!

With an image provided by “The Graphics Fairy” I created this book cover.

 

For the pages I created paper collages on cardboard and added laces and buttons. To display the ATCs, I made pockets using tulle. That way the little cards can still be seen well. Of course I couldn’t send out the book “empty” and therefore created an ATC to put into one of the pockets.

Here are some book page details.

This stamped image looks so spring like and I thought it would be wonderful to be used on a bookmark.

 

Inspired by Lisa and her awesome altered bottles, I soldered this one for Dorthe.

For the card I printed my one of my favorite bird images on fabric. This lovely illustration had been provided by Dawn a while ago.

Finally I added a basket of freshly picked sewn strawberries for Dorthe to enjoy.

 

This was such a fun swap and I loved putting together that spring themed package for Dorthe. With freezing temperatures outside, it was especially nice to have a bit of spring in the studio. In the meanwhile the weather got warmer here and it feels like spring, although the skies are gray right now.

Have a wonderful week!

HUGS,

Julia