Quick Faux Mannequin

Just back from a pre wedding open house, where the bride wanted to show off her Grandmother's wedding dress, that she will be wearing this coming weekend at her wedding.

 

Unfortunately, plans for a borrowed mannequin fell through at the last minute and my garage full of mannequins was 8 hours away!  But by putting our heads together we came up with a quick substitute!

 

Here is how we did it, and you can too!

 

 1. Remove lamp shade from simple floor lamp.
2. Find a down pillow and wrap around lamp, use masking tape to define the waist.

 3. Using large safety pins, pin the pillow case and pillow to the harp of the lamp, as shown.

 4. Shape pillow to roughly resemble a torso.

 5. Slip the dress over the top.  Add stuffing to fill and shape the bodice of the dress, where needed.

6. Put a piece of bonded batting over the top of the lamp to soften the lines of the harp.

 7. Place a hanky or other fabric over the batting and tuck into the neck line.

That's it!  I don't think anyone knew that the dress was not on an actual mannequin.

 To the left is the dress worn by the original bride back in the fifties.

And here is our darling bride Brittney, in one of her bridal photos ... of course she skipped the hoops!  What a beauty!

 

And if you have the time, and know someone with hard mannequin, you can always make you own out of paper mache!  But for an emergency, this is a great method using items that most crafty folks have on hand!

I am linking this post to Nifty Thrifty Tuesday







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An Altered Art Friendship Book

 

I have something to share with my blogging friends who love altered art and scrap booking as much as I do!!  At the Vintage Show I did last weekend, I met Colleen, who terms herself a 'very mixed media artist'.  She is just amazing.

She had brought some old, heavy duty books to sell, and to show what one can do with a great old, well hung book ...

She brought along a couple of altered art books.  This one was done by an artists' group she belonged to.

She started the book, choosing a theme, and then the book was sent from one artist to another.

Each contributing to the book's theme, but in her own style!

Its so fun to browse through it, and I don't even know the people who created it.

What a fun memory book for a group of friends!

I love how each person's personality peeks out through their art.

Thanks Colleen for sharing this amazing treasure with me!! 

So, readers, have any of your participated in a project like this one? 

Celebrating Baby!

Definitely time to change out my mantel decor from spring and Easter, but to what?   Mother's day falls in May, so I decided to do a mantel based on that magic thing that makes women into mothers, "babies!"

I glittered some eggs for my bird's nest, and tucked in some antique lace too.  The 50's plastic molded baby got delicate polka dot feathers for wings ... thanks Marsha!  And the baby riding a stork picture from Graphics Fairy was perfect for the bird and baby theme.

I added some pennants made from pictures of four of my grand babies and a favorite quote from Dickens, "It is no small thing when they so fresh from God love us."

I also included this sweet lamb peat pot that I got at the Vintage White's Market last month ... it does say spring, but I always think lambs say 'baby' as well.

 

I think I am going to try to get an infant picture of all of my grandchildren and do a long pennant banner with them.  Wish me luck, a computer crash a couple of years ago, wiped out a lot of my photos, dagnabit!

Remembering the First fleattitude!

Wow, what an amazing weekend, and it was so fun to see some of my blog followers and collect some hugs!!  Thanks for your support!  I just wanted to show you one adorable thing the organizers of 

fleattitude did.  Their banner, shown above, includes a cute stock design they found of a pennant banner, then Cathie, who is super creative, went out and bought similar fabrics to make their banner, and hung it across yellow and white doors to form the stripes in their logo, so very fun, don't you think?  Also note the black bead detail!  What won't that girl think of?

Here's a shot of the show from the second floor, this is just one of three sales areas full to the rafters with goodies!  The outside of the building is pretty amazing too!

I promised you some pics of a couple of my favorite vendors.  These great items are from Jennine, who luckily also does my flea.o.logy sales!

I love how she puts things together, don't you?

Her cute friend Debbie also did some items for the sale, like these fun doorknobbed jewelry displays!! (Doorknobbed is probably not really a word ... oops)

 

Then its up the stairs to check out Two Pitts of a Pear!!  Always LOVE their artistic slant!

 A bunch of chalk boards all ready to receive chalk board art, right?

And last of all I had to include my favorite of Penny's creations!!

Mr. Robot,  who is obviously the star of the show!!

My Funky Junk for the Fleattitude Sale Today!!

Crazy day ... spent Thursday night loading up the van and finishing up projects for Fleattitude, a new flea market style show in the neighboring berg of Pleasant Grove.  I am sharing a booth with my talented daughter by marriage, Nell ... she made these adorable animal top jars ... always a hit!

 

Here are a few pictures of our booth.  If you are local come on over to the Community Center in Pleasant Grove, its in the park on Center Street!

The blue tea table above and the two funky lamps are late additions to my show stock!!

 

I took lots of pictures of my friend Janeen's booth, as well as that of Two Pitts of a Pear, which I will be sharing next week.  Wish Me  Luck!