Custom French Sillouette Art just in time for Christmas!

I've added a new custom, French inspired digital product over at my etsy shop. I used several vintage items from my ephemera collection to achieve this layout. Check it out here.

Also, I've got some upcycled items that I will be adding to the shop soon including some altered art pieces as well as some custom notebooklets made from vintage paper and book covers. be sure and bookmark my etsy shop and check back soon for the new items!

More Soon,
The Upcycler

A Numbers Game

Mrs. Hughes and I have been fascinated with old printer's block stamps for some time now. We picked up a handful at the State Fair Flea Market a while back and used them as decoration in the house. There are several on the book shelves in the library just sitting pretty, but with no real purpose.

While on yet another trip out to Miss Linda's and her array of antiques {and wasps} we dug up a bin or two full of these old printer's blocks. Originally used to typeset ads, newspapers, and such by hand. I would guess these were carved by hand as well. Mrs. Hughes was looking to spell out a specific phrase on this outing "All you need is love, love is all you need" the Beatles of course.






I spent a good 30 minutes digging through the letters to find the ones we needed, my hands covered in 80+ year old newsprint ink after the fact. Once we got them home I got the idea to attach them to some old wooden hand stamps I purchased a while back at another shop. I figured it would be easier for her to use them if I grouped each word together onto one stamp. Those came out very well and she will be using them on items for a forthcoming Etsy shop.




Which brings us to this numbers set. After putting together the All You Need Is Love set I got the idea to do an all numbers set complete with a period and dollar sign. My thought was price tags. I can just see these on those big toe tags hanging off of vintage furniture. So, back out to Linda's. I was already headed out that way to pick up some items we had on hold. Miss Linda only takes cash you see, and anytime we show up with $50 we find $100 worth of good stuff.

So back through the letters I dug until I found 0-9. I can use the 9 as a 6 as well, so that saved me having to make 1 stamp. After finding my numbers I was rummaging through a booth and came across a Ziploc bag full of old wooden thread bobbins. BING, it's funny how simple things can escape you, It never occurred to me before then that a bobbin makes a good handle, although I am sure someone has cut them in half and used them as furniture knobs.

What a long post for such a simple thing! I attached the wood printer blocks to the bobbins with some 2 tonne epoxy mix. I will give you a hint. The kind that takes longer to set and cure doesn't have any odor at all, at least not the brand I bought. On the other hand the fast curing stuff, like under 5 minutes, stinks, stinks, stinks. I used the slow setting stuff. First I scrapped the remaining paper labels off of the bobbins, and then sanded off the glue that held them on. I mixed my epoxy and gooped it on heavily, making sure to get some on the edges of the blocks, I think this will keep them from rocking loose off of the bobbin back and forth as they are kind of high.

Most hand stamps have a piece of rubber between the stamp and the handle. I didn't bother with this because the epoxy dries so hard that it would have killed any give in the rubber. Instead when using these you can just put an old towel or some paper napkins under what you are applying the block to. Since these are wood faced and very hard they work best on smooth surfaced paper, card stock and fabric with a high thread count. They don't work well on hard surfaces with no give I've discovered, you need a little bit of give and wiggle for the paint or ink to transfer properly.

For the sample letters on the photos I used an old, small paintbrush to apply the paint to the surface of the letters. That is where the lines came from in the final product. And since the paint won't be brushed on the same way twice, they will always look a little different.

Cleaning is easy as long as you are using water soluble paint or ink. Just a run under the sink does it. I would keep the water off of the bobbin end though or seal them because they are pretty porous while the print blocks themselves are very dense and pretty much waterproof.





Well have fun making your own bobbin/printer block hand stamps. I think I will head out to Miss Linda's this weekend and see if I can't find the whole alphabet.

More soon,
The Upcycler.

The Upcycler At Scarlett Scales in Franklin, TN

I stopped by Scarlett's unannounced with a beat up suitcase full of upcycled stuff on Friday. We had been talking about her carrying some of my stuff for months and I had to stop by to pick up a bed frame we bought there last week. She was very excited to see the items and picked out several to try in the shop including this paper flower brooch, several handmade books, and a few other items. The brooch is made out of vintage paper and is what I call a "fairweather flower" as I don't like spray sealing them, so they don't do well in the rain. The brooch pin back is held on with with a piece of vintage book leather.

I packaged it up as pretty as I was able in an old freezer tin, some twine, a page from a french catalog as tissue, and included a handmade gift tag. There was a lady in the store when I was showing my wares that just had a fit over it, so hopefully it will sell and I will be able to keep some items available at Scarletts, its an honor to have my stuff in there, she runs an awesome shop.

More soon,
The Upcycler

Where has the Upcycler been?

The answer is simple: Out in the backyard.
Mrs. Hughes and I have been working, working, working out in the backyard for several months now. We have had a deck built, a pergola, a fence, we've planted 11 good sized trees, dug huge flower beds and just had ourselves a good time. I also moved 7 cubic yards, a very big pile, of dirt from the front your to the backyard to fill the beds and to build boy a small raised garden. We planted pumpkins for fall last week and they are already coming up.

While the backyard isn't exactly an upcycling project, I have had some time to work on that as well. I opened an etsy.com shop and have begun selling digital downloads of pages I've scanned and cleaned up from old catalogs, notebooks, etc... I will be adding much more in the future, but for now there are several pages from a French homewares catalog from the 1920s. These are great for scrapbooking or creating personalized crafts. Here is the link to my etsy.com shop:

www.theupcycler.etsy.com

I plan on adding some vintage items to the shop as well, but that probably won't happen until after our CRAFT ROOM project, which Mrs. Hughes will BLOG ABOUT I am sure.

Next blog I will be sure and take pictures of the old pieces we've placed in the backyard. Last week we found an awesome iron headboard from Scarlett Scales Antiques in Franklin, TN. As soon as I figure out how to get it home it's going in the raised garden box.

More soon!
The Upcycler

I SWEAR this book followed me home.

About a year or so ago Mrs. Hughes and I went to a new antique shop in Nolensville, Tennessee. It's in an old cinder block church building on a hill. I think it's called Hill Top Antiques. While rummaging through the rooms I came across this Pro-Prohibition tome from the turn of the century.

"The Curse of Drink, or, STORIES OF HELL'S COMMERCE."

The book cover and title alone where enough to make me want it. But when I flipped through the pages I saw this AWESOME illustration that I thought would make a great poster. At least I thought I saw it. I flipped to where the prices usually are on books in antique stores, on the top
right of the first blank page in pencil, and was wowed to find a price of $2.00 SOLD.

I went to check out and when the clerk saw the price he became sure that the book dealer who's booth I pulled it from didn't intend to sell it for $2.00 but that was probably what HE paid for it. So I asked him to call the guy to get the price, nicely, he was out of town. So, I left my name and number and asked him to call me with the price, which he did about a week later. $15.00 which was fine with me. For some reason however I never got back to get it. When we finally went back through the shops in Nolensville about six months later I searched for it but couldn't find it, and assumed it had been sold.

SO yesterday Mrs. Hughes and I are back in Nolensville and we go to Hill Top. Two minutes in the door and the book turns up sitting right in front of me. Without looking through it again I've got it in my hand headed for the checkout. Again it wasn't marked, but I was in luck as the dealer on duty for the day was the book dealer. He remembered giving me a $15 price on it from a year ago. I asked him if it had been in the shop the whole time and he said he had actually taken it back and forth from home a few times looking at it and had only recently brought it back.

Now it was just as easy as paying for the thing. Then of course Mrs. Hughes and I remembered that the place only takes cash, and we didn't have a dollar between us. I asked the dealer to hold the book and that we would be right back. We made a quick run up the street to an ATM not associated with our bank where we were promptly charged a $3 convenience fee to take out $20.00, DO WHAT? Did it anyway. I ran back in the shop and paid, got the thing home and was looking through it last night and there is NO TRACE of the illustration that I wanted to blow up as a poster. DAMN.

In my head there is an image of the illustration. It's done in pen and ink and it depicts a snaking line of men raising beer mugs and shot glasses going from saloon to saloon in perspective. So in the back the line is small and far away, and then towards the front they are larger, oh, and, they are falling into a big pit in the ground with a sign next to it that says HELL.

Apparently I spent a year in my head collaging five different illustrations, plus the cover, together to form this perfect image of an awesome poster that would look fantastic over someone's home bar. That's what being creative will get you.

So was it all in vain? I'm going to say no. Now that I've flipped through this thing 20 times, I even checked the page numbers to make sure the mythical illustration wasn't ripped out, I've decided that I am just going to start scanning in all of the different parts and then I'm going to collage them together in Photoshop and just see what I get. It may turn into total crap but at least I will finally get to see it on paper the way it all combined in my head.

I will post a blog about the finished product, unless it doesn't go well, in which case you will
never hear about it again.

Vintage Ephemera Wall Art

I’m at it again with the paper and books. I’ve got so many old ones lying around that I’m constantly trying to come up with new things to do with them. This time around I’ve used several old book covers as “frames” to hold old postcards as well as “collections” of clipped etchings from old encyclopedias and the like. Flipping through an old encyclopedia it occurred to me that it might be fun to group like etchings together. So I’ve done that with birds, insects, sea animals, etc… What emerges is a piece of art that seems to be an educational aid like you would find hanging in an old school house.

I’ve also used some great old postcards. I really like to come across the antique postcard books that are from a specific area, Italy is always fun, so is France. I found a set of 24 in a booklet from Versailles a while back and have used some of those for these items. There is even one of the Eiffel Tower.




The construction on these is pretty simple. It boils down to ripping the covers and backs off of old unused books. Personally I like using the good and abused books for this. The wear and tear on them adds great character as do the ink and water stains that appear on several of them. I like to layer them to give it more of a frame and matt kind of look. I just use wood glue to hold those together, I also use it to stick the postcard in place. If I’m doing a menagerie of etchings I like to use good ol’ Mod Podge.




Once I have them all glued together I like using the ends of old flatware bent into a “U” shape has clamps for the tops. I then run strips of fabric trimmings through them to use as a hanger. These look great on a wall or hanging off of a door knob. I would guess you could easily make them into OPEN and CLOSED signs for shops to hang in the window.




Please email me at cj@theupcycler.com if you have an interest in purchasing one of these. I can let you know what themes I have available and the sizes. I can also do custom hangings, all I need is a theme and size requirement.

Vintage Ephemera Notebooklets

Paper, paper, paper. My “office” AKA the place I keep my paper, is over run with old catalogs, encyclopedias and the like. Mrs. Hughes is to the point of barely tolerating my paper pack ratting. While flipping TV tonight, real men don’t watch they flip, I paused for about 3 minutes on a show about hoarders. People with such a compulsion for obtaining things that they will drive down the street ahead of the garbage truck and pluck out “finds.” It made me think of all of the time I’ve spent digging through boxes and shelves at little antique stores looking for a cheap book with a leather cover that I can rip apart and make into, yes, another book.

And so it goes, I’ve got old paper that’s not good for much unless it’s remade into something else. The encyclopedias are awesome to flip through as they are filled with etchings, but most of the information can be found with a few clicks online. Not to mention that the books themselves have seen better days, usually they are falling apart by the time I find them. So sitting and looking through my pile one day I started to notice that there were a lot of blank pieces of paper in them. At the front of the book were a few blank pages, then at the back, then the etchings where blank on the back. So I started ripping them out with the idea of creating little notebooks made from what I call “blanks.” I used the covers off of old books as well as the cover for my notebooklets as I call them. They are bound with post screws, which allows for them to be filled with more paper once you start to run low. The covers are hinged to make them easy to open. I’ve hinged them in several different ways but my favorites are black ribbon or the little twist ties that come with garbage bags. Finally a use for those things.

Below are a few samples of my notebooklets, they average about 3 inches wide by 4 inches tall and contain around 35-50 blank pages. They are small enough to fit into most purses. I hope to have these in a few shops around town soon, Scarlett over at Scarlett Scales Antiques, scarlettscales.blogspot.com, has expressed some interest in carrying them. I’ve got a pile of them on the window sill waiting to be finished up. My thought on it is, I might not make much on them but at least I will get some of this paper out of here. Which will make Mrs. Hughes happy, and that’s really what it’s all about.

If you would like to buy one of my notebooklets drop me a line at cj@theupcycler.com I’m still working on the website but we can do it through email. They run $20 each and include the shipping within the United States. I take PayPal or good old fashioned checks through the mail. Please also contact me if you have a shop and want to carry anything you see on my blog.
I’ve got to get some of this stuff out of the garage!