Vintage Bird Cage Wind Chimes

Mrs. Hughes and I have a thing for rust, rusty things that is. And chippy things, and flaking things. Normally we like are furniture and household decor to be vintage and worn. So it was a no-brainer to snatch up this rusty old bird cage at the Nashville Fair Grounds Flea last summer. We paid $8 for it having no clue what we would use it for. Since then we've seen them used in magazines as lampshades. They fit right in with the whole naked lamp shade craze going on right now.

I had to clean the garage recently due to a visit from a home appraiser, we are re-financing not moving, when I noticed the birdcage sitting up on the top of a high pile of stuff. I was sweeping at the time and my dust pile contained several skeleton keys that had made their way to the floor after a failed attempt to turn them into wind chimes a few months prior. I couldn't get it to come together just right.




I got the idea to use the birdcage as the skeleton for the chimes. I used some 16 gauge wire to make a few more cross bars along the top of the cage to bring the keys closer together. The keys are hung in place with fishing line. Just about any size of line will do. I made sure to hang some of the keys horizontal and some vertical, and I placed them as close together as I could without getting them so close they would tangle. I think it turned out pretty well, and it sounds awesome!

Here is a link to a short video with the chimes in action.

If you decide to make one of these and need some help with the steps feel free to email me!

Brass Light Fixture Terrarium

After finishing my picture frame terrarium I was still on a terrarium kick and began to wonder what other items could be turned into little glass houses for plants and whatnots. I was rummaging through the shelves at the local Goodwill, one of my weekly past times, when I came across a fugly, outdoor brass light fixture. It was shiny brass, very 1980s, but I really liked the shape of the bell on it, it also had a little handle at the top. I instantly thought it would make a great terrarium. I paid $6 for it and carted it home.

It took about 20 minutes to cut all the wires off of it and remove the backplate that would have held it to the side of the house. Light fixtures can be a little tricky to take apart. It helps to have those short, fat screwdrivers, when working from inside the bell. Basically though if you cut all the wires and pull them through, and then remove the screws and bolts that hold on the parts you don't want to remain, what you end up with is the shape above.

As I said this was originally brass so I painted it very roughly with some white acrylic paint. I didn't bother to tape off the glass, I like to leave the paint rough. When it dried I took a razor blade and scraped most of the paint off of the glass, leaving some to add texture. I also didn't wipe it down after scraping, which leaves little flecks of paint in the corners, almost as if they have chipped off over time.



Another trick to get these to look older than the 1980's is to fog up the glass some. I like to use foaming soap for this. If you have one of those anti-bacterial soap foamers in the bathroom you are all set, but you could just lather up a bar of Ivory as well. If you are using the foaming soap just take some in your hand and smear it on the outside of the glass, you are trying to create a film. Let it dry and it will haze up. Then you can take a rag and remove as much or as little as you want. To give it a spotted up look use a spray bottle with some water in it and spray where you soaped. I know what you are thinking, this will just rub off when I dust, but it actually takes a little scrubbing to get it off, like soap scum.

Well there you have it, an easy alternative to my picture frame terrarium. No cutting, screwing, etc... Below are some examples that I pulled off of Ebay of light fixtures that would make good terrariums, some of these were expensive, most were under $30 though. Visit your local Salvation Army, Goodwill, or Habitat for Humanity home store to find your own!

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.