Some Refinish Projects

Refinished dresser. White paint and dark glaze.

Dresser painted white, stained and distressed

Handmade barstools--made from the trunk of a fallen cedar tree. Stained in cherry.

Handmade daybed. Made from pallet wood and antique headboard and stained in natural homemade stain.

 Refinished dresser painted in light bluish gray and aged with stain.

End tables and coffee table. Painted black and sanded through to original oak. Sealed in briwax.

Refinished roll top desk. Painted in Georgia Clay (reddish brown) with patina accents in turquoise. White hardware.

Mom's Dress

Never got this added to that last post...

Not the best shot for seeing the dress but you get the idea. Love the Bridesmaids' hats!

This is for Whitney :-) THE DRESS

So I haven't blogged in so long--so much has changed since I started this blog.  Not only am I now a married woman, but I am about to become a mom in just 11 more weeks (give or take a week depending on the baby's plans).

Anyway, while I was visiting California a week ago, I got to see my good friend from middle and high school, Whitney, and she asked me about my blog.  Whitney is still boycotting facebook, and may never jump on that bandwagon, so I told her I'd try to start using my blog more.  Thing is, this blog was meant to be more business and less personal.  I have a love for vintage things, and have a dream of eventually selling some of my vintage rejuvenation creations online and in boutiques.  So for Whitney, I will do this one personal post because it also fits the theme of this blog.

This is my remake of my Mom's wedding dress, which I actually wore for my own wedding.  This project was so fun, and was definitely the most time-consuming of all my wedding to-dos, but also the most enjoyable.  I was blessed to have the help of my friend Natalie, whose sewing skills brought many of my ideas to life--I'm still rather amateur when it comes to sewing.

 Ok my mom's original dress was an A-line strapless dress. I combined it with an old Victorian style lace dress I found for $20 at a thrift store.  The top of that dress is the back of the little jacket shown below.

 My mom's dress had a narrower sash at the waist, so I opened it up and made a wide pleated sash to fit the waist of the dress to me.  I added all these buttons down the back--my mom teased me as she did them up that my groom would have his work cut out for him to get them undone.  But I just love the buttons...

 Mom and I made the veil together--it's got one of my Grandma's old pearl clip-on earrings in it.

 The little rope tied around my waist is my "something borrowed".  It's from my mom's temple dress.  Here you can see that the other lace dress became the overlay for my mom's dress.

Just had to add one with my groom because he looks so good :-)
I'll have to look for a picture of my beautiful mother in her dress so you can see what the original looked like.  Thanks for sharing your dress with me, Mom!

I make dresses and skirts out of old curtains, but I think in this case, the curtains and dresses just might have been made at the same time, out of the same material.

This picture is from an "Awkward Wedding Photo Contest." You might enjoy browsing the photos. Here is the address:

http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/contests/awkward-wedding-contest/

The Power of Femininity

The last "don't" listed in my last post left a few of us wondering: How exactly do we respond with the power of femininity? So I did a little research. These are the best answers I found:

"Femininity is acquired by ACCENTUATING THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN YOURSELF AND MEN, NOT THE SIMILARITIES."

I guess most women in our day "accentuate" the body parts that differ from men's, but the suggestions in the book are a little more conservative. I'll list a few favorites:

1. Avoid wearing tweed, herringbone, hard finish woolens, and denims
2. Avoid tailored styles of clothing--try to use more full skirts, ruffles, scallops, puffed sleeves, low neck lines, puffs and drapes...I take back my comment about the suggestions being conservative--apparently the book does suggest we accentuate our different parts ;-)
3. Avoid purses which resemble men's brief cases

So let's take it back to the original question--when your husband is harsh, respond with the power of femininity, meaning take off your denim jeans and throw on a full skirt and puffy-sleeved blouse before an argument ensues. I'm an advocate for good communication, but if I can solve tiffs just with a change of clothes that might be worth it!

But there's more...
The feminine manner is the second half of the power of femininity.
1. "When you take a man's arm, place your hand lightly on his and do not use him as a support as you would a crutch"
2. "The most important part of the feminine manner is the walk...imagine that you weigh 95 pounds"
3. "The feminine voice is gentle, tender, and variable. It can be high and bubbling or soft and mellow but never firm, loud, or harsh"
4. "There are some women who laugh in a very unfeminine manner. They open their mouths wide, throw back their heads, close their eyes and roar. If these extremes are avoided the laugh will probably be at least acceptable"

So add to your full skirt and puff-sleeve blouse a little flitting around the room, talking and giggling in a bubbly voice, without throwing your head back or opening your mouth wide, and you should be able to move past any disagreement with your husband.

My next post will have to be some results from people's experiments with these timeless techniques.

Fascinating Womanhood

The second inspiration for this blog came from a visit to my boyfriend's Grandma's house. She, being a Great Depression survivor, saves everything and reuses everything. As you can imagine, I had a whole afternoon full of "This Old Thing" stories. It was so fun!
My favorite finds were the "I Dream of Genie" style 1970's lamp, which she gave to me (I'll try to get a picture up once I restore the shade), and a book from the 1960's entitled "Fascinating Womanhood". For the next several days, I will try to post some treasured quotes from this book--it might be just what the single ladies need to solve their dating woes, and what all the marrieds need to preserve marital bliss.

Dos and Don'ts for the Feminine Manner
Don't...
Slap men on the back
Whistle loudly
Roar at jokes
Yell
Gulp food
Drink by throwing your head back
Lean heavily on man's arm
Grasp a man's hand tightly
Walk heavily
Look fierce or hard
Speak harshly

Do...
Shake hands with men gracefully
Speak softly, tenderly
Walk lightly
Eat quietly
Take a man's arm lightly
Look tenderly
Make tender statements to your children
When your husband is harsh, respond with the power of femininity

Why this old thing?

For years, I have been fascinated by vintage clothes. It probably all started in my youth when my mom first taught me the art of treasure hunting. Few people have the stamina to keep up with my mom in a thrift store--but the art is in the digging. It requires great patience, or better yet, great persistence.

When I was younger, I was embarrassed to say that my clothes came from a second-hand store. But as I grew older, I realized what a talent my mom had shared with me. People would ask her where she got this or that from, and when she would answer that it was from a thrift store, they would always comment how they had tried looking in thrift stores, but never found any real gems like my mom always seemed to discover. At that point I knew it was safe to share my secret, so I tested it out by inviting select friends to the thrift store with me. However, it wasn't long before I realized that the treasure hunt was not everyone's cup of tea.

Most people's shopping habits consist of window shopping. When they see an outfit on a mannequin in the window that they like, they enter the store looking for that very outfit, and buy it. To discover diamonds in the rough, you have to be willing to look through ALL the rough--in a thrift store, that translates to sifting through EVERY piece on EVERY rack and EVERY shelf. If a thrift store junky needs a skirt, they still look at the blouses, jeans, and housewares--you never know if a great skirt might have been left over by the dishes, or a gem of a blouse that you didn't know you needed might be waiting for you.

This love of making old things new again was instilled in me by my mother, and it has since developed into my latest venture, which is also the purpose of this very blog. HoboChic is my new clothing line. It is all about taking "this old thing" and "that old thing" and making new things from them. I hope to post to this blog different adventures in my treasure hunts--projects you can do on your own, stories about great vintage pieces, as well as pictures of my products that you can order. Hope you will enjoy taking trips with me into the past, and feel inspired to take second looks at some of your heirloom pieces.