Secondhand Books and Surprises

I recently purchased a secondhand book because of the charming little pieces of art published in it. This sketch of the ballerina Marie Taglioni is my favorite. She was the first to dance on point and the artist commented, "She danced quite beautifully, quite as if she flew in the air, so gracefully and lightly."

This pretty-in-pink portrait of a musician was done by the same artist, who lived during the 1800's. Can you guess who the artist is?

This portrait is entitled "Mifs Victoire Conroy from nature" and is dated December 1836. Any last guesses? The artist of these three pieces is none other than Queen Victoria (The Sketchbook of Queen Victoria by Marina Warner). For some reason, it really surprised me that Queen Victoria was such a good artist. I know that young women of that era were expected to have "accomplishments" such as drawing, playing music and sewing, but somehow these light, pastel pieces don't seem like they would have been created by the woman who looked somewhat dark and dowdy in her later-in-life portraits.

And here's another surprising piece of art, also found in a second-hand book. This is a collage, from a series on Queen Elizabeth, by Gloria Vanderbilt (Gloria Vanderbilt Book of Collage). It fascinated me that a fashion designer and a woman of such wealth would choose to make her art out of scraps of humble materials like gingham fabric, paper doilies and tin foil. You can see another one of the Queen Elizabeth pieces at David Duncan Antiques. I'd love to hear about your secondhand book finds.

The Pups are in the Mail!

My posh pink pups are on their way to Karla's for the Puppy Love Tag Book Swap. I was pretty pleased with how they turned out, but I wish I'd learn to do broader strokes of layering and less fussy detail. I seem to get hung up on things like making the tiniest slit in a paper bird's beak so it can be glued under and over a bit of lace so it looks as though the bird is acutally holding the lace in its mouth.

In this case, I was quite taken by the tombourine this trade card dog was holding. I really got caught up in turning it into an "instrument of love". I cut away the original advertising and sandwiched tiny, free-floating punched paper hearts between the paper pup, pink vellum and a background paper. That tested my cutting and gluing skills! Then I handstitched through those three layers to attach gold sequins and beads to highlight the three tombourine jingles. For the life of me, I can't figure out how one person, making six little tags with such teeny details can make such a mess! There were sequins, beads, snips of paper and bits of trim everywhere! It was a jumble of everything I had considered and everything I had used. This morning the studio straighten-up began--but only after an inspiring hour spent with the new issue of Where Women Create.

Isn't She Lovely?

For the past few months, I've been admiring the antique fashion plates featured in various magazine articles. When I ran across this 1842 hand-colored plate from a publication called The Artist on a recent trip to Minnesota I couldn't resist starting my own collection. Her wistful expression, pearl-draped hair and pretty pink dress were all wonderful, but the blue paisley shawl draped over the railing was the detail I couldn't resist. (Click on any of my photos to see more detail.) I found my fashion plate at Auntie M's (how perfect for a Kansas girl!) in Hopkins, Minnesota. In a previous blog I raved about another shop in Hopkins called Blake Antiques, and this town has definitely become a destination for me as we go back and forth to my son's college town. Hopkins' main street has some great old architecture and wonderful antique stores. If you have the chance to visit Auntie M's don't miss the lower lever. The basement booth where I bought this image (and several other items) was wonderful--full of vintage items perfect for collage, crafting and collecting. Here are the covers of a little French fashion book I'm working on. I was inspired to start it after reading Sandra Evertson's article Album d' enchantillon in the Summer 2008 issue of Somerset Life. I don't have an extensive collection of vintage textiles, but I was intrigued by the idea of playing with vintage fashion images, snips of old trim and lace and bits of ephemera. I have a few pages started, but as I'm new to collage, I'm in a "hunting and gathering" mode for this project so I can layer each page with as many pretty things as possible. While I was working in my studio this afternoon, I had the pleasure of listening online to a live radio broadcast of my son doing color commentary for his university's women's soccer game. This was a wonderful broadcasting opportunity for a freshman, and that kind of opportunity is why he's attending a school so far away from home. We miss him a lot, but we're so proud he has the courage to follow his dreams.

What's Under the Cloche? (3)

A while ago I picked up a couple of spool knitters at my favorite thrift store for a quarter each. They reminded me of the ones I had as a kid and I liked how they were such opposites --one tall, thin and black, the other short, plump and ivory. They sat on my craft table with no purpose, but caught my eye when I was creating a panel, all in blacks and creams, for the Birds and Bonnets Swap. I thought the three would look good together under my cloche. Last night I recreated the swap panel. I began putting together the vignette this morning, knowing I wanted the display to be strictly black and all shades of vintage white. Some dried twigs called wintercress, found on clearance at Michael's for $1, made a tree background for the the bird and filled out the top of the cloche. As usual, I used a vintage pin-style flower frog as a base, anchoring the twigs in it and propping up the panel on it. I draped yellowed lace, another thrift store find, from the black spool and pinned a leftover scrap of coffee-died polka dot ribbon to the white one. I cut a circle from black and ivory damask scrapbook paper to ground the display and scattered vintage buttons over it. So tell me, what's under your cloche?

Birds and Bonnets Arrive!

My panels from Karla and Beth's Birds & Bonnets Vintage Workshop Swap arrived this weekend and aren't they wonderful! The collage artists who created the panels I received are: Cindy Mayfield, Nancy Burns, Karen Otto and Chris Peden (from left to right in the first photo and from right to left in the second photo.) Karla and Beth did a great job of putting the panels together and offered lots of nice prizes. I was so lucky to get this wonderful tag made by Karla. I've admired the way she puts pleated flourishes made from vintage paper on some of her tags and now I have one with that detail! My photos just don't do justice to the beautiful detail everyone lavished on all of these pieces. (You can click on them for a better view. For some reason, it usually takes me two tries to get the enlarged photo.) I would like to offer a heartfelt thanks to Cindy, Nancy, Karen and Chris for sharing their artwork with me; to Beth and Karla for thinking all of this up and organizing it; and to Amy at The Vintage Workshop for providing us with great images.