Hello and welcome to The Capricious Crafter blog! Who or what is the capricious crafter? Well, that would be me, Becky, a sixty something child of God, wife, daughter, aunt, great aunt, friend and lover of crafting, cooking, reading, travel, and more. My husband and I have been married almost thirty years and are looking forward to his retirement at the end of 2014. Our plans are to buy a new camper and hit the road as much as possible. Oh, the possibilities are endless for our future!

I am a child of the 1950's and that is definitely my favorite 'era'. I collect Fire King items from the 1940's and 50's, clear glass or crystal glassware, especially pitchers, cream and sugar sets, etc., as well as old dishware and serving pieces, vintage fabrics and so much more!

I have been crafting for as long as I can remember, and definitely from my early childhood. I remember my mother teaching me how to make paper dolls from the Sears catalog and 'shirt cardboard' from the cleaners. And now I still love playing with paper! My primary crafty passion is paper crafting items such as mini albums, cards, tags, etc., however I also enjoy crocheting, some sewing, embroidery, mixed media art and art journaling, felt crafts and so much more.

My purpose for this blog is to share the crafts I make, foods I cook, decorating and caring for my home, new products I try, treasures I find at estate and yard sales, my collections, and anything else I come up with. I hope you will join me on this journey ... it's going to be a very 'capricious' ride!

Friday, January 24, 2014

Sharing ... A Girls Day Out, and Vintage Treasures

Hello!  I want to tell you about the really nice day I had yesterday!  I drove about 40 or so miles northwest of my home to my friend Mary Ann's new-to-her home up in the beautiful mountains of northern Georgia.  I loved her new home, just don't like that it's so far from here!  Mary Ann and I met at our local scrapbooking store (LSS) and over the last 2 or so years have become good friends.  I am most grateful for her friendship!


My friend Mary Ann in the 'craft cave' of her former home.   We were having a play date and
exploring the joys of printing with a Gelli Plate and she had her hands patterned with paint!
 
Anyway, after I had a tour of the house we took off for Lafayette (pronounced lah-fet) a little town in northwestern Georgia, a little over 100 miles from my home.  We stopped first at a sweet old house that holds a restaurant and catering service called Ivy Cottage, to have a bite of lunch.  We each had the daily special of Sour Cream Chicken over rice and two sides.  The chicken was delicious!  It was just tender stewed chicken meat in a sour cream sauce and served over white rice.  Next we headed to a vintage, junky, funky, very cool store where both Mary Ann and I have  some of our crafty things up for sale.  If you are interested in finding them, just go to Facebook and search for Heirlooms Vintage Boutique & Rentals.

I forgot to take the few new things I had made, but picked up some of the older paintings I had left up there, and a few Thanksgiving and Christmas things that didn't sell.  While we were walking around, looking at the shop and any new things that we hadn't seen, we ran up on a bowl full of the cutest little tin candy molds!  There were 20 of them, 2 each of 10 designs for $8.00!  We decided to split them up and each take one full set of ten and bring them home to see what we could make of them.  Here's a picture of all ten of the ones I brought home ...




There are round ones, square ones, oval ones, simple ones, scalloped ones, and elaborate ones!  And I love them all.  Well, except for maybe that round one on the bottom left ... it's kind of boring!  :)  So my friend and I each got exactly the same set, and all for $4 each.  And the cool part is that Mandy, owner of Heirlooms, just deducted it from our accounts on the books, so our part of them will be deducted from future sales. 

Each of these tins are tiny, as in less than two inches across.  They are mostly in good condition, although there are some bad spots, but I won't be using them to mold candy or butter or such.  Oh no!  I'll be using them in my crafting!  I see ornaments and altered items in my future.  I've been making some suncatchers from chandelier crystals (another post for another day) and I'm thinking they would be cute to put tin and crystal together!  What do you think???

Here are some individual pics of my favorites ...



I realize now that I love the oval ones!  This one above has that cute ruffly edge, and the raised 'scores' on the bottom will make a pretty ornament or altered object!




I actually love the simplicity of this oval with scalloped sides.  I'm thinking maybe I will use this one in a spoolie, as a background for a sweet vintage image.



And this square one with scallops ... very sweet!  Maybe a mini shadowbox?




And this one ... oh my!  I turned it upside down so you can see the detail.  I love this one and may have to treasure it for a while before I use it in a project!

Did you notice the fabric I used for the background?  That is one of my vintage 1950's chicken feed sacks.  It has some lovely 'Pennsylvania Dutch' images and is a nice thick woven cotton fabric.  I have a collection of these, and one of these days I will explain to you how I came to have them ... the story goes all the way back to when I was a small child!

I love my sweet little candy molds, and can't wait to get to work making some projects with them!  Do you have any suggestions for crafty ways to put these to use?  I would love to hear from you!  Blessings,



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