This is how wonderful my mother is. She crocheted all of these lap blankets for our military veterans. She lives far away in Arkansas, so we keep in touch a lot through e-mail and she sent these photos today. She wrote each veteran a thank you note. I asked her more about them and this was her reply:
Hi, Sweetie,
I took them to Mountain Home, Veteran Services on Friday. About twice a week they take Vets to Little Rock to the VA Hospital, and they will probably be going there today. So glad you liked them.
It’s turning out to be Vintage Repurposing Week on the JSIM blog. Sure, why not have a theme!
On my trip to Manhattan a few years ago, I met a young artist in a smoothie shop wearing a rosette on her jacket with a gold snake adorning it. Completely inspired, I started collecting vintage rosettes, aka: prize ribbons. I found some on eBay and several at the flea market and a few at Recycletown. The eBay lot was something like $13 for 25 plus shipping. Most of mine come from horse events.
There’s no end to the ideas I have for these rosettes. I’m covering little keepsake boxes and vintage tins and here are some photos of different ones I’ve embellished. I’ll be selling some at the craft fair in November.
Home Sweet Home Petaluma rosettes.
Vintage deer brooches on pink.
And a best friend award, for anyone who has ever seen me in a bathing suit and didn’t hand me a towel.
I bought a Retro 1951 brand card case 4 or 5 years ago at a stationery store and it is my wallet of choice. It’s designed after vintage cigarette cases. (A nice man at the fair engraved my name on it for me.) But after all my essential cards (credit, license, etc.) and photos fill the case, there’s no room left for my business cards or mini blog cards.
I have a few old cigarette cases I picked up at flea markets, or antique fairs. I never pay much for anything, so I’m sure these were each under $10.
The smaller case is pretty deep and my cards keep falling out. So I needed to pad it somehow to secure the cards. The larger one will be good for note paper, receipts, and other like items that usually fill the bottom of my purse. Now that I have my new sewing machine, (no, you didn’t miss that post, I haven’t written about it yet, BUT I WILL!) I wanted to try something fun. And just sewing fabric isn’t quite enough to break in my new machine, so why not try cardboard.
On the smaller case, I removed the elastic cigarette holders, traced and cut two pieces of corrugated cardboard to fit inside each panel and covered them with fabric.
I cut shorter pieces of fabric, hemmed and covered the boards as well to create pockets. Before sewing I placed another piece of smaller board inside the pocket to create a gusset when sewing so the pockets wouldn’t be too tight. Then I sewed around the edges of each piece and popped them into the card case. Replaced the elastic bands and that was it.
On the larger case, I went through my stack of distressed vintage books and found a page of great dog illustrations. I gave the case a good slathering of Mod Podge (careful to avoid the hinges), added the trimmed out image and a custom little label I made and there’s my receipt & note holder thingy.
This is how wonderful my mother is. She crocheted all of these lap blankets for our military veterans. She lives far away in Arkansas, so we keep in touch a lot through e-mail and she sent these photos today. She wrote each veteran a thank you note. I asked her more about them and this was her reply:
