A Few New Launch Items!

Just wanted to pop in and show you my 2 new items for our "Broomsticks and Black Hats" Launch, brought to you by our eBay Group ~ American Folkart and Primitives Mercantile!







I would love to give credit to the pattern designer for these, however, after searching high and low, I was unable to locate the patterns. I had seen these done up on eBay last Fall and meant to buy the patterns, but never did. If anyone knows who it is, I would really appreciate your letting me know.

So, I ended up sketching out the pattern myself to create the little darlins'. I think my version is shorter and not as wide, but I was satisfied with how they came out. I used a hole saw bit to create the painted pattern on the pumpkin guy! LOL! I love using my vintage buttons in my creations ~ I think it adds a special something that makes the piece more unique. The cat has bone buttons down the front of its vest, and the pumpkin has black glass. The black glass vintage buttons date back to the late 1800's. In an attempt to research the age of bone buttons, I found very little but this: Bone buttons are made only rarely now but are more common on sites predating 1850. Although simple and utilitarian (they were commonly used as underwear buttons), they are quite old!

Our Launch is running through to the end of July, so bookmark us and check back often! Here's the link again...

AFAPM Launch

My goal is to create much more by the end of July, so I better get into my (quilting) studio and make it happen! Although my studio started out with the primary purpose of creating quilts, it has evolved into any any and all art media place to create. The testament is the paint splatters all over my self-healing cutting mat. That's going to be rough on the rotary cutter! The room has become so disorganized, with little wall space to remedy the situation. If anyone has any tips for organizing all this necessary stuff we must acquire to pursue our artistic endeavors, I'd love to hear about it!

Til next time,

American Folkart & Primitives Mercantile Launch Starts Today!

Today our fairly newly formed eBay Group, "American Folkart and Primitives Mercantile," kicks off it's very first Launch to introduce ourselves to eBay! We're calling it "Broomsticks and Black Hats," and it could just have something to do with Halloween creations. LOL!

Here's a peek at my launch items ~ everything will be up by later this evening...











You can click on the link below to pull up all the listings ~ hope you'll take a peek!


AFAPM Launch

Thanks for looking!

Antique Paperie

Hi everyone! Blogland is a wonderful place ~ by clicking here and there you can follow other people's blogs links to other pages, and you're off on a treasure hunt! I did this about 6 months ago. Found a reference and some photos to "Antique Paperie." I fell in love and promptly placed my order. Well it never came. I filed a Paypal dispute. Since it was an order for around $20.00, I guess they couldn't help me. I emailed the gal and she said she was going to process a refund. In the meantime, her website was down and I figured she had some personal problems or something. No refund. I emailed her another 6 times or so. No response. Anyway, the website was subsequently up and running, but I now see it's closed again. While her stuff is beautiful and unique, be wary. My experience is that she is unreliable and lacking in integrity. I got stiffed! Beware...

Her blog is here:

The Antique Cafe

Ya know, unless I died, I would never sell my handmade crafts on any venue and then not follow through. It's just not "nice." If I had personal problems to deal with, I would deal with them, move on, and satisfy my commitments.

Buying on eBay can cost more when sellers charge excess shipping, but the whole world wide web can be a treacherous place to spend your hard earned money. At least if you get stiffed on eBay, there are options to remedy the situation. I don't know if it's the same for Etsy or not, but I don't often buy there because it's been my experience that purchases take a long time to get to me.

Has anyone else had any bad buying experiences?

Free 4th of July Graphic

Hi friends! Thought I would make up a little freebie graphic for the July 4th Holiday. Feel free to use as you wish!



Have fun grilling, lounging around at the pool, camping, visiting friends and family, or whatever you choose to do over the long weekend. Stay safe!

Happy Fourth of July Weekend!

A nice long weekend coming up! Yay! We don't have any special plans, just a little R&R at home. DH works such long hours during the week that when the weekend rolls around, he doesn't want to do ANYTHING! Poor baby. It makes it hard for me, not working, and being home alone all week. With the price of gas, I try to plan my weekly outing for groceries and other errands for one day, planning out my route in the most efficient number of miles.

Back in the craft room this week, I'm working on some Halloween launch items for our American Folkart and Primitives Mercantile "Broomsticks and Black Hats" Launch! I had a ball designing our auction template!



The launch starts on July 7th, and we're all so excited to introduce ourselves to the eBay scene! Just type "AFAPM" in your eBay search menu to see what we come up with.

I've been busy this week with a couple of new customers, a brother team selling on eBay. They were wanting some custom designed auction templates, and although designing for the type of goods they sell is a little out of my primitives and folk art design comfort zone, I was able to deliver what they wanted. The whole key was the excellent communication I had with them. They were really nice folks to deal with, and they knew exactly what they wanted. Soooo much easier than getting out my crystal ball! LOL! I am really looking forward to doing additional business with them. Their comments about what a great graphic designer I am was almost embarrassing! Being totally self-taught, without any formal design education, I started out on this path mainly as a hobby to make a little extra money, AND because I just LOVE playing with graphics. They want to expand their business as well to launching a web site, and I had to tell them that I just don't have the expertise. I did refer them to a couple of my graphic design heroes though, so hopefully I will have helped them achieve their goals. I wish anyone trying to have a successful business these days an abundance of blessings and good luck. It is so tough.

I picked up a custom order of my Betsy Ross Vintage thread spool flags! A lady wanted 8 of them, so I got busy, made up 12, and have an extra 4 that I'm offering as a set on eBay this week, as well as some punch needle embroidery items.




You can see it all here:

sewdeartome

Just like clockwork, my younger sister is offering a new round of her punch needle embroideries. I especially like the one she mounted to the top of an antique cheese box! Not your average cheese box, this one has metal trim around the top ~ Kewl! Isn't her work gorgeous?

You can see the details here:

Magpie1217

Wishing you all a glorious July 4th weekend!

Til next time,

New Punch Needle Embroidery on eBay

Sissy has some new punch needle embroidery pieces on eBay this week! You're gonna love how creative she got with one of them ~ she put a sheep embroidered piece on an old wood wool carding brush! It turned out really cool!

You can take a closer peek at her wonderful work here:

Magpie1217

This week I've been working on some hang tags ~ they're Americana and Halloween vintage images, digitally overlaid with other graphics and then flattened, distressed with walnut ink and sealed to the max. I wanted the walnut ink to be sealed and for them to be nice and stiff. With these tags you don't have to worry about the glue failing on several layers of elements and falling off the tag. I'm also working on a custom order for 8 Betsy Ross flags set in vintage thread spools. As I've migrated back to the craft room, and since I had to clean it up before I could even get started on creating, I'm hoping it will put me in the groove to work on my curtain projects!

My room gets to be such a disaster area! Thank goodness that's the only room in the house hubby doesn't ever go in!



As I find and collect new materials for my artwork, it all goes straight to the craft room on top of the cutting table or work table. Pretty soon stuff is piled a mile high in a heap everywhere, and I'm thinking "okay, now where am I going to store this so that I can find it again!" LOL! Has that ever happened to you?



Well, hubby will be home from his 1 AM concrete pour soon, dog tired, and I will have to pay him some attention! Til next time,

Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova

If you love music, you will love the movie "Once", featuring the music and voices of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. I saw this movie about a week ago and rushed to Playlist to see if they had any music out to add to my Blog, and yes, there it was! For a short preview, take a look at the You Tube video...




Here's the review from "The Village Voice." It was a kinda hard movie to get into, but the music well made up for it!

"Once" upon a time in Ireland, a girl met a guy and they made sweet music
by Robert Wilonsky
May 8th, 2007 12:00 AM

"Once", written and directed by John Carney, is a deceptively simple movie—a narrative strung together by pop songs, but without the sheen (or arrogance) of most cinematic musicals. By day, a Dublin busker (Glen Hansard) sings Van Morrison on a street corner for spare change, which, on occasion, is swiped by old friends in far more desperate straits than he. At night, the singer switches to his own compositions, most written for the girlfriend who abandoned the guy (who has no name in the film or credits other than The Guy). A Czech girl (Markéta Irglová, billed only as The Girl) approaches The Guy and asks him about his songs. He brushes her off; she's pretty but too young (Irglová was 17 when the movie was shot two years ago). She's also persistent.
In time, it turns out this Girl selling flowers to strangers for loose coins is also a musician—a pianist and singer, every bit The Guy's equal. And so theirs becomes a friendship and partnership—though not quite a relationship, because of The Guy's ex and The Girl's estranged husband. He teaches her his songs: He gives them heart, but she gives them soul. At last they marshal their forces and book time in a recording studio, where they cut a few tracks that will lead them . . . where? We have no idea at all by the end of 88 minutes that come and go far too fast. Ah, but that's the thing about Once: You'll probably want to see it twice.
Should you need to revisit the film right away, there is an album on which Hansard and Irglová have collaborated: The Swell Season, released in August of last year. In glib shorthand, Once serves as an extended video for that record, on which Hansard sings like Cat Stevens performing Damien Rice's songs for a Coldplay crowd as James Blunt forlornly looks on wishing that were him at the mike. Hansard, best known for having played guitarist Outspan in Alan Parker's The Commitments, writes perfectly heartbreaking pop songs that are lovely all on their own, chiefly the track "Falling Slowly" heard twice in Once. "I don't know you," Hansard sings, "but I want you."
Yet the magic of the movie is how utterly wrenching it renders these songs, which thrive alongside the film's simple, eloquent, dusky narrative. Hence, Once's burgeoning legend among those who saw it at this year's Sundance Film Festival as one of the greatest musicals of the modern age—a movie in which people sing to each other, only without the genre's distancing artifice. After all, The Guy and The Girl are musicians; pop songs are their language, how they communicate in ways both grand and miniature. They don't break into song for no reason; they're people who can only express themselves through thinly veiled metaphors and perfectly constructed melodies. The Guy and The Girl—not to mention Hansard and Irglová—have spent their whole lives constructing this soundtrack to sing what they can't quite say.
When she asks him about his life—he lives with his pa, above their vacuum repair shop—he strums a few notes and sings a few words; they're on the back of a bus, he with his guitar and she with her questions, and it's the most absolutely normal thing in the world. But their first duet is something transcendent: a performance of that song, "Falling Slowly," so special that the album doesn't do it justice. They're in a music store, where The Girl goes during lunch hours to play the piano she cannot afford. She plays him a few notes of her own song, and she asks him to play something of his. He walks her through a few bars of a song—him strumming his strings, her stumbling along the keys. Then he begins to sing—"I don't know you, but I want you"—and the song written for a distant love becomes immediately about this Girl who's wandered into this Guy's life. And they know it. They're no longer strangers awkwardly getting to know each other, but they're not lovers either—they can't be, not just because of their distant significant others but because that's how most relationships are.
Credit to Carney, a former member of The Frames more than 15 years ago, for making such a sincere film and having the sense not to bring in hired acting guns to lip-synch someone else's heartbreak. Cillian Murphy was at one point going to play The Guy, and that would have ruined it. Only Hansard knows the secrets that lie between the chords.

Till next time,

My Sister's New Punch Needle Pieces

My baby sister is traveling this week so she only had time to make up a few new pieces, but they are fabulous!

The little snowman hanger/pinkeep was so popular last year and a few lucky people got "second chance offers." I think I was supposed to have one of these made up for me, but sissy forgot!

You can see her eBay auctions for these pieces here:

Magpie1217

So there's your punch needle eye candy Kimmie!

Travelin' sissy left her 'Ole Virginey home on Saturday. My Atlanta sister and sister-in-law ("SIL") drove up to meet her, and they were on their way to New York State. While up there also they hooked up with my New York sister. SIL's father is now in a nursing home, and they were all going together to clean out the house prior to sale. The main objective was for SIL was to get her mother's things ~ she lost her Mom to Alzheimer's this past Christmas.

I always tell my mother she is NOT ALLOWED to die on important holidays like Christmas, nor in the Spring because I know how much she loves and looks forward to Spring. She tells me, after 55 years, that she may not remember the exact date, but will always remember her father died in the Fall because of her association with the fact that her father was always cold. And she remembers her deep sadness that they were going to put him in the "cold, cold ground." We were talking about SIL's mother's wake and how the funeral home had "prepared her" for viewing. SIL says when she first saw her mother she had lipstick on ~ a woman who had never worn lipstick ~ and she said she felt like wiping it off. It's strange sometimes how the human mind deals with death of a loved one.

My family has been talking about death a lot this week. My father lost his younger sister last week pretty suddenly, without warning of an illness. There were four sisters, each more fun-loving and vivacious than the next. In later life they would take many "sister" trips together, with and without their husbands. The funeral was not so much of a sad event, but more of a celebration of her life and her final trip to be with our eternal Father in heaven.

In Sweet Memory 1932 - 2008



From the cell phone reports I've been getting, my sisters' and SIL's trip this week has been great fun! No road trip mishaps, except for getting turned around a bit in Washington, DC. They got to meet up with friends and relatives, and visit SIL's Dad in the nursing home (bringing him pizza and Chinese food!) SIL got her Mom's hope chest and fine china, one of my sisters scored a gorgeous Fenton glass cake pedestal, and another an old glass doorknob from stuff SIL didn't want. They also got paintings, vintage cross country skis, thread spools and other booty, but had to leave behind an old wardrobe and bed from the 30's because they didn't have room. I wish I could have tagged along, but with our hot water heater bursting in the laundry room, I've been plenty busy trying to get everything put back together! Baby sis did say she got some old watch parts for me for altered art.

As for me and my boring life ~ I've been working my little fingers to the bone making up new Primitive Vintage Halloween eBay auction templates. You can see them here:

sewdeartome

I'm having a Buy 2 Get 1 Free template sale! Plus Free Shipping on your template CD! You can also see my other templates by clicking on the link to my website at the top left hand corner of this page. And you can always do an "Advanced Search" on eBay by selecting search "By Seller", then clicking on the box "completed listings" for other templates recently designed but not relisted on eBay. Geesh, the listing fees are killin' me!

Till next time,

Sissy's New Punch Needle on eBay

After having missed a week of listing her punch needle embroidery pieces, sissy worked like a dog getting 7 new pieces ready for eBay this week! There's a really unique piece she designed, mounted on a chippy, antique keyhole metal plate that she picked up at the Scott's Antique Market in Atlanta. For those of you who received your stimulus check and are thinking about doing a little early holiday shopping, there are 2 Halloween and a Christmas piece you will not want to miss. I love the look of the embroideries mounted on the "horn books," and she has 2 of these this week!

You can view her auctions here:

Magpie1217

And I'm back on eBay, listing new auction template designs. I finally bit the bullet and decided having to send a CD with the documents on it to purchasers because of the Ebay ban on digital items is not really such a big deal. It's just one more step...

I had such a blast creating the seashells and sand backgrounds for this one:



Till next time,

2 New Auction Templates

This week I did carve out some time to design two new auction templates. I was really pleased with how they turned out! The penny rug design's logo features a colonial looking portrait of the cutest little boy ~ Thanks, Xoch for sharing it with me!

Click on the images to see the whole design...



The other has more of an altered art-collage-mixed media feel to me. I'm on big "blue" kick if you haven't noticed!



If you're interested in purchasing any of my auction templates, just click on my "Sew Dear To Me Graphics Design" Logo at the upper left hand corner of my blog page to go to my web site. Thanks for taking a look!

One of a Kind!

Today I was foolin' around with my music playlist and rediscovered one of my favorite female artists ~ Bette Midler. I really should have added "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy." It's such a fun song and I think would show tremendous support for our troops!

Bette Midler IS truly one of a kind, isn't she? Fearless, whacky, and extremely talented, she's one of those performers who has re-invented herself many times.

So bookmark my blog, put the kiddies to bed, grab your honey and ask ~ "Do Ya Wanna Dance"?!!! After that one's over, snuggle closer with Garth Brooks' "To Make You Feel My Love," another one of my all-time favorites!

Hugs,

Thankful For Mother

I'm just back from a visit "home" ~ Atlanta, where my Mom and Dad now live, as well as 2 brothers and a sister and their families. I am so thankful to still have a mother to spoil on Mother's Day. We went shopping for her and bought her some new shorts and tops ~ she's lost so much weight over the past year that nothing fits her anymore. I also bought her some roses and a goofy tweety bird helium balloon that said "You're such a Tweetheart"! She really enjoyed everyone fussing over her on Sunday!

My mother is still a beautiful woman at 81 ~ she has the kind of skin that has blessed her with few wrinkles. And when she smiles at you, she lights up your heart. I love this high school graduation photo of her...



...and several years later, when being courted by my father, I love this one as well!



When my sisters now joke with me ~ "You sound like Bet," ~ we call her "Bet" a lot of the time ~ I take it as a compliment!

Late with everything, I still want to wish all the wonderful mothers out there a happy Mother's Day! I hope you enjoyed your special day.