I’ve got some new pendants being listed in my Etsy shop, just in time for the holidays. Here’s a couple of new vintage dictionary illustration soldered pendants. BTW if anyone is looking for a certain animal or illustration for a custom pendant let me know, I might have it and I’m glad to do special orders if I can.
Here’s a cute koala bear:
this hedgehog is so fun, although he looks more like a porcupine to me 🙂 :
and I love this tapir, he’s really cool and unusal:
When I was little and asked my parents what something meant they always told me to “go look it up”, i.e in the dictionary, encyclopedia, etc. It’s not that they didn’t want to help me, they wanted me to learn to use the books and find the answers for myself. Maybe that’s why I now love old dictionaries? I remember mine was red, with little cut out half circles on the pages where the letters where, funny how things like that stick with you.
Here’s a few soldered pendants made with illustrations from a wonderful vintage dictionary from the early 20’s. I added black patina to all the soldering and the backs of the pieces are their definitions.
a really cool raven:
a fat little toad ( I just love him!):
and a lovely bird in flight:
I recently went to a wonderful large antique show with a friend (who bought a super cool vintage Ouija board) and found a couple of really cute children’s books from the 60’s. People are always asking me where I find the book I use for my art work and my best recommendations are used book shops and antique shows, you can usually find some really great books, vintage photos, postcards, music sheets, etc.
Here’s a couple of soldered pendants I made using some illustrations from one of those books.
A tiny cute squirrel, the back says “oh nuts”:
A sweet fawn, the back says “oh deer”:
a sly little fox, the back says “foxy”:
and my personal fave a chimp in a party hat and pink bow tie:
I think the back is pretty funny too:
One of the great old children’s books I got recently was in really bad shape, pages torn, falling apart and crumbling but it wasn’t surprising considering the book was dated 1918, it’s almost 100 years old! It has some simply gorgeous illustrations in it, lots of cute animals reading books and fairies in flowers, they are simply lovely! Here are a few soldered pendants I’ve made with some of the illustrations.
An adorable frog on a lily pad reading:
A trio of birds reading / singing:
A sweet bunny rabbit reading, I love the little bird perched on the top of the book:
a dandy black crow all dressed up and strutting around (I added a black patina to the solder on this one):
a dapper fairy sitting in a morning glory (this one is going to my mom for her birthday, she loves fairies and is a world class gardener)
front:
back:
Here’s a few more of the soldered pendants with vintage illustrations I’ve made recently………….
A little girl discovering a bunny, she’s on the front, the bunny’s on the back:
Two owls sitting under the moon:
A tiny bird nest and birds:
A fox in the forest:
and this one is a shadowbox with a silver bird cage charm inside with a teeny tiny blue bird in the cage:
These are all curently available in my Etsy shop.
I also have listed a smaller version (5″) of my vintage white button heart in an embroidery hoop in my shop as well.
I recently found a couple more gorgeous vintage children’s books, one was in pretty bad shape and that makes it easier to cut it up:) They both have some wonderful illustrations that I’m turning into soldered pendants. Here’s a few I’ve made so far.
This first one I really love, the white cow is so sweet but mostly because I feel so clever with what I put on the back side:
This next one is a sweet Momma Cat and her kittens:
A birds nest and bird flying away (love this one!):
and this one is a child riding a horse under a full moon, really neat:
All these pendants are currently for sale here in my Etsy shop. And I’ll be adding even more in the next few days.
So, I love old buttons and have used some in soldered jewelry but was wanting to making something “more” with them. I remembered a piece I saw awhile ago from the great Rebbecca Sower and also some pieces I’ve seen on Etsy and I was inspired to make this piece. I had some extra burlap from another project and loads of vintage white buttons so I drew a heart onto the burlap and stitched on all the buttons filling in the heart. And since I love adding little cut out words to just about everything I added the word “love” to one of the buttons. I bought an embroidery hoop and stained it with some wood stain (I have some vintage hoops packed away some place from my cross stitch days and need to find them, they’d be great in a piece like this) and then I put the burlap in the hoop, trimmed it down and glued it to the back. I think it turned out really lovely.
I can’t believe it’s already December!
I’ve been working on some soldered holiday ornaments, here’s a few made with vintage children’s illustrations. I particularly love the bunny, the back of it says “snow bunny” 🙂
isn’t this Santa illustration great? The back says “I believe in Santa Claus”:
and this one is double sided with two illustrations of little girls on a sled:
these are all currently available in my Etsy shop
I recently got a new book at the library called “Pretty Little Felts”, the author, Julie Collings had made some amazing things using felt, including some great paper and felt ornaments. I was really inspired by them and decided to put my own twist on them and give some a try myself.
I made some tiny collages, very similar to what I’ve done in the past for other projects using vintage papers as backgrounds and adding other collage images and words on top, I then sealed the paper using gel medium, I stitched a loop of ribbon to my felt shapes and then adhered the paper collages on top. I then added embellishments like crocheted flowers and vintage buttons. I’m really happy with how they turned out 🙂
This one is a favorite theme of mine, a bird:
This one is a pretty little girl I tunred into a Queen, reminds me of the White Queen from Alice in Wonderland:
these are both on sale here in my Etsy shop right now, look for more of these coming soon:)
Wow, where has August gone?? I’ve been so busy and I’ve really neglected my blog, sorry!
This week I was a soldering fool 🙂 and made a ton of new pendants, I’ll be posting them here and for sale in my Etsy shop ( http://www.PisforPaper.etsy.com ) over the next week or so. I wanted to get a little early start on Halloween so alot of them are for my favorite holiday, Halloween!
I’ve been continuing to cut up the fabulous vintage dictionary I got awhile ago and here are a few pendants with some of the wonderful illustrations.
This is very Poe inspired, plus I have a thing for ravens and crows. The back includes the definition for “nevermore”
Really pretty owl illustration
and a funny one, a concertina with the words “I heart Polka” added 🙂
