First I want to comment on a personal thing: Yesterday the condo board had requested some resident help with an upkeep issue. We were totally blown away with the number of people who showed up to volunteer. A job that we thought could take most of the evening was finished in an hour and a half with everyone's help. Made my day!
DS Marie and DBIL Rob are in town for a couple days and came for breakfast this morning with DS Shirley and my Mom.
Marie brought me all these beautiful donations to my stash:
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| two small boxes of Lite Brite pegs in orange and red (This truly is a Pass It On thing! Marie told someone that I was looking for pegs and she picked them up and passed them on to Marie for me.) |
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| ear-ring backs in silver and gold - two uses: Christmas bells - or salt and pepper shakers |
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| Rob was really curious (to put it politely) when Marie insisted on bringing this no longer working tire gauge to me. (I'm not sure, but I suspect his words were something like "What the heck are you thinking?" |
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| One thing I know I will be able to use from that is the convex plastic cover which will make beautiful 'glass' for an old family portrait. |
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| This beautiful old pocket watch is probably too small for and thin for a miniature scene but I'm sure I can find something to do with it (if only for parts for a friend who does Steampunk!). |
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| This piece is absolutely gorgeous! It's a clay vase 2 1/4" tall and about 1 1/2" in diameter at the widest. From a distance, it looks like it's covered with fabric. If I were doing a Southwestern room, I could see this as a table base with a glass top.
Then Mom brought out this big Ziploc bag of costume jewellery that she had picked up for me: (I was getting breakfast ready while they looked through it originally but I looked through it after breakfast.) Some GREAT mini possibilities!
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| The largest link in this necklace is 1 1/2" x 3/4". 75% of them will make wonderful picture frames! |
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| These leaf shapes are 7/8" x 1/2". I can visualize doing a bedroom suite with these as furniture accents. Picture a dresser drawer front with that leaf shape between the drawer pulls and a bed headboard/footboard with those fanned out and glued. Then painted so it looks like a carved accent. |
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| The large starfish would make a wonderful sign advertising a Seashell Shop. The beads are about half the size of seed beads so they're great for minis. |
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| The amber colour beads would make great lamp bases. The two round beads (picture is poor) would make great seats for bar-height stools. |
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| The silver-coloured bell cap beads on either end would make wonderful shades for desk lamps. |
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| The spacer beads have a lot of perfume bottle base/tops possibilities. The long spacers could be used as knife rests. |
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| The drop itself is 11/16" long. This will go as a picture on the wall in the Lady's bedroom. |
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| Some nice beads here but don't really need them. HOWEVER! That beautiful little heart will make a wonderful little padlock on a box somewhere. |
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| Some lovely beads and spacers here but don't see any mini possibilities! |
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| This is hilarious! While I was getting breakfast on the table, Mom, Shirley and Marie had voted this the ugliest piece of jewelry they had ever seen! After breakfast when I was finally going through all the pieces myself, I spotted it and said "if it was red, I would take it in a New York minute!" I wear a lot of v-neck tops and I've been looking for a necklace like this.....Not thrilled about the colour but love the shape/style! |
thank you for sharing your "mini eye" with us :)
ReplyDeleteOk, first I need to start looking at things differently. Everything I see seems to be either too big or too small. I'm getting there but every time I read something from you I get more ideas. Wow! Second, you could take up crazy quilting then you'd have a use for all those "unneeded beads! By the way I was told you could paint the beads that are the wrong color with fingernail polish. Might be worth it to get a necklace the color you want/need. I really enjoy reading your blog and getting new ideas. Wish we were neighbors so I could pick your brain more often. But then we probably wouldn't get anything done.
ReplyDeleteI try to give you some ideas of Trash to Treasure but my heroine in that regard is Wanna in El Paso and I highly recommend her suggestions in that regard: http://www.wannainelpaso.com/cheapthrills/index.shtml
DeleteThanks! My first thought was to repaint the lower beads red! Have to give it some more thought...
Maureen