Recycling Vintage Handkerchiefs

I have been de-cluttering my sewing space so I have more room for creating. When I came across a dozen vintage handkerchiefs I had cut in half for a quilt top years ago, I just could not toss them out! I doubted my local charity would take them -- they would probably throw them away. I did not think it likely I could sell them. So. . .they sat on my desk for a few days. The more I looked at them, the more they spoke to me.

The day I took a trip to my local bead shop (Ka-Gina's Beads in Arvada, CO), inspiration struck. I found some great Pandora-style glass beads that reminded me of the hankies! After a trip home to get the handkerchief halves for matching, I was busy creating. In fact, I haven't been able to stop! They are so much fun to make. Each one includes vintage lace, loops of beads, little puff beads I have made to tie in the colors and even some vintage buttons!

The real fun came on the day I wore my first one to work. One of my co-workers (a young 25-yr-old) told me she thought they were every bit as great as the ones she had seen at Anthropologie! "But yours are unique and one-of-a-kind!" was the final compliment to seal me on giving them a shot in my store on Etsy. My daughter-in-law came to model them, so I just posted the first two up for sale today. The one you see here is one of my favorites I'll be posting up a little later in the week.

So, what do you think?

Back to Creating

So why haven't I blogged since last Christmas season? Wow! If I'm honest, it's because I also haven't been honoring my own life mission statement! The first phrase includes "designing space to grow, empowering myself and others to be creative." Well, if you don't give yourself space to grow, it's pretty impossible to empower yourself or others to be creative -- DUH!

So, I decided that my day job just cannot take priority in my life anymore. Maybe that's because when a bad economic environment shakes up the hours and pay one for the job, you begin to ask yourself some serious questions about what you want to be doing with your time and energy.

Yep, I could say it has something to do with the job -- but it also really has to do with ME. What are the choices I've been making? Do I want to make different ones? Yes, I do -- so you will see me more often, I hope (unless I am very busy creating). Even then, I do want to share with you how I'm empowering myself in that creative process so I can truly honor the latter part of that mission statement about empower others to also be creative.

I've done a few of the things I was doing two years ago (they are posted now in my Etsy shop: http://vintagelegacystudio.etsy.com and I've included a couple of pictures here -- but I'm also exploring all kinds of new creativity! I am messing around with making flowers out of vintage '40s and '50s hankies, I'm writing about some of the things I've done in a "how to" on ehow.com (you can find my articles by my user name there: CoachJudiB) and I'm also researching ways of possibly bringing the books to print that I wrote several years ago. So, trail along with me on this journey and we'll explore some creativity together.