Patty Van Dorin

a big destash

Between moving to a smaller house and closing my scrapbook store, I have tons of great stuff, far more than I can ever use.

I decided to have a be destash sale and I have filled medium flat rate postage boxes full of good things. Each box will be slightly different but all will include:

a big bunch of ledger paper
vintage photographs
bag of beads
rubber stamps
Basic Grey ribbon spools
rub on transfers
fragment of an old quilt
paper
old poloroids
a mix of paper napkins (great for semi-transparent layering)
and a lot more.

Some of the items are new/old stock and some are lightly used but all items are clean and from a smoke free studio.

Each box will be packaged full and the price is $25.00 plus medium flat rate postage.

I have made 12 of these boxes and have them listed on etsy.

click here to go to my Etsy shop

glaringly obvious

I took this photo below because I love this shelf in my studio so much, I though that it is so fine that I should share it on this blog.

But then once I had the picture on the computer, I wasn't so happy with it.

Sometimes something looks good only until you take a step back and look at it with a different set of eyes.

As much as I loove this shelf, it just wasn't me.

Thanks to Ralph, (not Ralph the Dog but Ralph Lauren) I was able to do a quickie transformation.





Leftover wallpaper and a couple of dots of hot glue made a fast transformation.

I like it.

Now if I only had better light so the pictures were better, but you get the idea.

gardenia and pansies in a planter box

in love with the window boxes this year

lime tree in a pot with lavender and diamond frost

a kitchen garden in it's early stages of construction
now that the irrigation is finished, there is no holding me back with the gardens

My timing was good and I was able to get two tomatoes planted despite having the yard torn up during irrigation trenching. There should be ripe tomatoes next week. There are big plans for a fall vegetable garden.

and back to the studio with a little vignette of favorite things
altered books
rhinestone bottles
a jar of special beads
vintage Christmas corsage
jar of buttons
collected shells

3 B's

Big Bead Bangle

love these big lampwork glass beads

I am thinking an armful of these big bead bangles would be fun.

large tribal beads from etsy, click here if you need some big beads

These would be interesting on a journal or any kind of mixed media, they have large holes so I can picture them laced with leather. All kinds of possibilities. In this mix there are a couple of pendant foil glass beads (with a single top drill hole).  So I am thinking.....

Gallon Club

Little bits and pieces have been collecting that I have set aside to make a necklace for myself.

Last summer, my favorite garage sale find was this vintage Blood Bank medal. It is perfect for a vampire necklace. Along with the gallon club blood bank piece, I have added found items like the crumbly remnants of an old cross, a found tiny medallion, evil eye bead and some lovely pieces of kuchi that arrived in the mail from someone who knows what I love without even realizing it (did that make any sense).

The black and white stripped beads seemed to really need the tiny red beads in between even though black and white stripes with red is such a clique but a classic combo for a vampire themed necklace.

Also a couple treasured pieces of Roman glass beads, some old watch fob chain, and a huge carnelian bead that is a second because of the chips but I think the chips give it character. The rings are old grommets that pulled out of my greenhouse cover during the last tropical storm and a tiny bird charm with an itsy bitsy vintage mercury glass bead.

So this is my new talisman necklace.


and I have added a few new pieces to my Etsy shop also

Taking Flight
triple wrap bracelet or necklace

an extra hand

While moving things around in the studio, it appears that I have been acquiring an unintentional collection of "hands".

The rusty thing in back of the hand, in front of the "25" is part of the ancient lawn sprinkler system that lay buried in the yard and found while I was installing the new system. It is perfect rusty goodness not to pull out and repurpose somehow. I have several large lengths of it sitting behind the house, enough to use as display racks or for linen display.  I am thinking I would like to use the longer pieces somehow in combination with shelves for the wall.

Tomorrow is forecasted to be a stormy day, so I think I am going to snuggle down in a corner and watch my favorite movie.

have a great weekend

Mildred and her 18 Cats

this is what I made this week

Vieux Carré Cuff bracelet

Steampunk Baby

The Ship's Chandler

This is what my table looks like today.  I received another box of goodies from Sharon. Fragments to inspire the imagination.

My studio is in need of art work.

So I am putting this assemblage together with stuff that I have had for a long time.

A very old picture frame.

An old ledger cover that has years of stuff embedded on the cover.

This ledger along with several others were once in a fire. Burnt around the edges, soaked with water, let to dry, forgotten, decades later set to the curb and then rescued while I was out on a walk with Ralph the Dog.

In my mind, I can picture a 20's era secretary dashing into a blazing building to save her company's books, running out of the building over and over again with armfuls of heavy ledgers that are still smoldering. Her arms burning from the heat of the fire. Relieved to have saved all the documents, she is then immediately devastated to find that her heroic efforts were in vane. Told by her boss that she was a fool to risk her life to save the companies book. Unknown to her at the time, her boss had sold the company and the ledgers were of no value.

With singed hair and smoke blackened face, Mildred hobbles home on melted shoes to feed her 18 cats.

Anyway, that is the story that plays in my head when I look at these abandoned ledgers. Was her effort wasted, I think not as one of the ledger covers is the foundation of this assemblage.

Where was I before I distracted myself with the heroic secretary story...also in this assemblage is
a round woven metal belt buckle
a rusty round metal thing
a flange from a radiator pipe
a fragment of some fancy metal ornamental
I think I will call this assemblage "Mildred and her 18 Cats", it has nothing to do with the finished piece but it's the story that comes to mind whenever I look at it.

The story of Mildred saving the ledgers is totally made up. I have no clue as to the history of the ledgers other than they were in a fire at some time.

an ordered chaos

I have received quite a few emails about the state of mess when it comes to studios. Even though most of us dream of beautifully organized and decorated work areas that magically maintain a perfect state of order, I don't think a working studio can be that way. It is against the laws of nature or physics or something scientific like that.

Don't get me wrong, it will drive me insane when I can't find a certain object or paper. Fabric and paper avalanches can ruin my entire day, so a certain amount of order has to be maintained.

Plastic bins, bags and carts don't work for me either. I have been there and tried that to all sorts of unending success. Plastic storage devices for some reason hamper my desire to even enter my work room. I don't mind seeing it in other people's studios but for me, it just doesn't work.

My preference is for a state of ordered chaos. A bin for leather scraps that can be closed so I don't have to see it until a piece is needed.

(insert gasp)
There was a time when I kept all my beads in little bags, sorted by type, color and such, not any more. I am a digger. I like to dig among the beads, paper and fabric. Interesting combinations accidentally happen that would never occur with too much sorting and storing of stuff.

Happy little accidental pairing of random bits.
So okay, there are those tiny little plastic containers but that is for really tiny super small beads.
Remember, it's an ordered chaos.

But what about the big jar of white buttons in the top photo? 
That is my concession to a visual order that I dream of but can't work in.

 

gallon club

A few snippets from my studio.
It's an amazingly organized and lovely place to work now.
This is where I spend all my time when I am not out in the garden.

With the new storage units, I can now literally get my hands on everything and find it easily

My favorite found treasure this summer, is this key fob from the Palm Beach Blood bank.
I am saving it to make a vampire necklace, it is perfect,
Can you see the drops of blood from the stacked hearts, so cool.

and another etsy item

and did I mention I also have good lighting!!

tick tock an altered clock

When I saw this clock in the discount bin, I knew it would be the foundation for the perfect clock in my studio.

A few vintage and new numbers made this a quick fun project. What I love about this clock other than a great way to display some fun graphics, is that the numbers can be switched out if something incredible comes my way.

My favorites are the 6 and the 10 cent.