My Personal Touch

My style has been called eclectic, quirky and sometimes cluttered.  It is probably a little of each...and then some.  This style comes from a combination of my thrifting hobby and my crafting obsession (or is it thrifting obsession and crafting hobby).  I find something at a thrift store, usually more than one, then I add a personal touch to it.  Translation:  eclectic = thrift store item, cluttered = collection, quirky = personal touches.  When I start hearing hoarding, tacky and broken, I know it is time to send a few items back to the thrift store.

Here is how an eclectic, quirky collection starts.  I saw this picture at a local thrift store.  It is a mid-century picture by E. Gideon.  The picture has a 3-D element to it which captured my attention.  It was cheap ($8), but I wasn't sure where I could use it.

When I got home I decided to put it up in a small hallway leading to the guest room. Most of my home is earth tones, but the guest room has bright colors and I thought this picture would be a good segway between the two styles.  I had the picture on the wall (all by itself) for a couple of months.  But, that doesn't work for me.

I also had some shadow box frames I needed to use or lose. 

I painted the shadow box frames black.

Added my paper beads to the frames.

To personalize the original picture, I painted the frame and border black to tie in with the shadow boxes.  And came up with this collection on the wall.  Now I feel better, much better.

All the items in the collection (clutter) are from thrift stores (eclectic) and have been personalized (quirky).

I hung the shadow boxes with Command Picture Hanging Strips.
 

It was easy and no walls were damaged in the process.  $9 to hang four pictures.  Costly, compared to $0 for small nails I already had.  But it was worth it not to add nail holes in the wall.

Pinterest is Your Friend

Does the World Wide Web sometimes seem too big?  Have some of your searches gotten out of control?  Do you need some inspiration?  Try Pinterest. 

I think of Pinterest as a visual “Favorites”.  But technically, it is a virtual pin board.   I create theme boards and pin images from the web (web pages, photo storing sites, blogs and even other pinterest boards).  That is a pretty basic description, but it can still be confusing.  

The power behind the concept is big, and I am a novice user.  For example, instead of searching the WWW for ideas, I search Pinterest.   One advantage is that the search results are visual and I can immediately see if it is what I am interested in.  Then the fun begins.  Each result sends me to someone’s board that may have other related ideas.  Then those board pins link to websites.  Oh My.  That’s when I get lost.
 
Let me share with you some of my adventures in the Land of Pinterest.  Let’s start with crafts.  One of my craft passions/obsessions is recycled crafts.  I like to use discarded items, such as paper for paper beads, toilet paper rolls for scrolling, shells for silver leafing, pop tabs for necklaces.  The list goes on and on.   I saw this inspirational pin from allthingspaper.net.

Next I started saving toilet paper rolls.  Eventually I had enough to create this. It frames the boring bathroom medicine cabinet.

Remember the newspaper Christmas trees from a previous post?  Yep, I got the idea from blog.maggiemakes.com on  Pinterest.

Currently I am working on creating chain maille from pop tabs to make a tote, based on a pin from PopTopLady's Etsy site.   I would never have thought this up myself.  It is taking a while, so don’t look for me showing these off soon.

Pinterest is not just for crafts.  I have a board of recipes.   I found this recipe for Orange Jello Shots on Pinterest.   I live in Florida…what a fun starter to serve visitors.

Not all recipes are edible.  I  found a recipe for homemade laundry soap from Being Creative (To Keep My Sanity) blog and am currently on my second batch…good stuff.

Interested yet?  Come on, start your own adventure at Pinterest...I dare you.