Day One of the 12 Days of Creativity

This is Day One of the 12 Steps to Creativity: Embracing Your Creativity Challenge!



On the First Day of Creativity Meghan gave to me: CONFIDENCE.

TIP 1: Don't think you can't do it. The worst thing you can do to yourself, in any situation really, is to be your own worst critic, your Doubting Tom, your worst enemy. This is what I hear most often - "I'd love to do something like that, but I'm not really good at that stuff". Don't start your creative process with these negative thoughts, like "I can't do this", "I'm really no good", or "mine won't turn out like that". It's easy to get to that place and start talking down to yourself. You think like this out of fear, and if your piece doesn't turn out like you wanted you can say, "See. I knew it wouldn't be good."

First of all, you are not Picasso, Martha Stewart or that really cool artist you saw at the local art fair last week. Whether you want to be an artist or a crafter, you have your own voice and you need to embrace that and not base your accomplishments on others. Like the guy in Water Boy always said, "You can do it!"    ;)



TASK 1 - First and foremost, think about any project you have done in the past - repainting a piece of furniture you bought at the thrift store, framing that cool print you found, making a Christmas ornament years ago. Make a list of some recent projects and give yourself credit for these accomplishments. Then start looking at other people's work and think things like "I could do/try that".  Go to art shows, look on the internet at some art or Holiday crafts, check out people's blogs, visit Etsy.  Make a list of 3 more simple projects that you KNOW you can do. Then go do them! This will begin to build your confidence levels.



Show me the projects you completed in the past that you're proud of or the simple projects you did today!

Leave me some comments on your thoughts on Day One.

AND Stay tuned tomorrow for Day Two!

12 Days of Creativity: How to Embrace Your Creativity Challenge

Over the next 12 days of this holiday season this is the gift I am giving you all. ;) I will be presenting my version of the 12 Days of Christmas - the 12 Days of Creativity: How to Embrace Your Creativity.

For years art and crafting has been an incredible release for me. I am always thinking of my next project. It provides not only a sense of calm and but almost puts me into a meditative state of concentration and gives me a sense of pride.

I often hear from others, though, that they don't have a creative side, or that they just can't "do it" when we're talking about a certain project.

I admit that I have been involved in art and crafting for 15+ years so my trepidation with tackling a project has decreased, but I truly believe everyone has a "crafty" or artsy side. You may have to dig deeper and be patient, but it's there!

I believe strongly in the importance of creating and the pride that comes with being able to make things and beautify your life or your world. It's like being a child again, running home to show your parents your finger painting and seeing it displayed on the fridge!

So I've compiled a list of 12 tips for really embracing your creative side as well as some corresponding tasks to reach that creativity! If you are interested in getting the whole list at once or more tips on creativity and inspiration subscribe for email updates!

Stay tuned tomorrow for the First Day of Creativity!!

Thanksgiving Weekend Fun - Homemade Granola

Of all the meals in the day, I would like to think of myself as a breakfast connoisseur. Recently, in an effort to be a bit more healthy, I've begun to eat more granola in yogurt or as a cereal (instead of my previous faves such as Lucky Charms, Frosted Flakes, Fruity Pebbles, and the like), and I have recently been interested in learning how to make my own so I can include the ingredients that I want. It's also a pretty cost effective method of doing it. You can shop around for the best deals at Aldi, Trader Joes, Walmart, and other grocery stores to see where you can find the best prices on the nuts, seeds, and other additions (dried fruits, dried coconut flakes, etc.). I found a great post on Buzzfeed and it's a great tutorial on making your own granola. I am including my successful first venture into the wild world of granola!!

 There really are only five main ingredients to making your own granola, and then you can get fancy from there. Grain (rolled oats, puffed rice), nuts (almonds, pecans, walnuts, etc.), which really I think that nuts can be omitted if you aren't in a nutty mood :), sweetener (syrup, honey, or molasses), oil (olive oil, coconut oil, canola oil), and salt. From there you can add the seeds, dried fruits, coconut flakes, chocolate, etc. The Buzzfeed tutorial really explains everything well, and there's no sense in reinventing the wheel, so go check it out to get the nitty gritty details of what to add and why. I will include the measurements that I used though!

So, once again, the five main ingredients are grain, nuts, sweetener, oil, and salt. I added seeds and dried fruit to this particular combination. My recipe was: 3 cups oats, 1 1/2 cups nuts, 1 1/2 cups seeds (total), 1 tsp. salt, 1 tsp. cinnamon, 1/2 cup syrup, ~1/4 cup olive oil, and a small handful of cranberries.

Here we go!

 My ingredients: Oats, slivered almonds, sunflower seeds, dried cranberries, pumpkin seeds, and maple syrup (salt, cinnamon, and olive oil not pictured). I was going to dehydrate the apple and include that but decided against it this go 'round.

 

Here I have added the dry ingredients together: oats, almonds, salt, and cinnamon. I did not include the seeds at this point because they were both already toasted and did not want them to be too browned after the baking process. The cranberries also go in at the end.

I have added the olive oil and maple syrup at this point and mixed it very well to disperse them nicely.

Once everything is mixed well you spread it out nicely on a baking pan with parchment paper or tin foil to prevent sticking. Bake it at 300 degrees for 30-45 minutes, until it's started to brown and your house smells like a Christmas wonderland.

Mmmm.... watching it bake.....

About halfway through (20ish minutes in) you can mix it all up in the pan then re-spread it out. If you want bigger chunks of granola instead of more cereal-like texture you don't have to mix it halfway through.

Here is the finished product!!!! All baked up and I've added the pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, and dried cranberries, which not only adds some great flavor but some great color as well!! I "taste-tested" a good bit.... it's amazing...

My homemade granola as cereal for breakfast this morning. SUCCESS!!

So, I'd say all in all it turned out really well, was very easy, and ended up being cost effective. I am going to continue to search out better nut and seed prices to lower the cost even more.  I can't wait to make it again and add different things like dehydrated apples, puffed rice, flax seeds, other dried fruits, coconut flakes, even chocolate pieces maybe?!?


Now, get to baking!!



I'm Baaaack!!

Gosh, it's been forever!! Through everything going on in life I have been completely remiss in my blogging. I have still be actively crafting and creating, just not posting!! So my first post back will be a shameless plug of my Etsy site (https://www.etsy.com/shop/Myvintagebird) and my Boozies - Boobie Coozies!! The main reason is I am SO proud of my new photos for the listings! It has taken me entirely too long to get nice, professional looking photos together for the listings, but I have finally done it! I was able to get my hands on a light box (amazing!) and was able to take some quality picture, which ups the quality of my listings!!

Here are my amazing light box shots of the Boozies!!

 

 

 

 

Grip from a woman's point of view!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grip from a man's point of view!

 

 

 

 

I make my Boozies in multiple skin tones to be as inclusive as I can! Everyone - every race, color, creed, and sexual orientation - deserves a crude, party gift :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also took pictures of the Boozies with their mini removable bikini halter tops! These are the two I had readily available at the time. I made them when I was selling these at a local store here in the Birmingham area so these are Alabama Crimson Tide and Auburn Tigers colors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 





 

 

 

 

You can purchase these amazing Boozies and their Mini Bikins on my Etsy site at:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/Myvintagebird

 

 

 

 



 

 



Antique Wooden Folding Chair Re-Do!

Antique Wooden Folding Chair Re-Do!

A couple weekends ago I was at a great local antique shop called The Blue Building, and I always find some great pieces there.  This time I snagged a couple of awesome finds!! The first things I found were these amazing old metal pieces.  

This first one is an antique cobbler's shoe stand. It's cast iron so it's pretty heavy.  The shaft has this Forest City print on it - I've looked it up and there are a couple of Forest City Iron Works or Forest City Iron and Steel Co. out there that may have made this. It looks like it may be from up north around the turn of the century.  

 The next piece I found was this antique torch.  It's a brass torch made by the Lenk Manufacturing Co. probably in the 50s.  This one has a very small amount of the label on the front of the bottle and the metal is very rusty. Nevertheless, it's such a unique and interesting find.    

First of all, I love metal pieces. And second of all, I love utilitarian pieces - things that have/had use.  I especially love useful pieces that are interesting or different in their construction - things that you haven't really seen before.  A lot of the things that I find are like that, and this chair is one of them.  Here's my before and after preview!!

One of my favorite things to buy (apparently) is chairs. I seem to really love chairs, and I have a lot of them... So naturally when I ran across this chair of course I feel in love. This is a really cool, antique, wooden chair with a pretty shoddy paint job, but the chair's construction and materials are solid.  It almost looks like an auditorium chair mixed with a folding chair. The coolest part is the strange way it folds up!

Instead of folding up the "normal way", in which the seat folds up to the back, this chair's back comes down and around to meet up with the bottom.  I loved it and thought it was so unique!! Here are more photos.

Here's the seal on the chair from the American Seating Company - Grand Rapids, Michigan. I've looked up the chair and gotten a little more information. The American Seating Company has been around over 125 years and specialized in school seating. One of the sites said this was a school chair from 1934.

So it was time to figure out what to do with the chair. I normally wouldn't mess with it. I really don't like re-doing antiques, but enjoy restoring them more. I never want to mess with the integrity of a piece or take away from it being an antique.  Unfortunately, this one already had a bad spray paint job, so my choices were to strip that and refinish the wood, or figure out another option. For some reason I was feeling a chevron pattern with this chair. I don't know why, and maybe I saw it somewhere recently, but I really wanted to do a gray and white chevron pattern. So I set out to do it!

Now, let me tell you, chevron is NOT easy...... I was in no way under the impression this was going to be easy, but JEEZ, I thought it would be slightly easier..... I had looked up different ways of doing it and had tried a couple of different way before re-googling how the heck to do it! I will admit that as much as I am a visual person, I am not a very spatial person, so that may have been some of my issue - I also tend to over think my projects and was getting cross-eyed looking at this for too long!! Finally I found this great idea of how to chevron on Eclectically Vintage, which majorly sped up my process! So here are photos of my taping out my chevron design (on the seat and back only - I am doing the frame in the gray).  

Any questions I had about whether or not the chevron would look good went out the window once I got it all taped out.  I even loved this tan color of the tape in this pattern!! 

So I'm all taped out and ready to paint. I bought a little sampler size of this great slate gray color. I painted around my pattern and all the frame of the chair with this gray.  

Here's the finished product!!! I finished at night so this picture is a little dark.  It turned out so well and I couldn't be any more pleased!!!!!!!!!

Here's a shot of the back. I painted it all gray like I did the frame.  I took this picture at night when I finished so it's not the best quality - it almost looks green instead of gray!! 

This does show the hinges and metal pieces used on this chair. They were covered in layers of paint and I really wanted to uncover them. I removed almost all of the old paint using acetone and cotton balls/swabs. I love the exposed metal now!!!

Shot from the next morning with better light - still just as beautiful as I thought!!!!!! 

This was my effort to maintain the historical part of this chair. This is the bottom of the seat that had the label shown above.  I felt okay about painting over this chair, but there was no way I was going to paint over the label. So i taped off around it and painted all around it. This area will only show when it's folded up, but at least the label and history were maintained! 

GRAND FINALE!!!!