Victorian Trading Company's "Back Room" Treasures

I am fortunate to live a near a Victorian Trading Company Outlet.

While I seek true vintage items, VTC offers beautiful reproductions, of which many find their way home with me.

The VTC Outlet store near me has a "Back Room" that offers
damaged items at fair prices. 

I enjoy scouting through the back room for pieces I can repurpose and breath new life into them.  

Earlier this Summer, in conjunction with Birdsong 5, Peeps visited our local
VTC Outlet. 

I stopped by VTC before heading up to Birdsong 5 and ran into my dear friend Gail along with meeting other Peeps.  Fun!

Gail and I both love to shop the back room.  I had packed in my car, two repurpose creations from VTC's backroom.  One was an amazing necklace Gail created for my birthday last year and the other was a fairy garden gift I created, on its way as a gift for Karla.  

    We shared our repurposed creations with VTC and were posted directly onto the VTC Facebook page

 Gail's altered mini Altoid tin necklace is shown bottom center.  She used broken jewelry pieces she purchased from the VTC "back room" to create her gorgeous necklace to me.

This cherub piece was a former clock; however, the clock was broken.  I removed the clock and used its frame to house
a fairy garden.

 

front

back

front close up

 back close up

 

At home on Karla's buffet 

(photo courtesy of Karla)

On a recent trip taking Belle to the vet, nestled in the parking lot corner, I found a small chippy painted, weathered board amongst rain-soaked debris...my husband looked at me oddly when I picked it up, brushed away the debris and put it in the car to take home...isn't it fun to repurpose items with new life????

My Birdsong 5 Pocket Full of Posies Wall Art

The beautiful Lori Oles taught our Pocket Full of Posies 

nature-inspired wall art class 

 

 at Karla Nathan's Birdsong 5 event.

  As you know, I rarely finish my projects during class time as I enjoy the ambiance of the classes and like to finish my projects at home where I pull personal items from my stashes

to complete them.

Thanks Lori for your inspired teachings and your lovely kit supplies for the base of my creation!

Here's my finished Pocket Full of Posies nature-inspired wall art

 

I'm joining my friend Gail next week to finish our adorable

Miss Juniper June chicks from Lesa Dailey's amazing class.  I hope to be posting those photos next week.

Enjoy a wonderful day!

Swaps I won - 2015 Birdsong 5

It's always amazing and fun to see how different

artists interpret the same swap!

In my last post I showed the swap I created.  
Here are the incredible swaps I received at

Karla Nathan's Birdsong 5.  

Decorated Chipboard House Swap

I won Karla's house!

Look at her finely trimmed window frames and the Pearl heart button that frames this sweet door.  Nothing better than a rhinestone door knob!

A birdcage chandy!

And handmade furnishings!

Nature Snippet Roll Swap 

Gail Sell & I paired up for this swap.

Here is her WONDERFUL creation to me...

lucky me!

Front

Front, top 

Front, middle

Front, "T" for Tami

Front, bottom

Back, top

Back, middle

Back, bottom

Snippets of sweetness & beauty all rolled up!

Mini Canvas & Matchbox Duo Swap

Happy, Happy, Happy, I won Barb Buckton's Duo!

Her matchbox was filled with fun buttons and a sweet feather pin to use for other artsy creations!

Fabric Nature Book 

Beth Boothe is the creative artist of this amazing book

 One of my favorite quotes!

Another favorite quote!

Lots of fun & incredible details!

So much fun...thanks to Gail Sells, Barb Buckton and Betti Zucker for hosting these awesome swaps!

As always for me, I did not finish my classroom projects.  I like to absorb the ambiance during class and finish my projects later at home.  So, no project photos for now.  

Our class instructors were the BEAUTIFUL Lori Oles, Karla Nathan, Beth Leintz, Hope Wallace Karney and Lesa Dailey...thank you all for your fun & wonderful teachings!

 A special THANK YOU to our fabulous Karla Nathan for offering Birdsong 5 and opening up her beautiful heart & home to us!

"where I create, there I am true"

My Birdsong 5 Swap Creations

Birdsong 5 was amazing!

  A weekend retreat filled with love, laughter, friendship & Art - 

 presented by the fabulous Karla Nathan! 

 

I so enjoy participating in the Birdsong swap exchanges.

This year there were four swaps: 

Decorated chipboard house,

Fabric Nature book,

Nature Snippet,

Nature mini-canvas & mini matchbox set. 

Here are my creations for the swaps

I placed a battery-operated tea light in my house to serve as a nightlight.  

 

My style often leans towards whimsy or shabby, but this house spoke French cottage to me.  Although I did tuck a sweet pewter fairy on the stone archway of the door.

 

 

 

My fabric Nature book

My Nature Snippet Roll... instead of a thread spool to wrap my snippet around, I chose a branch to reflect nature.

 Rolled, front-side

 Rolled, backside

 Front, top section

Front, middle section

 

Front, bottom section

 Front, bottom section

 Back, top section

Back, full view

Back, middle section

Back, bottom section

 

My mini canvas & mounted mini matchbox set

The mini matchbox was filled with little treasures.

 

I had taken the above photos of my creations prior to Birdsong 5.  Sadly all the photos I took at Birdsong 5 I mistakenly deleted.  I was downloading them when I was really too tired to be messing with them.  Unfortunately I paid the consequences of pushing my limits...breaks my heart I lost so many photo memories.

 

Coming soon...photos of the INCREDIBLE swaps I received.  

 

See you soon!