Cottage 6 Studio

Dagmar Alice Viola Anderson Matthews

This is my paternal grandmother on her wedding day in 1931.

A member of a group I belong to recently had a baby girl and named her Viola, which was always my favorite of my grandmother's names, so I have been thinking of her all week.

I have been busy creating, but the winter sun has not been cooperating with picture-taking, so I thought I would share this photo with you.  It sits in my art room in its original frame with some other family photos.

The weather channel says it will be mostly sunny tomorrow, so we'll see...

Until then.

 

Back In The Groove

I finally spent some time in the art room this week doing something other than cleaning and organizing.

I really need to finalize my ideas for an upcoming card-making class, but the creative juices just haven't been flowing, so I thought I would decorate some containers I use for ephemera storage to bring my muse out of hiding.  I chose two containers, got out my vintage wallpaper and got to work.

 

 

This one was pretty easy; I was immediately drawn to the blue papers, and ended up with a winter theme using some wooden snowflakes which have been in a drawer forever.  I thought they needed a little more sparkle than the manufacturer provided so I added some fairy dust glitter.  The ribbon on the lid is from a trip to an antique "mall" last winter.  Just using it brought me back to that shop where I sat on the floor to go through hat boxes filled with ribbon and buttons.  The whole top floor was like your grandmother's attic.  I'm just itching to go back there again -sigh-.  The image is from the Season of Giving plate from Oxford Impressions.

The cigar box took a lot longer but I'm really pleased with it.

 

I used vintage wallpaper and sheet music on the lid with an old key and these wonderful china buttons that I picked up last summer on our annual trip to Vermont & Massachusetts.

The front panel is decorated with more of the same papers, some Distress Stickles, German scrap and buttons. So that I can identify the contents of the box at a glance, I used a stamp from Purple Onion Designs' Vintage Journaling set and embellished it with a couple of vintage crystals.  This is definitely my favorite part of the box.

It took me some time to decide what to do on the side panels; I wanted them to look nice but I hesitated to use more of my precious vintage wallpaper on areas that would hardly be seen.  In the end, I went with an idea that I had as I drifted off to sleep the other night, layering ribbon for a ruffled effect.  I have a huuuge roll of this that I picked up for a couple of bucks at a thrift shop last winter, just love pretty yet economical!

OK, my muse seems to be firmly in-hand now, so you should see the first of my cards for that upcoming class soon.

Until then...

Heritage

As a lover of all things vintage, I must admit that I covet many items shared on the various blogs that I visit.

But I do know that I am very lucky to be the current custodian of many beautiful and meaningful pieces from my own family.

One of my goals for this year is to get back on track with saving our family photos and slides in digital form.  As I've been sidelined with an energy-sapping cold for the past few days, I spent some time looking through my grandfather's nearly hundred year-old photo albums.  I scanned the first of these a little over a year ago, and thought I would share a few of these images with you.

These are from his time in prep school. 

 

 

 

 
 

I just love going through these albums, I love the clothes; the short pants, the hats, the collars and of course the sepia tones.  This last photo is a favorite.  The caption says that these boys are prefects (think Harry Potter) and the young man second from the left is my great-uncle.

I especially love the family photos and I'll share some of those sometime in the future.  In the meantime, I have got to get back to creating, so hopefully I'll be shaking this cold loose and getting into the art room very soon.

Until then...
 

 

Forward

This is my word for 2010.

It has taken me a few days to choose, and I'm not quite ready to share what this word means to me, but for now, there it is.

In the meantime, I belatedly wish you all a happy, healthy and prosperous year.