Surprise! An Easter Give Away!

I just found these little guys camouflaged on a supply shelf, all by themselves. When my mom and I were unpacking the box sent back to me from the folks at Martha, this one got put in a different spot than all the others and was forgotten about. After the last big update of each season, I do a studio cleanup (thank you all so much for another great Easter season!!) and yesterday as I was organizing, I spotted them in their lonesome.

So what to do I do with them?? I figure, why not just give them away? Sooo...if you'd like this sweet duo for Easter this year, all you have to do is leave me a comment on this blog post. I'd love to hear a neat story or some of the reasons you love spring! Next Tuesday, April 3rd, I'll choose a winner at random and they'll be on they're way to their new home! Folks out of the country can win too...they just may not arrive in time for Easter...but big deal! They're not just celebrating Easter, but the whole season of spring as well!

Good luck! :)

Easter Update!

Duck on Egg - 28
Sparrow on Egg - SOLD
Bunny on Cabbage Patch Egg - SOLD

It's a chilly, rainy day here in the Northeast, but as I look out my windows, I can see the tree tops all around budding out (one tree near the driveway is a burst of yellow!) and the grass is a bright green...it's been waiting for the rain. And while the skies are gray outside, the colors inside are popping! Shades of sweet pastels and contrasting bursts of vibrant color mixed with a few monochromes. My mom always told me I was good with color...I hope you think so too. And today I have a slew of fantastical characters waiting to add some spring cheer to your home too! :)

As usual, blog readers get first dibs on my new spun cotton one-of-kind figures. Click on photos to enlarge. If you see something(s) you love, just email me at vintagebycrystal@yahoo.com and I'll let you know if they're still available. First come first served! I'll update item statuses in this post as often as I can to make it easier for you to know what's available. Items often get scooped up quickly, so make your selection as swiftly as you can, you can always add available pieces to your order later. Also feel free to include second choices in case your first choice is unavailable, but make sure you label them "second choice".

Shipping is $3.50 for one item and $1 per additional item up to $6.50, then additional pieces are free. All paid orders will ship out immediately and should arrive within a few days. I send Paypal invoices via email unless you specify that you'd rather pay via check. And of course email me if you have any questions! Happy Shopping!

Easter Angel - SOLD
Siblings - SOLD
Snail Rider - SOLD

Miss Egg Dyer - SOLD
Hunting for Eggs Bunny - 32
Miss Bunny Ears - 28

Bring May Flowers Kitty - SOLD
Chick Rider - SOLD
Honey Bee Kitty - SOLD

Sweet Bunny in Basket - 30
Pink Bunny in Basket - 30

Aviary Bunny - SOLD
Miss Chicks - SOLD
Gilded Chick Bunny - SOLD

Miss Peep - SOLD
Wish Upon an Easter Star - 26
Victoria Bunny - SOLD

Friends for Easter - SOLD
Miss Gardenia - SOLD

Large Victorian Bunny (on vintage German paper mache egg) - 36

Garden Fairy - SOLD
Miss Sprout - SOLD

Girl in a Sky Blue Basket - SOLD
Chocolate Bunny Basket - SOLD

Miss Cobalt - SOLD
Bunnies in a Blue Basket - 38

Woodland Easter Fairy - SOLD
Princess Pink - SOLD
Easter Elephant - 28

Sunny Bunny Bird Rider (on box) - SOLD
Rosy Posie Bird Rider (vintage celluloid bird on box) - SOLD
Pretty Purple Bird Rider (vintage chenille bird on box) - SOLD

Butterfly - SOLD
Glittered Egg Bunny (victorian ceramic egg) - SOLD
Sewing Susie - SOLD

Gabby the Goose Handler - SOLD
Chick on Egg - 35
Miss Gingham Pink (with needle felted bunny) - SOLD

Miss Easter Egg - SOLD
Girl Meeting the Easter Bunny - SOLD
Miss Rosalita - SOLD

Daisey - SOLD
Cosmo- SOLD
Mum - SOLD
Daffodil - SOLD

Bunny in Surprise Cone - 32
Chick in Surprise Cone - SOLD

Needle Felted Mamma Hen and Three Chicks (5.5") - SOLD

Peter Rabbit (9" - on box) - SOLD
Flopsy Bunny (10" - with separate small bunny) - 85

Dilly Duckling (8" - removable hat and ribbon) - SOLD

Tiny Bunny (2.5") - SOLD
Teeny Bunny (2.5") - SOLD
Itsy Bitsy Bunny (2.5") - SOLD

Easter Update Preview!

I am so excited about this update! I am in love with every one of these characters. They just may be my most creative bunch yet! (Click on the photos to enlarge.)

I dug into my drawers of mini Easter baskets, egg cups and even into my stash of vintage spools of thread...so many springy pastel colors! There are little girls, bunnies, chicks, ducks, sparrows, kitties, butterflies, fairies, and even an elephant! I hope you like them just as much as I do!

And I have two little Easter cones with little ornaments inside! It's a two in one. Hang up a bunny or chick and then hang the festive cone it came in. I know I've revealed the surprise...but you can surprise your friends with these charming little packages. :)

And this is the third year in a row my mom and I collaborated on a few fantastical needle felted Easter characters. We have four this year, not including the mini bunnies. I just love them! The duckling has a sewn felt beak and feet...something new and really amazing. My mom is so talented!

This is a larger than normal collection, so there's something for everyone! I hope to "See" you all tomorrow morning 11 am EST at the update! :)

Easter Update Announcement!

It's truly turned spring here in my little corner of the world. I'm wearing an airy sun dress, the windows in my studio are open to let the gentle warm breeze in, and the birds...oh the birds. They are all over in great numbers singing, wooing each other, and collecting twigs and dried to grasses in hopes of building the most fortifiable nest possible. Spring is here and I couldn't be happier to offer a whole new array of sweet birds, bunnies, and children to help celebrate one of my favorite times of the year!

Blog readers get first dibs as usual and if you'd like to be notified about upcoming blog updates and special events, just sign up for my mailing list on the right side of my blog, or leave a comment with your email address.

I'll post a preview of the pieces sometimes before the update so you can pick out your favorites ahead of time. :)

New one-of-a-kind pieces will be available for purchase on:

Wednesday, March 28th. Here, the blog. 11:00 am EST.

See you here on Wednesday! :)

Bunnies!!

I've been working diligently on my next Easter update all day today. And as I was doing so, I fluttered around my studio gathering all things pastel and springy. I discovered a drawer that I hadn't opened in a while (seems to be the theme this week) and discovered a forgotten stash of some of the best little holiday trinkets I've come across during my years of treasure hunting. A little brown pom pom bunny was among them. I thought it unfair that I only had one. But I do have a box of pom poms I had also collected during treasure hunts and decided to make the little brown bunny some friends! Some gluing and careful shaping was all it took. Now I'll have a handful of characters with brand new pom pom pets!

And also on the bunny front are a quintet of hand delivered bunnies of a different and more complicated nature. I don't think I could replicate these little guys if I tried. These tiny needle felted wool bunnies were made by my mom. We are doing a small amount of collaborative pieces this year and these tiny bunnies will be paired up with a couple of my cotton characters. So cute!!

I plan to announce my next update tomorrow or the next day...stay tuned! :)

Look at What I Found!

This box was in my basement before Ben and I moved into our new house last May. I had put it there myself years earlier (we bought the house in 2008 but didn't move in until last year), but had long since forgotten about it. I moved it up to a closet in my studio after we moved, but still hadn't opened it until just the other day. And just in time too!

I found Easter and Mother's Day figures from 2009! These were the pieces that the Martha Stewart Show crew had asked me to make for them to use as props for the first segment I was in and to help decide which project to do during the segment. I remember now that they had mailed them all back to me a little while later, after Easter and after Mother's Day. So I stashed them in the basement of the new house, thinking...I'm not sure what.

There are 15 pieces altogether...aren't they cute?! I've decided that instead of keeping them for myself as mementos from my time on Martha, I'll share the love! Not only that...but I'll also offer them at the prices I would have sold them for three years ago! If you see one you'd like, just email me or check them out in my Etsy shop. :)

Over the last 5 or 6 years that I've been spinning cotton, I have only kept a few various figures from previous years...and even though there's only a three year difference between now and the newly found stash, it's interesting to see how different they look, and also the ways in which the look hasn't changed at all. The cotton I used then was a little different, so it's strange to see that cotton when I'm now so used to seeing the new cotton. There are also three needle felted wool pieces. I haven't sculpted wool pieces in...well, three years I guess! I'm really loving this trip down spun cotton memory lane!

Some of the bunnies are so big! And I remember finding that flocked egg at a junk shop too...

Some pieces I completely forgot that I ever made! The skunk on a box (more of a Valentine's Day or Anniversary piece) was so sweet. The needle felted mom and baby bunny was quite popular I remember.

The little kangaroo baby can be taken out of the mamma's pouch!

The mini bunny and Easter girl I remember seeing on Martha's set during the show...they gave Miss Blue a close up. And they had considered doing my segment during a Mother's Day show...hence the mom and baby figures. These babies can come out of the mother's arms too.

And yellow chicks!! ...and a duckling! I still make the chick boy nowadays, but this one is so much taller! He's kind of silly to me when I first saw him...but that's only because he was so tall and goofy compared to his shorter younger brothers.

It might be fun to go back and watch my first Martha Stewart segment again and see which pieces you can spot on the worktable and on the set. I know the needle felted chick also got a closeup, but I can't remember them all. Click here to watch on Martha's website. :)

Oh...and I'll be announcing the date and time of my next Easter update soon. Remember I can hold and combine orders from Etsy with pieces from updates to save on shipping. :)

Happy Saint Patty's Day!

I hope everyone is feeling little or a lot Irish today! :)

Vintage Goodies to Buy...

I've been slowly but surely organizing things in my studio and posting vintage goodies to the Vintage from Crystal Etsy shop. I've had these German eggs for a while (sent to me from my friend Lena in Germany) and after resisting the urge to keep them forever...I posted them...(sigh). They are so cute and charming!!

Look how giant this one is!!! I LOVE it!!

And bunches of other goodies too!! Including a pretty Saint Patty's Day themed doll, candle sticks I used for my wedding, old Christmas ornaments, and large cotton batting berries from Germany. I'll be posting more goodies soon too...including some more Easter goodies! Check the shop often if you've got the vintage bug like I do! :)

Our Bedroom is Finished!

This is what our bedroom looked like when we first moved in....blech...

And here it is now!

After living in a yucky, gray and unfinished, unorganized bedroom for 9 months, I now finally feel like I have a nice, airy retreat to end and start my days. If I had no boy around, the walls would probably be aqua and the furniture would be white...but this room is a perfect blend of Ben and I.

Ben doesn't like my "huge thing" as he calls it, but I think it's the perfect piece for the wall opposite the bed. It reaches toward the ceiling, drawing your eye up (to my new crown molding) and it provides long shallow drawers for my "drawers" and pretty Bavarian style display shelves up top.

We bought this piece together at a junk shop in the ghetto when we first moved to Boston. The piece on the top went with a different, boxier bottom, but the guy let us mix and match. I still love it, even if Ben tires of it.

The middle shelf houses some of my shell boxes and shell sailboat collection. I'm rethinking the creepy doll head though. lol

This little cubbies house Ben's spare change and my vintage mini-animals...and maybe a spun cotton creature or two.

Hoot hoot! Cluck cluck! And chapstick...

The head mug from Grandma's house hold some funny and unflattering "mug shots" of my grandfather (I think they were ID photos or something) and garage sale framed butterflies that need a less childish coat of paint on their frame.

I flanked the "huge thing" with precious framed cards, a card that still needs a frame, and my treasured embroidery from Sharon.

The secret door now has a nice clean secret wooden box to hold secret treasures. I was thinking of putting a handle on it...but then it wouldn't be so secret.

On the wall above the mirror I plan to hang a large 1960's map of Boston that I saved from the real estate development firm I used to work for. I need to make a frame for it first though.
And I didn't take a close up photo of the crystal chandelier, but I picked it up at a garage sale for ten bucks a while ago and I've been saving it for the perfect place. It replaced a super ugly thing that looked like a soggy square pillow.

Ben insisted on keeping his retro 80's alarm clock...but I supplied him with some back ups, just in case. The bunnies are out for Easter and my Aunt Barb gave me the amaryllis bulb as a housewarming gift that has now turned into a beautiful thing...worthy of it's own frame.

I sewed the pillow cases a long time ago, including the frisky lounging lady...I found the mostly complete embroidery at a flea market in Boston and turned into an accent/prop-up-your-head pillow.

My side table holds a pretty plant in a love-birds planter, a water decanter and glass, two lead deer and for now, my super awesome 1800-something edition of Robinson Crusoe.

It's the almost unedited original edition that was first published in 1719. They definitely had more time to read back then...the book is so much longer than the modern edition and has many details and redundancy's. But I am enjoying it immensely! He just finished building his house-cave...and whatever he does next, I know he won't spare any details and will probably describe it several times over!

We used to have large white milk glass lamps on either side of the bed, that were Ben's before I met him...but Ben didn't think they looked right, so we bought a pair of sconces from Ikea on our last trip downstate. They are very handy!

Ben has a cool retro (and super heavy) dresser. We weren't sure where or how to set the TV up. Ben, being like most modern men, needed to get the biggest TV I would allow him, so it was a challenge to make it fit into the room. Hopefully he'll wire it tonight when he gets home...he's good at hiding wires.

We couldn't really hang it on the wall above the dresser, because the thermostat sticks out in exactly the wrong spot. So the best I could come up with for now was to elevate the TV on a piece of barn wood fitted with casters, just for some masculine decoration. It needed to be elevated to fit his other accompanying TV equipment underneath. I'm not in love with it, but it will do for now.

We redid our closet too....

Ta-da!

I wish I were better at taking before photos (I think I'm always too eager to get to work)...but the before closet had a single bar with a shelf on top..very typical...leaving tons of vertical space for Ben to pile towels and sheets messily on top. I decided we need two closet rods and went to Lowe's and got some plumbing pipe and flanges instead of the flimsy wood and brackets. It doesn't even need a support in the middle like the other ones do. And now we have a rod for Ben, and a rod for me! (He's got the top...hehe.)

I used a lot of heavy duty dry wall anchors to hold the flanges in place, since there are virtually no studs anywhere in our bedroom or the closet (I think they must run horizontally). I also bought a whole set of cheap velvet hangers from Amazon and a bunch of pants hangers. I really love them because the clothes don't fall off and they are uniform and pretty. So much better than the mess of wire and plastic things we had before. I also took a few square antique nails and hammered them into the inside wall near the door for belts. The closet isn't finished quite yet though...I'd like to paint and stencil the closet to look like wall paper. Maybe next winter...

I also installed a set of vintage hooks on the inside of the door to hang our robes (something you may not have guessed about me...I love robes!).

And finally...spent a whole morning and part of an afternoon sewing curtain panels for the large windows. The white muslin is from our wedding (photos still to come...I promise!!!) and are light and airy. Don't worry...we have forced air heating and almost never use the baseboard heating...in case you were thinking of the fire hazard!

Now...the hallway is next...

I hope you enjoyed the tour of our new bedroom! :)