Tag: treasure

Life

Flea Market awesomeness

Jessica Smith

Who has seen HGTV’s Flea Market Flip!? It might be my favorite HGTV show because, to me, it is the most relatable  Some people simply cannot afford to remodel their homes or don’t have the know-how to DIY their gardens — but I imagine most people can find a treasure at a flea market and make it into something cool. Or just treasure their treasure!

I totally dream of being on Flea Market Flip. My girlfriend Carrie and I talk about how cool it would be to be on it together. So when my aunt, mom and I were driving home from an outing in New York and we came up on the Super Flea, I pretty much died with excitement when my aunt asked if I wanted to stop.

{A Smith of All Trades} Super Flea

I’m pretty sure I screamed, “THIS IS THE BEST THING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED TO ME!” Sorry husband, but our wedding is second to the Super Flea.

Just kidding…

… kind of.

The Super Flea is intense — vendors are everywhere, inside and out. It’s sort of dirty, but that makes it even more authentic and charming. Plus, that’s what hand sanitizer is for. Between the Super Flea and the two thrift stores we visited, I think we probably drained my aunt’s supply of sanitizing hand wipes.

Within minutes of walking around I spotted an awesome, old ginger ale crate. I’ve wanted to do a project with a wine crate for months now, but can’t bring myself to buy the fake ones at Michael’s. It seems like cheating. So when I saw the ginger ale crate I made a beeline for that vendor’s table. She was asking $10, which was close to all I had in my wallet. So I walked away.

After perusing more and more, I decided I wanted to go back and buy the crate, so I forked over $10 (which is a steal) and grabbed my London Dry Ginger Ale crate. SO COOL!

{A Smith of All Trades} Sweet wooden crate from Super Flea

I am not sure what I am going to do with it just yet, but I was thinking that it would be cool to turn it into a storage ottoman with casters on the bottom. We’ll see what I decide on eventually.

My mom and aunt also had great luck at the market. My aunt found a few beautiful rosaries and my mom scored a beautiful vase and a porron (the porron was marked $15 and the vendor sold it to my mom with her vase for $5!!!! TOTAL STEAL!!!!!!!). We also found a few pretty, inexpensive dresses that they bought for my sister and cousin.

It was so much fun and now that I have some flea market mojo, I might go to one this weekend and try my hand at haggling! Woot!

And in case you couldn’t tell from the earlier picture how I excited I was, here’s another picture of me TOTALLY cheesin’ it at the Super Flea. I am thinking this needs to be a new family tradition.

{A Smith of All Trades} Cheesin' outside the Super Flea

Life

So many pallets…

Jessica Smith

… so little time.

Yes, that’s right. I have a total of five pallets to destroy! Woo! I have grand plans for one or two of them… AND since my pallet sign turned out so well, the hubby doesn’t seem to care too much that I brought three of them home this week and grabbed one more from our neighbor. I’m leaving the one in my office alone for a bit longer — I definitely don’t need five pallets at home (not that I need four either).

I have no idea when I’ll actually have time to work on these projects since it is getting to be holiday season, which means I am super busy. This weekend I am doing the Trash to Treasure Fair on Saturday and am (hopefully) making homemade applesauce all day on Sunday. If not, maybe I’ll get around to it sometime this week after work. Unfortunately, with the weather being chilly and it getting dark so early, it’s less exciting to be outside after work using my power tools. We’ll see though!

Next weekend is another craft fair and the hubby’s birthday. Then the weekend after that it is Thanksgiving! Like I said, we are always busy during holiday season. I doubt December will be any slower for us. We are just so darn popular ;p

TGIF! Have a great weekend!

Craft Projects

Mod Podged Candle Holders

Jessica Smith

Today I’m sharing another project I made for the upcoming Trash to Treasure Fair in November. Using pages from an old book and the remainder of my burlap fabric scraps, I turned two shot glasses that my mother-in-law’s work was going to throw away (not sure why they have shot glasses…) into adorable candle holders.

Here’s what you’ll need:

  • Pages of a book (or any paper) cut into little pieces
  • Mod Podge
  • Fabric
  • Hot Glue
  • Needle and Thread
  • Buttons
  • Ribbon
  • Glass

To start this project, I cut up three or four pages from an old dictionary into little pieces of paper. I had no rhyme or reason for the shape of the paper, just random shapes.

Once my paper was small enough, I started to Mod Podge it to the glass. I put a thick layer of the podge down, then placed strips of paper on top. I smoothed out the paper as I went along to remove any bubbles between the paper and the glass. Once each glass was covered, I placed a layer of podge on top.

I let the candle holders dry for a bit before adding embellishments. They weren’t dry completely, but I didn’t mind since I wanted the stuff I was adding to stick right on top.

At this point, I flipped each glass upside down and added a slim, pink ribbon around the bottom with small dabs of hot glue.

With the pink ribbon added to each glass, I set both candle holders aside to create two oversized flowers. I cut out five petals for each flower, using scraps from an earlier project.

To connect the petals, I folded each petal at the flat edge in an accordion-style fold: down, up, down, up, down.

Then, I sewed through each of the folds. Once I had stitched my way through one petal, I went on to the next, adding petals until I was out.

When all five petals were connected, I looped the needle and thread back through the first petal to finish off the flower.

With the flower complete, I selected a flashy button to add to the middle. I added it to the flower with hot glue, then hot glued each flower to a candle holder.

OHMYGOSHSOCUTE. If these don’t get snatched up at the fair, I might not be so upset.

I like how large the flowers are on the glass, the pink ribbon “leaves,” and the randomness of the dictionary scraps. These might be my favorite candle yet. Now I just need to remake them with aqua ribbon instead of pink ;p