Updated jewelry box before & after

One day I was searching for a hair brush in my mom’s drawer and I found one old small round jewelry box she bought on a trip she made to Costa Rica many years ago.  I saw it before but just now it caught up my attention.   It was still in good condition but definitely needed a renovation.  I borrowed it and soon started working on it, here is the final result.

There was originally a rural town painted on the lid, but I sanded it down until it was removed.  For the full tutorial on the standard decoupage we do, please click here. 
 
Here it is the before & after. 

Vintage Anne Hathaway´s Postcard

Today’s image is a beautiful vintage postcard of Anne Hathaway’s Family Cottage. She was William Shakespeare´s wife and they were married in 1582.  She is assumed to have grown up in this farmhouse that was the Hathaway family home, now is a major tourist attraction for the Stratford-upon-Avon village .

Regards,

Erika

Unique Vintage Bookmarks

Dress Tags into Vintage Bookmarks!

We ladies love shopping don’t we?  I certainly do, and some of the things that, believe it or not I enjoy collecting when I run to the stores, are the dress tags or labels.  They come in all sizes, shapes, colors and varieties.

Most of the times the tags end up forgotten in a drawer with the rest of things I collect (challenging my husband's patient sometimes hehe!) and all just because I find them pretty and don’t want to get rid of them.

Then I thought I could make a nice use of them, doing some good recycling and turning them into bookmarks, that I can use myself or to give away as souvenirs for the workshop's visitors.

I prepared several tags, but first finished a set of 6, and on this particular Decoupage project the wonderful and versatile ModPodge comes into action.  

British enrolment card

Today’s image I found it at a small but charming antique’s market in New Castle, UK named Tynemouth Market, set up on a train station.  I will post about my visit there and my findings some other time, but for now I leave you with this enrolment card for the British Royal Institute, dated 1958.   

Thank you,

Erika

Ladie's Advertisement chest

In our lives, there are always special people who inspire us, encourage us to follow our dreams, love us and support us, and although they are no longer with us, we always remember them with love, affection and joy, for they have left a piece of themselves in our hearts.  This is the case of Mary Crichlow, a dear friend of mine, who believed in me and my craft & decoration ideas, even before I could imagined myself being able to make it.

Mary lived in Curacao, where she ran a computer club and did with her family volunteer work for children and teenagers, and she used to organize a trip to some nice destination as a part of the yearly club vacations.  Back in 2008, Panama was their destination and throughout the tour operator I work with in Panama City, we helped her organize the trip for the entire group. 

That is how we met and we became very good friends since then, so much so we considered each others as sisters.     But I had no opportunity to give the box to her in time, she left us too soon, and nowadays I remember her all the time and keep her chest like treasure to me.   I want to dedicate my first project in her loving memory, for she encouraged me to follow my passion.  

This is the project I made for Mary with the Decoupage technique, which is one of our favorites techniques in the workshop.  I decorated one jewelry chest for her to keep fashion accessories, as she was a lady who liked to dress up with style.  For the full step by step Decoupage Tutorial click here.

The graphics of the ladies I choose to decorate the box, are taken from one Dover Publication's book about commercial  arts of the early 1,800s.     

For this project I combined two colors: an apple green at the top of the box with

Fashion in the 1950´s

Fashion always comes and goes, and these beautiful cocktail dresses from the 1950's surely will find their way back. We wanted to give a touch of elegance to our first post image with these designs, taken from a Spanish fashion magazine.

Enjoy it,

Erika

We begin this adventure!

"The old times where better!”  This is a common phrase that most of our grandparents use when it comes to art, music, movies and other things, and I know it because my beloved grandpa says it all the time.  And even though I like the modern days too and enjoy everything this era offers, there is something unique and charming about the vintage style that delights me and captures my attention, so I believe he’s got a point.  And by the way, when it comes to music, I must confess I still live in the 1980’s.  

So welcome to my Boulevard, my workshop, and inspired by the antique, vintage & retro we will craft & design decorative elements. 

My career path is not related to the decoration or the interior design or even to the crafts, it is related instead to the tourism industry, and I do work on a daily basis assisting tourists in planning their trips to my country, Panama. However those arts have always been very present in my life, running side to side with my career through the years.

Panama

I am a self-taught person learning and practicing techniques, tricks & tips from professional decorators and crafters with their tutorials, TV programs, videos and books, just as if I was learning recipes step by step with a cookbook in my hand. 
 
Now I wanted to give my creative side a chance to express and this blog has been created with that purpose in mind and by doing it I get to share my experiences, my personal point of view, everything we have learned and give our readers ideas on how to do the same in their homes.

In our blog you will be able to read about:

• Use of different techniques such as Decoupage, Crackle, Stamps, Image Transfer and other techniques with tutorials

• Decorate different surfaces using Vintage Ephemera's, Images & Graphics

• Old Furniture re dos

• Decorations from simple easy steps to more elaborated techniques

• Recycled projects

• Free vintage images & digital collages

 

This blog is designed specially for people like me, who are not professionals in this field, but still can be creative and use what we have learned and continue learning to make wonderful things.  

At the beginning we will be posting 3-4 times a week and we’ll see how it goes, this world of blogging is new to me and slowly slowly I hope to catch up nicely with the rhythm of posting and working at the projects we will be posting about.  

Thank you for visiting, thank you for reading our blog and please do join us by subscribing to our social media options, or simply come back and visit us regularly.

Erika

p.s. Please take in mind that the “English language” is not my mother tongue, so when you find some mistakes please bear with me and even let me know about them if you want, I would appreciate it.