Friday, November 2, 2012

the little unnecessities of life are not inconsequential

This past weekend, I flew to Kansas to attend a cousin's wedding. I hadn't seen most of my Kansas cousins--my dad's twin brothers, their wives and kids--for 30 years. Why? There's really no good reason, and now I wish I'd visited more. My family lived in Tennessee and took driving vacations each summer, spending a week or so in Kansas, and at least once, our Kansas relatives visited us in Tennessee.

I don't know if it's because time moves so slowly when you're a kid, or if it was just the experiences we shared over so many summers together, but Kansas and summers spent with my cousins comprise a profound and beloved part of my childhood. It was great to go back and see them all. Before the wedding, some of us took in a musical and stayed in a Victorian B&B in Abilene. There were vintage hats in the Victorian parlor. We went antiquing the next day. I found a few things.

pince nez specs with a hairpin...for years, I thought it was "prince" nez



HelloGiggles: Item of the Day

Alessandra Rizzotti just wrote up Millennium General Assembly for HelloGiggles.com. I am psyched!

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Player for a player


I bought these plaques for not very much money, maybe ten bucks. I thought I might use them in an assemblage one day; I didn't know how. I just loved the graphics.

At first I thought these plaques were from a metronome but the text* on
the piece from the upper left reveals them to be from a player piano.

Since then, I started cutting up tin and making pieces with it. Now there are tin snips and files and shears at hand. And when I started making a necklace for a friend who's a stellar guitarist, Jane Getter, searching through my cabinets for pieces to assemble, I came across the player-piano plaques and realized I could actually make a necklace from them.

Largo,  slowest<--------------> fastest, Presto

The thick brass was harder to cut than tin (thinner steel) but I managed with my new German shears. I filed off the sharp edges and shaped the treble clef. 

The volume control was already banner-shaped, but the brass was thinner,
so I cut a piece of vintage tin to back it with and riveted the pieces together.

I think it turned out great. Now where do I find more player-piano plaques?



*Standard Artist-Record Action is specially constructed to play any make of reproducing or regular music roll with transposer lever at normal.





Wednesday, July 25, 2012

fairly ready

Renegade tent setup dry run. The real deal happens in three days...and also four days; it's a two-day event.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

gamesmanship necklaces for Renegade

antique game pieces from France, vintage rosary chain,
vintage brass and steel chain, antique brass uniform
beads, antique crystal bead, vintage black steel bead
tin riveted to antique yellow-dyed bone game counter, antique
yellow enamel and sterling watch chain, antique turquoise enamel
and brass watch chain, African trade beads, copper heshi beads, vintage
copper leaf bracelet links, antique dog clips from watch chains

the antique swivel dog clip makes this piece reversible

Thursday, July 12, 2012

tobacco tin time: plugging my plug pluggers

I've forayed into homemade rivets, attaching tin tobacco tags and the like to tin-can backings cut from a Sunshine Candies container. I'll be selling these goodies at Renegade Handmade (see previous post).

Tin tobacco tags were a promotional tool used circa 1880-1920.
These are all tobacco tags except the feather and the key, which were
promotional pinbacks from Red Feather Services, a forerunner to
the United Way, and a 1947 tourist promotional key that was worn by
teachers and students visiting D.C. and Virginia on spring break.

Sunshine Candies tin cutouts for the backs...or fronts,
however you want to wear them.
According to cigarhistory.info, "A key strategy in the war for market supremacy was the offering of  household items as premiums in exchange for tags.  The man who couldn’t afford to buy his wife a set of silver-plated tableware, might be able to accumulate the 500 tags necessary to get six Rogers knives and forks for free." Like S&H Green Stamps!