SHOPPING TRIP TO NEWTON ABBOT – NEW ART STASH
Yesterday I had my annual appointment at the bank to discuss my finances. We always combine this with a shopping trip and lunch out at our favourite restaurant – the Pizza Cafe, which has been run by the same family for 38 years!
This is a real treat for me because I don’t get out much, and do nearly all of my shopping online. For me, there is no greater fun when shopping than to browse through the charity shops – you never know what you are going to find. I look for jewellery I can take apart and re-purpose, and also clothing. I look for fabrics and trims, lace and embellishments. It doesn’t matter what size the garment is, or whether I’d be seen dead in it (which mostly I wouldn’t!) – I am just selecting stuff with a view to how I can make art out of it. Charity shop purchasing is always such fun because of the surprise element, and also the prices are so cheap!
We went into a new one this time – a furniture store run by one of the charities. This is a great idea because it’s often hard to get rid of second-hand furniture and there are some real bargains to be had. They had some very interesting and unusual new pieces as well. I fell in love with the most beautiful little antique cabinet with fine marquetry work on it – it had obviously originally been on top of another piece at one time, such as a bureau, because it had small drawers along the bottom which was a bit inconvenient. There was a little bit of damage on it but it was exquisite, and they were only asking £25 for it! I’d have bought it like a shot if we had somewhere to put it, but unfortunately there is nowhere for it. At the desk they said that people do not want to buy such things these days because modern houses are so small and short of storage space. We love anything that is quirky and different and I’d have loved to give this gorgeous little cabinet a new home.
Yesterday we also visited W.H. Smith (now rebranded as J.G. Jones – that’s going to take some getting used to after a lifetime of Smith’s!) and The Works which has a good supply of art materials. The branch of The Works in Newton Abbot isn’t as large as the Torquay one but it was still pretty good. The main problem with these two shops was that they are currently full of Halloween and Christmas stuff, which has obviously meant that a lot of the normal stuff has been put away to make room for it.
There were four categories of materials that I came home with: miscellaneous craft stuff, papers, clothing and jewellery.
Craft supplies
I’ve noticed reently that quite a few charity shops now have a box of craft stuff for sale. It’s fun having a good rummage and seeing if there’s anything worth taking home.
Some of the materials here were from The Works and Jones’ but mostly from the charity shops.
I was particularly pleased to find the spools of sparkly ribbon. I recently watched an excellent YouTube video where someone was making the most beautiful beads from this, with added small beads and dangles. These will make excellent charms and dangles for embellishing journals and bags.
I think everything else is self-explanatory.
Papers
One of the main problems with making albums and books is that most patterned scrapbooking and craft paper isn’t large enough to make book covers and endpapers. I have found gift wrapping paper and wallpaper to be excellent substitutes, as well as packaging paper of course – that’s the best because it’s free! Sometimes, though, one wants something with a bit more glitz and glamour.
On this occasion Jones’ was able to supply some nice large rolls of gift wrap – it was a bit pricey but this was counteracted by the 3 for 2 offer. I also picked up the pack of tropical leaves wrapping which also includes stickers that can be altered as required – I shan’t want the printed text on them. The wallpaper, which is quite thick and textured, and in a favourite colour combination of beige and gold, will be most useful for book making. This, and the sewing pattern, came from a charity shop. I bought the dress pattern for the printed tissue pattern paper inside, and I can use the images for a vintage look in junk journals. I chose a pattern which had a lot of smaller pieces rather than a simpler design with just a few larger pieces.
Clothing
The garments I chose from the charity shops were all suitable for use in different projects, and were incredibly cheap considering their potential. The black blouse at the back doesn’t show up very well in the photo but it is made of devore velvet with a fairly small design of velvet against a sheer background. It also has very pretty buttons made from what looks like paua shell.
The grey dress at the front feels like real silk but is actually polyester.
I bought it primarily for the trim. I can use portions of this or cut it up into individual motifs, especially those with the pearl bead dangles on them. The pleated band around the waist could well feature on an album cover. The dress is lined, so there is quite a bit of fabric. I am not sure how useful this will be but it may come in for bag making. The colour isn’t my favourite but could be adapted. Of course, synthetic fibres don’t take dyes very well but there are all kinds of ways of altering things with a bit of imagination.
The gold top is made of interestingly textured fabric – not too bright a gold, being woven with black, and a bit rouched. It is more metallic-looking in real life than in the photo, of course. So hard to photograph shiny stuff. It is lined, which provides further fabric which might come in useful. I can definitely see this on an album cover.
I bought two scarves, both with gold on them. The navy blue one at the top has a self-coloured pattern and gold embellishment, and a gorgeous ruffly edge. This definitely has potential! The black one is flat, and covered with gold stars. Likewise for potential. Both are quite sheer.
I bought these two belts which could either be used for bag handles or book closures. Unfortunately when I peeled off the price label from the gold belt, it pulled away some of the gold from the surface. I expect I shall be able to do something about that when the time comes, though.
Jewellery
I chose most of these charity shop necklaces because of the dangles on them. I have a large quantity of beads in my collection, but useful dangles are in relatively short supply. The diamante one at bottom left will have to be taken apart with snips because there are no jump rings connecting the individual pieces, but the connectors are cast as one piece with each gem setting, which is a bit of a bore because it means wasting some of them unless I can find an alternative way of fastening them. I may just remove the dangles,and retain the necklace itself as a book closure or other form of embellishment. The two in the top row have numerous and varied dangles on them so there’s a wealth of material here. The gold necklaces at top right were sold as a single necklace but they are in fact two separate strands of beads. They are particularly sparkly, being faceted. I don’t have anything like this in my stash. As always with jewellery for recycling, there are useful lengths of chain, various findings like jump rings, and clasps.
An interesting discovery
In Jones’, I was looking at various ring binders in the stationery department. They have various clear pages to go in the binders – I already have a lot of these, divided up to take ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) – I use this size of card for my Zentangle design samples. Amongst this lot, I discovered an album for stamp collectors. I’d been thinking along these lines as I began my album for storing my fussy cuts. When the roll of tracing paper arrived, which I’d ordered with a view to forming the pockets on the album pages to take the fussy cuts, I thought it might be too thin and flimsy. On examining this stamp collector’s album, though, I discovered that its pockets were made of pretty much the same sort of paper. It is obviously strong enough for the purpose. In addition, there was a whole sheet of it in between each of the pocketed pages, to prevent the contents of the pockets from rubbing against those in adjacent pages and getting tangled with them. I hadn’t thought of this, and shall definitely incorporate such pages in my own album, made from the tracing paper.
This is one of the great advantages of shopping in person in real shops. You get to see the stuff in real life and get to handle it. It would be very hard to know what sort of paper was used in a stamp collector’s album from an online picture.
Conclusion
All in all, this was a very good haul. I shall spend some time working on the various pieces and filing them away in appropriate storage locations in my studio. I am planning to make up some charms in addition to the sparkly ribbon ones. The card embellishments in the pretty tin all need work as they are not how I want them, but they will form a nice firm base for layering, and adding dangles and attachments. Some of the work will be able to be done from the comfort of the recliner in the sitting room, and the more complicated work will take place in the studio. It’s going to be fun sorting it all out.
