Vintage christening dresses

As a follow-up to Sunday evening's post about the wall-hook rack that I painted, I thought I would just share a few pictures of the sweet little christening dresses that now hang from the hooks.

I will need to look for some photographic evidence to confirm, but I believe that this would have been my own christening gown. (My older sister was born premature and it would have been way too big for her.) I think that the little piece on the right may actually be a slip, worn under the piece on the left, because it is sleeveless.

A few photos showing some of the details...

I purchased these darling little hangers just for these dresses - hand-made embellishments on baby-sized plastic hangers. Very sweet!

More soon!

Bits and pieces

It's been an interesting week so far, and it's only Wednesday! LOL For starters, a stressful situation that's been dogging me for awhile was finally resolved in my favor, and I truly feel like a bit of a weight has been lifted.

Then, I attended a college-prep planning session Tuesday night with my daughter, who is a high school junior. Her school has a really good program that will walk her through every step of the process, from selecting schools to filling out financial aid forms. It is going to be an invaluable process, but it left me a bit weepy, thinking about how quickly the next two years are going to pass by.

And finally, it took me two years and three months but I finally got the last of the items removed from our rented storage unit. These included two antique cabinets with marble tops that were refinished by my grandfather, two rocking chairs that he also refinished (and for which his wife, my Grandma Verdie, re-crafted the caned seats), and a bit of memorabilia from the 1979 Des Moines visit of Pope John Paul II. It's a relief to finally have everything out of there, and it will save us almost $100 a month! I should have done it long ago, but - well, you can imagine how time gets away from us!

Hope you are having a lovely week!

More soon,

Decorative hook rack

I don't pretend for a minute that this is expert floral painting, but I like the way this turned out. I wanted to make a decorative hook rack to display a couple of infant christening dresses. This project cost me all of $1.76 for the two hooks - everything else, including all the paint, was on-hand. (It's not mounted to the wall yet - it's just leaning on my cabinet knobs to have its picture taken! LOL)

I started with a 1x3 and cut it to 18 inches in length, then sanded the surface and edges just a little. I was going to make it distressed white, but I didn't have enough white paint left. So, instead I sprayed the whole piece on all sides with a soft green.

I then used my acrylic paints to do the floral bits - I do NOT have the "composition gene" when it comes to this, so I just plopped them down wherever they seemed to be needed.

When the decorative paint was dry, I brushed the whole front with a layer of clear-drying matte Mod Podge (didn't have any spray sealer on hand), then screwed in the two hooks.

There are a few flaws/imperfections in the construction and materials as well as the paint job, but, I'm not complaining. Overall I really like it!

Now to get it mounted to the wall... I probably should have thought about that BEFORE screwing in the hooks! LOL *sigh* Just another day in paradise!

More soon!

Update 2013: I am linking this post to Nancy's "Oldies but Goodies" link party at her lovely blog, Do Small Things With Love.