Pretty Little Package - Vintage Crafting Kits

Hi people! I love vintage craft kits. I have a nice little collection of them. They represent pure potential when they're in their uncompleted condition and I'm afraid I haven't tapped that potential in a lot of the ones I have. Here are a few of my favorites:

This one is so cute for a boys room! It's from Avon (who knew they made embroidery kits?), and it features antique cars on a linen ground.

It's unusual in that it's designed to hang as a strip from a simulated wood mount that's included in the kit. It's all about crewel work. I picked this one up at a thrift shop on Long Island years ago.

Here's another crewel kit. This one features flowers in a basket.

This one is unusual in a number of ways - the dark linen ground, the variety of stitches including the pompon centers and, perhaps most notably the three dimensional butterfly that's worked separately and then applied to the surface of the finished piece. This was an Etsy purchase.

This last one was quite an inspiration to me. It's a multi-media kit that features felt applique and embroidery.

I love the dimensional flowers made of felt and accented with french knots. Look at the little jeweled centers - so cute.
This was the basis for a kit I designed myself.

It's a felt applique kit with embroidered stems and leaves.

 I loved the idea of anchoring the felt flowers with french knots so that's how I designed the centers of the daisies. 

Vintage crafting kits are such fun to find and work. They hail from the past, so you can be reasonably assured that you won't find a lot of copies around. They can be found on Etsy and eBay, as well as at thrift shops and yard sales.

If you don't have the patience to go digging around for a vintage one, you can find my daisy kit in two different colorways on Etsy and in my Brini Maxwell Shop at Felix Populi. Do you like crafting with kits, or do you prefer to design your own projects?

Happy crafting!

Fab Finds in Fabrics - Vintage Prints

I've been having some luck as of late with vintage fabric finds. I came across a few fun fabrics at a thrift shop a while back and it inspired me to look on eBay and Etsy for more. Here are a few of the standouts:

This one is an Etsy purchase. It's such a sunny tiger print, isn't it? It's a synthetic knit and it's going to be a hostess dress when it grows up.

This sophisticated print features dancers - sort of a 50's Follies Bergère on beige. It was one of the thrift shop finds that started my current obsession. I don't have any plans for it yet. This one is a drapey rayon crepe.

Heavy linen is the substrata for this painterly plaid. It's such a pretty print and the colors are just delightful. It's an Etsy find. I'll be making this up into a simple shift dress.

Another Etsy find is this polyester crepe de chine with a 70's chevron print on it. This will be a shirt dress one day. It's very Vera, isn't it?

This is another one of the thrift shop purchases that launched this ship. It's a sheer print that reminds me of suns. This will be a summer shirt for me this year.

I've always been fond of printed crepe linings in jackets and coats. That's what this mod polyester floral crepe will be eventually. It's from eBay.

All this fabric acquisition has taxed my storage space a bit, so I'm destashing, as they say, on Etsy right now. Have a look at the vintage fabrics and patterns I have up for sale.