My Orange Tartan Pillow is in a "London Hotel" Etsy Treasury!

My orange tartan plaid Punk Rock Pillow is in an Etsy treasury by Jen8675309 called London Hotel! It's a really great treasury, so go check it out!

Buttons, Buttons Everywhere, but Not a Drop to...

Oh Dear Deer! 

A new pillow! This one was a long time in the making, as many of my pillows are.  I started these about 12 years ago, when I had intentions of making them into zippered pouches entirely covered in buttons, glass beads, sequins, paillettes, crystals and pearls. WITH a boarder of faux pearls... And with all that hand sewn on, boy are they heavy! So why not make pillows out of them instead?

I'm really into the woodland creatures movement that's so popular in home decor lately. I added a lovely antlered buck head to the center of the vintage natural slubby silk for added pop. Not that the fabric needed any extra pop, since it has lots of silver lurex strands running through it!  

I plan on making a few more pillows like this one in the future- and maybe using colored thread for more interest. If you would like to see a few more pictures of this deer pillow, please take a peek at my Etsy listing! It goes perfectly with the deer pillows in the Woodland Creatures section of my Etsy store, so take a look there to complete the look!

Weenie!

I'm finally getting around to posting new plush Dachshunds to my Etsy  store :) This is Lily, and she is very pleased to make your acquaintance! Se's extremely proud and fiercely loyal, but can be quite stubborn at times! You can take a closer look at here, or in my Flickr account!

She is hand made from a lovely hand screened vintage English floral chintz in pastels on pink Egyptian cotton. Her entire body is sewn with vintage Kismet mercerized cotton thread. Lily's nose is soft leather and her lovely bow is made of vintage stock French wired ribbon in a blue to mint ombre :) Wanna take her home?

Tiger Pillow Made with all Vintage Materials

 

I just finished this glamorous pillow and wanted to share it right away! I used some really rich materials on it, and so far, it's getting rave reviews!

 

The face of the pillow is made from vintage Italian silk and cotton blend jacquard depicting tigers and leopards standing on scrolls.  It's so Gianni Versace! The detail of this tiger is just incredible, right down to his stripes and eyes! The blue silk background has a very lovely royal sheen to it that really catches the sun.

  

The pillow is backed with with a vintage linen velvet from the famous Lelievre fabric house in France! I had a few different options in blue, but I was lucky to find one that matched the blue of the tiger fabric perfectly.

And the button collection from my Grandma came in handy! I added two of my favorite vintage rhinestone buttons to the large scroll above the tiger to give this pillow even more glamor. There's nothing like digging through the button tin :)

As always, I sewed the fabrics with vintage Kismet American Thread Company threads. Sewing with threads that are sixty to seventy-five years old is a true labor of love, but in my opinion, the threads are stronger and look more attractive than the threads sold today. 

This pillow is for sale now in my Etsy shop. Click on this link to be directed to the listing :)

Macaron is the New Cupcake

I've created a new Etsy Treasury! Cupcakes are so 2010. Vote Macaron! Click here to be redirected to the treasury for a closer look!

My Vintage Blue Floral Chintz is in an Etsy Treasury!

Thank you to Clay Hollow for including my vintage cornflower blue cotton floral chintz fabric in your beautiful Fabulous Sewing Supplies Etsy Treasury! You really found some great suppliers :)

My First Etsy Treasury - "Pee-Wee in Love"!

Please check out my very first Etsy Treasury called Pee-Wee in Love! It's getting a lot of likes and reblogs in my Tumblr blog, so be sure to check it out there too!

My Plush Matryoshka doll is in an Etsy Treasury!

Thank you Miss Mellie's Parlor for including Birdie, one of my Plush Matryoshka dolls in her awesome "To Russia With Love" Etsy Treasury! And take a moment to check out her Etsy Shop, where she has the prettiest pin-up girl inspired accessories on Etsy!

You can see more pictures of my nesting dolls, all of which are embroidered with vintage Kismet cotton thread and vintage fabrics on my Flickr photostream :)

Passion Flower Chintz Hot Dog Time!

I have this great chintz with passion flowers and carnations and lots of little flowers all over it. To be more specific, I've had it for over fifteen years. It's absolutely glorious. It's hand screened with maybe twenty five to thirty different screens, and if I recall correctly, it's French. 

It was just SO girlie that I couldn't figure out what to do with it. I even struggled making a Dachshund out of it thinking the floral just wouldn't work.  I took a chance though and laid out the gof patterns, and lo and behold, it looked great!

I sewed her right up, and my daughter named her Summer. I put her up for sale today so head on over to my Etsy listing to get a closer look :)

A New Green Plush Dachshund is Getting Ready for Etsy!

My internet has been in and out (mostly out) for two weeks, plus we went on a mini vacation, so I haven't been able to list anything on Etsy. However, I have been SUPER busy on the sewing machine! I'm getting ready to list three new plush Doxies on Etsy!

I'd like to introduce you to Cookie. This little lady is made from a gorgeous and super girly green floral swirly vintage fabric. It's a hand screened print on cotton, and is made with fourteen screens. I think it was made in France, but I'm not 100% sure.  Here are some scans of the fabric.

Cookie's nose is made from leather, and her bow is made from vintage French ombre ribbon that fades from soft pink to a mossy green. I've posted a photo of Cookie below, and you can see more photos of her, as well as other dogs I've made in my Flickr Weenie Dogs photo set. Look for Cookie in my Etsy store early this week!

My Orange Punk Rock Pillow is in an Etsy Treasury!

Thank you to BusyBee67 for including my Orange Vintage Tartan Punk Rock Pillow in your fabulous Multiplicity Etsy Treasury! You've got a fantastic eye for color!

Embroidered Nesting Dolls Made with Vintage Materials

I've created these nesting dolls with all vintage materials :) The faces are embroidered on vintage silk taffetas from Lelièvre in Paris with vintage cotton threads. The bodies are various wonderful vintage hand screened cottons! The dolls stand ten inches high and are gently stuffed with new premium polyfill and hand stitched closed :)  They will be available in my Etsy shop, crashandcarry, in the coming weeks! 

My New Pillow Was Featured in an Etsy Treasury!

Thank you Jalinde for including my Tartan Plaid Punk Rock pillow in your awesome Shiver Me Timbers treasury!

That Chair All my Friends Like.

There they were, by the side of the road. Just waiting for the trash truck to come and take them away. There was three of them in various stages of disrepair. Unloved. They were covered in a disintegrating green wool satin stripe with a wool braided cord. And they were gorgeous.

I dragged them, in all of their hand carved glory, into my home before anyone else got to them.  Their joints were achy and loose and the springs were sticking out of the bottom. There were strands of dried out horsehair or boar hair (or whatever long dead, hairless creature they used to stuff this thing) hanging out of the torn fabric in tufts. Their feetsies were missing the caps.

They sat around my home for years. They came with me when I moved. They went in and out of mothball smelling storage units. I didn't know WHAT I was going to upholster them with, but I knew it HAD to be beautiful.

Fast forward about ten years. I decided to teach myself how to silk screen and chose the Jolly Roger as my first image.  I have this huge vintage fabric collection that I had collected over the years, and I selected my favorite fabric to be my first victim. It's a vintage French hand screen print with about 23 screens (I have some pieces in my Etsy shop in a few different colorways). It's a gorgeous greenish-blue with beautiful swirls, flowers and birds. Glorious! I screened on the skull and crossbones with intentions of making pillows for my bed. Then it hit me. The chairs!  So I got to work.

I'm a self taught upholsterer. I learned from watching Ed and Joe, "The Furniture Guys" on PBS. *HORSEHAIR!* I'm also fortunate to have a father who was a plumber and a brother who is a hot rod mechanic, so I'm terribly good with my hands, and have a wicked tool box full of hand me downs and greasy castaways that still work perfectly fine.  I also honed my upholstery skillz by  reupholstering (only) half of the gray sectional in our living room in red moire, much to the chagrin of my family.  But that's a different story.

 I won't bore you with the upholstery details, but I can assure you it involved a LOT of upholstery tack nails, some Gorilla Glue and really big c-clamps. Oh, and old woven vinyl lawn chair strapping. The finish on the wood wasn't awful. I gave it a really nice rub down with oil and made sure to mop up whatever was left so as not to grease up the fabric.

I also happen to collect trimmings and tiebacks and cording and such, and had tons of this fabulous French silk gimp in chartreuse.  The fabric has no chartreuse in it, but since I'm not at all afraid of contrast, I went ahead and glued it on. This chair was coming out hella sexy, but it was still missing something. 

Now being a typical blonde, I'm attracted to (and often hypnotized by) shiny things. I have an unhealthy fixation with Swarovski rhinestones and affix them onto anything and everything that doesn't have a pulse. (This of course was years before I ever heard of vajazzling.)  Anywho, since I glue rhinestones on everything else, why should this chair be left out? I put in a huge order with my favorite Rhinestone Guy  consisting of bout 1000 Swarovski flat backs in 20SS and a tub of Gem Tac.

  

 It was a daunting task, methodically gluing these rhinestones on one by one. It was also a painful task, ripping glued rhinestones out of the cats' fur (but don't be sad, it wasn't painful for me).  The long long loooong hours were well worth the final product though. The chair came out stunning! This chair gets SO many complements, and it's definitely one of my prized possessions.  It's so leather and lace. It's so naughty but nice. It's so librarian by day, dominatrix by night. 

 I know you're wondering, "Self, does she let anyone sit on it?". Honestly I prefer that no one sit on it, but it IS sitable.  It hasn't lost a rhinestone yet, and thankfully survived a cat scratching incident without too much damage.  

And the best news of all? There are two more chairs just like it, waiting to be reupholstered!   I'm really torn with what to do with them. I refuse to upholster them in the same fabric, or with the same silk screen. I have some really clever ideas for them, but since I haven't finalized my idea for the next chair project, you will just have to wait. 

But I'll give you a hint. 

Guns and Squirrels.

I've Moved on to Bath Bombs!

I'm opening a new shop on Etsy... Bubble Bath Bakery!  I made the first batch of cuppy cakes today. Black Forrest Bath Bombs! The delicious scents of dark chocolate and cherries in one luxurious bomb! The base is super fizzy, the meringue is creamy, and the cherry on top is SOAP :) A trifecta of awesomeness! You can find these bath bombs at my Etsy storeBubble Bath Bakery :)

 

 

 

My first post!

Hello! My name is Monica Shepherd, and I like all things pretty! I'm new with blogging, but would like to share my passions with the world. I love sewing, especially making pillows. The girlier the better, I always say! Here are some photos of pillows I've made this month. They are from my "Woodland Creatures" collection and are available for sale at monicashepherd.etsy.com. Thanks for reading my first blog! I look forward to sharing my art with you!