If I could save time in a bottle.... EVERYONE SING!  I admit to having an at-times unhealthy obsession with Pinterest, going through pin-binges, collecting scads of ideas for projects I'll probably NEVER do. You know what I speak of. But when I do get a bee in my bonnet to make something, it's usually because I have miscellaneous crafty supplies that need a special purose! Case in point: one random, tiny glass bottle.

As wary as I am of clutter and the accumulation of junk, I admit to being a paper and ribbon hoarder.  It's my weakness, the siren song of collected ephemera. When I'm the recipient of a beautifully-wrapped gift, I don't tear into the gift, I gingerly separate the taped parts and keep the paper. The same with long scraps of ribbon. The voices of my mother and grandmother ring in my head: No, no, don't throw it away, it's still good!! And despite all logical arguments to the contrary, it's worth it when the holidays roll around.

Happy New Years Eve, chirps the Birdie! I hope you have something festive planned for ringing in the new year, and most importantly, planning a festive look. Feathers have of course been everywhere, likely the new "it's so over" trend to be cast aside into the new year. But this Birdie doesn't care -- I'll keep wearing her plumed accessories whenever the mood strikes. But of course, you don't want to overdo it -- one feather at a time, ladies, or you'll look like a showgirl. Here are some feathered items to inspire a J'adore-worthy outfit! 

Over the holidays, I spread the Word of the Bird through some crafty gifts. I made some wild cuff bracelets decorated with costume jewelry bits collected from the junk table at farmers markets, plus little feathery decor that was originally made to accetuate wreaths. Work with what you have, right? And I also made some feathery, jeweled/flowered headbands for friends, probably one of the easiest crafts to do. I wanted to share the photos, as short of the white feathered cuff which I decided to keep for myself (Merry Christmas to me), everything else was given as gifts and I hope brings the wearer festive good times.

I have to say for this particular trend of feathers and a mish-mash of different materials mixed together, the crafter's best friend is glue. I've found that old fashioned Superglue works wonders, as does the glues you get at hardware stores that can bind glass and metal. These are heavy-duty glues, so work in a well-ventilated area, use gloves if you don't want a layer of glue stuck to your fingers for, like, ever. And when getting materials to make your crafty creations, look around at rummage sales, farmers markets or antique stores for costume jewelry you can take apart and reuse. Craft stores are dandy, but they're often full of mass-market goods that start to look the same, plus it's more expensive. If you have old costume jewelry that you don't wear or is just broken, reworking them into a crafty creation is another way of giving them a new life. 


Jaunty Fine Print:  photos by Denise Sakaki

This Birdy is forever inspired by handmade ornaments, this inspiration turning into outright envy and panic around the holidays, when I see all the beautiful handmade ornaments on places like Pinterest, turning me into the Green-Eyed Monster, coveting the precious craftiness. Which then puts me in a total tizzy over having enough time to make the dang things. Holiday vicious circle! My favorite example of a handmade ornament is from my Aunt Susan, who sent me these lovely creations she made years ago, when she was a newlywed and doing the perfect homemaker thing by reading Good Housekeeping or some such magazine, which suggested decorating some ornaments for the tree. Becauase at the time, it was the Betty Draper thing to do. The project asked for those retro-fabulous silk strand-covered styrofoam ball ornaments, which you use a meticulous amount of decorative pins, sequins and whatever fancy ribbon and brick-a-brack you have on-hand to make them into Faberge egg-like creations. 

Yeah, I didn't do any of that -- hence, their being inspiration-only. I  have no idea how long it took my Auntie Susan to make them, I'm just eternally grateful she passed them on to me so that I can enjoy them. In return for her craftiness, I wanted to bestow upon her and a few other lucky (or unlucky) souls some handmade ornaments of my own. My version was relatively easy to do with just the bare minimum of patience required. Thanks to craft stores which have things you never even knew you needed/wanted,  you can get boxes of clear glass ornaments. They're lovely and bubble-like on their own, and I've seen some amazing craft projects where people hang multiple sizes like chandeliers, making an incredible centerpiece. I'm not this ambitious. I loved the idea of filling the clear ornaments with fun, interesting textures, so I filled several with plain red feathers, which looked beautiful. Then I raised the bar and added gold leaf to ones filled with white feathers -- incredibly messy, but wonderful result. The last ornament "style" was care of our own paper shredder. I saw some filled ornaments with strips of paper having writing on it. I went the lazy/easy route and pulled some bits from our shredder, plus shredded some decorative papers of our own to fill it with some color and shine. Using a thin pencil, I slowly stuffed each ornament and used some super-duty glue that's both metal and glass-adhesive to cap the hanging hook back on. Get it from a craft store or just get a tube of Superglue - you want this to stick. The caps and metal loops are designed to hold on their own when attached to the glass ornaments, but I wanted to seal the deal and ensure the hook wouldn't separate, as sometimes they're a little loose. Broken glass = not holiday magic.

So, here's one of the Magpie's crafty attempts at a homemade Christmas. I hope my aunt likes the ornaments, although I'm fairly certain she doesn't even decorate a tree anymore. I'm a terrible niece.


Jaunty Fine Print:  Photos taken by Denise Sakaki

The Magpie got all Jaunty-crazy on a set of bedstands a while back. They were just the plain, basic bedstand from Ikea that Mr. Magpie picked up years ago and this Bird got the bee in her bonnet that the Plain Jane bedstand look needed some razzle-dazzle. And maybe some jazzhands.

The Magpie's J'adore for the kooky, thrown together look of collage and mixed media inspired the makeover. A stack of old, torn up Seattle Weekly papers were pasted over the surface of the drawer and cabinet fronts for a Newsie-theme. The plain wooden handles got a dual treatment -- a Celtic knot silver button glued into a drilled-in pit in the original handle, and then the other handle getting a double-triple coating of sparkly silver nail polish. Disco meets the Luck of the Irish? Whatever you want to call it, that's what became of the old drawer pulls without the need to replace them completely. A wash of taupe over the dried newsprint, plus a clear coat to seal, and then a finishing detail of bright red along the edges gave this makeover its final bit of pop. Too crazy? Probably. But they look a lot more interesting than the original plain bedstands!


Jaunty Fine Print:  photographs by Denise Sakaki

 

Not long ago, this Bird was Inspired by the drawn-on elaborate necklace art on t-shirts that were showing up in all the stores. They were elegantly imperfect and with a sly sense of humor, combining the look of formal jewels with a simple t-shirt. Plus, how clever is that -- you never have to think about throwing on a piece of jewelry because you're already set with just the shirt on your back.

That got this Magpie's noggin-gears clicking away, thinking, "How hard would it be to just make one myself?" Despite not having any screenprinting materials, that was easily solved with the magic of the almighty Sharpie marker. While it meant each shirt design would be one-of-a-kind, that made the designs all the more special. And it also meant this Bird needed to be on her drawing a-game as there's no erasing of a stray mark when it comes to pen on cotton fabric. But the scribble gods looked kindly upon this crafty venture, and these are the shirts that were produced.

I had some fabric paint from another old project. The jewel toned gold, silver and bronze were a nice bit of color to add to the simple pen drawings. Although the drawings could have been fine on their own, even without the paint. An extra flourish of sewed-on ribbon bows were added to some, to add a little extra bit of dimension. I'll have to remind the recipients of these gifts to wash gently in cold water. Even though t-shirts are meant to be rugged, these ones have been made delicate with the Jaunty power of faux jewelry!


Jaunty Fine Print:  photo by Denise Sakaki

 

You know you have a nook in your jewelry drawer that's got an orphanage of lonely earrings, broken necklaces and bracelets, and other little gems that are unwearable by choice or broken parts. And by nook, I'm sure it means it's a tangled mass of necklace chains, bangles and broken clips. Again, harkening to this Bird's hoarding tendencies, I never throw anything out, including these broken baubles, so I set my intention towards giving these gems a Special Purpose. I took a weekend to whip out the ol' set of needle nose pliers, which could easily be misconstrued as my own private Midnight Express torture chamber, but fear not. It's for jewelry making and repair only. Pinky swearsies. 

I think it's good to take stock of one's junk pile of broken jewelry, which is to say dump everything onto a table to see what's there and what's really salvageable, because really -- you know most of it should probably just get hucked into the trash. I like earrings because they can make for great charms, which is what I did for this piece pictured above. I don't have pierced ears -- don't ask why, I'm just a strange Bird -- but I convert my earrings with little clip-on thingies. They're not the strongest attachments, so I do lose earrings somewhat often. The chandelier style earring already looks like a necklace charm, so I decided to make a ribboned brooch out of it and layered some chains from my box of jewelry supplies. I've been on a ribbon craze lately, adding it to jewelry and other projects since it's such an easy flourish to tack on.

Again, this reveals my cards for holiday gifts this year, but I don't care. I'm enjoying being crafty and want to share these random attacks of craftiness with all.


Jaunty Fine Print:  photo by Denise Sakaki

 

Nothing says Jaunty like being a functioning alcoholic. No, wait, that's not right. Maybe people might think that when wearing jewelry featuring champagne corks, but who cares -- they're cute as a button, don't you think?

This crafty J'adore-able post was driven by my borderline hoarding problem. I do love a glass of bubbly now and again (and again, and again...), and I always love the printing on the corks. Most have a little signet on the bottom and some have a design on the top as well. I've always been drawn to stamp designs, even cancelled postmarks, and these are no exception, so I had accumulated a small platoon of these corks in my jewelry box, awaiting a crafty fate. Their Special Purpose was revealed recently when I was working on some jewelry projects and I came across some extra screw-in eye hooks, which worked perfectly to allow a coin-shaped slice of cork to hang on a chain or ribbon. The cork was easy enough to slice down using a sharp craft blade and I must say, if you do this at home, the cork of a recently-popped bottle of bubbly is easier to slice through than one that's dried out. Just a crafty FIY. So, at the risk of spoiling some holiday gift surprises this year, I wanted to share this Jaunty crafty project with you! :)


Jaunty Fine Print:   photos by Denise Sakaki