What to do with Sheila the mannequin...

Remember Sheila my most recent boot sale mannequin?

Well, that blue fabric had to go. It was a foam backed synthetic fabric and the foam had degraded so Sheila was leaving piles of sand-like substance wherever she was put.
I removed the old covering and gave her a good scrub in the shower to get all the 'sand' off.

I mentioned that I wanted to try some decoupage on her. Let me show you my inspiration!

First up:

 This is by Ellinee from Ellinee journal where she gives a helpful tutorial too! Vintage sheet music! So beautiful!

Next up:

 

Vintage dress patterns used to give a corset effect! Isn't that great? This one is by Louise at

 Dearest Jackdaw

She also gives a tutorial on how to achieve this.

But I think the one I shall try to emulate, given the shape and style of my dress form is this one.

Now these don't look decoupaged at all, I think they are moulded card or something similar...but I figured I could try and achieve this look with brown paper. This picture is from Timeworn Interiors 
which is a lovely blog, so much eye candy...

Thank you ladies for giving me permission to show your images!

Back to Sheila:

She's stripped  and waiting! But I'm very overwhelmed as the wooden flooring has arrived, I have to empty the living room and rip off the skirting boards, I have to decorate behind a radiator that's off, and Christmas is coming. So don't hold your breath....

Sunday Booty in the rain...

I was up at 6 and by the time I left the house it had started to rain and I did wonder if anyone would be at the boot sale. There were problems galore when I arrived at Hitchin market with no electricity, (the stalls are usually lit) and no tables for some of the pitches. But I managed to find  some goodies!
First, I'll show you what I got last week. This vintage triple mirror.

 It matches our fake French fifties furniture and will be painted when I get round to doing the set. I just need to decide on a colour. I'm sending away for some autentico chalk paint charts as they seem to have a lot more colours than Annie Sloan, and I'm too nervous to use home-made chalk paint on plastic that will be handled! Anyway this was only £10 and they go for around £30 on ebay.
This is in my daughters room, and is a little more grown up than the ladybird bookshelf that sat in the same place.

The ladybirds are my pride and joy and are the one thing I'd grab if the house was on fire! I collected them from boot sales and charity shops in the days before ebay and it took me 6 years to complete the sets! The Green Umbrella was the hardest one to find! The shelf is an old oak family piece that I had in my room when I was a child and I painted it a few years ago. They can't stay here on the windowsill as they will fade...

So, onto today. I got ANOTHER mannequin!

Oops. I can't help it. It's lost its legs and is called Sheila apparently. I want to attempt some decoupage on this! It was only £4. Sheila has an awesome pointy bosom.

I picked up this sweet vintage Davos sledge for £20.

 Not sure if we'll use it for sledging or display purposes but it was a bargain at £20, even if I did take it home on the bus, attracting the usual funny looks. Luckily the mannequin fit inside my Cath Kidston shopping trolley so I didn't look totally bonkers. I hope.

I found some funny tiny plastic clowns that sit on top of each other. I know nothing about them but they seem pretty old.

I wonder if they're toys or cake decorations...

Now all the Hallowe'en/half term high jinks are over I can get on with some painting this week. I'm getting very impatient to do something! It has been nice having a clear dining room but it won't last! The dining table is already vanishing fast under piles of junk...

Happy Sunday everyone. I hope your boot sales were plentiful.

Linking up with Faith Hope and Charity Shopping

Home made chalk paint and other adventures...

I love Hallowe'en. In a big way. So when I found this framed print of people in devil costumes by M. de Solar in the charity shop I thought it would be the perfect addition to my Hallowe'en decorations. Only problem was the frame which was a gaudy gold. Not very spooky. So I mixed up some matt black emulsion with plaster of paris dissolved in hot water and painted it without sanding or priming. I'm very impressed with the adhesion. I thought the black might wear off a bit when I waxed it but it hasn't. I think M. de Solar was a costumier in France and complete books of his work go for hundreds of pounds.

Last night whilst watching the X factor it suddenly dawned on me how I could finish off my mannequin seen here, here and here so I dug out this book...

Which has lots of useful styles of calligraphy in chart form for cross stitching like this

and this

and a short while later I came up with this

I explained to my husband I was aiming for the style of vintage French grain sacks and his little eyes glazed over. Bless him.
I'm really pleased I left the bottom of the mannequin cover loose so I could take it off by undoing the lacing!

I found this vintage piece of linen at a flea market, it's a nightie holder I think, but quite holey and I thought I'd turn it into a pretty cushion. But the thing that I didn't like was the yellow of the embroidery. I just thought it would be so much nicer if it were all neutral. So I got some 'Dylon Pre Dye' which bleaches the colour right out of all natural fabrics.
Wow! That stuff stinks! The kitchen smelled like 20 rotting cabbages and my poor husband was threatening to leave as his office is next to the kitchen.
And here is the result

An epic fail. Looks like the yellow is there to stay. And I still get a whiff of cabbage every time I use the washing machine...

In other vintage linen news I got a lovely old mangle cloth from Hitchins Friday flea market in the  more unusual blue colourway. If you don't know, these are what you wrapped your clothes in before you'd put them through the mangle and they're about 3 metres long and make lovely table runners. If I ever unearth the dining table I'll show you how it looks!

The only other cool thing I got this week was this globe lamp for my daughter from a charity shop in town

Yeah, it's wrecking the whole French country vibe I was going for with her room but hopefully it will put a stop to questions like, ''Is England in London?''
And we shall call the room vintage eclectic.

But the most exciting thing of all is that I have finally mastered getting photos and text on my blog exactly where I want them! Finally! ;)

Delighted to be linking with The Rose Garden In Malevik saturday show off.
And  Magpie Monday
And Ta-dah Tuesday at Faith Hope and Charity Shopping 
(My big ta-dah is managing to load the Christmas swap thingy onto my side bar. It only took me 24 hours and invoved me emailing the image to myself, not sure if there's an easier way!?)
And Coastal Charm

The finished mannequin!

 It was Friday afternoon, almost a week since I had blogged. I had created very little. Well, homemade soup and a cake are not really blogworthy. The pressure was building. I had to actually do something.
So, I picked up the partially made cover for the boot sale mannequin and started sewing it all together. Here is how it used to look. It looks better in the picture! It was very badly done! You can just see some sellotape near the neck which held the fabric on. Nice.
I had decided on hessian as it's very cheap and I thought it might emulate the old Stockman mannequins. Good choice! You cannot see a single stitch let alone a whole row of wonky stitches! Hessian is very forgiving!

 My dear husband came in before I had done the neck and said, ''It looks like a hooded executioner from a horror film!''
He is good like that.
Hooded executioner is not the look I was going for.

 I seem to have ended up with sexy boudoir meets er, scarecrow...but I like it! I was intending on properly finishing the bottom edge by stapling it to the base but I quite like the dangly look so I left it.

And my favourite bit? The ribbon laced back!
It's not a patch on the work of the lady at Corset Laced Mannequins but it's good enough for me and cost a fraction of hers. I got myself some citrisolve from ebay and might attempt to add a small graphic from the Graphics Fairy at some point. I'll have a practise on off cuts of hessian first!

Linking with http://www.funkyjunkinteriors.net/2012/09/sns-154-picture-perfect-full-room.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Fee

and
http://maleviksrosentradgard.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/saturday-show-off-109.html




http://faithhopeandcharityshopping.blogspot.co.uk/


http://www.carterscottage.net/2012/10/my-monday-muse-vii-winner.html

Knick of Time

and Funky Junk Interiors; Party Junk 185

Wahey!

Remember the mannequin I found at the boot sale? Yes, yes, it was a long time ago...I wanted to redo it in the style of the ones at Corset Laced Manneqins.
Well, I have FINISHED it!
And I'm rather pleased!
I promise I will be dragging her out into the garden tomorrow for a photo shoot come rain or shine!

Mannequin progress and boot sale tragedy

 Progress is slow on last weeks boot sale mannequin but I have stripped off the bad upholstery and the underlying foam layer that was held on with sellotape! It had a really horrible smell which I imagine is febreeze or something equally vile so the whole thing got a good shower and scrub with washing up liquid. It smells better now. The carcass seems to be fibreglass. I spent hours yesterday covering her in new wadding and then draping various fabrics from my stockpile over her to see what works. Covering her was a real pain and much harder than I had presumed! Anything with lines would make the job harder as they would have to be straight, not pulled out of line and looking wiggly so I had to give up on ticking and tweed which I would have loved. (I've got a big thing for tweed!)

I had some vintage florals but then I thought they might look messy with anything draped over them. I don't want clashing so I decided plain was the way forward.

I've actually decided to go with hessian. It will go with everything and hopefully if I paint the legs black it will look a bit like the old (and valuable) stockman mannequins.
I just need to get some more hessian on tuesday so I can get to work...

The great thing about having blogged about her is I feel pressurised to get going with it. Normally she would sit around for months until my husband would get really pissed off and force me into action.
I did think about patchwork as a cover for her! I love vintage textiles and have quite a stash and it would be a nice way to use them but it would take a while...so I figured hessian was the best bet.

 Todays boot sale was okay and I managed to get this little beauty for £4. It's an original 1960's model and in good condition.

 But I narrowly missed getting a set of old Avery scales from a sweetie shop for £17. Can you imagine my torment? They had just been sold and they fetch £100 on ebay. Sooo wish I'd got up sooner.

Picked up this little stool which is a nice shape. I'll paint the legs and recover the top. This also has an unpleasant odour and has been given a bath. The foam is hopefully drying out in the garden.

I've ordered some milk paint from Canada which I can't wait to try! Perhaps this stool will be my guinea pig.




Hope your weekend boot sale and charity shop adventures went better than mine!

Car boot sale mannequin

Look what I scored at todays boot sale! It wasn't cheap at £25.00 and it's in need of some carpentry and a total re-cover but I'm smitten!

So, what to cover her in? A bit of Cath Kidston? Hessian coffee and potato sacks? Or perhaps an old French linen mangle coth.... Watch this space...

What would you do with her?