Nancy Drew costum order

THE MYSTERY OF THE BRASS BOUND TRUNK

INSPIRATION for this commission Nancy Drew suitcase.

The process

I sold this Nancy Drew suitcase to a school out in California, later I had an inquiry in my mail box from my main funky findZ on line store asking if I could make another nacy Drew suitcase , this was from a sister who wished to give it to her sister who is a Nancy Drew fan. she had favorite book covers and had a very special fabric which I scaned and made prints , I have provided it here for a free image to toerhs who love Nancy Drew. She wrote me a letter expalining how special this fabric was to her, I did not have the heart to cut it up . I used quite a bit of this in my design, loving the blue.

FREE TO COPY!

The two cases are very different, yet I enjoy them both, admittedly , and it is clear to see , I spent quite a bit more time on this second case. I applied allot of acrylic paints and finished off a brass look with gold pearlized paints.

First Nancy Drew that sold to education foundation in California

Custom order Recycled vintage suitcase "Day at the Beach" by C. Reinke

CUSTOM ORDER
groovy funky and functional
take her on the plane

Vintage recycled suitcase title 'Day at the Beach " (view transaction here )was purchase, after payment the buyer noticed that it mentioned that it was not recommend for airplane travel at which time I offered to make a similar suitcase that could go into the belly of the plain, with much style I might add.

Here is the result. I found the most groovy vintage 1960s fabric in the same color tones as the original case, this is a Samonsite which is a better case than the original, I did not add beads or outside trim other than vintage rick rack and lace which could be covered in varnish.

Funky inside when you open your case! The same fabric, vintage trim , soft feathers and gems of frogs and turtles. Note the nice straps for holding in your luggage.


View more of recycled art by C.REINKE

This case has an extra compartment!

SAMSONITE VINTAGE QUALITY

Funky Findz VINTAGE glasses resulted in being Featured in Madison Magazine THE CURB-Video of Reinke recycled phone !!!

The magazine with moxie, produced by UW-Madison students for the bold,
smart Wisconsin woman

This pair of glasses caught the attention of
Madison Wisconsin reporter Julie Brenner

Which you can see are featured in this very nice fashion spread, number 5, that's my store FUNKYFINDZONLINE.etys.com

Crafting a career: Wisconsinites on Etsy

Interesting and informative aritcle written by Brenner, where my recycled chocolate phone is featured.

How did this all happen?
I received another in box at my main etsy store from someone asking if I would send them a pair of vintage glasses so they could photograph them for a magazine article they were doing in my home state of Wisconsin , at the capital city of Madison. She promised to mail them right back, in the letter she gave me her phone number and other details. Initially I was going to delete it and considered even reporting the message as spam for who in their right mind would send merchandise to anyone without them paying for it? What did they take me for? It was a collage paper called the curb both in print and on line .

I checked out the link of the on line paper and called the author of the letter,Julie Brenner. We had a nice conversation , and she seemed sincere, I liked her too she. During the course of our discussions I asked her what she was writing about, and she replied that it would feature etsy female artists/designers. I promptly told her about my recycled art and promised to send links of my recycled art section and blog. After I learned that the artists had been chosen prior to contacting myself, a bit disappointed , I chatted with her about etsy and asked if she ever heard of regretsy ?She had not. I shared my experience with her about my phone. Which can be read at these two blogs FEATURED MIXED EMOTIONS and REGRETESTY freind or foe of etsy? Brenner became interested in writing or featuring a side link or feature on regretesy with my recycled mink phone. I sent her links to the site, to the page that featured my phone and my two blog posts covering my mixed emotions on the entire ordeal.

I decided to trust her, what the heck, I would just send out the glasses ...if my hunch was wrong I wasn't out that much . I mailed them out. In the meantime, when she wrote me that she was indeed interested in regretsy and asked me "Would you take an interview on the subject.? "Yes, I would love to!" was my reply, realizing that any and all publicity is good. In fact some have said that "Notoriety is the best publicity of all". I simply told her my process of feeling completely demoralized to elated, after my phone sold.

Yesterday , Brenner sent me the link to the article, or rather video that she put together. on the subject. I feel she did a very nice job, I think I sound like I talk to fast and the audio on my recording is not the best. But hey, I made it to youtube! Please check out the page Regresty Friend or foe of etsy by Brenner .


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The moral to this story? Sometimes it pays to trust...and put aside any shame,fear, embarrassment whatsoever in the name of getting your name out there...in the world. I am proud that I made it to Madison , I used to live there for 11 years when I owned Caturas Framing Gallery. For myself, I feel that all my hard work, effort and persistence has paid off in this momentary glimpse of fame! Thanks Julie for spotting my glasses at etsy and pushing to bring regretesty to other etsy sellers.

Julie Brenner

Found a friend at Eureka Springs art show

Just Reminiscing .... a distinctive touch of yesteryear!

Karen busy at work on another master piece, adding charms,lockets, watches or buttons really whatever hits her fancy and fits into her vision of the design at hand.





I made a rather quick decision the week before Thanksgiving, my mother invited me to visit her, she lives in Branson Missouri for the Holidays. My long and dearest friend, whom I lived with in Sedona Arizona, who now lives in Missouri, while talking one night over a stiff brandy, suggested while I was visiting , I should drop down to Eureka springs Arkansas , meet her and do the fall art show . Why not? I frantically packed and created smaller items that would fit into my car, here are two examples, I enjoyed making these immensely by the way and am itching to make more.

When we walked into the door I spotted a women with a moss green vintage coat with golden mink collar and immediately I had that sense of recognition, in fact I made a comment to her that she looked familiar, we exchanged causal greetings and both got to work setting up shop sort to speak.

Garvin and Victoria are stain glass artists, altered art and jewelers, here we see them hard at work putting together the stand required to hang their beautiful works of stain glass. It was a very frenzied time , as we arrived at 3:00 and had to be out sharply at 5:00, the only uncompromising rule the artists had to obey. We barely made it, in fact towards the end we had to throw items under the counter to clean up for the judging of the best booth. No hope for us, simply not enough time. Did we have a shot? maybe. Gavin bought a light show projector which was indebted to play with the crystal and glass and simply dazzle the crowd. Not enough time, fabirc or space, live and learn.

This is simply brilliant, Karen takes vintage/antique lace table clothes, dollies, etc and creates beautiful stunning one of a kind vests, she designs them and her talented mother puts them together by hand.




Once we got our space set up, I could instantly see why I had my "lovely to see you again" (Moody Blues lyric) moment with Karen. I was instantly drawn to her booth and her work , which I immediately fell in love with! You can see why. I purchased a charm bracelet with the proceeds from my first sale and put it on. It has a big locket (with opens) covered in leopard print and is chunky and elegant. Towards the end of the show, we exchanged cards and I ran the idea past her of joining forces with my etsy store I purchased some of her vintage buttons with the intention of listing them for sale at my etsy store and here they are !! It is my hope that we forge a meaningful collaboration!





Recycled Artist--Karen Fererro
I don't ever remember ever becoming an artist, I have always been one . I have created a career that is just an extension of who I am. A lot of my art is inspired by found objects, antique keys, old metal objects and unusual things. I have endless supply of ideas to repurpose items to make a decorative ornament, a wearable item or a piece of jewelry. My designs are born out of everyday things we see all around us but don't usually notice. I love to adopt objects others want to throw out. Creative uses for cast-away items, call it recycling up-cycling creating new design with individuality and style. My work reflects my adventurist spirit my determination enthusiasm and off beat humor.

EASY HOW TO make your own Christmas suticase

Why make a Christmas suitcase?
Several reasons:

S T O R A G E - R E C Y C L E - GIFT GIVING

These are the handiest of all my creations. Making a Christmas suitcase from an old useless suitcase into a storage unit for your most valuable ornaments, hand made stockings, linens is a must. The plastic containers sold in department stores do not last or hold up, they crack with time. These hard shell suitcases, such as the Samsonite, are nearly indestructible. I store my best ornaments , in them. I take them out and set them around the tree or fireplace while they are empty.

I have sold them to mothers who have wrapped all their individual packages and placed them all in the suitcase and used it, as part of their gift and it replaces the bag.

This is a process that takes only 4-5 hours , any one can do it! For those of you who might be intimidated by complex design elements that I have used on my suitcases why not try this first? Instead of using papers , you can use fabric and just do a simple cover on front and back, apply glitter to the sides,a couple of die cut accents and trim out. Use a medium size hard shell suitcase any color.

Step 1: pick out your fabrics. I used a precut Christmas quilting bundle , they were the prefect size. These fabrics had glitters incorporated in them.



The color of your suitcase does not really matter, this is a good time to use one of the duller cases because you will be covering it entirely.
STEP 2:First lay down the fabric, there is no need to iron it as you can smooth it out, I choose different but complimentary fabric for the front and back but you can use the same on both sides if you wish . Use Modpodge

STEP 3:I mixed up a THICK paste of glitters to apply to the sides.This is a quick fix and adds lots of Christmas sparkle!

STEP 4: Make any repairs in the inside with the ever faithful glue gun. In this case the inside side lining had come undone. I simply reapplied it with a extra hot glue stick and gun.



STEP 5: Apply a matching fabric to the inside front bottom. I painted glitter on the sides, and added this cute clear die cut rain deer accent. (glue is drying)

STEP 6:Pick out your trim and apply to edges to finish off your look, I used a charming vintage green loop trim on the edges and added a new red green trim to the outside center.

STEP 7 : Now comes the funnest part, adding your embellishments. You can really add anything, rhinestones, plastics gems, sequin patches. For ease, I put die cut candy canes on the top and three cute Christmas trees on.




Step 8: Once a thin coat of varnish is applied we are finished! I suggest even adding a varnish to fabric as it can be easily cleaned and will hold up much better. However you do not have to add varnish to fabric if you don't want to. This is a fairly simple process. Now you can store your Christmas stockings in this years to come Going to grandmas house for Christmas?, Take this case and be the hit of the party!


STEP 9: yes sign your work and date it, you are an artist , this is YOUR CREATION, BE PROUD OF IT

Finished inside


Buy this suitcase here

Funky Christmas suitcase Learn how it is created

Funky pin up girl suitcase-

I had previously bloged about my process in making a Halloween suitcase and have decided now to try to blog most of my creations. For one my sales on etsy.com are going up, I sold two suitcases last week , one which is a custom order. I have found that when I am posting to etsy.com I can only have a total of five pictures which is really not enough to show all the facets of the suitcase, I thought that if I bloged each cases process I could then direct those looking at my suitcases to the link of the post and they can see for themselves how it was created and view more pictures.

STEP 1 : choose your vintage suitcase, it can be dirty, scratched up, the inside does not need to be in good shape, however this case has a great inside. I choose red because I wanted to use the red elements of the case in my design. Later I will show how you can choose and recycle any color suitcase.

STEP 2: select your papers and think out your over all design. I was inspired by two vintage cardboard cutouts that I found at a thrift store for ten cents each. I wanted to make a funk Christmas and for me, nothing says funk better than good ol zebra print , so I have some zebra issue paper, I love to use tissue , as it has a transparent element when mod poded on.

In addtion I found some vintage Christmas cards and was inspried from an artist book that has vintage women with funny sayings .




 STEP  3: layout your design . Get a feel  for what  look you are going for. View this like a base coat as other elements will be applied later. Once you are satisfied, remember the placement and begin to apply with Mod Podge. The heavy cardboard peices required another artist glue to secure.  

I applied the tissue paper first

never forget any side of your suitcase

STEP 4: after the one side has been completed, while it is drying I address the top of the suitcase, bringing in design elements from the front to insure that the overall look is cohesive.

Here is the other side of my suitcase ater I have applied all the tissue paper, candy-cane vintage cardboard decoration, , images of women in  nightgowns/ slips from the WARD catalog, and other cutouts I found. I added the Santa hat to the man. 

dont forget the sides bring your design around the edges

Both sides of the top have the base of papers applied

STEP 5 : choose your color platter of acrylic paints,I recommend acrylics especially when doing a vinyl case. Oils work nicely on leather and cardboard, but nothing beats acrylics on the hard shell suitcase. I prefer to use GOLDEN, They are the most vibrant color you can find. Remember when choosing your colors you want both highlights and low lights to bring the paper images into a seamless state.

crimson , lime green ,cobalt  blue, yellow and opaque gold

I used a fair amount of Crimson red to brighten the entire red suitcase, I painted out scratches and other imperfections. The cobalt blue was used for shadows, green and yellows for highlights, on edges for example and the gold iridescence (fine) gave the suitcase a lovely shimmer.

Paint the edges of the papers you have applied

I believe that the application of paints is one of the most important steps to a beautiful finished recycled work of art. I blend or scruff in all the edges of the papers. As you can see in this close up I matched the edge of the image with the paint and brought it around the evergreen leaf with is placed in a frame like fashion. I love this step it is relaxing and one can really utilized their painting skills here if they would like. You can extend the image, paint new pictures if you like, be creative! have fun .

mixing  glitters to give depth

Step 5 Apply glitter . I mix my glitters like paint, using Martha Stewarts fine glitter line and mod podge has the fixative. .

I covered all the empty spaces with my glitter mixture

Choose your trim! I have a large (never enough however) selection of trims