The Brass Paperclip Project

Monday Morning Blues: Blue Tulle Wedding Dress

I stumbled across this dreamy blue dress while surfing on Pinterest and had to track back through several Tubmlr blogs before I finally found the original source...whoa!  Jackpot!  This was part of an entirely dreamy inspiration spread on Love My Dress that cleverly spans a 60's lovestory between a socialite and her rockstar husband.  I'll share a few more photos as a teaser, but you should really check out the whole post for the rest of the story and all the eye candy.  But first, what do you think of this blue wedding dress??  I know, I'm obsessed with blue wedding dresses...I love them.

And let's talk about this tres chic petite gold cake...I love it!  Possibly my new favorite cake....especially with the fresh flowers and leaves.

That's it for today...hope this cured your Monday Morning Blues.  XOXO, Cindi

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Do Good: Charity Water Campaign Update

Big news!  I just received my first CharityWater campaign update!  You may remember that this past September, I donated my birthday to CharityWater and raised almost $1700 to fund a fresh water project somewhere in the word.  (If you missed that story, click that last link to find out what the program is all about and then click the next link to find out the results of my fundraising campaign.) 

Well...(pun intended!!)...Friday afternoon I found out that all the money was sent to Ethiopia!  It's so exciting to receive this update and know that the funds are on their way to the people who need them.  Check out the e-mail below...

How cool is that?  I hadn't heard of A Glimmer of Hope, so I looked it up along with The Relief Society of Tigray and was impressed with both organizations.   A Glimmer of Hope works to help raise women and children in rural Ethiopia out of poverty by providing water, education, health services and micro-financing.  Like CharityWater, the organization is completely funded by an endowment, allowing for 100% of donations to serve those in need.  The video below gives you a glimpse into their work, but I encourage you to check out their website and find out more.  Maybe you'll want to join or start a fundraising campaign of your own.

The Relief Society of Tigray (REST) is also doing a lot of good work and provides a lot of resources and information about on-going relief projects in Ethiopia, as well as a photo and video gallery. 

Thanks again to everyone who supported my campaign!  I hope you feel as good about it as I do.  Feel free to share your own experiences or leave links to your own CharityWater or Glimmer of Hope fundraising campaigns in the comments section below or on FB or Twitter!  I'd love to help you spread the word!  XOXO, Cindi

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Whew! What a Week!

Whew!  What a week.  Things have been rocking behind the scenes here at The Brass Paperclip Project.  I've been working on a dozen new flower girl baskets that I can't wait to list over the next few weeks. Here's a sneak peek...

I also confessed to my recent shopping sins in Thrift Store Confessional No. 10 and featured my first real wedding of the year.  If you missed that post, be sure to check out all the great handmade details in Tiffany and Daniel's Downtown Vintage DIY Wedding

Most importantly, I've been busy stocking my shop with a ton of new merchandise.  If you are looking for great vintage wear-now treasures for winter weddings, Valentine's Day, Mardi Gras or maybe even an Inaugural Ball, I've got you covered!  Take a peek at some of my favorite new items...  (click the links below the photos for more information or to buy.)

Vintage Sequin Purse with Bows

Art Deco Pearl and Rhinestone Brooch

Vintage Brown Velvet Muff

Mid Century Gold Box Purse with Vintage Postage Stamps

Vintage White Embroidered Gloves

Art Deco Rhinestone Shoe Clips

Next week is a short week for me.  My daughter will be home for MLK day on Monday and I'm chaperoning a field trip on Friday.  In between, I'll be listing more new merchandise, copping to my shopping sins and hopefully treating you to my first giveaway of 2013.  I hope you'll come back to visit or stop by on FB or Twitter for a chat.  See ya next week!  XOXO, Cindi

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Thrift Store Confessional No. 10

A week or two before Christmas, I treated myself to a stroll through one of my favorite antique malls....which I guess means that today's post is not technically a thrift store confessional...just a straight up shopping confessional.  ;)

Antique malls are just as fun as thrift stores to me because you never know what you will find and there is always a find to be found.  On this particular day, I took my time, peering into every dark corner...digging through baskets of linens and keeping an eye out for vintage beaded purses.  I came up short in the beaded purse hunt, but did find a cool retro evening bag, a silk velvet muff purse, some awesome doilies and a funky piece of shell art.

The doilies are already washed and in the process of becoming flower girl baskets.

The shell art has been deconstructed and the shell flowers are all ready for a project.  Remember my last shell project?  These will be used in a similar way. I have to admit though, I did feel bad cutting this piece apart...and I found myself silently apologizing to Opal, whose name was signed on the bottom, for destroying her creation. Hopefully, my new designs will do these pretty little flowers justice.  Better to have them out where people can enjoy them than stashed in a dusty old antique mall, right??

If you're still feeling sad about me cutting up this picture, here's a fun image for you to play with that I made from a photo of the shells...looks like it's 100 years old, doesn't it?? And it's even got Opal's name on it.  Just right click on the image to save it to your desktop...and shoot me a picture if you do something cool with it.  :)

The purses are available in my shop now...click the links below the photos for more information about each one.  I will tell you that the muff is one of my favorite recent finds...it is so unique and in fantastic condition...a lucky find, I tell ya!  I dressed it up for the photo with a vintage brooch...I may not be able to part with this thing... 

 

Vintage Brown Velvet Muff Purse

 And the ever-so-chic mid-century purse...I love how streamlined this is and it's really clean...a plus!

Mid Century Gold Lame' Clutch Purse

So, that's my confession for this week.  I hope you enjoyed it.  I've got some more great finds to share from my Christmas trip to Indiana...always find great stuff in the heartland!  Where is your favorite place to treasure hunt??  XOXO, Cindi

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Tiffany and Daniel's Downtown Vintage DIY Wedding

Very excited about today's post...I've had these photos shot by Kaylee Eyelander Photography and Blue Wing Photos under wraps for weeks...just waiting for January, so I could spring them on ya!  Tiffany and Daniel, along with friends and family, poured their hearts and souls into creating this dream wedding.  When I saw all the handmade goodness that went into their big day it gave me chills!  There are tons of charming details, from a re-styled wedding dress to hand-carved, hand-stamped invitations and vintage books galore. I'm going to stop fawning now and let the photos do the talking.  Then the bride will share the inside scoop at the end of the post...enjoy!

What the bride said...  "Our venue was at the historic Monte Cristo hotel in Everett.  We fell in love with the venue and booked it before we were even publically engaged!  There was just something so romantic about the combination of old brick, the intimate ballroom, the fireplace and the mezzanine.  We loved the venue so much that we actually designed our invitations around the hotel entryway.  Daniel carved the image himself and we hand stamped all of our invitations and RSVP cards.

The star of the handmade/vintage items in our wedding was THE DRESS.  Originally, I had planned on wearing my mother’s dress.  She had passed away a couple of years earlier and I couldn't think of a better way of having her with me than wearing her dress.  Unfortunately, when the time came to try it on it just wasn't me.  I was crushed and in tears.  That's when my fairy dressmaker came to the rescue.  Daniel's sister is an amazing seamstress.  Together we designed the dress of my dreams.  We used as much of my mother’s dress as possible including all of the lace, beads, some of the tulle, the little caplet sleeves and of course, the veil.  The veil was left almost as is (we had to remove some of that 80's poof).  In my hair I wore fabric flowers from the same dress materials and vintage buttons gifted by my dressmaker and soon to be sister-in-law.  My accessories included a necklace and bracelet set given to me by my grandmother.  She wore the same set at her prom.  On my pinky finger I wore her original engagement ring as my "something barrowed."  Wrapped around my flower bouquet was handmade lace made by a family member on my grandmother’s side.   I was draped in beautiful items cherished and loved by the women in my family.

We spent a lot of time on handmade items.  It was important for us to use materials we already had on hand.  I salvaged a very large dictionary years ago because I was drawn to all the beautiful pages.  We used pages in as many places as we could.  We used pages as the base of our centerpieces getting as detailed as having the definition for the word "one" on table one.  We also made matching origami flowers and signs out of the dictionary paper.  Piled on top of our dictionary centerpieces were old books (part of my personal collection), vintage keys, gorgeous white flowers and a letterpress stamps used to identify the table numbers.   The flowers were housed in glass milk bottles we had collected over the year.  We drank a whole lot of milk from Twin Brooks Creamery!  We also served our favorite chocolate milk to the kiddos during the reception.  The best part was we were able to turn the bottles in for our deposit funds.

Other fun vintage/handmade touches included the aisle made up of buoys, roses and confetti (from the dictionary paper).  The cake table was covered in lace doilies both handed down to me by family and gathered from second hand stores.  Coloring pages were made by my brother’s wife.  Flowers were arranged by my grandmother and me.  Table assignments were printed on wedding invitation paper and placed behind old windows along with wedding photos of our parents and grandparents.  We used silver champagne glasses and the cake knife set from my parents wedding.  My photographer and friend Anna (Blue Wing Photos) arranged for a beautiful send off in a cream vintage convertible.   We took a spin around the block while our guests waved wands made of ribbons. 

The entire process was a fun whirlwind.  We wouldn't change a thing and we loved putting in so much thought into the details of our wedding."

Thanks so much to Tiffany and Daniel for sharing a glimpse into their fabulous handmade wedding! Be sure to check out their vendor list below for contact info if you're getting married in the Seattle area.  And, if you're interested in having your handmade, vintage or DIY wedding featured on The Brass Paperclip Project, drop me a line at "Brasspaperclip@aol.com"  I'd love to hear from you!

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 ___________________

Wedding Location: Everett, WA / Venue Catering: Monte Cristo Ballroom / Photographers: Kaylee Eylander Photography and Blue Wing Photos / Cake: Central Market Bakery / Chocolate Milk (& vases): Twin Brooks Creamery (bought at central market) / Flowers: Costco and Fifty Flowers / Dress: Designed by the bride, made by the sister of the groom / Bridesmaids dresses: Alfred Sung bought at LaineeMeg Bridal  (formerly "From the Gown Up") / Invitation: Bride and Groom

Monday Morning Blues: Edible Butterfly Cake Toppers

How fun are these butterflies?  I'm feeling the need to plan a tea party just so I can order some from incrEDIBLE toppers on Etsy.  These seriously gorgeous little works of art are printed on edible rice paper with 100% FDA approved edible ink.  Now you can have your cake topper and eat it too!  (Sorry...couldn't resist.)  But seriously...how clever??  Check out some of the other amazing designs...

I'm loving the cupcake topper idea and the fact that you can even have them customized with your name and event date.  Prices are totally affordable too, averaging between $10-$30.  Check 'em out!

XOXO, Cindi

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Thrift Store Confessional No. 9

Forgive me readers...it's been waaay too long since my last confession.  But I promise I'll make it up to you!  I did a lot of shopping over the holidays and have lots of fun stuff to share.  Today's confession actually comes from thrifting I did back in October.  As you can see from the photo above, I scored a pair of PRADA shoes!  ZOMG...they aren't even my size, but for $8 I simply could not leave them on the shelf...LOL.  They were obviously well loved and are a bit shabby, but they have found a new home in my photo prop collection.  You can see them on display in my shop showing off a gorgeous pair of vintage rhinestone shoe clips. Aren't they purty?  (Click the link below the photo for more info about the shoe clips.)

Vintage Rhinestone Shoe Clips

Some other fun finds included three vintage purses, a pile of antique books and two gorgeous vintage Italian rosaries.  Two of the purses are available in my shop now...one, a sweet white beaded bag and the other a funky navy blue one.  I'm saving the third one to embellish. 

Vintage White Beaded Purse

Navy Blue Woven Fabric Purse

The rosaries have been photographed and will be in my shop soon.  Not sure what I will do with the antique books.  I did buy one to give as a gift, but still have four left.  They had a place in my Hogwarts Halloween tablescape, but are now stashed on the floor of my office.  Any ideas?  Well, that's all for now.  Hope you'll stop back next week for sneak peeks of my most recent finds!  If you don't want to miss out on anything, go ahead and click the links below to follow my updates all over the web or subscribe to this blog to have posts sent directly to your e-mail inbox.  XOXO, Cindi

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Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, everyone!  I hope the holidays brought you peace, love, joy and maybe even an engagement ring!   If you are a newly-minted bride-to-be, congratulations! 

I have so much to catch you all up on, but I'm going to start this post off by apologizing for bailing on my Handmade Holiday series mid-stream.  After what happened in Sandy Hook, I just couldn't bring myself to blog.  Anything I could think of to say seemed ridiculous and meaningless.  As the mother of a 6-year-old little girl, the tragedy struck very close to my heart and really shook me to the core.  

I spent a lot of time feeling sad and reading everything I could about what happened...as morbid as that sounds, I find I need a lot of information to process things.  In all the debate about gun control and mental illness, I found myself looking at a bigger picture, questioning what is it about our society that is pushing people to this desperate brink in the first place? 

After a week of sadness and questions, I latched on whole-heartedly to the 26 Acts of Kindness movement that resulted from Ann Curry's tweet.  Even though I could not change what happened, I felt like spreading some love and helping other people in small quiet ways was very cathartic.  My daughter and I took some warm socks and travel toiletries to a teen homeless shelter, took homemade cookies and eggnog to the fire station in our neighborhood and hid lots of candy canes all over the Seattle Center.  We also passed out candy canes, thank you notes and $5 coffee shop gift cards to employees and travelers we encountered at the airport on our holiday trip to Indiana.  It was so much fun to watch the looks of surprise and then grins from unsuspecting people. 

My take-away from this tragedy is that I need to cherish the moments I have with my loved ones, especially my little girl, and never take things for granted.  I feel that I owe that much to the families who lost their loved ones.  I also truly believe that this world can use more kindness, so to that end, I plan to continue springing random acts of kindness on my community and teaching my daughter the value of being kind to others.  I'll definitely share some inspiring ideas on my blog, but will keep most of my own gestures private, because I believe anonymous kindness to unknown recipients is really what it's all about. 

As for my holidays posts, I am going to leave them for now and move forward.  I will finish the second half of my Handmade Hanukkah series and share my planned Christmas posts later in the year.  Moving forward, I have two great giveaways coming up, lots of thrift store confessions to make, real weddings to share and tons of new inventory to add to my Etsy shop.   I'm really looking forward to the new year and hope you are too!

If you're not already following my blog, I hope you'll consider connecting with me at one of the links below and please feel free to reach out and comment.  I'd really like to hear what you're thinking and what you are enjoying or wishing for in this blog or in my shop. 

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Thanks for a great 2012 and all the best in 2013!!  XOXO, Cindi

And be sure to check out Vintage Fangirl's website if you like the gorgeous Victorian postcard I used in this post...it came from her awesome website!