Taa...Daahhh...My Hat for the Kentucky Derby!

So here it is my hat for the Derby Swap hosted by Honeybend Vintage! Pretty and pink for Miss Glammafabulous! I love these things and I hope Kelley does as well! She sent me a darling cowgirl hat in a really fabulous cowgirl box...I will get photos of that up on another post...I love it and my little baby girl will not take this hat off! She wears it with the bow in front! She is all about the girlie things!

Sit back and relax with some pink lemonade and mint juleps and enjoy all the beautiful hats!

Happy May Day!

So our wonderful May Day is more like a winter's day! I left my house this morning to a blizzard...I am just hoping my blooming hydrageas make it through this! But that's okay, Aspen and I are celebrating the day with some vintage hats with lots of good old millinery flowers! So no baskets here...just hats! And this is not even my Kentucky Derby Hat for the swap!

But here is a little tutorial on what I did make for the Derby swap! My shop has been in several fashion shows over the almost nine years I have been open. I want my shows to look like a real, French fashion show, so just nights before I am always toiling away making striking headpieces out of vintage and new millinery and feathers and such. So I thought this would be a perfect Kentucky Derby hat. Here's another peek at my hat I made...lots of pink girls!

So I just take a headband--I have found this works best after trying all sort of things. And I arrange the vintage flowers and feathers how I'd like. I use hot glue and ribbons to tie them onto the headband and I also use that glittery, curly filler you find in the silk flower sections at Hobby Lobby to add a little extra pizazz. Then I glitter birds and butterflies and wire wrap those onto my headpiece. Once it's done you have this fabulous hat for the models to wear on the catwalk...Or the to the derby!

the inspiring little tea cup...

So I mentioned being at an estate sale on Valentine's Day... Well I just had to have this little antique tea cup. I have always love these shorter, fatter little ones in the pastel colors and I always scoop them up...well this one had a repair on the bottom so I couldn't actually use it, but it happens to be the perfect Easter colors. So I got to thinking it would make the cutest little Easter basket. So out to the backyard at nine o'clock at night I go to get a little piece of Virginia Creeper and some vintage flowers and glitter and there you go! How darling is this basket now! I think Angelina fiber makes perfect Easter grass, then I added the little peep. I love the old peeps and have little collections of them milling about all over. This is a newer repro of an old one. I took it out of a box of Bethany Lowe ones I sell at my boutique and it had the perfect home. Now I just have to decide if I should sell this thing. This always happens to me. I fall in love with it before it hits the shelves and I think I need it!

Then, I just had to make another...so I hunted down a different tea cup I thought I could part with and made this one last night. Very sweet too.

I put them in with the rest of the spring folk art at my shop in my old cabinet here. They don't have price tags yet though...can I part with them?

one more close up!

Okay, gotta run....Aspen just woke up from her nap and spilled dried fruit all over the floor...hhmm....