Astoria Higgins

I have a friend, V, who lives down the street from me. We became friends because of our connection to Etsy. I have had a vintage shop there for a few years and she was interested in starting a shop to sell her handsome creations. So we connected and now share information and gossip, which is so fun!

The name of her shop is a.a.higgins and it is where she sells vintage and embellished jackets, accessories, and artwork.

V. scours thrift shops, antique stores, and outdoor antique markets to find jackets from the 1940's-60's. They are luxuriously made from rich fabrics like cashmere, Irish tweed, and brocade. Then she deconstructs them slightly and adds more treasures that she has found along the way--buttons and brooches and occasionally collars.

(One of my favorites!)

She is quite meticulous with her work, taking great care with the sewing and stitching, as well as making sure the accessories coordinate with the coats. They are all one-of-a-kind and because of this, each individual jacket is only available in that size. 

Asymmetrical jacket

The styles are unique also; some are fitted and others are looser. Some end at the waist and others fall below the waist. The colors range from mustard to rose, camel hair to purple and more.

Brocade cocktail jacket

She even uses a few military style jackets, including some for men. No pins on these, but she does add arm patches and different buttons.

  Patriotic Feminine Military

The buttons used are antiques, of course , as are the stunning brooches.

There is no room here to show off all of these beautiful creations. I'll leave that to her shop!
She also sells silverware magnets and diary doors. Don't know what those are? Well, then you'll have stop by and see them!

French General Freebie

Not long ago, I began following a blog by the name of The Warp and The Weft,  whose subtitle is Scraps About French General.  Now for those of you who are unfamiliar with this name, French General is a brand of delightful stickers, fabrics, paper packs, ribbons, books, and who-knows-what-else. It is also a shop in Los Angeles (and online) where all of this stuff is sold. I was familiar with some of their goods, because their stickers and a few other things are sold at Michael's. 

Upon my first visit to the blog, I read the current (at that time) post, entitled Some Sort of Wonderful Giveaway. Well, of course, that caught my eye! Everyone loves giveaways, don't they? I do, if there isn't a lot asked of me. All this required was a comment about one's summer crafting. Having recently dyed buttons, as you may recall from an earlier post here, I dutifully left my comment and crossed my fingers. 

Lo and behold, the next posting on their blog, entitled The Oprah Moment, stated that they were going to give their new paper crafting collection to everyone who commented on the prior post (it had to be done by a certain date). Yippee!! I sent in my address and a copy of my comment and waited for it to arrive in the mail.

It took a few weeks, but I received it the other day and was so excited to find lots of stuff!

They sent button stickers,

assorted tags and twine, ribbons (the little spool is a shank button!)

 and these little cuties-- tiny stickers and tiny buttons.

 

I have no idea how I will use these treats, so for now they will sit out, where I can look at them and hope inspiration strikes. I'm sure it will, sooner or later. 

 For now though, I urge you to visit their "Brocante Francaise" and check out their "Petite Bijoux."

(links above, in first paragraph)

Wordless Wednesday... Button Bag

 

Gift from a friend, who saw it and couldn't resist getting it for me

Hat Trick

Let me emphasize first off that I am not a hat person. They don't work for my face and I have very short hair, so it just plain doesn't do much for me. But, I always wear one when I take a walk and I always take one when I go on vacation because that usually involves a lot of walking too.

I have a very nice "straw" hat (it's 100% cotton) with a brim that I bought last year because the hat I had, though I was very fond of the black and white stripes, looked terrible on me.

Nice enough, but a bit boring. It has a braided leather band. Never occurred to me that I could change it, until last week when an "AHA!"moment occurred (can't remember what triggered it). I could take off the cord and replace it with lace and buttons!

So I set to work...

Pulled out the lace bag and dumped it out.

It is all antique passed down from my great grandmother, grandmother, and mother. A lot of it was handmade by the grannies. I've thought about selling it, but I'm selfish, so I don't, which is good or there wouldn't be any for this project!

Picked out this crazy stuff, which was probably the edging from a tablecloth, as it is circular.

Nothing like being stuffed in a bag for years...

Anyway, I ironed it and a couple of smaller pieces...

and set to work.

I keep all of my thread in this lovely sewing box my mother made for me when I was a teenager learning to use a sewing machine.

Got the lace band on and made some "flowers" (I use that term loosely). I used to make fondant flowers when I worked with pastries for many years, but these lace ones were not to my liking.

Besides, as I  held them onto the hat and looked in the mirror, I realized I am not a flowery hat kind of gal.

So, of course the next thing that came to mind were...BUTTONS!!

Combed through my stash and decided to use the mother of pearl 

ones because I have so many (those of you who love buttons will understand).

Choose a large one to cover the gap in the lace where the flowers were going to go, but not enough of the fraying edges were covered, so I added some smaller ones.

Then I sewed more of the small ones around the band.

Ta-dah!!

Not sure I could make a career of it, but it works for me.

A B C ... A Button Craft

I was searching on the Internet for some odds and ends to use in a piece of jewelry I'm creating for a show at the gallery that carries some of my bracelets. It has a cat theme, so I have already found some relevant charms and buttons. Wanting some other bits to use, I thought about looking for buttons or charms with initials or letters to spell out a specific word that would be intermingled with the other stuff. Suddenly I came to this site and was fascinated by the idea of sewing initials onto nine hole buttons. 

Why, I could do that, I thought, and went over to my stash...

...only to find, yes, you guessed it, they are all either one, two, three or four hole. not a 9-hole in site. Duh!

I won't bore you with the rest of this tale, as you either have to make them with sculpey clay or purchase them from the German site. I do want to share the website, Style-Files, where I found this cute idea.

 

They actually found it via the designers on a German website ABC Button .

                 

On the spur of the moment, because I was so taken with them, I pinned the picture to my Brilliant Buttons board on Pinterest. Several minutes later, over fifty people had either re-pinned it or 'liked' it! There is definitely some buttonmania going on out there!

Pinteresting Site

Lately, I've been reading more and more about Pinterest  , the online pinboard, where you can create "boards" with images and comments about most any subject (no pornography or other blatantly offensive material, of course). It is a digital scrapbook of sorts.

 

People have been writing about how much they enjoy it and how it is good for raising the views on their shops. One cannot just sign up, however, because it is by "invitation," only.  Perhaps because Pinterest is fairly new and they are possibly trying to create an allure. After all what a great way to spread the word. 

 

So I took the plunge and requested an invitation. It took about two days for them to get back to me. I was accepted! (don't think there is much in the way of criteria here). Here is the link to my page, if you are curious... autenavintage

 

For my first board, I decided to use buttons as my subject, due to my new-found interest in them. Diving into an Internet search for items beyond the ordinary, I found these and made my first, which I call:

• Brilliant Buttons

   
   
  

  
  

  Due to copyright issues, they must be credited, which the site does for you, along with a link to where they were found.
  
  

  I belong the the Ecochic team on ETSY, which consists of vintage jewelry sellers. So, to be a good participant and promoter, I pinned some pieces of garnet (my birthstone) jewelry from some of their shops:

• January Jewels

   

   

  

  
  

  As an avid reader, I've been lucking out in finding some extraordinary writers lately. Thought I'd share off some of my finds in the third board:

Explore These Books

 

   

 

They are all a work in progress, as they may be added to at any time.

It is a social networking website (what isn't these days?), so not long after you post items, you receive notices about others who like what you posted and/or who have re-pinned an item to their boards, as well as gaining new followers. However, they frown upon blatant self-promotion. I noticed that several shopowners have dedicated one board among their many to their shop.


Both Etsy and ArtFire have recognized the power of Pinterest and have placed "Pinit" buttons on their pages, so that the proprietor's items may be pinned on someone's board.

Some have said that it becomes addictive and I can understand now what they mean. I now leave it to you to explore this entertaining site.