Junk to Jewel: Vintage Skirt Hem Marker to Inspiration Display

Lesley Riley is one of my favorite artists—her art always makes me smile. I think it is her use of all those great vintage photos. But whatever the reason I think her work and her projects are just plain fun!

How lucky was I to find that one of her quilts is featured on one of the cards in our new Inspired! Creativity Cards deck. I thought this month it might be fun to incorporate the card into a little Junk to Jewel project.

I really wanted a way to display Lesley’s Creativity Card. It was something I wanted up in my studio reminding me to let loose and “play” a little! So, I put together a little scrapbook page from some leftover paper and ribbon scraps that were hanging around my desk. I glued it all together on a piece of heavy book board, that I first painted with white crackle paint. Done!

It really was that easy. Now I just had to find a way to show off my finished piece. Hmmm – not quite so easy. While looking for an easel, I found one of my vintage skirt hem markers..from a long ago collection I can’t bear to part with. But that gave me an idea….

The Junk

vintage skirt hem marker

All it took was a hemming tool, a vintage clothes pin, a small bolt and nut, and my display was good to go. One hint: The one major tip in construction is to make the hole easier to drill by taking the clothespin apart first!

The Jewel

Inspiration Display

I can’t say this was originally my idea. I’d actually seen a photo idea like this linked to the Junk Market Style website, which by the way is a great place to find some fun ideas using all sorts of treasures. But more about that at a later time.

I do believe I will need to make some more of these treasures. Maybe position the clothes pins at different heights for an interesting display or use two clothes pins—one at the top and one at the bottom to hold your photos or notes in place. Can’t you see these as great place card holders for a quilt guild tea, or as identifiers for the dishes at a pot luck gathering of all your sewing buddies? Or even to show off some special birthday or, dare I say it, Christmas cards. The options are endless….

As a bonus, here are a few other ideas for bringing Inspired! Creativity Cards into your creative projects:

Add a hole to the top of a favorite card and string some pretty ribbon through the hole. I’m always looking for something to mark a page while cruising through my cookbooks or planning a gathering, and these cards make great bookmarks for my kitchen cookbooks.
Clip or tie a card with ribbon to a bamboo skewer and add it to you favorite house plant for a cheery and unexpected plant decoration.
Wrap cards of choice with ribbons individually. Write your guests names on small tags and tuck them into the ribbon around the cards. Super cute place card idea!
Fan a few cards out in a dish on your coffee table. Your guests can look through them while they relax.
Sandwich some note paper in between two of the Creativity Cards. Make holes and use ribbon to bind the three layers together as a mini covered notebook to tuck into your quilt class bag.

Next month’s junk: Card Works Card Building System

What will Sue make out of that?

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Junk to Jewel is a series where, once a month, C&T author and editorial team member Sue Astroth chronicles her upcycling adventures with thrift store finds.