Saturday, June 5, 2010

her cup of tea, she would admit to no one (belle and sebastian)

The materials: Sundry china pieces, mostly ugly and mismatched.
The source: The local Catholic thrift store (the dollar shelf).
The story: This chapter of my life will be called Sorry, I Can't Do That Because I Am Going To A Wedding Then. Find me one single, unmarrying friend in this city! I dare you! (To be read with a knowing chuckle as well as the overwhelming certainty that I mean all of my marrying friends only rest and joy and peace.)
All of this means that homegirl owes lots of ladies lots of bridal shower gifts. Having finally finished and put to rest the life chapter of Nah, I'll Just Eat This Out Of The Bag, I am growing in my awareness of wanting to own pretty things off of which to serve vegan muffins or quinoa stirfry or cheeze-itz. So, the end result of this project was a handful of dainty serving platters, completely unique and ladylike. (AND I learned recently that these are also called "salvers", which comes from the Spanish "salva", or "to save." And THAT comes from the custom of tasting the food and libations of the King before he could eat lest he die in a poisonous mess.)

The How To Do It:
1. Go to any salvage or thrift shop.
2. Test out combinations of various china pieces to the chagrin of the clerks behind the counter.
3. Secure some strong glue from The Guy From the Local Hardware Store Who Looks Like Ben Franklin.
4. Glue those suckers together. (When I did this, I left myself ten minutes for the glue to dry before having to arrive at the bridal shower. Don't do that.)
The cost:
$8 (eight pieces of discount china) + $.30 (amount of glue used) = $8.30



And now welcome to a segment we call This Person Has Surpassed Me, in which I catch wind of someone doing excellent work and would like to tell you about them. Today's guest is Tegan Brozyna. We were pals in college, and I was always struck with her whimsy and how that was expressed in the form of art. Working from Philly now, Tegan is part of the Church Studios community of artists and is creating lovelythings.

3 comments:

  1. Okay, so I made a comment on this right when you posted it on my phone, but somehow it didn't get posted. On Saturday, I was in Bed, Bath, and Beyond waiting for my boring registry gift to be wrapped when I got your post. I was both inspired and distressed. I had just spent $40.02 on a wedding gift that I didn't even really like because my creativity is being poured into three little girls under three and time is of the essence. The ironic thing about it is that I probably could have made this in the time I was waiting for my sad, mass produced gift to be wrapped. (sorry to my former roommate jess who received the gift...but hey, everyone needs towels). As I sat in the borrowed lawn chair, I decided tomorrow is a new day, and I have another wedding in a month. We'll see what happens. Anyway, thanks, Liz....for the inspiration. What kind of glue did you use?

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  2. haha! glad to help. also, everyone really does need towels. also, i love and miss you.

    i used a clear variety of gorilla glue. (i made sure it was waterproof and could be used indoors.)

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  3. I loved these when you posted them. And was excited to receive a beautiful blue one, handcrafted by none other than Jeanne Laribee on said July 4th where strangely, some people (ehem... you) were missing.

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