Vintage Crafting Supplies to Look for at Flea Markets

I have an ongoing list of items that I look for and restock from flea markets, garage sales and junk stores. I consider them fun and vital elements for a recycling vintage loving homemaker. I can't buy them retail, only used, so when I find a great buy, I can't resist.

Here is the list of important finds to look for if you're a vintage crafter or enjoy using vintage materials in your crafting.

Vintage fabric: For those one of kind unique pillows, purses you can't pass up vintage fabric. You can find psychedelic fabric from the 60's and 70's, polka dots and turquoise and pink from the 50's, old feed cloth sacks, beautiful little lacey handkerchiefs, table linens, crochet pieces, tea towels, bolts of fabric, and wool.

Felting is a hobby that has grown in popularity in the past few years, and making your own felt from genuine wool items is a great hobby. Converting tea towels and handkerchiefs into sachets and pot holders can use up some of those wonderful kitchen linens from the 30's and 40's.

Buttons: And I include bows in this category..those little baubles that you can buy to add detail to scrapbooking, detail to hairbands, or homemade bracelets or any other cool and unique craft. Buttons are the bomb!

Ribbon: By the bolt or by the roll or by the bag full of little scraps. When I find a ribbon pattern that I like, it's heaven. Vintage ribbon can be used to trim much the same way the buttons and baubles above. They are useful in so many ways. In my craft room, my husband made me a ribbon dowel holder rack, with dowel rods that I can slide the rolls of ribbon onto and display on the wall above my crafting table.

Jewelry: One of my favorite crafty things is to take old vases or lamps and cover them with a plaster of paris compound and embed broken dishes, pieces of jewelry, buttons, baubles, whatever collage I come up with for that piece of art. Vintage costume jewelry always adds a perfect touch to those vases and lamps.

You can take old jewelry apart and put it back together in pins, necklaces and new unique jewelry of your own making. I have see through plastic boxes full of bits and pieces of old jewelry.

Old lamps and vases: I can always do something with vases and lamps. I have a shelf just for them in my craft room. Whenever someone is in the hospital or needs a bouquet of flowers from my garden, I can go choose a vase, tie a ribbon from my collection around it, or paint a design on the vase of matching flowers, or decorate it in some unique way and I have a perfect gift, with very little cost. I like wide mouth vases that will hold large bouquets, but cute little one flower only vases look beautiful arranged enmasse on a table or shelf.

Photos, old paper, postcards, especially any type of sepia photos I never had a photo of my grandparents, but I have lots of photos in my craft room of other people's grandparents. I really love old fashioned sepia photos and just hate to find them in a flea market. I feel like I have to adopt them and bring them home! I imagine what the couple was thinking, admire the beautiful clothing, the intricate way the generations before us dressed for their photo taking. So serious, and so beautiful in their austerity.

Bits of old postcard and photos and paper make wonderful unqiue collage pictures. Mixed media is the art form, and it can be done in so many ways. Old books can be turned into wall art or table art by combining elements of our history and vintage items to make a statement or to just be decorative.

In my craft room, paper items are stored in dark covered boxes, as light can damage photos and paper. Special photos are filed and kept safe.

We're moving from a large home where I had a dedicated crafting and sewing room that was large and spacious, to a much smaller home where my craft/sewing room will be 1/3 the size. Serious downsizing will have to occur!

As I look around my soon to be emptied wonderful craft room, I remember all the things we've made in that room. Candles, soap, costumes for plays, props, gifts, and all the love that we poured into our creations. Art for me, is about taking some old and cherished and turning it into something new to be cherished.

I know that my new craft room will be smaller but I have a feeling...that it may expand into the new barn out back!!

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