business card holders headed to sticks and bricks

I am officially obsessed with The Trading Post in South Amherst. Not only do they have the best stuff at amazing prices, but they are so super nice to Gus.  

This was my first score - all local yardsticks - the mother load!

And here's what they've become!  Snap 'em up at sticks and bricks today! 

 

miter box

Can you imagine a more romantic gift than a miter box?  I thought not.  Newly re-obsessed with yardsticks, natch.  Look at those clean cuts!

tray $1 at a tag sale

painted, dressed up, ready to go

elect Francis J. Bud!

new and improved yardstick table

Tooling around on the interwebs last winter, I got inspired to try another yardstick table.  I loved my first one

but I was ready for some advanced cutting and placing.  Both the hardest and most fun part of this was figuring out what pattern to use.  After a lot of messing around, I decided to use the traditional log cabin quilt pattern.  I loved the idea of modernizing such a lovely old pattern.  Reclaiming it, as it were.  

The challenge, which I did not experience with my first table, was the warp of the very old and well-used sticks.  My husband took an electric drill to them and was kind enough to create a pattern with the screws, but I still wasn't thrilled with it, and despite shimming the sticks, it wasn't completely flat.  Hilary suggested epoxy, made famous by the amazingly talented local artist Scout Cuomo.  It worked great, giving the surface a shine that makes the colors of the sticks really pop.  Plus, it was super fun to work with!

creepy shop + awesome yardsticks = business card holders

I was on my way to do a training for my day job in Pittsfield, and I nearly veered off the road to check out a slightly creepy but cool looking shop.  Being the professional that I am, I continued along to the training and spoke authoritatively about all things legal.  Next chance I got, I returned to said creepy shop.  Lo and behold, 2 awesome, local, super old yardsticks netted me 3 new business card holders.  These are so fun to make and result in such a unique, useful item.

love the vintage font

look at that cool ampersand!

Dalton - home of super cool

Berkshire Barns

special measuring for fuel

that's good cooking...

We love doing custom orders - shoot us an email and tell us what you want on your yardstick business card holder!

this is not your bat mitzvah menorah

Remember those beautiful vintage wooden spools I scored on the best tag sale-ing weekend ever?

I knew I had to have them, but I didn't know why (story of reclaimed crafts' life, really).  Luckily, the very same weekend my friend Hilary Price (yes, that Hilary Price - my friendship with her may be the closest I get to my 15 minutes of fame.  Oh, wait.  Rachel Maddow was at my wedding.  That must count for something).  But I digress.

Hilary was in a creative mood and is Jewish.  Excellent combination, because look what happened next:

vintage wooden spools + reclaimed yardstick + 

touch of industrial (lug nuts) = one creative menorah!

This one will be for sale at Twist this Friday night and all day Saturday.  So come on down and snap it up, or email me for a special order.  Hanukah's late this year, so you have plenty of time!

right brain meets left brain: business card holders

Big, exciting changes in my day job include an office move, which means redecoration!  I splurged (but conservatively (wait, is that an oxymoron?), by shopping at the outlet), and bought a gorgeous striped rug.  Then I thought about all of those great yardsticks I've been collecting, and in the time it took for my husband to pick Gus up from school

Gus, looking like he just stepped off of a 

yacht on Nantucket

I made this adorable business card holder:

check out that rotary phone!

And while I was outside, I couldn't help but snap a few pics of the best looking window boxes my porch has ever seen.  The best part about them is they were not the result of my usual obsessing and planning.  Instead, I got to the garden store so late in the season, I had to take the few remaining healthy-looking annuals.  Stuck those in, then added some gorgeous zinnias from the Florence Farmer's Market, and voila - zen window boxes!

this is actually an old sap bucket I found 

by the side of the road in the hilltowns, sitting atop

a cool old chair scored from a tag sale

vintage yardsticks + old Ikea table = funky, cool table

I became slightly obsessed with vintage yardsticks.  After the Elephant Trunk flea market and tag sales in Northampton, Florence and Vermont, I finally amassed enough vintage yardsticks to actually do something with them.  I loved the idea of putting them on a perfectly functioning but boring side table to jazz it up, like this.

Being the lawyer-minded person I am, I set out to follow the directions letter by letter, carefully laying out the yardsticks in a pattern on paper before making any decisions.  But Gus does not take long naps, and I really wanted to do this.  So I threw caution to the wind and just went for it.  And they fit perfectly.  I mean perfectly - not a inch of extra room. 

I positioned the yardsticks so the best part was in the center

then used a small handsaw to cut off the excess

it's no power tool, but it's still fun!

non-sequitorial dragon

finished product!

the perfect ending to a crafy day

I have one gorgeous yardstick left over from a bank in Holyoke.  Stay tuned to see what happens to that one!