My adorable friend Mary of Sweetpeas and Snapshots and the lovely Tricia of Vintage Bliss will be hosting a Gypsy Boheme Voyage this weekend. Ever so sweet Mr. Decor gifted me with an early birthday gift and I will be attending this fabulous soiree in Santa Monica along with nine other lucky ladies. Down by the seashore craft.
Down by the seashore craft
As I will be staying overnight in Mary’s fabulous bungalow I wanted to bring along a hostess gift. I then decided I would also bring a swap gift for all of the other attendees. Trying to stick to my current goal of not purchasing anything else until I whittle down my craft and gift closet I had to put on my thinking cap. I began with the bags. I have stacks of really nice paper shoppers. Do you?
Digging further into my closet I found a stack of pretty tissue paper and some matching raffia. It made me think of summer. This led to my second source of inspiration. One of my favorite vintage advertising artists was Gil Elvgren. He was a prolific painter whose heyday was in the 1940’s and 50’s. I selected several of his bathing beauty images and printed a few in various sizes off of my computer. Continuing my search through my craft stash I found some vintage sequins, an endless supply of punched confetti, and my favorite glitter glue ~ stickles. The piece de resistance was the “Free Admission~ Crazyworld” tickets I had been saving for “something special”. Lastly, I found 10 old locker key tags with various numbers.
The theme of a Vintage Boardwalk Holiday was solidified.
Here’s the lineup.
Each bag is a wee bit different.
It’s called creative license. (A fancy way of saying that there was not enough of any one material to make identical bags. 🙂
I left an open space on the upper right-hand side of each bag so that each attendee could write their name on their bag.
Ah, I feel happy just looking at them.
Inside each swap bag is a one of a kind vintage styled hair comb made by yours truly, a bag of boardwalk themed candy and a tin of various embellishments they can use on their Boheme creations or save for another project.
I always make one to two more bags than what I need. You never know if an extra person might attend or a perfect stranger will do something fabulous for you. If an extra bag comes home with me it will then be time for a summer giveaway. (Fingers crossed.)
So very clever! Your creativity always amazes me. 🙂
I love those! As you could tell from my avatar and blog header, I love a retro gal!
Wow, they are so lucky — and so are you to be going! The bags look like so much fun, and I can't wait to hear about your weekend!
Have fun! I'm sure everybody will adore you and your gift bags of course. They are so summery and beautiful! I'm embarrassed to say that I do hope that you have one left, and I have to tell you that is so thoughtful of you to make one extra!
How lovely and thoughtful of you. I am sure they will be so excited in getting them.
Willow
How cute! They turned out so well!
I love vintage pin-ups too and I love how you decorated those bags so they are so customized! Great project!
Hope your week is going well…
~Really Rainey~
Wonderfully creative, Laura!
Lorrie
Creative and thrifty, Laura. A great combo!!
xoxo
Jane
I love that each bag is different and I have never thought of covering one, I always buy plain, but now I see a whole bunch of possibilities.
I love those bags! I adore those retro pin ups so I don't object when my middle son puts them up in his room. He's got some great ones. As he lives in a home with two younger sisters, he's really considerate about what he puts on his walls and I so appreciate it.
I'll have to look for one of his books.
Look at those darling gift bags!
These bags are so cute! What a fun time you will have this weekend- can't wait to hear all about it!
Oh what fun! I love your bags – so creative. And yes, I have a “boat load ” of bags just like yours…I guess that's why we keep them. You never know when they will come in handy.
Just another thing we have in common. Love Gil Elvgren! Here is a tip: Buy the page-a-day flip Elvgren Calendar and you have 365 days of images to use.
Have a great weekend!
~Dawn
Creative as usual. I love how you are using up what you have, too.
How lovely! I am sure these bags will be treasured! Hope you have a lovely weekend!
Kerry
Oooo how fun! I know your friends will be delighted to have these bags AND what a sweet hubby you have there!
Gypsy Boheme Voyage is a wonderful theme, bet you have all kinds of wildly creative adventures with that one. Wish I lived that little bit closer and could attend.
Vintage beach glamour looks fabulous and a little hint of the fun to come.
What a creative idea! Now why didn't I think of that with all those bags I've got in my closet?!!
Enjoy your weekend!
You mean they're giving away free tickets to my HOUSE (aka “Crazytown”)?!? hee hee
Laura, these are really cute. I'm sure the girls will be thrilled! You are so dear!
XO,
Sheila 🙂
Beautiful! I love the vintage bathing beauties. They are lucky girls getting such a nice treat.
I love these! I have a big love of vintage / retro designs so this is right up my alley! 🙂
Thanks so much for stopping by my blog. Here's a link where you can get cute oilcloth: http://www.denverfabrics.com/search/search.aspx?source=searchbox&keywords=oilcloth
Laura,
They are so neat! You're so creative. I bet they will love the bags as much as what's in them. Have a great time!
Nancy
Not only is that a fantastic idea, but it's so very thoughtful! Great recycling, too!
These bags are so fun! Thanks for stopping by my blog to say hello!
Amy
what a great idea! very creative.
How sweet and creative! I wish I was attending so I could have one! Great job, thanks for stopping by my blog!
Those bags are just darling and I'm sure the recipients will absolutely love them!
Thanks very much for stopping in to visit my blog and for your sweet comment…please come by anytime!
Happy Thursday!
~Michelle
(Treasure the Moment)
Cute, cute, cute!! What a great idea to reuse the shoppers. I wish I still had some lying around. 🙂 Thanks so much for stopping by my blog!
they all turned out perfect!
How pretty and creative… and thrifty to boot! And why would you want to male them all the same?… that each is unique makes them even more special! Have fun in Santa Monica!
So neat and they look fabulous! Love these, your so creative and talented!
These are wonderful! I have a girlfriends get-together coming up and I'm going to use your idea! Thanks!
Great creativity. I think part of the fun is the challenge to use what you have, and you did great. Have a fun weekend!
Good idea! I was just going through all my gift wrap stuff last weekend.I through a ton of old bags away. But I still have lots. I could so do this too! Thanks! 🙂
~Liz
What a creative and fabulously inexpensive idea! Thank you for sharing this inspiration! laurie
So so so cute! Love that idea! And they look great! What cute swap items!
All the best,
Allison
Hi Laura !
I love your re-cycled idea ! So stinkin cute ! You are so nice to keep one on hand for the unexpected surprise !
Hugs ~ Kammy
I can tell already, you are like my one friend that continues to amaze me with her creativity – your guests will just love receiving those bags!
Fantastic! I love this idea. I like to take vintage handbags and fill them with all kinds of treats and offer them as hostess gifts! Come visit me at theelegantthrifter.blogspot.com. Stan
Hello there. I'm a newbie on SITS 🙂 Came across your blogpost today. I am sucker for vintage stuff. I think your handbags are wonderful. Keep up the good work. Cheers!
That must have been some thinking cap! I think they look great and are so appropriate for summer. Hope you have fun!
Those bags look great! Such creativity! Visiting from SITS.
I just love vintage items, I have a beautiful O'keefe and Merritt white stove that I refurbished and put into storage. It was in my den forever before I broke down to pay for a storage unit. I also just love the pinup chicks. You and your friends are very talented decorators. Good job. Congratulations on your SITS feature day!
Beautiful bags! I love how you made them with what you had on hand too! I try to do that with my kids crafts!!
Stopped by from sits!
The bags are so beautiful and I really LOVE that vintage comb. Wow. Inspires me to use my creativity again.
Very cute!
And I thought I had a lot of misc. craft stuff. I'm not creative enough to come up with stuff on my own, but tutorials like this help me fool my family & friends 🙂
They really ARE beautiful! xx
we are SO kindred. I keep sturdy department/boutique store bags and use them as gift bags, too. I've redecorated them, but nothing as nice as this. I keep crafty stuff around, but I could use the pointers. I'll be back to learn from the master, or rather mistress