Vintage Matchbook Art

We have our first official guest room ever! Matt and I have lived together for about ten years. We've had spare space and a blow-up mattress, but now we have a whole special room with a real bed for our guests.

I'm pulling this room together.

I've had this pile of vintage matchbooks for a few years now. I never knew what to do with them.
Today I figured it out.


I took two sheets of kraft paper - the size of my frames, and masking taped them to the table and marked off 2" border all around with pencil dots.


Then I used double-stick tape to tape down matchbook covers on the 4 corners...


Then I eyeballed it the rest of the way.


I laid them out and did re-arrangements until I was pleased with the colors and composition, then I just used double-stick tape to commit to the layout.

Getting there.


I love how this one is flipped open to show the matches.




Bonnie is never impressed.


Notes: I used my exacto knife to cut some of them because they were cute on both sides and I wanted to use both sides but maintain the look of the matchbooks.

Here's a Flickr set with more photos and details. This project was pretty fast and easy and I know there are tons of bags of vintage matchbooks at thrift/antique/flea markets.

Most of the matchbooks in the frames have the actual matches removed.

Floral Shirt Up-Cycle

GITANO vintage-ish blouse with denim collar found for $3 - Yes, three whole dollars at Goodwill. I'm hot for these 90's looking Laura Ashley-type florals but the sleeves were just too much. It's still hot here too! I chopped her up using this DIY tutorial.

The thrill of the old GITANO tag

I'm easing back into sewing. I finally have a decent space again! I haven't had a good sewing situation since we lived in North Carolina five years ago and I had to turn my house into a necklace factory.

DIY Times - Decorative Art

I suspected I would start making things when I got on Arkansas time. Out of necessity, I made some decorative art.

I followed this DIY for this one.


I'm really happy with it because it works no matter which way the canvas is turned and your eye keeps moving. And there's glitter. I kind-of totally free-handed the shapes, so I could continue to clean it up. It looks good in photos.

Next project:  I needed to cover this big column and I love this Marimekko pattern, but I don't live down the street from a Marimekko store anymore, and sometimes I'm impatient and didn't want to order the fabric online and then make a stretch canvas, so...  This was much cheaper anyway.


I read that the artist made the shapes to look like chunky cut-out circles so I used masking tape to make a similar effect and try to have sharp edges.



I just used acrylic paint for both of these. I never felt like I had the time or space to do things like this in NYC.