Here it is again, my Paperclay Mushroom Tutorial.  I do advocate the making of mushrooms as there’s something very meditative about it.  The shaping is fairly easy and mindless.

For this year’s holiday season I made some in pink with sugary tops. (I simply dusted hem with clear glitter right after I applied the clear acrylic varnish to the caps.)  Oh, and while you are waiting for them to dry, you could be making something in the crock-pot, perhaps a stew with mushrooms in it.  Or a mushroom salad.  OR a mushroom loaf!  Now THAT would be fun.

(If you don’t believe how fun this is, check out this crafty gal’s mushrooms for more inspiration!)

Phew!  It took a little while to get all of this up; I wanted to get the shipping as accurate as possible as well as list all necessary details for each piece.  I’m just making my September 1st self-imposed deadline!  Anyhow, please take a look when you can.   I’ve got some really beautiful things in the shop for really reasonable prices.  Just wanted to note: I’ll reimburse shipping overcharges that exceed $1.00 USD.  That might be especially helpful if you are combining goods.

Also, if you order over $20, I’ll include a free vintage hankie in your shipment! (Unless you only order crochet patterns since I can’t email you the hankies, hee hee.)  I’ve got a bunch of white hankies with simple designs that I just hand washed so they are ready for new homes.

Happy looking!

» fable* on etsy

Perhaps it has to do with all the wedding imagery I’ve been looking at the past couple of months but lace has really grown on me.  I don’t have a lot of lace in my wardrobe; it often seems too prim and Victorian for my taste.  And cheap lace looks, well, cheap.  But as you probably know, my wedding dress ended up being a pretty off-white lace.  It doesn’t have any tiers but it could have!  The pretty combination of frothy, lacy layers is so feminine and decadent.  And in soft colors like blush, mauve and antique cream it’s almost irresistible!   I can imagine myself and a few friends playing dress up in a dusty attic in these pretties….

Vintage-style bolero (above), TopShop.  I love the pretty pale pink and contrasting belt in this Layer Cake dress from ModCloth:

The almost moth-eaten look of this Chai Latte dress (also from ModCloth) is delicious:

This lace cami is almost ghostly, J.Crew:

Really fun 1950s Lace Dress from TimelessVixenVintage:

Gorgeous 1950s lace dress from Caberet Vintage:

Other tiered beauties:

• Wavelet blouse at Anthropologie
• Strapless Ruffle Tiered dress from Forever 21

Oh, and are you wondering how you, a modern girl, can pull off such a look?  One of my most favorite stylish bloggers, Miss Francesca, has the pretty but not fussy lace look down to a t:

(If you haven’t checked out her blog before, you must - prepare to be inspired!)

I’m tempted to dig around my stash for yards and yards of lace trim and create a little vintage-inspired layer cake top or dress of my own.  Just another thing to add to the ever-lasting To Do list!

Coordinating 1930s celluloid ring boxes for our wedding bands.   Mine’s the blue, his is the ivory. I’m crazy for these little boxes, they are so sweet.  I totally lucked out finding two of the same design.

So I ended up using the petal pink batiste to line my dress.  It’s like a cloud floating there on the hanger.  Tinted meringue, even.  I think batiste is my new favorite fabric although my dastardly little pins slip right out of it.

The straps are made of some pretty nude-colored lace I got in the Marché Saint Pierre many years ago for cheap; it’s always good to pick up haberdashery on trips - you never know when you may use it!

For this part of my wedding dress I used this pattern here.  I think it provides some good structure and is close-fitting.  There are two layers there but it’s such a wisp of a dress it hardly weighs a thing.  I may end up wearing a vintage pink crinoline that I have underneath, to fill out the skirt, although I haven’t made up my mind on that yet.

That’s all for now.  Sorry I haven’t posted again with another sewing lesson.  I feel badly about it but I just haven’t been able to get back to it.  But I will, I will!

And thanks so much for the wedding-love: Sharing these things with you make the planning all the more fun!  Have a lovely evening.