let's talk rustic & vintage, with a hint of industrial

yes, finally! this display has been ready for years, including this blogpost about it, but I really wanted to show the scene - well technically it's 2 - at once and still needed to make the lampshade and finish the legs of the 'glass' table. Both required things I could not do until recently and wanted to take advantage of that of course. Enjoy!

industrial
the 'hint of industrial' is of course the lamp that I made for this display and will go to the Oldtique Store-to-be. I have one like this myself and I thought it be great to make a miniversion of it. I'm not
 going into the makings of this lampshade as the process has been ehhh.. how shall I say this nicely? Interesting. Yes, that's a perfect word to describe it and maintain some dignity, haha. But it's not very clear, so: this cage-y-shade (or should I say shady cage? haha) took some serious advantage of my patience and I will never, EVER make one again, just so you know :p. I do like it a lot though!

The rusty appearance I got by using the products of my trusty Rustall weathering kit, but can be done with paints and some powdered clay (or eyeshadow/blush, cinnamon etc for a rusty texture) too.

the process.. - imagine some cursing going on on the background for the duration of it ;). One day, when I was finally getting some real progress without constantly having to doing over what I had already done because it fell apart, the frame fell. Not on the floor, but into a boot, because that's much more convenient right? And not just any boot, but one with a fabric lining on the inside and the wires got stuck in that! Without being able to see what I was doing, because it was beyond the curve, I needed to get it out.. I succeeded somehow, but although I had been very careful, it had quite some bent and loose wires and I had to fix that and get it back into shape.

art
the wall-art is a scaled down and printed drawing I made in my early 20-ies after a statue I loved. The frame I made by cutting thin black plastic strips, glued together to form an L-shape as a base for it and cut the corners in mitre. I couldn't help myself making a hangingpiece on the back :D, I always have way too much fun adding details like that. It's from sodacanmetal I shaped by using a brass strip, made holes in it and glued in tiny pieces of the long pin-part of a brass headpin for 'nails'. It slides over the tiny nail in the wall :D.

rustic
the wooden tabletop is a woodchip from a flowerbed, but I know it's used alongside roads too (in the Netherlands I know I've seen them anyway). They are very fragile, so it might be smart or even necessary to glue the layers together (as they come loose easily. If they're not loose yet, let some superglue flow in the sides to bond). For this very irregular-surface-one that wouldn't hold anything without falling over, I decided to place a 'glass' top over it, connecting them with metal pins. That would make a nice rustic/modern-mix.

it is actually level, it just seems off because of the angle of the picture

 the bed of woodchips it came from:

I made it of Shrinky Dink cut into the shape double the size of the woodchip (it says it shrinks 3 times, but I had a testpiece of a 3cm square, which should have shrunk to 1cm, but after the maximum time only shrunk to 1,5 cm, possibly because I lay it on the rack in the oven as opposed to the bottomplate which would get hotter). Also made holes in them with a pin, 2-3 times what it should be after shrinking.

unfortunately I'm kind of a superglue-fan and used that to glue the pins in the glass top forgetting that superglue ruins glass and plastic surfaces. All the pins were already glued in the woodchip when I noticed (but luckily I only used glue on the other pins on the part that went into the wood). So this is just an 'old' table with some kind of glass damage. And - again - lesson learned: must remember that superglue and glass or plastic don't mix!

the legs are glass tubes from pipettes with metal tubing inside, with pins as ends painted black and aluminum foil wrapped and glued around the top of the legs. I like them!
→ but because there had been years between making the top & writing most of this post and making the legs, I had forgotten about the superglue of course and seriously did it again. Which explains the misty and stained look of the glass legs.. Aahhh...! :D

another use for woodchips is art. On a pin and base for on a (side)table or as wall art.

vintage
the small stone sidetables are from regular gardenpebbles. Ready to use in this flat triangular shape, isn't that great? One is a bit chipped, probably from colliding with the other stones in the bag I kept them in, because I had found it in the garden in perfect condition ;(.

but that's okay, it has vintage written all over it anyway, I decided it's just a good few years old already and probably got knocked over a few times on a flagstone floor I'm sure :D Sounds plausible right?

the legs of the ocker one are the metal pins from an old widebanded watch I had saved years ago when getting rid of the old watches they were attached to (but had almost thrown the pins away too!) with some milliput around the ends and some thin painted foil and paper around the tops for a layered effect.

The legs for the grey one are pieces of a wooden dowel, cut and lightly sanded into this shape. The metal endpieces are ballpointtips and give the legs a nice finish. A small piece of wire glued in the opening of it, pinch or handdrill a little hole in the wooden leg and glue in place, finishing them with some embossingpowder in the seams.

they fit well in a '50-ies to '70-ies setting, but also contemporary and in all kinds of interiors depending on your choice of legs and finishings.

So, there you have it! And for anyone who had not seen it back then, the Roman blinds work, see this little video I made about that, if you like to of course ;):