Jar of Stars

Spring is here (despite the temporary cool weather shift).  It'll soon be time for flea market, antiquing and garage sales enthusiast to head out and start making their rounds.

After coming across some great image shares from my blog surf'n Sunday, I had the itch to take a trip to see what's available at my nearest thrift store.

So off I went, not sure what I was looking for, browsing really.  It couldn't have been more than 20 minutes and I was ready to leave, empty handed.  I made one last stop to the fine china display and found this. 

Aren't they lovely????  Tiny, hand-folded miniature stars. You're probably wondering "why buy a jar of stars"?   They were purchased knowing that someone somewhere took the time to sit and fold EACH of these beauties by hand. 

As a crafter and artist, I can certainly appreciate the time and effort it took to create each one of these.  Just look at the scale of these stars! 

So, what will they be used for?  I can assure you; the spouse asked the same questions.  "I don't know, who cares, someone made them and now they're mine.  Really, there are several uses for them, but the most obvious is to use them in my artwork. 

Here's the jar they were stored in.  To think someone sat for hours hand-crafting these just blows me away.  I wonder how much time it took, a few hours, a week, a month?  More than likely it was a teenager who simply outgrew wanting the display in her room (assuming it was a girl).

Wouldn't they look cute in a test tube, tied up with some pretty lace?  They'd look cuter in the heart-shaped jar if it was decorated a bit more (which was my first thought). 

The doily the jar is sitting on was another purchase from the same shop.  Again, the only reason for it's purchase is the fact it was hand-made.  I was never good at crochet, especially using the cotton thread.  Luckily for me, others toss these things out when they get tired of them and I scoop them up when I see them.

This particular doily had butterflies.  I'll take a better photo and share it later.

Well, I hope you enjoyed my little thrift store find.  I'm off to work on the April Issue of Paper Crafters Sampler.  It's scheduled to go live on April 10th.  The theme for this month is "Winged Things".  I've created another exclusive template for subscribers.  For our April issue we'll feature a lantern template.  Below is a sneak peek of how I used it to create a butterfly house. 

Be sure to mark your calendars for April 1st.  That's the date of the PCS blog hop where the design team members share their take on the lantern template in the upcoming April issue. 

*Remember, subscribe by the 10th of the month to receive all future issues of the sampler.  You may purchase 'individual' sampler copies on the 11th of the month*

It's used here to create a Butterfly house.