oooh, goody...a makeover!

i was recently hired by cranberry corners, a cute antiques + gift shop located in north georgia, to do one of my favorite things...a merchandising re-do!  i jumped at the chance, as this store has great mix of new  and vintage stock, is located in a beautiful historic building, and is owned by a spunky and cool proprietor - mz. kathy aerts. 

good bones.  just bad execution.  not on purpose, though!  totally understandable, given the demands placed on a small-business proprietor in this uncharted economy. 

my main goal going into this project was to eliminate the store's ginormous and outdated greeting card racks - they were bulky.  and ugly.  and sucking up precious floor space.

here's your first glimpse into this project -

part 1, eliminate unfortunate racks!

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

bag lady

inspired by my friend leigh's awesome before + after blog post, i present to you a little before + after of my own!  the makeover subject is an exciting one...paper bags!  for years, i've used the brown lunch-bag version at craft shows to package my sales, stamping them like so:

BEFORE:

simple, and vintage-y.  just like i like it.  zoning out and stamping hundreds of bags before a craft show was so enjoyable, in a weird way.  but lately i'd grown tired of the stamp and decided to take things up a notch, like so:

AFTER:

i am pretty pleased with the results if i do say so myself :) 

i used a paper hole punch from michael's at the top of the bag.  the opening on the hole punch is a bit small, making it kind of a pain to feed the paper into the punch - pulling the edges of the bag tight seemed to help, though.  having a straight edge on the bags seemed to help, also:

after that, i used serrated scissors to cut squares from the TONS of vintage fabric scraps i have, then taped squares on the bag's insides.  yeah! 

i've always saved as many vintage-material scraps as possible in hopes of one day finding a use for them.  finally, success!  added bonuses: the "scrap" paper that is left after the punch, maybe for christmas and present decorating?

                                             

the cost for this bag makeover project, super cheap: 

paper bags: around $1-$2 and available everywhere (grocery, drug + dollar stores)

hole punch:  $9.89 ($17.99 with a 45% off coupon from michael's)

tape, fabric: already had 'em

total cost: under $12

thanks for the inspiration, leigh!

sorry, couldn't resist.