1920s Award Ribbons and Volunteer Badges

At one of the planning meetings for the Gatsby and Gangsters event at the Old Idaho Penitentiary, I volunteered to make the volunteer badges and some of the award ribbons for one of the contests that will be held at the event.  I did some research and came up with what I thought looked like something volunteers and contest winners from long ago would have worn!

I am super excited about the contest ribbons!!  The ones I found for inspiration really, REALLY caught my eye and sucked all the oxygen out of my lungs...I made a prototype today so the ladies of We Wear History can make them up for the contest!!!  There will be Blue for 1st, Red for 2nd, and White for 3rd.  I will be making a red, white, and blue one (like the inspiration below) for me to wear on Independence Day!!

I think it is a lovely size for an award!!!

The inspiration....

While researching antique cockades and ribbons on Pinterest, I came across the two following ribbons.  These are so utterly fabulous (I will be making many of these lovelies for myself!)!!!  I knew right away that these would be the ribbons needed to award the contest winners at the event!

Gorgeous red, white and blue ribbon with gold bouillon tassels!  LOVE IT!!!! 

Source:  Marie Antoinettes Playhouse tumblr

This one has silver bouillon tassels.  I think it was made in 1895.

Source:  Fleaing France tumblr

Supplies

All of the supplies Mom and I found at Hobby Lobby.  

7/8" Ribbon

I wanted silver beads, but these had to do....clear ones with silver in the inside of the hole.

I had to get the thread at JoAnn Fabrics.  I is interesting to work with as it is not like regular thread, but knots really wonderfully...whether you wish it to or not!!

I was so happy to find flat star spangles!

Mom and I considered upholstery tassels, but found these fabulous tassels in the scrapbooking dept!  They are really nice and light weight.  The threads that make the tassels are actually "silver" not a gray thread!!!  Score!!

I was concerned about finding numbers in silver tone, but again the scrapbooking section of Hobby Lobby came to my rescue!!!  And they were the perfect size!!!!

Volunteer Badges

For the volunteer badges, I really wanted a look like we were "back then".  In other words, I didn't want your typical plastic sleeved, pin back name tag thingies that a lot of volunteers wear.  What came to my mind were the fabulous lodge badges that were worn in the Victorian-1950s eras.  I found several inspirations on-line and set to work finding the pieces to put them together.

I really wanted badges that looked professional, elegant and like we were in the 1920s.  And fret not...I spelled Penitentiary correctly on the real ones!!!

Inspiration

I love the Lodge badges from long ago and I even found ones from old track and field competitions that I thought would be nice inspirations for our Volunteer badges.

Source:  liveauctioneers

I LOVE the looks of these.  Of course I couldn't find the bouillon fringe for ours, and it would have probably cost an arm and a leg and since the Gatsby and Gangster event is a fund raiser, wanted to keep the cost of these down.

I looked on-line for places that printed ribbon and was shocked to see what the cost was if you weren't going to order hundreds.  So I googled "DIY printed ribbon" and found a tutorial on the She's Kinda Crafty blog!  Most excellent!!!!  I can do this!  I submitted a prototype to the Board of the Friends and the Volunteer ribbons were approved!!!  Now to get to work!  My friend Tammy came over and we completed the badges in an evening!!  Thank you so much my friend for helping me out!!  You are a rock star!!!

Supplies

All of the supplies for the Volunteer badges were found at JoAnn's. 

I did find some lovely antique, brass "window" pins online, but they were $7.99 a piece, so I decided that the scrapbook section of either a JoAnn's or Hobby Lobby would be my best bet.  Sure enough, I discovered these lovelies!!!  The have holes on either side for brads, but I didn't want the brads snagging clothing, so left those off.

Since the logo of the Friends has teal in it, I thought it would be safe to use white.  I used 1.5" satin ribbon.

This stuff is so fabulous!  If you are wanting to make DIY ribbons or anything that needs to be transferred I think this is neat!

I will be writing a tutorial on the contest ribbons in the future if any one is interested....they are not that hard to make, just time consuming!!

Be blessed my friends!!

g

Royal Orders: Cutsom Made Royal Family Orders

It all started back in 1983.  I was a HUGE Princess Diana fan (blame it on her fairy tale wedding.  Mock her wedding dress if you will, but I thought at the time it was the most fabulous frothy, voluminous, exquisite, delectable dress I had ever seen...still do!) and had several overflowing scrapbooks dedicated to her and Prince William.  I would go to the store with my parents for groceries and beg them to purchase People, The National Enquirer, Ladies Home Journal, Good Housekeeping...any magazine that had images and stories of My Lady.  I was so enamored with the lovely Princess in England.  Then one day while leafing through a magazine that highlighted the Royal couple's North American tour (for the thousandth time), my eyes fastened on Princess Diana in a gorgeous ivory dress.  It was the thing of my dreams.  Long skirt, billowy sleeves, luscious material, very Victorian Era looking, tiara and what was that on her left shoulder?  I looked closer.  Oh my word!  That is a ribbon with a miniature painting of Queen Elizabeth surrounded by diamonds!!  I needed one.  And now!  As I continued to look through the pages of the magazine (it was probably LIFE or People) I noticed that the fair Princess wore this lovely ribbon brooch a total of 5 times!  Good gravy.  I was instantly in love.  It wasn't until muuuuuch later that I came to realize what this item of jewelry was.  A Royal Family Order.

Here are some really wonderful blogs and websites that explain what the Royal Family Order is.

Thoughts of a Depressive Diplomatist

Gracie Jewellery

Wikipedia

Princess Diana in 1983 on her North American Tour.  I fell in love with this dress and Queen Elizabeth's Family Order.

Another image of the lovely dress, tiara, family order and beautiful Princess Diana...the above two images are from a magazine long forgotten.  I cut out pictures from magazines and pasted them in my scrapbooks....

Queen Elizabeth II Royal Family Order.  Source Wikipedia

 Queen Elizabeth II Royal Family Order

Past Royal Family Orders from the British Royal Family with the lovely backs of the pins...the whole set up is gorgeous!

Source:  Medals of the World

After drooling on my beloved scrapbook picture for a week, I decided I needed my own Royal Family Order.  I wasn't born a Princess of Britain, but I was a Princess to my Daddy, so why not have my own beautiful ribbon?  I raided my Mom's fabric, button and bead stash and labored for half an afternoon and came up with this beauty!  I was so proud of my self!  Happily, I am not a thrower-away of things from my past and found that I still was in posession of my ribbon.  It was in the shed in a box labeled "Gina's Childhood" in my jewelry box that I got from my parents!  How totally fun!!

My 30 year old "Walters Family Order" ribbon.

Royal watching has led to noticing other fun ribbons that Royal ladies wear.  Queen Victoria had a Royal Family order made that consisted of a cameo of herself Prince Albert that she gave to her daughters and grandaughters, and female courtiers.

Royal Order of Victoria and Albert

Queen Alexandra's Badge of the Order Victoria and Albert first class

Source:  Royal Collection

Princess Victoria of The United Kingdom.  Daughter of King Edward and Queen Alexandra.  Here she is seen to be wearing the Badge of the Order Victoria and Albert.

Source:  Wikipedia 

Victoria, Princess Royal.  Victoria was the oldest child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.  She is seen here wearing the Badge of the Order of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

Source:  Wikipedia

Another fun badge/ribbon that was worn by royals was an insignia for the Maid of Honor of the Empress of Russia.  From the little research I have done, a Maid of Honor of the Empress of Russia was an unmarried lady of nobility.  She attended the Empress at court.  All females of the royal family had ladies in waiting, but not as many as the Empress herself.  I will continue to look for more images of ladies in waiting wearing beautiful insignia ribbons!  You can read more on what others have found concerning these lovely ribbons here...Alexander Palace

An insignia for Maid of Honor of Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia.

Source:  Only Auctions.com

Princess Tatiana Alexandrovna Yusupova, 1858 wearing a ribbon from Empress Maria.

Source:  Wikimedia

Another lovely painting of Princess Tatiana Alexandrovna Yusupova, this one from 1875

Source:  Alexander Palace Forum

Why have I now decided to dedicate my spare time to obsessing over these mesmerizing ribbons with bejewelled lovelies?  Well, this year I plan on making a court dress and because I am a Empress in my pretend life, I need the accessories to go along with my court dress.  I have started playing around with creating a "Gina-ed" version of these three beautiful jewels and I want to share them with you.  I have completed only one as the ribbons and letter pin haven't come to me yet (they are coming by way of Texas and haven't gotten there yet...) but I wanted to share the beginnings with you just in case the Royal Family Order bug bites you as well and I am not sure how long some of the findings I found will be in stores...so here we go.

For my Royal Family Order, I wanted an image of my husband Greg in a Czar's military uniform.  A super cool costuming friend volunteered her husband to help me out with this.  His name is Rob Coccagna and he took a picture of Greg and using  photo editing made my fabulous husband into a Russian Czar!  If any of you are interested in having Rob do this for you, message me and I will put you in contact with him!! Seriously, he does beyond fabulous work!!!  I so badly wanted to follow the steps so wonderfully described by American Duchess for making

 Miniature Portraits, 

but I could not find any crystal framed cabochon settings ANYWHERE!!!  Believe me I looked...spent literally hours looking.  Then one day while at JoAnn's, I was looking at the button wall and found a wonderful round crystal framed circle.  It was a weird thing to see as it didn't have loops or a pin or anything on it.  It was just a circle with crystals surrounding it.  I had a 50% off coupon with me so the idea formed in my head to see if it would bend and squish into an oval and if I broke it, because of my coupon, it wouldn't be that horrible a mistake.  So squish I did.  And it squished!!  Into a most fabulous oval!  It took me about 30 minutes of careful squishing to get it into the shape I wanted, but I was so ecstatic that it was working I almost hyperventilated!!  Then, in a "bridal" part of the button wall, I found a set of crystal buckles that would be perfect for the "hanging" part of the Family Order.

I had my mom print out several images of Czar Greg and took them home to experiment with.  I purchased epoxy overlay to see if it would work as a protection for the picture as the real Family Orders are painted miniatures and I wanted to get the feeling of that.  I couldn't find any domed cabochon covers that would fit in my DIY crystal frame, so I had to come up with something.  The epoxy ran the ink that was used to make the picture, so the bright idea hit me.  Use clear glossy spray paint from the garage!!  It worked like a charm!  All I need to complete the Czar Greg Royal Family Order is my green on green moire ribbon found here.

Czar Gregory the Great Royal Family Order medallion.  Awesome rendering done by Rob Coccagna!!

Fabulous crystal buckle I found at JoAnn's.

Circle thingy from JoAnn's that was squished into an oval frame.

I laid the oval over one of the images of Czar Greg, traced and cut out the right size.  I super glued it to the oval...

For the back of the crystal picture frame, I used the silver "metal" sheet from this package.  I hope these are still in production...I have had mine for about  years.  I just figured it would be a lovely way to back the frame.

Next came the cameo ribbon.  I just really loved how the ones Queen Victoria made looked.  So pretty and very elegand. This is my interpretation...

 I searched hight and low to find a perfect cameo set in a crystal frame.  The internet, eBay, Etsy, Hobby Lobby, JoAnn's, Crafter's Warehouse were a bust.  Finally, Michae's came to the rescue.  Perfect!  I didn't have to squish another crystal circle and blue a cameo into it!  This one was premade!!

Fabulous cameo from Michael's!

For the crown that sits atop the cameo, Michael's also had an offering.  Art-i-cake makes these super cool mixed media things...and this particular thing has a two piece crown.  Again, I spent hours searching for a 3 dimensional crown to use on the cameo ribbon and the letter ribbon...no dice.  Then I found these at Michael's and just about had a stroke...I was so excited!!!

For the top part of the cameo and letter ribbons, I am used these little doo dads.  Don't know what they are called, but they are in the bead work section of Michael's.  Perfect for the "hanger" part of the ribbons...

Now I don't have the ribbon or letter for the letter ribbon pin yet, but I wanted to share this with you anyway.  My make believe self wasn't a lady in waiting, but instead, my "Mother who was an Empress herself" decided to give her daughters and grandaughters ciphers of her name, "Eugenie".  Hence the letter "E" that will be coming soon.  (It was the most beautiful letter that I could find....)

A smaller Art-i-cake thingy with a smaller two piece crown...perfect!!!

The beautiful letter "E" that will be part of my letter ribbon!!

Letter Source:  Ebay 

Well, there you have it.  Or a lot of it anyway.  When the ribbon and letter come, I will complete my ribbons and share them here!  I sooooo cannot wait to wear them with my court dress and I hope that this LOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG post inspires you to make your own Royal Family Orders!!

Oh yes....here is my Pinterest board that is dedicated to Royal Family Orders

Royal Family Orders

Blessings!

g

Mom's Santa Claus Complete!!

Well, I finally got my Mom's Birthday Santa done in time for the tea party that didn't happen....long story...  Anyway, I worked all day one day on it and got it finished!  She was very pleased with how it turned out and so was I!  I call him "Pre-Christmas Santa" as he is not so very plump and round as the "Post-Christmas Santa"...you know, the one who has consumed all of those delicious cookies, breads, sweet treats and delicious whole milk that little kids leave out for him?

I tried to take photos of my construction process just in case anyone wanted to make a Sant for themselves!  So, here they are!!!

Completed "Pre-Christmas Santa"

 

Adding sheep's wool to a ceramic head so that his beard and hair look fabulous!

 The very first step I do in making my Santas is to add sheep's wool for his beard and hair.  I found this wonderful stuff on etsy...Maybelle Farm.  I sectioned the parts that looked really good and glued it to the beard area using craft glue...not hot glue.  I chose two good looking tips of the wool and used those for his beard.  I continued to glue the wool to Santa until his beard and hair were full and lovely!

Free hand of Santa's Body

Now I am sure that the prossional doll makers out there would have a heart attack if they saw how very crude the bodies of my Santas are, so for that I apologize...But, I don't know how to go about making a jointed body and the bodies will be covered with clothing anyways....I laid Santa's head, one arm and one boot on a piece of muslin that was folded in half and just drew half a body! Voila!  Then stitched two bodies together and stuffed him up!  

I totally forgot to document the wiring of the arms and legs.  For stability, I used thick millinery wire and made wire legs, putting them in the legs before stuffing them.  Then, I did the same for the arms.  For the arms I doubled the wire because I planned on folding the arms to carry gifts and fun things.  

Santa all stuffed up!  His "belly button" is actually where I sewed the wire to the muslin so it wouldn't ride up, making it stay put.

After stuffing Santa's body, I glued his head, arms and boots to the muslin and then using a really thick thread, sewed those parts down and good so they wouldn't fall off!!

Lovely hem on the skirt I used for his outfit!

 I couldn't find the right shade of red at any fabric store, so while at a clothing shop with my sister one day, I spied a beautiful Christmas dress in the perfect shade of red velvet!  PERFECT!!!  And as a bonus, I could use the him of the skirt for the hem of the pants...later I realized that this was folly, as I covered the hem of his pants with rabbit fur...Oh well, it was a lovely thought while it lasted!

Simple pants

 Again, I didn't have a pattern for Santa's suit, so I just laid him on the velvet and traced around his legs, remembering to leave 1/2" for seam allowance.  After sewing, pressing, turning inside-out, and pressing again, I stitched the pants to Santa's tummy...

For his coat, I did the same thing, cutting up the center front so he could get into it.

After Santa had his red suit on, it was time to trim it in rabbit fur!  I have learned from taking many antique fur coats apart and turning them into different things that you want to cut from the back of the fur...that way you keep from cutting the fur itself and really cut down on the amount of fur that flies up into your nose.  This is a good thing.

Step 1:  draw cut lines on the back of the rabbit fur

Step 2:  use a really sharp X-acto knife when working with fur

Step 3:  make a very shallow cut into the leather side of the fur.  This will keep you from cutting too far down into the pile and cutting up the fur itself.

Step 4:  very gingerly, pull the cut pieces apart...you will see that the fur comes apart quite nicely!

 After I got my strips cut apart...they were roughly 1" wide, I eyeballed them...I then just glued the strips onto the hems of the coat, sleeves, and pants.  I also added fur down the front of the coat and around the neckline.

Pinning soutache to the underside of Santa's big black bag

The last thing I did for the Santa doll was make his big black bag.  For this I just used some scrap black velvet and soutache.  I used a large bowl for a circle then about 1 1/2" in from the edge, I sewed a long gathering stitch for a guide (this was later removed).  I wanted to make a very simple draw string so after pinning the soutache to the red threaded guide, I simply stitched over the soutache so that in the end I could draw it closed with out the thread catching on the soutache.  I had lots of little antique and reproduction miniature toys that I had been collecting to use for his "gifts for good little girls and boys".  I caved into the pressure to make sure they stayed "put" and used my Mom's glue gun.  Those toys are NOT coming out!!!

Old Saint Nick getting ready for his midnight ride!

You can see all the fun toys in his pack!

He even has a Christmas Tree, just in case someone forgot theirs!

Oh yes... I used an antique belt buckle and black velvet ribbon for his belt

And there you have it!  A "Pre-Christmas" Santa looking all handsome and ready to go!

Blessings!

g