Ashley Hackshaw, Author at Ashley Hackshaw / Lil Blue Boo

Vintage Inspired Signs and Vintage Decor

December 16, 2015 by Ashley Hackshaw

I finally got the “Just Thru Town” sign hung over the doorway to the living room. I took this photo before church on Sunday and I love that it caught Brett pushing Boo outside on the tree swing:

I found the globe in the background last year at a thrift store. It’s big and metal and just needed a few tweaks. I moved the magnetic poetry from the refrigerator to the globe!

I can tell which poetry is Boo’s because all of her word groups are below the equator:

The circus sign in progress a few days ago:

I hung it in the kitchen above the Coca-Cola sign I made a few years back:

The weather vane used to be on the roof of my great-grandfather’s barn (the barn he built) in Kansas in the early 1900’s. The “Vacation Center” sign I bought at a yard sale for $2. And the antique phone? It used to hang in my childhood home. I remember my dad always hitting his head on the mouthpiece if he wasn’t paying attention.

Brett says my decorating style is: hang anything and everything on the wall. I can’t argue with that.

Sign Painting

December 12, 2015 by Ashley Hackshaw

I’ve been looking for an antique circus sign for years and every time I’ve found something it was out of my price range or wasn’t for sale. I decided to make one myself this weekend. I get so much enjoyment out of just sitting and painting letters. Sign painting can be so therapeutic. I lose track of time. I’d rather sit and paint than almost any other activity I can think of. I worked on some of the gold liquid gilding today:

The wood background was made from two drawer fronts salvaged from an old dresser I found in the train depot. I couldn’t bear to throw them out so I asked Brett to attached them to a piece of wood so they would look like a framed piece of wood. I love the way it turned out. I’ll post the finished sign in a few days and upload the template I created for it.

Another project from this weekend was fixing up this old sign I found in the attic. The family that lived in the house before us owned a pharmacy in town for years. Maybe that’s what this sign referenced. It was in pretty bad condition so I just added a wash to some of the letters to make them show up again. It’s going to hang above the opening to our living room where you can see the town lights:

You can find more posts about the House on Hospital Hill here.

Pressed Flowers found in a Book

December 10, 2015 by Ashley Hackshaw

I found pressed flower petals in this old 1947 copy of A Little Treasury of Great Poetry. I love when that happens. The petals mark the pages of “The Lady of Shalott” which always reminds me of Anne of Green Gables. I wonder how long they’ve been there?

Once I found a plane ticket in a book. Someone flying from Cairo to Amsterdam:

I found a handwritten poem on a card too but I’ve misplaced that now. One day I’ll find it again.

Have you ever found anything in a book?