Gallery Of Travel

If you have been following this blog for a while you may know that we are big big fans of, and collectors of vintage party decor and ephemera. You can almost feel the residual magic on these old party things...even if it's simply a vintage photograph from a birthday party that was long long ago. We especially love party favors and treat cups. We have some adorable vintage crepe paper treat cups that we found at flea markets, ebay, antique & junk shops. 

We just love treat cups for the obvious reason: they're adorable!

But we've also got an emotional connection to these party things...or you can even call them celebratory objects. We just love that these things exist for the pure and simple purpose of celebrating! And that is definitely the kind of energy that we'd like to bottle up...or more accurately...it's the kind of energy that we covet an collect and fill our home with. And hopefully, it also shows up in our artwork!

So when I got my hands on some of these adorable chipboard treat cups from Melissa Frances, I was so excited to make them into something cute, vintagey, and sweet. Well, I said that I got my hands on treat cups...but it was actually the makings of treat cups...which is even better. All the structural elements are provided...I just had to add some magic to them

I once again used our own paper collection as source material (which I will never grow bored of!)...namely, I used our "Hooray for Cake" paper. I just love that it's a page full of assorted mini cakes to use however you want. For this project I cut out a few cakes and adhered them to cardstock to thicken them up. I then sealed them with gloss mod podge and cut them out...essentially creating my own chipboard elements.  

 So this is how the treat cups came...almost like those ready to assemble boxed gingerbread house kits you can find nowadays. We painted the chipboard pieces, let them dry, and then did some speckling with some umber, cream, and pink. And once that dried, I did a bit of an "antique wash" around the edges by just brushing on some tan/brown watered down paint, and then I blotted it with a paper towel.

Then I assembled my prepped pieces using Aleene's Quick Dry Tacky Glue.

I was really happy with how easily they came together. The Aleene's does exactly what it says it does: it dried rather quickly.

Once they were assembled and dry I looked them over and decided that there wasn't enough pink in my speckling. So I went back and added some tiny pink dots with a detail brush. I felt like I needed the extra pink dots in order to balance with the pink elements I'd be adding.

Next, I punched holes on each side, and added "handles". I had these adooorable vintage pink and aqua metallic pipe cleaners in my stash for years...which turned out to be perfect for this project. And then on the front bottom portion of each cup I added a little strip of gold glitter washi tape. 

I made photocopies of two of my favorite old photos of my mom on her second birthday...and with those I did the same as I did with the cakes...adhered them to cardstock, sealed them, and cut them out.  And to do those little wood veneer banners...I just painted them with acrylic paint, added a bit of an "antique wash" to the edges, and wrote the words with a fine tip black sharpie marker.

If you happen to own our book our book you may recognize the photos that I used on these treat cups from one of our Art Journaling pages titled "I Wonder What She Wished For?" 

To finish them off, I just added some crepe paper streamer around the inside of the cups, and tied a little bit of contrasting lace to each handle. These were really fun to make! They'd make adorable place card holders for a birthday party or get-together. I'm obsessed with vintage photos...but you can certainly make treat cups just as cute using new photos as well! Maybe for baby's first birthday! Or imagine them for a puppy party! With tiny dog treats inside!? Cute overload!

I hope you'll give these a try! 

Thanks so much for visiting! Feel free to pin or share this on facebook!

Love from the NJ Shore!

xo Jenny...and Aaron says hi!