Sally, My Muse

It was Love at First Sight

My teardrop trailer Sally has inspired me since I first laid eyes on her. 

A lot of my creative work since then has either been because of, or about this cute little camper. 

But before the teardrop trailer, came my obsession with vintage hankies. 

I had a collection from my grandmother, of about 10-12 handkerchiefs that were hers.

Rather than keep them hidden away in a box, I wanted a way to have them out to be seen and enjoyed. I framed a few of them, which is one good solution.

But then I saw a pillow made out of a vintage Vera dishtowel in a boutique in Solana beach. And it occurred to me that not only are pillows one of the best ways to decorate your home (easy to switch out to create fresh looks or accent colors) but they would also be a perfect way to showcase my vintage hankies!

I dove in and began to amass quite a collection, including many collectible hankies from well-known textile designers of the day.

During those days when I started putting together small collections of coordinating pillow covers, I had hankies on the brain. 

They are so special to me, but I wanted a way to convey that vintage hankies are not just something to blow your nose on and crumple up. 

They are about having this lovely way to wipe your tears: 

tears of happiness and tears of joy. 

The next time I drove past the little red teardrop trailer at the bottom of my hill, it all came together. 

Teardrop Trailer = tears of happiness! 

And the lightbulb went on. I immediately had visions of filling that little trailer up with hankies and hanky pillows, and driving them out to vintage fairs.

That’s how my business, TeardropHankys, got its name and its logo. 

As you know, I bought that little red trailer and named her Sally. 

Her story was the subject of last week’s blog post. If you missed it, you can read it here.

As I was renovating the trailer, I participated in a 30-day Painting a Day challenge. 

For my subject, I chose my new muse, Sally. 

It was challenging too figure out how to work her into the pictures, so I tried to make it fun. Most of them were small, 8x8 or 4x4. Some of them hang in Sally’s galley to this day, but 18 of them are for sale in my Etsy shop. 

I worked on Sally, I painted pictures of her, and in my free time I sewed vintage hankies into pillows. As the pillows started piling up, I began selling them on Etsy, I got a little retail space at Leaping Lotus, and I sold them online on One King’s Lane. 

Only about 10 of these one-of-a-kind vintage hanky pillows remain from those days. The last of them will be on sale (clearance prices!) in my stall at the flea market coming up soon in Encinitas. Check my Facebook and Instagram in the next few days for more info on that.

My retail space was just pillows at first. As it grew, I added some painted furniture to hold the pillows, and soon the furniture was selling too! That’s how I transitioned to vintage furniture. By the time Sally was ready to hit the road, I was busily selling vintage hankies, hanky pillows, camper paintings, furniture, and vintage housewares too! 

My first flea markets with Sally were quite a production. 

I often shared a stall with my vintage friend Amanda Ingalls, also known as Shabby Mandy. 

The little camper motif continues to resurface in many forms. 

I even found a pattern in a magazine to make these adorable trailer pincushions!

I know there's more in store for me and Sally. 

As we roll on down the road ahead, I'll continue to chronicle our adventures right here! 
I have a few ideas for traveling and art that I'll talk about more in next weeks post.

Stay tuned...