Easter Friday Finds

Happy Easter to all my readers!  I thought I would celebrate my first Easter as a blogger with a Friday Finds post featuring items which represent the meaning of Easter for me.   I love eating Easter eggs and hot cross buns, and who could resist Julie's bunnies, but this Easter I just felt the need to blog about the basics of Easter.  I know that these items won't necessarily represent Easter for everyone, but I hope  that you enjoy these beautiful creations all the same!  And feel free to contact me if you want to know why these things mean so much to me.  :)

Beaded Shabby Chic Wall Cross by Totally Crosses

Wordz From the Heart Snippet by Wordz of Life

Hope Necklace by Sissy's Pretties

My Latest Op Shop Find (aka My Love of Vintage Books)

I mentioned in my last blog post that I love to go op shopping (that's thrift shopping for the non-Aussies) and that I love to find vintage books.  So today's post is all about my latest find and some of the uses I have for vintage books.

Miss 4's kindergarten is closely situated to a small shopping precinct and I am constantly there for extra groceries when I pick her up from kinder.  There are also two op shops in this area, both of which I love to visit.  On my most recent kindergarten pick up, I spotted this amazing encyclopaedia in one of the shops.

I browsed through the pages and fell in love!  I bought it, of course, and took it home for further inspection.  It was published in early 1939 and is entitled The Modern Reference Encyclopaedia: Illustrated (the "modern" bit gave my husband and I a little laugh).

 

It has over 1000 pages of information, fantastic illustrations on almost every page and 51 sepia-coloured photos of prominent people and places at the time (sorry, I forgot to get a scan of one of these).  It even has a short dictionary of Aboriginal words and their meanings and areas of use, a printed world clock telling one the time around the world when it is midday in Melbourne and Sydney, information on world currencies and monetary conversion rates and a short survey of Australia's population numbers (just under 6.9 million at the time of printing; it's now just over 22 million, yikes).  Oh, and for all the cricket fans out there, let's not forget the three pages chronicling the results of Australia vs. England in Test match cricket between 1876 and 1938!

One of the many beautiful illustrations in the encyclopaedia.

So why do I purchase vintage books (besides the fact that they are beautiful and fun to look through)?  Firstly, I have found them to be very handy photography props for my product photos on Etsy, although I probably don't utilise them enough for this purpose.  I have also found them to be great for upcycling in my craft work, but I do double check that I am not cutting up a world heritage tome of renown first!  One of the things I love to create with pages from vintage books is vintage-look wall art inspired by blogger Mrs Limestone.  My somewhat boring main toilet is now a little more interesting after the addition of two such works to the walls (I used vintage illustrations of seashells for these).  I also recently made one to give to my husband's great aunt as part of her 90th birthday present (see below).  Edit: I gave in to all your positive comments and have started selling my vintage wall art creations in my Etsy store too!

Vintage illustration of tulips printed on a dictionary page defining the word "tulip".

Recent customers to my store will also notice that I am now using pages of vintage books as part of my packaging.  I use pages to make small envelopes for the jewellery pieces I sell and I like to stamp or print vintage or vintage-style illustrations onto them as well.  And finally, I find that shapes cut from vintage pages add great interest to my paper craft creations when teamed with plain or handmade coloured paper.

I hope my rather long and rambling post hasn't bored you to tears, but hopefully this will help my readers to see just why I love finding old and vintage books so much.  Do you love vintage books too?  If you do, I would love to hear about how you use them in your craft, or if you simply admire them and use them to beautify your bookshelf.

Circle of Friends Award

I recently received a "The Circle of Friends Award" from my fellow Aussie and jeweller, Jules, of Black Heart Jewellery.  I "met" Jules through my participation in DUST, an Australian Etsy team.  The necklace below is my favourite piece in her store!

 Purple Dark Romance Necklace

Now, for the ‘rules’ for accepting this award:

Create the circle by sharing 5 things I love to do!

Here are 5 random things I love to do:
1. I love to go op shopping (thrift shopping) and hunt for crockery, vintage books, lace, doilies and fabric to upcycle.
2. I love to play the computer games that come with my computer.  Yes, I know, I'm very sad, ha ha ha.
3. I love to sit in my garden and read or make jewellery while my children run around and work off their energy.
4. I love to bake.  Simple cakes, muffins and biscuits are what I make most often as my girls love these treats and can "help" me out (they are pretty good with cookie cutters thanks to their playdough exploits).
5. I love to sing!  I often sing along to the radio or whichever CD is playing and, rather embarrassingly, I sometimes sing conversations to people (mostly my children, LOL).  I also love to sing at church, it's like being in a huge choir (I miss being in a choir). 

Pass the award on to 5 bloggers whom I would love to learn more about!

Julie from julieblanchette

Lisa from The Princess and the Monkey

Autumn from The Paper Couturiere 

Shannon from Baruch's Lullaby

Sasha from Sasha Sews

Feature Friday - Melanie Cook

My very first feature Friday is of an artist whom I "met" through the Australian Etsy team, DUST.  In fact, Melanie, who runs the cheekily-named store wiccked (which is full of an eclectic mix of beautiful work), is one of our DUST team administrators.  I adore Melanie's paintings, they are so colourful and so detailed!  Here is what she had to say about herself and her Etsy store:

Tell us a bit about yourself.

I live in Alexandra Hills, a bayside suburb South East of Brisbane, in the Redlands, with a husband, two dogs, three cats, numerous birds and numerous fish.  Bayside, unfortunately, doesn't mean that I live near the sea.  Our bay - Redland Bay - is fringed with mudflats.

I haven't had a day job for almost 7 years, and in the two years prior to that I did work briefly, part time.  I worked in IT.  Computers are still a big part of my life, and I'm always messing around with geek stuff, as well as all of the other art stuff I do.  Even though I don't have a day job, I wouldn't say I'm a full time artist either - I should be, but I'm not that disciplined! 

Describe yourself in 5 words.

Creative, honest, optimistic, earthish, me.

Egyptrienne - original watercolour painting

When and how did you first start crafting/creating?
I've been doing it all my life!  When I was little I used to scrounge anything at all to draw or paint on - including the cardboard from the inside of a new shirt when my Dad got one!  And the medium has never mattered.  I've always been quite happy to create with anything, pencil, paint, shells, rubbish, fabric, clay.... anything at all.

 

What do you create and what are your favourite materials with which to work?
I create all sorts of things, from jewellery, paintings and quilts, to hand bound books.  I love to work with gemstones, silverclay, water colours, fabrics and fibres - I'm a colour and texture junkie.  I'm not really big on knitting, yet I have quite a yarn stash.  I can't resist those gorgeous colours and textures!

Gold solitaire ring

When and how did you start selling online?
I think I probably started selling online around three years ago.  I started off with my own website, selling hand made soap, lip balms, cards... and expanded to jewellery, dropped the soaps and balms, kept the cards, jewellery and hand stitched tarot bags.  My daughter and a friend used to sell their work through my online shop too.  It became very hard to keep going with a shop that got very little traffic, then I had a problem with my site that I couldn't fix, so I started selling on Etsy, and gradually moved all of my stuff over there and closed down my own site.

Describe your store in 5 words
Eclectic.  Bright.  Fun.  Inspired by nature. Wiccked  (how could I not say that?!)

Ocean Waves Quilt

Where can we find you online? 

I'm all over the place :)
http://www.facebook.com/wiccked
http://twitter.com/mjc308 (I'm very slack at tweeting)
http://www.etsy.com/shop/wiccked
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wiccked/
http://www.the-onion.net/

Wishlist Wednesday With a Difference...

Every Christmas and on birthdays my family and I like to joke about who is going to receive a pig or a goat that year.  No, we don't live on farms and we're not into "alternative" pets, the joke stems from the way my dad advertised a charitable cause at church one Christmas.

While I LOVE to receive presents for my birthday, at Christmas time and generally all year round (and who doesn't?), I often need to be reminded that, living in Australia, I am very blessed with so many material possessions.  Therefore, this week's Wishlist Wednesday highlights some charitable "gifts" people can purchase which help those in need in areas dear to my heart.

Piglet from World Vision (I couldn't resist, he he)

Sewing Machine from Compassion Australia

Village Health Worker from Tear Australia

On the hunt for a craft table...

Anyone who has been to my house will attest to the fact that my poor dining table is rarely used for eating/entertaining because it is usually covered in craft supplies of all sorts and various works in progress!  The spare room/computer room is also scattered with my craft supplies and after tripping over my boxes one too many times, my dear husband declared that enough was enough, I had to go and buy a craft table and cupboard.

At the time, those were sweet words to my ears, but after just one day of table hunting, I'm not so sure any more.  Finding a table that is a) within our budget, b) large enough for my sewing machine and my beading accoutrements but doesn't take over the room and c) has the requisite number of drawers and storage areas is turning out to be no mean feat!

I'm currently considering the first two desks which aren't gorgeous but are functional and affordable, and dreaming about the last desk which is not affordable and probably not very functional as a craft table.

Chicago Desk from Officeworks

Metropolis Desk from Officeworks

Chippendale Desk from Cottage and Manor

Sneak Peeks and Works in Progress

I have been toying with the idea of making a line of girls' jewellery and accessories due to the number of positive comments I receive when people see the pieces I have created for my own daughters.  Because my girls love matryoshkas and dolls of all kinds, I thought I would kick off this new line with some matryoshka-themed pieces.

A sneak peek of the charms I'll be using in my children's line of jewellery

A completed "Birdie Babushka Bracelet" to be seen soon in my Etsy store.

I plan to focus on bracelets and necklaces to begin with, but I hope to eventually create a line of hair accessories too (although many of my current hair accessories are suitable for children and teens).

As for my jewellery aimed at "big girls", I have been experimenting with large acrylic flower cabochons (as seen in the Rosita Necklace I made in my February craft swap).  I love the idea of a corsage-style bracelet and wanted to feature a large pink rose cabochon as the centrepiece of such a bracelet.

Partially completed corsage bracelet

As you can see in the picture, I decided to team the pale pink rose cabochon with peridot green Czech glass beads.  I threw in some Czech leaf beads too but I don't think this combination works.  My current thought is to remove the leaf beads and just go with all peridot-coloured round beads.
What do you think?