Tea and Ceremony
I love, love love Sandra Igbodo’s Etsy shop Tea and Ceremony. Great name. Why do I love it? It is bright. It is colourful. And it has a very distinct Scandinavian feel to it that I just can’t resist. There are lovely prints, cute tags and a very sweet tote among other delights to be found here. My pick is the I heart Tea card. Because I do heart tea. Lots.
Designed and crafted by Sandra in Manchester, UK and ships worldwide. Most reasonably too.
Magical Star Garland
I have just popped one of these into the Etsy Shop. I was recently asked by the lovely Naomi from Hello Naomi to help out with some garlands for a party photo shoot for Shop Kids magazine. This one is for a Magician’s Party. Really bright and really fun.
Hello! Just popping in to say hi. I have quite a few orders on at the moment (and a busy family life) and I am not the most disciplined person when it comes to regular posting. The thing is, I believe that is what people like. Regular posts. Do you agree – put you hand up if you do. I would love to know what you think.
So, this is what I plan to do. And why. On Fridays I am going to showcase a fellow Etsy seller that I have some connection with. Mostly because I love their things, probably because I have stepped over the line and made a purchase from them and have been super satisfied. You are welcome to make suggestions. The Etsy platform is amazing. It’s customers and sellers have been truly grand to me and I just think it’s nice for them to be recognised for all that creative inspiration they give us. I am also hoping this feature will keep me on a good blogging path and that you might be interested in sharing my finds.
Firstly, I would like to share Ormolu. A very sweet stationery shop run by Kaitlin in California. I first contacted Kaitlin before our wedding last year to ask if it was possible to do some custom signage for our tables. I was looking for a vintage scroll frame with our table names in the centre. Our tables were named after the places that the Viking and I have lived together (from Bondi to Jolimont, Frederiksberg to Coogee). They were perfect. Kaitlin also did a little sign for our table centres. The idea was to have a small posy for each lady at each table arranged to look like one centre piece. The sign was to let the ladies know to ‘take a posie before you go’. We were very happy. So I often check back to see what Ormolu has in store. I always find pretty gift and journalling tags, paper buttons, and even DIY paper chains. And great shipping prices. I am a repeat offender here!
Last week I showed off the beads I bought from Smika. Then I found a few quiet (rare) minutes to sit down and put a necklace together. Here is how it went for me.
Firstly I laid out my beads in a pattern that I thought worked well. I hunted around in my thread box for something natural looking and found some linen thread. I measured out about a metre of thread and using a sharp needle, I threaded through one bead at a time, about one third of the way down each bead. I tied a double knot between each bead to stop them moving too much along the thread. I measured it around my neck and trimmed to size.
Kim, if you are reading – do you remember when we bought this in Stockholm? It was crisp, I wore a silver puffer jacket, yours was green or orange. We were even crafty girls way back then!
Klippan don’t seem to produce this linen thread anymore (they do produce lovely textiles still) but I have found sraige on Etsy produce a linen thread if you wanted to stick with linen. Then I came upon a dilemma. No fastener – this being my first foray into necklace making. We all raced next door to my lovely neighbours house (who as well as being lovely is a nurse educator and dabbles in jewelry making). She came to the rescue with a magical thing – a magnetic fastener. What an invention. So easy.
Here is the final result. I liked it so much that it deserved a trip to the Art Gallery last Friday with kidlets and a Greek dinenr out in the city with the Viking and kidlets.
This is not a paper project, but I am posting it in here for want of a better home! Go make one – it was so easy.
Felted beads from Smika
Gesso transfer technique
