More Octopus Chandeliers...I love them!

Wow, I can't believe it's been a week since I saw the post I'm about to refer to, and am only just finding time now to sit down and formulate some cohesive paragraphs about it. 

A while ago, I mentioned one of my absolute most favourite discoveries on etsy - a beautiful, stunningly detailed pearly chandelier, in the form of an octopus. Wonderfully bizarre, it's long pearly tentacles at gorgeous sweeping angles combined with it's functionality and the very fact it's designed to hang in the most sociable room of your home made me instantly fall in love. 

I'm an avid crafter, but I only have time to keep up to date with one crafting blog, and that's the wonderful Craftzine.com. It has such a variety of Make and Do's, Ideas, Photos and Interesting Write-ups and Reviews it's always worth a gander. But then sometimes, you find an absolute gem. Last Friday I found read this post:

http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2010/04/adam_wallacavage_octopus_chand.html

And was mesmerized yet again by the ingenuity of some designers and crafters. Absolutely stunning. I hope there will come a time in the future when I either manage to battle such a great project and create my own chandelier, or perhaps even, stretch to purchasing one of the fantastic ones already out there. The original pearly one I first saw, will most likely always be my favourite. Furthermore, I still need the house to put it in... I think they deserve a suitably extravagant dining room/lounge area, no?

These blogs have been too few and far between of late, but I have a little bit of an excuse. Eight days ago, I sat at my very first craft stall and sold my first pieces of a brand new collection that was no more than four weeks old. In those four weeks, I'd created an idea, a theme, and stock, spending every evening post-work sewing, cutting, sticking and everything else that needed doing. I had such a fun day, and hopefully, it won't be too long before I get started on my next one. I'll update you with my work and photos from the outdoor fair shortly. 

Much love, 

E x

Vintage Button Stashes...

Sometimes, I actually forget some of the things I absolutely adore. The only charm in this, is getting the wonderful moments of remebering something long forgotten. 

When I was very small, I used to spend as much time as possible at my dear, dear Nan's house. Saturdays meant Nan's spaghetti bolognese for tea (doubly tasty because of her extra store cupboard additions, that I still use today) and layers and layers of pastel coloured blankets and hot water bottles come bedtime. 

She also lived opposite a field, that had three rickety old sheds belonging to the neighbours. One in particular was in terrible condition, but happened to be home to some thousands of odd buttons. If my memory serves me correctly, there had been a fire at some point, and much of the colourful treasure had been charred beyond use. But I'm positively certain there were enough, beautiful beautiful buttons to take back across the street, clean up, and save or use for crafting purposes, depending on their own specialness. 

I do have a habit with crafting of being afraid to use the prettiest, the most wonderful, most special pieces. After all, once you commit it to something, you no longer retain the chance to use it for any other special item, and of course, with crafting, the possibilites are always endless. The shiniest bits of paper, the softest bits of fabric, the most intriguing bits of irridescent lace and metallic threads would always go unused. But that's because they were perfect exactly where they were. In a fantastic little stash of the most precious treasures. 

Many years later, and the magpie in me is still fascinated by wonderful, little exciting things, and vintage buttons remain somewhere close to the top of the very long list. A couple of weeks ago, I was visiting a friend whom is delightfully creative, and she happened to show me a lovely old metal tin, stuffed to bursting with old buttons, belt buckles and little bits of things that at some time, someone thought 'I can probably make use of this' and shoved it in. 

In part, it is no doubt the story behind an item that I find so riveting. A couple of Christmases ago, I had this conversation with a friend whom told me he'd always preferred to read brand new, crisp, white paged, books. This sounded absurd to me. I love old books. Books that have been held by many hands, that have a dented corner from being dropped at the bus-stop, that have a tatty cover from being thrust in and out of bags, and that have a whole other story besides the one written on the pages. 

Anything that comes with age, comes with a background. Comes with a story to tell. A box of vintage buttons, for some, must be like a scrap book of memories. Anything that's important enough to make it in the tin will have a memory associated with it. The place that button was found, the dress it came from, the craft stall in the village you visited that one time... 

I know I've overly sentimental, and I'm not ashamed of it one bit. My own button stash dwindled severly when I lost a huge amount of buttons several years ago. But nonetheless, I still see buttons and get wrapped up in the possibilites of all the things they could be used for - even when they're not mine! 

My lovely friend was kind enough to let me have the one that I simply fell in love with. I should probably do her, and it, justice by using it for something great, but that perfect item could take some time to think of...

That's it for today, I hope I will be back soon. Time, as ever, is always far too limited! But I always have more to share, so at some point, I'll be back :)

E x

A Tinie update...

Had the radio on while I was doing that last post, and it's that time of day where the new number one in the UK singles chart is announced on Radio 1. 

A whopping big huge well done to Tinie Tempah for getting to number one, with what was originally only a promo song. 

So amazing to have new artists doing so well in the UK, I've loved this song since the very first time I heard it, check out more info by reading the blog & links in a post I did a couple of blogs back, 

Sing along

Dance along

Love it. 

Well done Tinie!!

E x

Onwards, and upwards? Four flights, at least.

So, the last seven days. Wow, I can't actually believe an entire week has passed since I last blogged!

Six days ago, I started a new job, and for now I won't go into any details. But I did get to spend one afternoon doing a bit of work up a few flights and while the sun poured in through the window on an albeit somewhat chilly day, I took a minute out to take a few shots from the window.

 

 

  

  

It's always lovely to have a little sunshine during the day, here's to hoping you all have sunny days tomorrow. 

Onwards and upwards :)

E xx

¡Olé! Owlé!

Late on Friday night I made an Owl. 

He is a felt owl and he's for your hair. He is a proud 5.5cm tall and 4cm fat. And I have called him Owlé. He loves you very much. I made him into a hair clip, and here is his passport photo:

I popped the picture into my facebook album of stuff and things I've been making of late, and he was promptly purchased by a friend of mine. I'll miss him, and I may have to make one or two more!

Last night I made a pincushion. No particular reason, just I had some lovely fabrics, and I've never made a pincushion before so I thought, why not? I'll post a picture when I get around to taking one. 

Hope you're enjoying the weekend!

E x

It's still my favourite etsy listing ever...

I saw this a while back and it must have been relisted or something similar, as it's showing up as recently listed on etsy. It's a good job that I don't have anywhere to put this at the moment because I'm sorely tempted to buy it, even with the $749 price tag. I think it's worth every penny quite frankly. 

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=25677001

I'm totally in love with it, more than I can really emphasise. It's pretty and confusing and uncomfortable all wrapped up into one, but it's just exquisite.  As I said, if I had the cash to splash, it would most certainly go on this. 

I was scanning a few bits and bobs on etsy as a lot of folk I'm following on twitter sell their goods on there when I remembered this. Wasn't too hard to find by searching for octopus chandelier. etsy itself is still new territory to me in terms of buying and selling. I'm much more an eBay lover, and etsy still seems very American-orientated but I might look into it in the future. That is, if in the future I'm going to have more than 24 hours in my days :) 

I'm out for a few hours, in dire need of beauty sleep. 

Sweet dreams

E x

Hair flowers - what I've been making lately.

I craft pretty much everyday but this is what I've been up to lately. You can find more by checking 'toxilox' out on facebook, there's a page full of albums and more on the profile too :)

 

This is the most recent, I made it yesterday and I actually sold it within about 10 minutes of putting the pic up online. 

This one is one of my favourites. It features a flower made from a lovely hand crocheted piece in the most gorgeous mohair yarn. I added this one to an elasticated headband, and finished it with a button centre.

Another fave! Two ivory roses, and ivy. Hand bound and sewn together, finished with a padded, felt piece, and again attached to an elasticated headband. I think this would be perfect for a wedding, or formal occasion. 

These are just a few bits of what I've been up to lately - I'll add more here and there in the coming weeks :) 

Still lylt ;)

E x