My Parisian pouches

Thank you for all of your  supportive comments about my Parisian Scarves the other day.

It makes me feel I am on the right track. Only 2 days to go until it's market day for me so I thought I'd share more goodies with you.

Here are my Postcard Pouches.

Handmade by me from digitally printed organic cotton sateen I had printed by Spoonflower.

It's a lovely fabric. The designs have come from my postcard collection and the pouches show the front and the reverse of the postcards, with a zipper and simple calico lining.

"Red Stamp"

"Eiffel Scene"

"Bois de Boulogne"

"L'arc de Triomphe"

What do you think? I'm pretty happy with them.

I have my jewellery to show you as well, but that might happen after the market. I still have a few things to do and am still avoiding the pricing.

Below is the details of the market. It's a good one and hopefully a few of you can drop by to say hello.

Well, thank goodness for Friday. It was been so warm! Today is another warm day but might end in a bit of a storm, so that will bring us some relief.

Also, a friendly reminder that if you wish to join in on the Christmas Good Mail Club, sign up ends on Sunday night. Info here.

xx

Designed by me... Parisian Scarves!

Silk chiffon scarf approx 1x2 metres.

I am really thrilled to be sharing my new creations with you. I have been working on these for what seems like a year and finally it has happened!

I present my Parisian Scarves! Using digitally printed images from my antique Parisian postcard collection, I have created a range of scarves. The fabrics I have chosen are silk chiffon (it's a nice, weighty one), a simple cotton voile and a very soft 85%wool/%15 silk blend stole. There's also a modal fabric stole that I am currently waiting on.
 

So why has it taken so long and what and I going to do with them?

Well, I have been trying to source a printer for such a long time. Spoonflower in the US is great, but the fabrics do not print through to the reverse, making them unsuitable for scarves. There's a printer in Australia but when I investigated with them, they did not print on scarf fabrics, plus their higher costs would have made it very difficult for me to make a dollar from selling them (though I would have loved to have sourced locally). I found another in the UK whose fabrics looked good, but the costs were just beyond my means. Then, earlier in the year I spoke with a scarf designer at the Finder's Keepers Market in Melbourne and she suggested India as a place to look. So, tonnes of emails to different companies later, I found one (a family business) with reasonable pricing, good communication who could offer a range of fabrics that I desired. Yay!! I took the plunge, sent off my massive image files and waited for my parcel to be couriered to me just a week later!

Cotton voile approx 1x2 metres

Cotton voile approx 1x1 metres - more of a necktie style

And I'm really happy. I had a couple of samples of the wool/silk stole printed, though as these are ready-made they are much more costly, I think they're worth it. The other fabric I had printed in lengths that I have cut into a couple of different sizes and hemmed the edges myself.

Sorry about the creases! This is my (almost) square Eiffel scene in cotton voile.

I am going to present these at a local design market this coming Sunday, but have to admit, I'm rather shy to put these new goodies out there. What if no-one likes them? How do I price them so they are affordable, but make me a little money (so I can get more designs printed)? When I look at stores in the city, like Country Road that sells their scarves for around $60 or more, I think that a similar price for my scarves must be reasonable as they're much more exclusive! I'd like to get them up on Etsy as well, but I'll wait until after the market.

As usual, I'd love your thoughts and feedback here :)

xx

Christmas call out for the Good Mail Club!

Christmas will be here before we know it so I thought I had better put out the call for the Christmas version of our Good Mail Club.

I don't know about you but I don't tend to send many Christmas cards. My parents do, but maybe email and phones have made me lazy. How about you?

So, if you missed it last time, what's the Good Mail Club? Register your interest by emailing me at sarah_b100(at)hotmail.com with your name and postal address and I will collate all information and send it out to the group. You will then send a Christmas card out to everyone on that list, then sit back and wait for some lovely mail in your letterbox.

So, are you in?

I will have to close this off this coming Sunday evening the 2nd of December so I can collate and email you all next Monday, giving us time to get this done before the Christmas crazy sets in :)

Looking forward to hearing from you!

xx

Edit: the Christmas swap has now closed but I will be back in Jan for a Valentines swap :)
 

(photo of holly from Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens taken by my friend Leonie)

Friday furries... Molly and her leg

I thought it time for a Molly update. As many of you will be aware, Molly had her ACL operated on back in March. Basically, she had partially torn the ligament and when she walked the lower bone in her leg slipped behind the upper, causing pain.

You can read about it all here. It was not fun.

(Demanding I share my icecream - yes, I did)

Well, a few weeks ago it seems she had torn it again, though it is hard to tell. All we knew is that she was three legs. We restricted her movement as much as possible, no walks and kept her inside during the day so all she could do was rest.

She had trips to the vet for a course of Cartrophen and pain relief/anti-inflammatories.

We even took our bed apart and are currently sleeping on a mattress on the floor, so she doesn't hurt her leg jumping onto the bed.

Well, it hasn't worked :(

I have now booked her in for a repeat of the surgery in 2 weeks time. I am not looking forward to it at all, but hope we can be better this time at keeping her quiet during recuperation, thus giving her a better chance at recovery. I feel like we were a little slack last time, not as tough on her as we should have been regarding jumping on the bed and such, which compromised her recovery.

So, that's were it is at.

Anyway, it's Friday and that's a great thing. I have the weekend off thankfully, but it also means I will be slaving behind the sewing machine getting my goodies ready for the market in a week's time!!! Eeekkk! I still haven't told you about it, but will share asap :)

xx

Good Mail!

The Good Mail Club has been a lot of fun. In fact I think in the time I received these goodies above, I actually received less bills! SO that was good. A few doozy bills came in the mail yesterday though :(

How wonderful it has been to receive letters, postcards, a hand crocheted bookmark, tags and all sorts of bits and bobs. And a lot of fun to send them too!

A big thank you to those of you who sent me good mail!

Below are the envelopes I decorated for my penpals. I had such a fun time that all my energy went into it and then I didn't know what to put inside!

I think I have one more letter to receive, so that's exciting. 

 I am thinking a might do a Christmas exchange. I will be sure to post an invite in an upcoming post so you can join in if you wish.

xx

Friday flowers... mixed bunch

It's Friday again already (thank goodness!) and I haven't posted all week. To be honest I am feeling a bit frazzled by all the things I have to get done at the moment. Mostly it's art market preparations and I will share those with you all soon.

So, Friday flowers is a mixed bunch today. I have taken these shots over the past week and wanted to pop them in here. Many of you will have seen them on Instagram already.

The David Austin Jubilee Celebration rose (one of my faves) above has been photographed in a little bottle given to me by a lovely friend recently. I strung it from the picture rail on some neon pink brickies twine. Love it!

These fabulous blue hydrangeas came from Coles Supermarket the other week. I tried to talk myself out of buying them but it just didn't work. I must have looked silly standing there having a conversation with myself. That blue is amazing! Now I have to plant it in the garden and hope it keeps that colour. I have some chemical to water in that should help (can't remember what it is though).

These lupins came from the farmers market last Sunday. They went pretty limp pretty quickly but I still like the look of them.

 It is such a nice time in the garden at the moment. I love having roses I can pick to bring inside. You should see my fence of Iceberg roses. They are really looking great.

Well, have a lovely Friday and weekend. I promise to be back here sooner next week!

xx 

Friday flowers... in the garden

It has been ages since I have posted any shots of the garden.

Here is the flower bed down the side fence out in the backyard. The roses are all in bud, sweetpeas are flowering, as are aquilegia, cornflowers, the last of the spring bulbs and foxgloves. It's fairly unruly but I like it.

The foxgloves, if you ask Lyndon, are a huge pest, but they do flower well and provide nice height in the garden.

Out the front, the icebergs are starting to explode into bloom. My two standards are so heavy with buds I wonder how on earth they stand up. In fact, the one below is tethered to the house to stop it falling over! The lobelia below it is so pretty, but the spent bulbs in amongt it do make it all look a bit messy.

Out in the vegie patch I have a few things under way.

Here you can see my raspberries and broad beans. Sheesh, look at that bloody ivy in the background. Out. Of. Control. Must attack that soon...

I've also got zucchini, corn, silverbeet, lettuce, peas, potatoes and runner beans on the go.

This year we have planted our tomatoes in pots. In the couple of weeks I have potted them up, they are growing well.

I have a big yellow variety, mini black Russian, one that I can't remember the name of but is very tasty, and two 'new to me' heirloom varieties - one is Deutsche Fleiss and the other I cannot remember at the moment.

Exciting!

What have you got growing in the patch?

Have a lovely weekend friends. I have the weekend off work, but will spend it making bits for my market stall. It's only 3 weekends away!

xx

Planet Joy goodies

I have been so slow to blog about this, but wanted to so here I am.

Many of you will already know blogger Jane from Life on Planet Baby, and if so, will know Jane has recently opened an Etsy store, Planet Joy.

Jane has been such a lovely friend to me and I have been watching her get ready for the store opening. When I noticed she had finally pressed the "store open" button I jumped in and was the lucky first customer.

Look at the super pretty packaging!

I chose a pink Liberty fabric heart. Such pretty fabric. No wonder Jane loves working with it.

 I thought I might even pop it on the Christmas tree this year.

And look what I received for my birthday recently...

a lovely fabric wrapped letter 'S'.

Jane knows I love blue and white. A very thoughtful gift :)

I hope you pop over and say hi to Jane if you don't already know her.

Have a lovely week peeps. I must run - I have to get my crafty butt into action as yours truly has to get ready for a craft/design market in 4 weeks. Eeeekkkk!!!! Freaking out!!

I will tell all soon :)

xx

Friday flowers... the roses are blooming

Yay for Friday. I'm so happy to see the roses in my garden are all starting to bloom. I find it really exciting, even if I have seen them all before. I didn't plant any new roses this year, maybe I'll squeeze in one or two new ones next year?

Above is potentially my favourite, Scentimental. I have posted this rose numerous times on this blog. I just adore it and it always reminds me of my beloved Auntie Ila. I think I've told the story before that when I was visiting with her some friends dropped in with a big bunch of roses from their garden and this rose was amongst them. I had to add it to my garden. You should too! It is the healthiest rose, flowers so well. You just can't beat it.

Above is Pascali. I grew this from a cutting I took from Auntie Ila's garden quite a few years ago. It is a perfect bud, but in a bit of warmth tends to blow open very quickly. Its stamens are very beautiful though :)

Above is the David Austin rose, Lady of Megginch. The form and colour of this rose is absolutely stunning, but it only has quite a faint fragrance. It let is off due to its beauty.

And lastly, another rose I have posted quite a few times before. This is Angel Face. The colour is beautiful and sometimes the edges get a darker tint. I like this against the textures of the old, crappy fence.

My hedge of Iceberg roses along the front fence have SO many buds, they are about to explode into bloom. Exciting. I will take some pics soon.

How are your roses doing?

Have a lovely weekend my friends :)

xx