Coasters...new and old.

This past weekend, we headed to our local flea market for the first time this season. While the flea market here isn't exactly the best, it does have some good stands and good finds. The fabric supply seemed to be a little lacking this week, but I did manage to find this really nice old paper coasters. They all came in a bag together and had a total of about 75 or so coasters in 6 different prints. My favorites are the trees:




And these two great Pennsylvania Dutch motif ones:





I really like the images on these coasters a lot. I'm not exactly sure what I plan on doing with them, but I'm sure something great will come of it!

I must have had coasters on the mind, because on my crafty Monday this week I made some fabric coasters. Here's the final product:



The red floral print I found a couple of years ago in my crafts classroom in school and snatched it up in a second. The print is really beautiful.

I also picked up a few herbs....mint, oregano, and basil. I had tried growing mint from seed, but that didn't seem to go too well for some reason, so I was really happy to pick up an already grown plant.




Beth

Ships at Sea...

So lately, I've been pretty interested in old prints of ships and boats. I'm not really sure what brought this interest on, but I've been searching for old prints, pins, necklaces, and other such curiosities with ships on. My local library (which is fantastic and is two blocks away) has some really great books with tons and tons of old paintings, engravings, and prints of ships at sea. I've been thinking about what to do with ships on and what materials to use. I really wasn't too much in the sewing mood today, so I decided that it would be a perfect time to make a linoleum block cut of a ship.

After researching what type of style to do, I settled on something called the "Hermaphrodite Brig". I googled this term and it means: a type of two-masted sailing ship which has square sails on the foremast combined with a schooner rig on the mainmast. The "hermaphrodite" name is because it's a mix of the two main types of sail plans. Anyhow, I'm really thrilled with the final outcome! Here's the final print:



I printed up quite a few runs of the cards on different colored cardstock. For some strange reason, I printed these in my bathroom....I suppose I did this because my kitchen table had things on and I didn't want to take the time to clean it up. I was really anxious to see how they turned out.




I really love the design a lot. These are my favorite printed cards I've done and I'm excited to see what others think! I also made this little ship coaster today:



I definitely had a theme going on today, huh? Enjoy!

Beth

Tributary in Craft Magazine!

If you're familiar with Etsy, (http//:www.etsy.com) then you may have heard about the coop advertising program they've been running. Etsy is offering spots in their showcase ads in magazines like Craft, Venus, Bust, and more, for a very low price. If you've looked into ad space in magazines, then you know that they can be quite expensive! So this provides a great opportunity for Etsy sellers to place an ad for their shop. We were fortunate enough to get a spot for the new issue of Craft Magazine. It just came out and we were very excited to get a copy and see our clutch! Here's the entire ad:



Here's a close up of our little ad:




This little stump clutch looks great in the ad. Unfortunately, this exact clutch sold at Spring Bada Bing last month. However, a new version of the clutch will be available for sale today in our shop. So look for it!

The current issue is full of some good projects. The theme of the issue is shoes, but there's a lot more than that. There's even an article of dioramas! Who doesn't love those? Enjoy the new issue!

~Beth

Aprons anyone?

So as I said yesterday, the flea market we went to this past weekend was amazing! Here are the vintage aprons I bought:


This one I loved because of the shape it had. The V shape that the blue rickrack makes gives the apron a really smooth look. The actual print on the fabric is of little blue girls with their hands and feet all touching.




This apron features images from Pennsylvania Dutch motifs. I've been admiring the style and design of Pennsylvania German patterns and motifs used, so I was thrilled to find this one. I've seen old towels and such with these designs on, but they've always ended up being a little too expensive for me. I love the print of this apron!



This apron I got for the soft floral print on the fabric. I bought it with intentions of cutting it up, but can't bring myself to do it. I actually really like the style of the apron, even though I'm typically not a fan of the full bib apron. The shape is really nice and I love the pockets on it. The back is all open, except for the shoulder straps and the tie around the waist. To me, this looks like the aprons they wore on The Waltons TV show, and I love it for that.




Here's one of my favorite aprons we have for sale in our shop. I love these little mushrooms on it:



Hope you enjoyed these great aprons!

~Beth

Flea Market Time...

This past weekend, we headed to Renningers's Antique and Flea Market Extravaganza. The market is in Kutztown, PA and is wonderful place to find some really unique things. They have these "extravaganzas" every April, June, and September and have regular flea markets every week. This was our first time going and am looking forward to returning in June or September for the next one. We spent about 5 hours looking around and found some great deals. I've been very interested in objects with Saints and other religious figures on, and was thrilled to find these:









I can't to get a chance to use these charms soon! While I was adding to that collection, Kinsey started a new collection for himself....belt buckles. He found this one for only $5:



We also found some really nice vintage fabrics at a lot of different stands. One woman had probably hundreds of different prints and trims for sale. It was difficult not to buy them all...but we settled on these four:



I already used the green and white flower print on a clutch I made today. I'm looking forward to using the brown flower print for a little quilt I'm planning to make myself. I also believe I may have unintentionally started another new collection. I've been buying a lot of aprons recently. I've been buying them with intentions to cut them up and use the fabric, but I can't seem to bring myself do cut them. So I think I'm just collecting old aprons now. I bought three vintage ones at the flea market that I will post photos of them tomorrow. They're gorgeous!

Look for two brand new clutches to be listed in our shop today!

Beth

A Land of Huge Trees...

As you know, this past weekend we headed down south to Richmond for the Spring Bada Bing show. We were fortunate enough to be able to make it a long weekend trip and got to spend Friday through Sunday enjoying the beautiful and warm Virginia weather. On Saturday morning we got up early and headed out to find a nice place to have some breakfast (the breakfast at the hotel we were staying at was anything but desirable). We came across a nice little place called Cafe Gutenberg (http://www.cafegutenberg.com/). It turned out to be a great airy place that served food, coffee, wine, and sold books. I choose to go with the Asparagus & Scrambled Egg Panini and hashbrown and Kinsey went with the Sweet Ricotta & Candied Orange Crepes. Both were very delicious! After breakfast (or more like brunch, I suppose), we found this great park area called Maymont. If you're from Richmond or have been here, then you know how beautiful the area is.

Here's a photo of the mansion that the Dooleys, who lived on this property between 1893 and 1925, had built:



The entire area is filled with huge trees, Italian and Japanese gardens, a waterfall, ponds, a wildlife area, and a lot more. We explored as much as we could, but still couldn't see everything in the hours we were there. One of the best things I saw was right when I was walking out of the bathroom. This gorgeous, gigantic tree caught my attention immediately:



Here's me walking to another great tree:



This was definitely an inspiring place for us to visit! We took tons of pictures for inspiration and are exciting to get back into the crafting mode again! Look for a massive update later today and keep your eyes out for new designs (especially ones in my "forest floor" series in the next week!

Happy Earth Day!

Happy Earth Day! Hopefully you celebrated this wonderful day someway special!

Sorry it's been a while. We've been really busy getting ready for the Spring Bada Bing show in Richmond which was held this past Sunday. It was a great time and was good meeting some great crafty folks and some fellow Etsy sellers, too! Here's a link to a list of the vendors who had tables:

http://richmondcraftmafia.com/springbadabing2008/vendors.htm



Here's some photos of the inside of the show. It looked really good in the building and the Richmond Craft Mafia did a wonderful job!









I didn't take a shot of our own booth, but here's a shot looking down on part of it:



This was the first show that I had my felt pins for sale and they seemed to be a hit. So it was good to see that all that hard work was worth it! My newest "forest floor" clutches were popular, as well, which was nice to see. I will be posting more about our trip to Richmond (which included a trip to a beautiful park with the most amazing trees we've ever seen, tomorrow.