Inspirational Item of the Week #6

Ahoy! Here’s another item from our flat that is particularly pleasing us this week!:

Nautical Material!

This is a mega close up – it’s shiny silk tie material – and has only been used to make a small purse so far….so there’s still a metre or so left to play with…

It has already inspired a nautical collar necklace – still a work in progress – but trying to combine a love of old 70′s string art nail pictures and all things nautical!

And here are some other nautical things that are hanging around the flat:

A tiny 1 oz kitchen shot glass. You can buy one here: Labour & Wait

A few boat items from Ruth’s 80′s badge collection.

Custom Made’s lovely yellow resin Sailing boat brooch – you can buy one here! : Custom Made

Lucie Ellen Wooden Sailing Boat brooch – you can buy it here: Lucie Ellen

Inspirational Item of the Week #5

Here’s another item from our flat that is particularly pleasing us this week!:

Anyone ever been to Radstock?

We have this menu framed and up on our wall in the studio. I reckon it’s over 30 years old, and is from my (Brendan’s) mum and dad’s old takeaway in Radstock, a small town where I grew up about 9 miles south of Bath.

Radstock is most famous for its tricky double round-about and for having a really big Co-op superstore (called Radco up until quite recently) that sells absolutely everything – fruit, veg, washing machines, holidays (there’s an in store travel agents!). I vaguely remember going to the grand opening with my mum when I was about 5 years old. Tony Blackburn was the special guest cutting the ribbon, but I didn’t really know who he was back then so I wasn’t that excited.

The menu is a nice reminder of the past, a little bit of Radstock in Spitalfields.

There’s still a Chinese takeaway at the same location in the town. I don’t know who it belongs to now but I reckon a portion of chips costs more than 13p!

Inspirational Item of the Week #4

Here’s another item from our flat that is particularly pleasing us this week!:

It’s another book – Island of the Blue Dolphins – one that Ruth still likes to read at least once a year!

It is based on the true story of a Native American woman, Juana Maria, who was abandoned on a desolate island off the coast of California – and managed to survive alone there for 18 years! She was known as the Lost Woman of San Nicolas.

There’s a Wikipedia post about Juana Maria here.

Scott O’Dell’s version has Karana, aged 12, whose tribe was betrayed by the Aleutian sea otter hunters – jumping off the rescue ship to go back for her younger brother who had been left behind.

It then tells the inspirational story of her life on the island with her brother – and later without him.

These are my favourite passages – one about a skirt that she made from cormorant feathers and one about a necklace she made from abalone shells:

It won the Newbery Award for Children’s literature in 1960 – and is suitable for ages 12 and upwards!

The cover image on this 1966 edition is from the film from 1964 of the same name starring Celia Kaye as Karana. Keep meaning to look out for a copy somehow, somewhere!

Inspirational Item of the Week #3

Here’s another item from our flat that is particularly pleasing us this week!:

It’s Ruth’s Grandma’s Victorian Art Nouveau Micro Mosaic Italian Brooch!

The term Micro Mosaic was apparently coined by a 20th-century collector called Sir Arthur Gilbert. He was referring to Roman mosaics made of little glass bricks that are called tesserae.

You can read more about the history here: Collectors Weekly

There’s a whole Pinterest page of these lovely brooches: thebeedkeeper/micro-mosaic

Inspirational Item of the Week #2

More distraction than inspiration, this week’s item is……..the view from our window!

Our workshop overlooks a communal garden. When it’s hot and sunny, it fills up with local residents and workers having their lunch and catching a quick 5 minute lunchtime sunbathe.

Great for people watching, but not so good for productivity!

It’s been a bit underused recently with all the cold weather but this week, with the sun peeking out, things have finally started to feel springlike and life is slowly returning!

The main garden distraction this week has been the arrival of lots of birds!

This week we’ve seen gold finches, green finches, great tits (stop sniggering at the back), wagtails, robins, blackbirds, starlings, magpies, and lots of pigeons of course.

We’re not twitchers, just easily distracted, so whenever we see a bird in the garden that isn’t a pigeon, we make it a mission to find out what it is with the help of the RSPB and our trusty Thorburn’s Birds book. Oh, and our binoculars!

But the best thing we ever saw was a buzzard catch a pigeon in flight and take it to the ground to kill and eat it!

Not a lot of work got done that day.

Margate – the other bits we saw! (when we weren’t in the Shell Grotto)

Back in November 2012 we went to Margate when our trip to New York was cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy – we’ve blogged about the amazing Shell Grotto – but forgot to mention the other stuff!

So…..There was the Shell Lady on the harbour……..the harbour itself………Turner Contemporary…….the Alex Katz exhibition at Turner Contemporary…….the sunset……..the storm…….the old Lido grounds……….the sea………..a lovely shop called Blackbird……….an antiques shop on King Street complete with pinball machine………..Junk Deluxe vintage emporium……….a great pub called The Lifeboat that served real ales and ciders-a-plenty directly from the barrels (including “Double Vision” cider) and the Great British Pizza place on the harbour side….

Shell Lady ‘Mrs Booth’ by Ann Carrington.

The harbour and Turner Contemporary at sunset.

Alex Katz postcard purchased from Turner Contemporary. (now stuck up by our window)

Storm’s ‘a’ coming!

The old Lido.

The sea!

Pinball machine in antiques shop – wish I could remember the name of it – pretty sure it was up King street on the right hand side….the end near the harbour…….it’s lovely….also bought a useful tin from there:

Useful tin!

Lots of amazing owl bulldog clips in Junk Deluxe – not for sale unfortunately – but all their price labels look great popped in the top of the owls’ heads!

Lifeboat pub’s serving barrels.

And a quick reminder about how great the Shell Grotto is……our set of postcards…and one picture from inside of some shells!

Crafty Fox Market – Spring 2013

Last weekend we braved the snow (in March?!) and went down to Brixton to the Dogstar Pub to see the Crafty Fox Market.

Brendan cycled down and had a whistle stop tour – I went with my friend Catherine from Cat Amongst the Pigeons – and spent the entire afternoon there!

Covering 3 floors of this enormous pub were over 40 amazing market stalls so there was a lot to see! Luckily we could have a nice cup of tea and a sit down at The Teas Knees on the 2nd floor : )

Lovely wares from Deborah Ballinger Illustration on the left (sorry about the dodgy phone photos) – and also in this section was some brilliant crockery from Jimbobart – didn’t manage to take any photos but here’s his flyer (he also illustrated the Crafty Fox flyer above):

Check out the limited edition things he did for Amnesty International – “Amnes-tea and biscuits” plates : ) Looks like you can still get your hands on one from Culture Label.

My main aim was to get a Sailing boat brooch from Custom Made – and it’s still happily sailing across my top a week later : )

A very cute Penguin from Pygmy Cloud followed me home…. and is sitting on my desk…helping me work…..he’s very clever : )

These lovely buttons made from vintage material by iwishiwasa were hiding in amongst all her amazing dressing up stuff for kids…to add to my button collection….

There were so many great stalls – and not enough time to look at them all! (esp. when you chat and have cream teas for 2 hours…)

It was nice to see lots of friendly faces from all the other markets that we’ve done inc: Eightbear, Alice Shields Ceramics, Anna Wiscombe, Birds in Hats, me me me, House of Ismay, Lucie Ellen (loving the new space range!) and AvaRea17 – and lots of new stalls to discover….

Have a look at the Crafty Fox full list of all the stall holders here (there were different stalls on the Sunday too): Stall List

We also spent faaaaar too long photographing the amazing lights in the Ladies……