Flea Market Finds….

Friday is my day off, so I love to do the rounds of the local oppies. The Red Cross hall is only open on Fridays, so imagine my delight when I walked in and found this bundle of vintage linens…

70s style cafe curtains. What a great border print…

More vintage floral cafe curtains…

Two tablecloths in this great retro design…

Here’s some other vintage linens I’ve found. Love the pink and grey…

and the lobsters!

I found these sweet little containers….

which are perfect for my button flowers!

Stop by Sophie’s for more great thrifted finds!

Vintage Novelty Buttons….

Aren’t these the cutest novelty buttons? I’m guessing they’re from the 1930s or 40s, though the cards look a bit Deco-ish. Each button is handpainted. Too sweet!

Vintage Button Lovelies….(and Vintage Thingies Thursday)

I stumbled across these the other day…..

Gorgeous vintage buttons from the 1940s and 50s….

Look at those gorgeous colours and superb designs…..

even the cards are beautiful, with an embossed paving stone design…..

These transparent ones look like boiled lollies….

How could I resist?

I bought 80 cards…..

More pics next week…..

Pop over to Suzanne’s blog for more VTT fun….

Blogtoberfest Day 31 and Love Fridays…

I do love me a good Friday, and to share some of the lurrrrv, I’ve joined Pay it Forward ~Craft Style~  after visiting Linda’s blog (via Marian’s blog).

 

 

3 easy steps:

I will send the first three people who leave a comment on this post a handmade gift within the next 365 days.

I will happily post anywhere in the world.

The only catch is you have to have a blog and be willing to do the same thing.

So if you’re interested, committed and would like to receive a handmade gift from me, all you have to do is leave a comment with a link to your blog!

 

And another reason to love Fridays: I can say goodbye to this for a couple of days,

And say hello to this –

and this  – mmmmm… yummy bakelite….

For more Love Fridays hop over to Big Cat’s Emporium!

 

 

 

 

Blogtoberfest Day 30 and Vintage Thingies Thursday….

I just received a lovely lot of vintage buttons which I’d like to share with you this Vintage Thingies Thursday.

This is so adorable; it’s vintage celluloid, c1920s. I call it my Esther Williams button because it reminds me of those floral caps that ladies wore when they went swimming:

  

This is a little clear celluloid button; it’s a hollow dome over a base that has sweet little floral decorations – just gorgeous!

 

These two beauties are celluloid ‘end of day’ buttons. Rather than waste the leftover plastic at the end of a working day, it was often swirled together with other leftover colours to produce these gorgeous buttons, c1920s.

 

For more Vintage Thingies Thursday visit Confessions of an Apron Queen!! And for more Blogtoberfest fun visit Big Cat’s Emporium!

Blogtoberfest Day 29: On my desk….

 I’ve been reviving some of my crochet skills from years ago – just little bits and pieces that only take a few minutes to complete. I bought a book on crochet motifs which has all kinds of lovely patterns  – hexagons, circles, squares, triangles etc. I’ve been making little flowers and sewing them onto felt circles with a vintage button for the centre. Not sure what I’m going to do with them yet – brooches perhaps?? But they’re fun and easy to make while I sit in front of the telly in the evenings.

 I also made these button flowers, but I’ll have to be less sloppy with the glue. (I don’t mind gluing craft buttons, but I don’t like to use glue on good vintage buttons – I always sew them so they can be re-used).

So I cheated a bit because that was the kitchen bench, not my desk. Here is my desk (or at least, one of them). It’s waiting for me to be on holidays after Christmas so I can clean up all the crap!

For more desks, visit Kootoyoo!

Blogging about buttons every day in October for Blogtoberfest!

Oh no! I’ve joined another meme!! (aka Blogtoberfest day 27, Blue Monday and Veg about…)

I found this newspaper clipping generator and thought I’d have a bit of fun (I really do have a degree in Horticulture BTW)! Bellgirl has a meme going called veg about, where everyone can blog about their home-grown veg / herbs. A few years ago I had myself quite a collection of scented geraniums. Sadly I only have a few now, but I will make it a point to search for some in nurseries over the next few months. The variety of scents is amazing – there’s even a coconut scented one, and the lemon balm scent is to die for! This beautiful velvety one is peppermint scented. You can use it in cooking. It’s apparently wonderful if you bake a chocolate cake, then line the cooling rack with these leaves so the peppermint flavour infuses into the warm cake. I’ve never tried it because I don’t like the taste of peppermint, especially with chocolate.

My Kaffir lime tree in a pot, getting ready for all those lovely Thai meals…

Pineapple sage – how can a leaf smell so wonderful?

And bay….

And for Blue Monday and Blogtoberfest (blogging about buttons every day in October), heres some blue button flowers I made last night…

Blogtoberfest day 26: Sunday at home…

 

Some of the things happening around home today: The roses are beginning to bloom…

Looks like there’ll be a good crop of limes in a few months…

The Aussie stingless bees are happily foraging for pollen…

A boy who didn’t fancy having his picture taken…

 

And some more button flower posies I whipped up during the week….

Visit  Big Cat’s Emporium  for more Blogtoberfest fun!

Blogtoberfest day 25 and Pink Saturday…

Well its been a lovely spring day in the Blue mountains, and I’ve been outside in the garden doing some pruning and some weeding. The trees have their new flush of leaves, and many of our Aussie trees get this beautiful pink new growth. It’s lovely to look at but also serves a purpose, acting as a sunscreen to protect the new growth:

 

Todays buttons for Blogtoberfest are these cute kids buttons from the 1950s. I bought them (and about 4 kilos more!) from a lady whose mum and grandmother used to sew them onto shop cards to raise extra money for the family during the 1950s.

 

 

These sweet little flowers have a pearly lustre.

 

For more Blogtoberfest goodies visit Big Cat’s Emporium. For more Pink Saturday visit How Sweet the Sound!

Blogtoberfest Day 15 – Does anyone out there understand knitspeak?

I’ve been on a bit of a pilgrimage (ha!!) over the last few weeks visiting lots of blogs, and the variety has been wonderful! But I have to say that the knitting blogs have got me stumped. Don’t get me wrong – I love knitting, and was taught to knit (the European way) by my Polish grandma before I was old enough to go to school. I made myself a fair isle vest in high school out of Bluebell crepe. And I’ve churned out jumpers and socks and baby clothes and shawls. But I’m having trouble with the new ‘language’ of knitting.

Being a dressmaker, I always thought a frog was a fastening on a Chinese garment, but no it seems to mean unravelling something when you’re not happy with it. OK, I’ve mastered WIPs and FOs too.

But could someone please explain to me what a clapotis is? I thought it was some kind of French dessert, but alas no, thats a clafoutis:

And what’s KAL (Potassium aluminium …??) and MS4 (Manganese tetrasulphate??) – there goes my nerdy scientific side.

But I really would like to know what a clapotis is (are??)

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So for todays button hit I thought I’d show you some fabulous Australian hardwood buttons that I found a couple of months ago – I reckon they’d look great on hand knitted garments:

 

These have the most beautiful grain.

 

These two are huge: 9cm, 10cm!!

Love these rustic hearts!

Join in the Blogtoberfest fun over at Big Cat’s Emporium!

Don’t forget to leave a comment on my earlier post if you want to enter my vintage button giveaway, being drawn Sat evening 18th October.